Instead, Serilda turned her story-self into a bold warrior. She regaled her small audience with a feat of daring and bravery. How she had brandished a lethal fire iron (no mere shovel for her!), threatening the Erlking and driving away his demon attendants. She mimicked precisely how she had swung, stabbed, and clobbered her enemies. How she had driven the poker into the heart of a hellhound, then flung it off into one of the buckets on the waterwheel.

  The children were in stitches, and by the time Serilda’s story ended with the Erlking fleeing from her with girlish squeals and a lump the size of a goose egg on his head, Anna and her toddler brother ran off to begin their own playacting, deciding who would be Serilda and who would be the terrible king. Mother Weber shook her head, but Serilda was sure she saw the hint of a smile disguised behind her knitting needles.

  She tried to enjoy their reactions. The open mouths, the intent gazes, the giddy laughter. Usually, this was all she craved.

  But with every telling, Serilda felt that the reality of the story was slipping away from her. Becoming fogged over by time and alterations.

  She wondered how long it would be before she, too, began to doubt what had transpired that night.

  Such thoughts filled her with unexpected regret. Sometimes, when she was alone, she would pull out the chain from beneath the collar of her dress and stare at the portrait of the young girl, who she’d declared a princess in her imagination. Then she would rub her thumb over the engraving on the ring. The tatzelwurm twisted around an ornate R.

  She promised herself that she would never forget. Not a single detail.

  A loud caw startled Serilda from her melancholy. She looked up to see a bird watching her through the cottage doorway, which she’d left open to air out the little home while the sun was shining, knowing another winter storm would be upon them any day.

  And here she was, distracted once again from her task. She was supposed to be spinning all this wool she’d gotten from Mother Weber, turning it into usable yarn for their mending and knitting.

  The worst sort of work. Tedium incarnate. She would have rather been skating on the newly frozen pond or freezing caramel drops in the snow for an evening treat.

  Instead, she’d been lost in thought again, staring at the small portrait.

  She shut the locket and tucked it into her dress. Pushing back the three-legged stool, she walked around the spinning wheel to the door. She hadn’t realized how cold it had gotten. She rubbed her hands together to try and return some warmth to her fingers.

  She paused, one hand on the door, noticing the bird who had startled her from her reverie. It was perched on one of the barren branches of the hazelnut tree that stood just beyond their garden. It was the biggest raven she’d ever seen. A monstrous shadow of a creature silhouetted against the dusky sky.

  Sometimes she would toss out bread crumbs for the birds. Probably this one had heard about the feast.

  “Sincerest apologies,” she said, preparing to shut the door. “I have nothing for you today.”

  The bird cocked its head to the side, which is when Serilda saw it. Really saw it. She went still.

  It had seemed to be watching her before, but now—

  With a ruffle of its feathers, the bird leaped from the branch. The tree branches swayed and released drifts of powdery snow as the bird soared off into the sky, growing smaller as it beat its heavy wings. Heading north, in the direction of the Aschen Wood.

  Serilda would have thought nothing of it, except the creature had been missing its eyes. There had been nothing to watch her but empty sockets. And when it had taken to the air, bits of violet-gray sky had been visible through the threadbare holes in its wings.

  “Nachtkrapp,” she whispered, bracing herself against the door.

  A night raven. Who could kill with one look of its empty eyes if it chose to. Who was said to devour the hearts of children.

  She watched until the fiend was out of sight, and her gaze caught on the white moon beginning to rise in the distance. The Hunger Moon, rising when the world was at its most desolate, when humans and creatures alike began to wonder if they had stored away enough food to last them through the rest of the dreary winter.

  Four weeks had passed.

  Tonight, the hunt would ride again.

  With a shaky breath, Serilda slammed the door shut.

  THE

  HUNGER

  MOON

  Chapter 7

  She had been trying not to think of the night raven as dusk slid away to darkness, but the chilling visitor maintained a hold over her thoughts. Serilda shivered each time she pictured those empty sockets where glossy black eyes should have been. The missing patches of feathers on its wings when it had taken to the air. Like a dead thing. A forsaken thing.

  It felt like a bad omen.

  Despite her efforts to appear jolly as she prepared the evening bread for her and Papa, she could feel his suspicions frosting the air of their small cabin. He could surely tell that something was bothering her, but he hadn’t asked. Probably he knew he wouldn’t get an honest answer if he did.

  Serilda considered telling him about the bird, but what was the point? He would only shake his head at her wild imagination again. Or worse—get that distant, shadowed look, like his worst nightmare had come to call.

  Instead, their talk was empty as they each sipped at their parsnip stew flavored with marjoram and veal sausage. He told her that he had been given a job laying bricks on the new town hall that was being built in Mondbrück, a small city to the south, which would pay enough to last them until the spring. Work was always slow in the winter, when parts of the river froze over and the water flowed too slowly to create enough force for the waterwheel to power the millstones. Papa used the time to sharpen the stones and make any repairs to the equipment, but this late in the season, there was little to do until the snow thawed, and he was usually forced to find work elsewhere.

  At least Zelig would appreciate the exercise, she said. Traveling to and from Mondbrück every day was sure to help keep the old horse agile for a little longer.

  Then Serilda told him how excited little Gerdrut was over a wiggly milk tooth—her first. She’d already picked out a space in the garden where she would plant it, but was worried that the soil would be too hard in the winter and it wouldn’t allow her new tooth to grow in nice and strong. Papa snickered and told Serilda that when she’d lost her first milk tooth, she’d refused to plant it in the garden, instead leaving it out on the front step alongside a plate of biscuits, in hopes that a tooth witch would come and steal both the tooth and Serilda away on a night of adventure.

  “I must have been so disappointed when she didn’t come.”

  Her father shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. The next morning, you told me the wildest tale of your journeys with the witch. Took you all the way to the great palaces of Ottelien, if I remember right.”

  And on and on, each of them saying nothing at all, and her father’s gaze becoming more speculative as he watched her over the rim of his bowl.

  He had just opened his mouth, and Serilda was certain he was preparing to ask her what was the matter, when a knock sounded at the door.

  Serilda jumped. Her stew would have sloshed over the sides of her bowl if she hadn’t been nearly finished. She and her father both glanced at the closed door, then at each other, bewildered. Out here, in the dead of winter, when the world was quiet and still, one always heard when a visitor was approaching. But they had heard no footsteps, no galloping horses, no carriage wheels in the snow.

  They both stood, but Serilda was quicker on her feet.

  “Serilda—”

  “I’ll get it, Papa,” she said. “You finish your meal.”

  She tipped up the bowl, slurping at the last dregs of stew, then dropped it onto her chair as she crossed the room.

  She opened the door, and promptly drew in an icy breath.

  The man was broad-shouldered and smartly dressed, and he had an iron chisel jutting from his left eye socket.

  Serilda had barely registered the sight when a hand grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back. The door slammed shut. She was swung around to face her father, his eyes wild.

  “That was—what—tell me that man wasn’t a … a…” Papa had gone ghostly white. Whiter, actually, than the ghost on their doorstep, who had been rather dark-skinned.

  “Father,” Serilda whispered. “Calm yourself. We must see what he wants.”

  She started to pull away, but he held tight to her arms. “What he wants?” he hissed, as if the idea were ludicrous. “He is a dead man! Standing at our door! What if he is … is one of his?”

  One of his. The Erlking’s.

  Serilda swallowed, knowing, without being able to explain how she knew, that the ghost was indeed a servant of the Erlking’s. Or, a confidant of sorts, if not a servant. She knew little about the inner workings of the dark ones’ court.

  “We must be civil,” she said firmly, proud when her voice sounded not only brave, but practical. “Even to the dead. Especially to the dead.”

  Prying away his fingers, she squared her shoulders and turned back to the door. When she opened it, the man had not moved and his expression was unchanged from its calm indifference. It was difficult not to stare at the chisel or the line of dark blood that soaked into his gray-streaked beard, but Serilda forced herself to meet his good eye, which did not catch the light of the fire as one would expect. She did not think he was an old man, despite the flecks of gray. Perhaps only a few years older than her father. Again she couldn’t help but notice his clothing, which, though fine, was also a century or two outdated. A flat black cap ornamented with golden plumes perfectly coordinated with a velvet cape over an ivory jerkin. If he weren’t dead, he might have been a nobleman—but what would a nobleman be doing with a woodcarver’s tool lodged in his eye?

  Serilda desperately wanted to ask.

  Instead, she curtsied as well as she could. “Good evening, sir. How may we be of service?”

  “The honor of your presence has been requested by His Grim, Erlkönig, the Alder King.”

  “No!” said her father, once again taking her arm, but this time Serilda refused to be pulled back into the house. “Serilda, the Erlking!”

  She glanced at him, and watched his disbelief turn swiftly to understanding.

  He knew.

  He knew her story had been the truth.

  Serilda puffed up her chest, vindicated. “Yes, Papa. I truly did meet the Erlking on New Year’s night. But I cannot imagine…” She turned back to the ghost. “What can he possibly want with me now?”

  “At the moment?” drawled the apparition. “Obedience.” He stepped back, gesturing into the night, and Serilda saw that he had brought a carriage.

  Or—a cage.

  It was difficult to tell for sure, as the rounded transport appeared to be made of curved bars that were as pale as the surrounding snow. Inside the bars, heavy black curtains shimmered with a touch of silver underneath the bulbous moon. She could not see what might be inside.

  The carriage-cage was being drawn by two bahkauv. They were miserable-looking beasts, bull-like, with horns that twisted in corkscrews from their ears and massive hunched backs that forced their heads to hang awkwardly toward the ground. Their tails were long and serpentine, their mouths wrapped around ill-fitting teeth. They waited motionless for the coachman, for as there was no one atop the driver’s seat, she thought this ghost must be the one who would be driving them.

  Back to Gravenstone, the Erlking’s castle.

  “No,” said her father. “You can’t take her. Please. Serilda.”

  She turned again to face him, startled by the look of anguish that greeted her. For though everyone held suspicions and fears of the Erlking and his ghostly courtiers, she thought she saw something else hidden behind her father’s eyes. Not just fear sparked by a hundred haunting tales, but … knowledge, accompanied by despair. A certainty of the terrible things that might await her if she went with this man.

  “Perhaps it would be useful if I were to tell you,” said the ghost, “that this summoning is not by mere request. Should you decline, there will be unfortunate consequences.”

  Serilda’s pulse stirred and she grabbed her father’s hands, squeezing them tight. “He’s right, Father. One cannot say no to a summons from the Erlking. Not unless they wish to bring some catastrophe upon themselves … or their family.”

  “Or their entire town, or everyone they’ve ever loved…,” added the ghost in a bored tone. She expected him to yawn as a conclusion to the statement, but he managed to preserve his integrity with a sharp, warning glare instead.

  “Serilda,” said Papa, his voice lowered, though there was no hope of speaking in secrecy. “What did you say when you met him before? What could he possibly want now?”

  She shook her head. “Exactly what I told you, Papa. Just a story.” She shrugged, as nonchalantly as she could. “Perhaps he wants to hear another.”

  Her father’s eyes clouded over with doubt, and yet … also a slim bit of hope. As though this seemed plausible.

  She guessed that he had forgotten what sort of story she had told that night.

  The Erlking believed that she could spin straw into gold.

  But—surely, that wasn’t what this was about. What would the Erlking want with spun gold?

  “I have to go, Papa. We both know it.” She nodded at the coachman. “I need a moment.”

  Shutting the door, she quickly set about the room, changing into her warmest stockings, her riding cloak, her boots.

  “Will you prepare a pack of food?” she asked her father when he did not move from the door, but stood sullen, wringing his hands in distress. Her request was as much a means of pulling him from his stupor as it was an acknowledgment that she’d need food. At the moment, she was still full from their evening bread and with the sudden nerves overtaking her insides, she doubted she would have an appetite anytime soon.

  When she was ready and could think of nothing else she might need, her father had a yellow apple, a slice of buttered rye, and a square of hard cheese wrapped in a handkerchief. She took it from him in exchange for a kiss on his cheek.

  “I will be all right,” she whispered, hoping that her expression conveyed more certainty than she actually felt.

  From Papa’s furrowed brow, she didn’t think it mattered. She knew he would not sleep tonight, not until she was safely returned.

  “Be careful, my girl,” he said, pulling her into a tight embrace. “They say he is most charming, but never forget that such charm hides a cruel and wicked heart.”

  She laughed. “Papa, I assure you, the Erlking has no interest in charming me. Whatever he has summoned me for, it is not that.”

  He grunted, unwilling to agree, but said nothing more.

  With one last squeeze of his hand, Serilda pulled open the door.

  The ghost stood waiting beside the carriage. He watched her coolly as Serilda made her way along the garden’s snowy path.

  Only once she got close did she see that what had appeared as the bars of a cage were, in fact, the rib cage of some enormous beast. Her feet halted as she stared at the whitened bones, each one intricately carved with barbed vines and budding moonflowers and creatures great and small. Bats and mice and owls. Tatzelwurm and nachtkrapp.

  The coachman cleared his throat impatiently, and Serilda yanked her hand away from where she had been tracing a nachtkrapp’s bedraggled wing.

  She accepted his hand, letting him assist her into the carriage. The ghost’s fingers were solid enough, but they felt like touching … well, a dead man. His skin was brittle, as if his hand would crumble to dust if she squeezed too tight, and there was no warmth to his touch. He was not ice-cold like the Erlking had been—the difference, she supposed, between a creature from the underworld whose blood likely ran cold in his veins and a specter who had no blood left at all.

  She tried to stifle a shudder as she pulled back the curtain and stepped into the carriage, then wrapped her cloak around her arms and tried to pretend it was only the winter air making her shiver.

  Inside, a cushioned bench awaited her. The carriage was small and would hardly have fit a second passenger, but as she was alone, she found it quite cozy, and surprisingly warm as the heavy drapes blocked out the frigid night air. A small lantern was attached to the ceiling, crafted from the skull and jagged-toothed jaws of yet another creature. A candle made of dark green wax burned inside the skull, its warm flame not only making the space quite comfortable with its gentle heat, but also sending a golden light through the eye sockets, the nostrils, the spaces in between sharp, grinning teeth.

  Serilda settled onto the bench, a little overwhelmed to be given traveling accommodations that were so eerily luxurious.

  On a whim, she stretched up a finger and traced the lantern’s jawbone. She whispered a quiet thank-you that it had given its life so she might ride in such comfort.

  The jaws snapped shut.

  Yelping, Serilda yanked her hand back.

  A moment passed. The lantern opened its maw again. As if nothing had happened.

  Outside, she heard the crack of a whip, and the carriage lurched into the night.

  Chapter 8

  Parting the heavy drapes, Serilda watched the passing landscape. Having only ever traveled to the neighboring towns of Mondbrück and Fleck, and once when she was a child to the city of Nordenburg, Serilda had little experience of the world beyond Märchenfeld, and a heart that yearned to see more. To know more. To capture every tiny detail and store it away in her memory for future musings.

  They passed quickly over the rolling farmlands and then onto the road that ran parallel to the Sorge River. For a while, they were trapped between the winding black river to her right and the Aschen Wood, a dark threat to her left.