The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 Edition

by Rich Horton

  “Why do you live so far in the forest?” Ima asked.

  “We like our privacy,” the mother replied.

  “And this is where the trees are,” the woodcutter added. “I make our living by cutting them down and burning them into charcoal, which I take into the city and sell. It’s a long walk with charcoal on my back. But it gives us what money we need. For the most part, the forest provides.”

  At length they showed her to a bed. Ima lay down and went right to sleep. She woke in the middle of the night, when moonlight shone in the cabin door. Why was it open? she wondered and got up to shut it.

  Outside, in the clearing in front of the cabin, two wolves frolicked. One looked young. The other seemed old, but still vigorous.

  Ima was too frightened to scream. Instead she crept back into the cabin’s one room. A few coals still glowed in the fireplace. By their light and the moonlight pouring through the door, she searched the cabin. The beds that should have been occupied by the woodcutter and his mother were empty, their covers flung back.

  Ima knew what this meant. She was spending the night with werewolves.

  The cabin had only one door, but there were several windows. Slowly, carefully, quietly, Ima opened the shutters on one of these, climbed out and fled into the forest.

  She ran and walked all night, not stopping until morning. She could go no farther then, so lay down and slept.

  A cough woke her. She opened her eyes, saw the woodcutter and screamed.

  “Beg pardon?” he said.

  “You are a werewolf! And so is your mother!”

  “Yes, but we are wolves only one night a month, not by intention, but because we must. Don’t think we are monsters. When we are wolves, we do nothing to harm people. We hunt animals—mostly voles and rabbits—and enjoy the way it feels to run with wolf muscles and smell with a wolf nose. The rest of the time, I am an ordinary woodcutter, she is an ordinary mother.

  “You went in the right direction when you fled our cabin, which is good. I suspect you don’t want to spend another night in the forest. But we’ll have to start now, if we are going to reach the coach stop before nightfall.”

  He held out his hand. Ima took it reluctantly, and he lifted her upright with surprising ease. A strong man. Well, he spent his day cutting down trees.

  It was late afternoon when they reached the road by the forest. He waited with her till the coach came. When it was in sight, he said, “Please don’t tell people about my mother and me. We live in the forest to be safe, but I do come into the city. I don’t want to be stoned or arrested. I could have harmed you, when you were alone in the forest. I didn’t. Instead, I helped you. Remember that.”

  The coach stopped. He helped her on. As it drove off, she looked back and saw him standing by the road, tall and lean and handsome, as rangy as a wolf.

  When she got home, she told her father, “The forest was too frightening. I did not find the witch.” She didn’t talk about the woodcutter. The story was too strange, and she did not want to endanger the man or his mother.

  The scrivener looked at his two other daughters with hope. They chose straws. This time Orna got the short one.

  The next day she packed a bag and caught a coach to the forest. Like Ima, she climbed out at the forest edge and found a path. She lacked her sister’s fearful imagination. Instead of possible danger, she noticed small birds in the pine branches and interesting fungi. Her path led her through clearings full of late summer grasses, faded to shades of tan and gold. Everything seemed lovely and enchanting.

  She came finally to a meadow by a river. It was full of autumn flowers. Butterflies fluttered over the blossoms. A blue and orange kingfisher dove from a branch into the river and rose with a minnow in its beak.

  “How beautiful!” Orna exclaimed.

  “Indeed it is,” said a melodious voice behind her.

  She turned and beheld the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The maid was naked, but her long, golden hair acted as a garment, falling over her body and reaching her knees.

  “Who are you?” Orna asked.

  “A forest spirit,” the woman—really a girl—replied. “In countries to the south of here, I would be a dryad or naiad. To the east, I would be a rusalka, as in the famous opera by Antonin Dvorak. North of here, I might be a nixie or huldra. But here in this forest I am only a spirit.”

  If you are wondering how the girl knew Dvorak’s opera Rusalka, a twentieth century work, remember that fairy tales and their creatures exist outside time.

  And you may have noticed that many of the spirits mentioned—the rusalka, huldra, and nixie—are usually considered malevolent and dangerous. Orna did not know this; and the spirit she met was in fact mostly harmless, though she could enchant and distract.

  Orna took out her lunch and shared it with the spirit. Then, both of them tipsy with white wine, they picked flowers and waded in the river shallows, gathering round, smooth stones.

  Anther spirit appeared, naked like the first, but clothed with long, red hair. Then another came; Orna did not see from where. This one was brown-skinned with wavy black hair that swirled around her like a cloak. Her eyes were like the eyes of deer, large and dark.

  Orna’s food was gone. But they had apples taken from orchards gone wild and a fish—a fine, large trout—the dark maiden caught with her bare hands.

  That was dinner, cooked over a fire. The roasted apples were coated with honey from the combs of wild bees. The fish was flavored with wild onions and salt from Orna’s pack.

  Orna had wine left. They ate and drank and got a little drunk. Orna ended in a huddle with the three dryads. Her clothes came off her. Curious fingers caressed her and soft lips kissed her face and body.

  She was a modest maiden in a conservative society. She had never experienced anything like this before. Of course it overwhelmed her. She dove into it like a kingfisher into the river and brought up her first real orgasm like a struggling, silver fish.

  At last, exhausted, she lay in the meadow’s grass. Overhead, the night sky was full of stars. The dryads lay around her. “Why are you here?” one asked in a drowsy voice.

  “I am seeking the witch who lives at the forest’s black heart.”

  “No! No!” the dryads cried. “She is ugly and dangerous. Stay here with us.”

  What did she owe her father? Orna wondered. Respect. Love. But not the destruction of her life. If the witch were dangerous, she would avoid her.

  She stayed with the dryads. By day, they wandered through the forest, sometimes gathering food and sometimes watching the life around them: green pines and yellowing ferns, birds flocking for their autumn migration. The forest shadows held numerous animals: deer, red foxes, badgers, red squirrels, weasels, tiny mice and voles. The dryads did not harm any of these. They were not hunters.

  In the evening they made love in the meadow. Their nights were spent in an earthen cave, formed when a giant pine fell over. The dryads filled the cave half full with grass, and the four women kept each other warm.

  One morning Orna woke and found the meadow was covered in frost. She was cold, in spite of the cave and the dryads. Winter was coming. She could not continue to live like this.

  “What will you do?” she asked the dryads.

  “We sleep through the cold months inside the trunks of trees—except for our sister here.” The dryad who was speaking gestured toward the dark maiden. “She will sleep at the bottom of the river, safe below the ice.”

  “I can’t do that,” Orna said.

  “Then go home to humanity, but return in the spring.”

  Orna kissed the dryads goodbye and went home. When she arrived, ragged and dirty, her father embraced her and said, “We thought you had died in the forest.”

  “No,” Orna replied. “But I did not find the witch. The forest distracted me. I wandered a long time, not knowing where I was.”

  This was misleading, but not a direct lie. She didn’t want to talk about the dryads. The city�
��s conservative society did not approve of magical creatures or sex between women.

  Her father wisely did not ask more questions, but told his other daughters to fill a tub with hot water and find new clothes for Orna. They did gladly, happy that Orna was home.

  Once she was clean and neatly dressed and eating a good dinner, the scrivener said to her, “Don’t think we failed to search for you, dear child. I went to the forest edge and talked to the farmers there. No one had seen you, though they do not go far into the forest, as they told me. They advised me to ask the hunters and charcoal burners, who went farther in. We found them here in the city, selling their goods in the market. A rough lot, but not bad hearted. They hadn’t seen you, either. We offered a reward, and everyone—farmers, hunters and charcoal burners—said they would keep an eye out. It was all to no avail. You had vanished.”

  Orna felt guilt, but she couldn’t think of a way to apologize or explain.

  That left the youngest daughter, Plot. The next day she packed her bag and caught a coach to the forest. Unlike her sister Ima, she was not troubled by imagination; and unlike her sister Orna, she was not easily distracted. She marched firmly into the forest. After three days, she came to the home of the witch, which was a hut made of logs. It stood in a clearing, surrounded by towering pines. In its own way it towered, resting atop long ostrich legs. Plot looked up, wondering how she could reach the door. Then she heard a noise in back of her and ducked behind a pine.

  A large, fat, solid woman came out of the forest. She was dressed entirely in black. Even the boots on her large feet were as black as night. She called out:

  “Hut mine, obey my summons.

  Bend thy legs and let me in.”

  The ostrich legs folded, and the hut was lowered to the ground. The witch entered. A moment later, before the hut raised itself, Plot ran through the door.

  “What?” cried the witch, who had a wide, arrogant face and a beaklike nose. “How dare you sneak in here?”

  “My father sent me,” Plot replied. “I love and respect him, and I came because he asked me to. He wants me to be an author. But the great critic in the city says I have no ability.”

  “My sister,” the witch replied. “The way she smokes, she would die of a lung disease, except that I send her magic potions which protect her respiratory system.

  “Writing is a terrible way to make a living, almost as bad as criticism. I send my sister charms, which enchant editors, so they publish her essays and reviews. That has given her a great reputation, though not much money. Fortunately, she wants fame more than money.”

  “I can also do accounting,” Plot said.

  “That’s better. A woman can make a living at accounting,” the witch said. She waved in a mystical manner, and the hut stood up. “Since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. Make dinner.”

  Plot found root vegetables in the witch’s storeroom, along with a fresh, plucked chicken. She made a broth and then a soup, full of vegetables and pieces of chicken. It took all day, while the witch grumbled. “Can’t you be quicker?”

  “A soup takes the time it takes,” Plot replied.

  They finally sat down to dinner. The witch tasted the soup and grimaced. “Can’t you do better?”

  “I can only do as well as I can,” Plot replied.

  Though the witch was grouchy, the soup was actually quite good, thick and nourishing, an excellent meal for a cold autumn evening. There was bread and cheese and beer, as well.

  When they finished, the witch said, “There is a stream at the edge of my clearing. You can take the dishes there and wash them tomorrow.”

  “Can you make me an author?” Plot asked.

  “We will see.”

  So began Plot’s time with the witch, who was demanding and evasive, but also interesting. As mentioned before, Plot was not easily frightened, nor easily distracted. She had promised her father to give this enterprise a good effort, and she would. In addition, she had never met a witch before. She wanted to learn how a magic-worker did her work.

  Remembering how much her family had worried about her sister Orna, she sent messages home, for even deep in the forest, the witch had visitors. People came, bringing gifts and problems that required magic. Most of the problems involved health, though there were also romantic problems, people who wanted potions to attract someone or make someone lose interest.

  The witch told Plot that she did her best with curing potions. “Most people are worth saving.” When she made a love potion, it would work, but only so far as creating a mild interest. “The lover must do most of the work himself or herself,” the witch said. “I will not force anyone into love.” She felt differently about indifference potions. These always worked. “No one should be troubled by an unwanted lover.”

  Several of these people went into the city and were willing to stuff a note under the scrivener’s door. “Don’t worry, dear father. I have found the witch and am staying with her. I am safe, and everything is fine.” But they would do no more, since they were mostly poor folk, and witches were not entirely respectable, being relics of a former time.

  Plot kept the hut clean and made meals. Over time—through the long, cold, snowy winter—she learned enough to help the witch with potions. The hut took care of the snow in the clearing by stamping it down with its big ostrich feet. In addition, it broke the ice that formed on the stream. All the stamping and breaking made the hut jerk and shake. This was fine with Plot. If the hut had not done the work, she would have had to shovel and chop ice. She knew the witch well enough to know this.

  You might think that people wouldn’t come in the winter. But sickness and love are strong drivers. There were fewer visitors after the snow fell, but they did not stop. Instead they came wrapped in heavy coats and wearing high boots. The ostrich legs knelt down for them and the witch listened to their stories, as did Plot. Life was not simple, the scrivener’s daughter learned. She could see that the witch’s potions were not enough to solve every problem.

  Most of the clients were peasants. At best, their lives were precarious, dependent on the weather, which was often capricious. The witch could help them with illness and love, but there was no charm that would make the weather reliable or people rich. Money had its own magic, the witch said, which was different from the magic of witches; and weather systems were too large for anyone to control. In spite of everything the witch did, her clients still worried about harvests and taxes, their own futures and the fates of their animals and children.

  She did make charms that called rain and drove away pests. These helped some. “Though bugs can learn to resist the magic used against them,” the witch said. “And there is no way to make the rain consistent. At best, I nudge it a little.”

  “Are you going to help me?” Plot asked the witch from time to time.

  “You are a better house cleaner than you were when you came, a better cook and a better maker of potions. All this is useful. In addition, you know more about the world and the lives of other people.”

  “My father wants me to be a writer of stories.”

  “What do you want?” the witch replied.

  Plot could not say.

  Spring came finally. Plot said, “I need to go. My father will be worrying.”

  The witch gave her a considering look. She knew that Plot could not be distracted, but would always go directly to her goal. This was a virtue in an ordinary person, though not in a storyteller or a story.

  “Go, then,” the witch said. “But come back. I need an assistant.”

  So Plot packed her bag and walked to the road at the edge of the forest. Everything around her was fresh and tender and green. The trees were full of migrating birds. She waited at the coach stop. The coach appeared and carried her back to the city through spring fields.

  When she got home, the house was empty, except for her father, sitting in his study and writing out contracts.

  “Where are my sisters?” she asked.


  “Ima had a visitor who came again and again,” her father said. “A woodsman she had met in the forest. He was one of those who promised to look for Orna. First he came to report on his searching, but it was soon evident that he came to see Ima, and he kept coming even after Orna returned.

  “At first, she was nervous around him. No one had courted her before, and young girls are always nervous in this situation. But he kept coming through the worst of the winter, always courteous and obviously in love. He brought her gifts, rabbit pelts and deerskins and venison. A good provider—and a good son. He always spoke warmly of his mother, and he always treated me with respect. A good son is likely to be a good husband.

  “In the end, Ima agreed to marry him and move to his cabin in the forest. So that is what happened to her.”

  “What about Orna?” Plot asked.

  “She met some women during her stay in the forest. Once spring came, she wanted to visit them again. I could tell she wouldn’t be happy till she saw them, so I told her to go and stay as long as she wanted. A good parent must let go of his children in the end, and I know now that neither of them will be an author. What about you, my darling? I got your notes, but they were all brief and stuck under my door.”

  “I found the witch, but she gave me nothing that will make me a teller of stories. She asked me to become her assistant. I think I will.”

  “Ah,” said the scrivener. “Well, Ima found a husband in the forest, and Orna found friends. A job may be equally good.”

  “Yes,” said Plot. “But it isn’t right that you are alone, dear father.”

  “I have hired a housekeeper. I could afford to, since Ima left me all the skins that the woodcutter gave her. I sold them in the marketplace for good money, and he has promised to bring me more. As I said before, the lad is a good provider.

  “I don’t know if Orna will bring anything back from her visit, though she mentioned honey and berries and hard-to-find mushrooms. I will get by, dear Plot.”

  “Well, then,” said Plot.

  They had dinner, made by the housekeeper, who was an excellent cook. Afterward they sat by a fire. The evenings were still cool. Plot told her father about the witch and her customers. Their stories were not large and grand, like the stories told in the marketplace. They were small tales of illness, romance, family quarrels, good or bad weather. The great twentieth century Icelandic novelist Halldor Laxness told stories like these, except that he wrote novels. You ought to read his Independent People.