Ember carefully braided her dark hair into two loose strands and deftly tied the ends with a piece of twine. She was a serious-appearing child, tall and slim, with curious maroon eyes, a sharp chin, and a tendency to get lost in reveries.
"Beautiful," Grandma said to her, smiling, but Ember saw her anxiety beneath it. For the first time, Ember and Conan had broken the single rule that came with visiting Grandma. "As always. Now that we've had the delicious scones that you brought me, shall you sing us a song?"
Music, her joy. Ember nodded. It would help soothe the fear that Conan had not made it back to the village before the moon arose. Of course he made it back, he always does, she reminded herself as she popped a chocolate into her mouth. We always make it back. There's nothing to fear in the forest, nothing except for . . . she wouldn't allow herself to put words to the images she had dancing in her mind's eye, the shadowy figure and screams of anguish.
Parting her slight mouth, she let a lilting melody flood the small home in the hollowed-out tree. It poked its way into the nicks and crannies, wove around the towering ivy plants, danced upon the shelves upon which rested bottles and baskets. In the kitchen, it rose up the chimney and became one with the smoke that dissipated into the forest. Grandma's forest, Conan's forest, her forest. They were the ones who trode the paths.
The song ended, and Ember paused to look up at Grandma's face. Her contentment was never stirred, but always Ember's music seemed to awake some part in the soft wrinkles and smile lines that otherwise stayed hidden. "Lovely, my dear."
Of course, she was not really her grandmother, or even Conan's. She was a woman of the wild, with no family but the animals and the trees. The two children were of the world, but they loved her and visited as often as they could. Ember and Conan's fondest times were there, with Grandma. The woman had taught Conan about the power that he was forced to hide from everyone but his family and Ember, had comforted him through the hardest times.
Amidst the quiet of Grandma weaving a new basket and Ember tidying the bed she would sleep on, a haunting howl rang out from the forest. She froze and dropped the quilts that she had been carrying, her heart thudding in her chest. A second bone-chilling howl tore at Ember's ears, and she wrenched her eyes shut and dropped to the ground, the single horror that they had always worried about coming to life.
"Into the cellar!" Grandma said urgently, gripping Ember's elbow and towing her through the hatch in the straw-covered floor. "You never should have brought Conan here on a full moon night—he should be home locked in the basement with his chains like usual!" Grandma had never talked roughly like that to Ember or Conan. The fear on her face was spat with the words.
Ember's last thought before the darkness of the cellar was the sense that this was all her fault. She would die at the hand of her truest friend, and there was nearly nothing she could do to stop it.