Grimsby’s Hollow

  It is summer, and in the shadow of the mountains the people of Grimsby’s Hollow are serenaded by cicadas and the sweet scents of timberwine and salted steaks burning over charcoal. These are the first days of harvest, when men laugh and their cups run over. A grand celebration is held on the west field, where the children laugh and play and boys give chase to girls. Ichabod Grimsby, Lord of the Hollow, watches the celebration with a bittersweet smile. He glances to his left and his wrinkled hand falls across the delicate flower of his wife, Beatrix. He wonders what might have been.

  Ichabod squeezes her hand to comfort her, but Beatrix does not quite return his smile. She draws her hand out from under his. Even in the summer sun, the air is chill between them.

  Each year at this time the winding lanes of Grimsby’s Hollow are decorated with the spoils of spring. Wreaths jeweled with roses and carnations hang from the knockers on the doors of shops. Red, white, and purple buds blossom from the ivy that creeps throughout the town. Fresh lanterns dangle from wooden posts, clothed with panes of colored glass that bring the streets themselves to life.

  Beyond the town and its summer blush, beyond the west field and its abundant feast, a thick forest surrounds Grimsby’s Hollow. This is the Sergistradten, the Wood of the Bleeding Trees, where brilliant incarnadine sap seeps through cracks in the bark like blood from a wound. It is sweet like sugar and stains the hands and tongue. Here, outside a small cottage, a girl named Evelyn sits with her mother, Maeve. As the sun sets and the sky darkens, the girl lays with her head in her mother’s lap, a frown hidden at the corners of her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” Maeve asks her daughter.

  “Why can’t we go?”

  The townsfolk will not have them. Maeve they call a witch, and her daughter they call the witch’s burden. The girl does not move, nor does she blink. Maeve has taught her that the night sky gives up its secrets to those who are still.

  “It does smell good,” her mother sighs. But she knows the way the men and their wives would look at her if she were to go. She is exotic in this place, with her dark hair and her high cheekbones and her sinuous legs and olive skin. “This is not our home yet, and these are not our people. It takes time. They will accept us. We must give them time.”

  “They hate us,” Evelyn says flatly.

  Her mother laughs. “No, they hate me. They disapprove of you. It will change. You will see.”

  This is where the girl was born and how she has lived: in a clearing in a forest, at the edge of Grimsby’s Hollow, balmed by the magic of her mother’s patience. Everything that matters to Maeve is nestled in her lap at that moment. The girl is the whole of creation. She is the wind in the sky and the earth of the field; she is the sun and the moon.

  She does not know, Maeve thinks sadly, that it is enough that we are together.

  Maeve strokes her hand through her daughter's hair and rejoices in the cool night air and the scents of the distant celebration. The sounds of the forest are a different song than the one she knew when she was little. The waves do not crash against the nearby shore. The gulls do not call. The whip does not crack.

  “We are free,” Maeve reminds her daughter, “we owe no debts to gods or men. That is enough.”

  The girl’s skin is soft under her mother’s fingertips. No man has beaten her. No whip has marred her flesh. The girl is too young to understand. Maeve smiles and leans back and lets the night air caress her neck. She is at peace with life in the forest. She feels safe.

  She should not feel safe. The forest does not want them there.