Page 52 of North Is the Night
Kalma steps from the shadows at his side, one bony hand tangled in his scruff. The witch appraises me with her black eyes, not unlike the glossy black eye of my raven. Her face is painted with blood that has dried in streaks down her neck. Her horned head tilts, as somewhere near, another scream pierces the silence.
“Please, goddess, just tell me which way,” I say, dropping my trembling hand to my side.
Slowly, Kalma raises an arm, her long finger pointing to her right.
I inch away, not daring to turn my back until the shadows of the forest swallow them. Then, turning on my heel, I sprint in the direction Kalma pointed. “Lilja,” I call, pushing my way through the brambles.
“Aina,” Lilja sobs. “Help me.”
Inari lies on the mossy ground between the rocks, her body spreadeagled. An arrow protrudes from her neck. Lilja is doing what she can to tend to the girl, her hands bloody from trying to apply pressure. Her bow lies forgotten on the ground.
“Inari, I’m sorry,” Lilja whimpers. “I didn’t know. Gods, I swear, I didn’t know.”
Inari’s hand flutters at her side, like she’s trying to reach for the arrow to pull it out.
“What happened?” I say, stepping forward.
Lilja’s head jerks up, tears streaking down her cheeks flecked with soil and blood. “She was the deer,” she shrieks. “I swear by all the gods, I didn’t know. It was those bloody fucking witches!”
I drop to my knees on Inari’s other side. This is the witches’ idea of a game, and it is one they’ve played many times before, I understand now. They turned some of us into animals and had us hunt each other through the darkness. That’s what killed the other girls. The girls like us. The girls who had been taken.
I place my hands over Inari’s wound. Immediately, I can feel her weak pulse. The poor girl is dying.
“I didn’t know,” Lilja sobs. “I just wanted to hunt the deer. I’m so hungry.”
My sympathies overflow for Lilja. She doesn’t need to be here to watch Inari die. “Riina. You have to go find her, Lilja. You have to warn her, stop her from hurting any of the others.”
Lilja looks from me to the dying girl. “But Inari, she needs me—”
“I will do all I can to help her, but you have to save Salla and Helmi. Lilja,go!”
Lilja gets to her feet and darts through the trees, calling out Riina’s name. From the other direction, Satu comes stumbling into the clearing. “You l-left me,” she sobs. “You—”
“Get down here and help me.”
She takes in the scene, and her cries are cut short. She stands there, chest heaving, cheeks pink. “What happened?”
“We’re not being hunted. We’re hunting each other. The other girls are the animals.”
Satu drops to her knees. “How cruel.” Then she gasps. “Oh, Aina—the other girls, the ones in the woods—”
“Yes,” I say, holding both hands over Inari’s wound. “They left them where they fell.”
Tears slip down Satu’s cheeks as she glances down at Inari. I look down too. The poor girl whimpers, blood coating her mouth as she tries to suck in air around the arrow in her throat. Her eyes are wide as they watch me, her pale, white hair stained with her blood. “Hold on,” I murmur. “You’ll be all right.”
“Aina...” Satu places a gentle hand on my arm. “You should take your hands away.”
I glare at her. “We have to help.”
“She’s suffering, Aina. Taking your hands awayishelping her.”
My heart clenches in my chest. Satu is right. There will be no saving Inari. Resolved, I take one hand away from Inari’s neck and pick up the hatchet I left discarded on the ground. For once, Satu doesn’t whimper. She takes Inari’s hand and begins to sing in a soft voice:
Beside the stream in the summertime,
Beneath the boughs of a sweeping pine,
My love, I vow I will make you mine,
