Page 1 of Consumed
ThreeYears Earlier
EOIN
This winter will be the end of us all.
Last night’s gathering in the chapel had been a miserable affair. I couldn’t shake the memory of the wide eyes, the dismayed whispers.
This year’s harvest isn’t nearly enough.
Too many sheep have perished—we haven't enough wool.
We don’t have enough fuel for the hearth.
The sickening echo ofnot enoughkept me up through the night and prodded me into leaving my bed while the sky was still dark. Axe in hand, I set my sights on the distance and began walking.
Most of my kin wouldn’t dare set foot in the forest before the sun had risen. In my grandmother’s time, the stories of villagers falling prey to a banshee were so vicious that she only crossed the tree line when absolutely necessary.
As the primary craftsman of An Tulaigh, of course, I didn’t have that luxury. Not anymore.
There was no shortage of stories from every cousin, friend, and visitor to our humble home. They wove tales of strange lights in the branches in the dead of night, special offerings begetting blessings and riches, and the cursed stones of Balleyboley.
I held one tale above all else as an absolute fact. The cold truth of it lived in my bones as my boots crunched along the fallen leaves that carpeted the ground. This forest was a sacred thing—thethin space. The place where the veil between our world and the fae’s was shallow, making anything possible.
The sun, low on the horizon, turned the sky gray and cast strange shadows as I trekked onward, eyeing the moss-covered oaks. I hadn’t gone far from the village path, yet the air thickened and surrounded me like a quiet embrace. It was hard not to feel watched—hard not to hear the echo of every frightening tale I’d heard as a child or over the dregs of midnight ales at festivals.
I was foolish to think I could finish cutting before the forest awoke. Standing within its shadows, I knew with coarse certainty that it never slept.
Get it over with. I stopped to survey.
Settling on a tree to strike was impossible when every option was surely punishable. Taking from the tree line could be misconstrued as an attempt to weaken the forest’s boundaries, but choosing a tree from deeper within could be viewed as an outright attack.
The oaks around me were beautifully robust, entirely unlike the ones that had withered away near An Tulaigh. I swallowed hard at the prospect of returning home with wood for the hearth. I couldn’t bear the thought of burying yet another body lost in the frigid night—and the full wrath of winter was still months away.
My fretful thoughts were silenced as my gaze was drawn to one of the oaks.
I swore a peculiar light was shining upon the rough bark. I stepped cautiously around the tangle of roots that plunged in and out of the earth around the tree. There was something different about this one. My ears rang with a hum that somehow sounded both near and distant.
Fae trickery.
And yet, I was transfixed. I raised my hand to touch the center of the trunk. As my fingers spread across the knotted texture, I released a sigh, feeling almost…tranquil.
A harsh rustle of vegetation snapped me from my lull. I automatically reached for my axe and staggered back in search of the source, only to catch my heel on a root and slash myself on the blade as I fell to the ground.
Brilliant pain burst along my forearm. Hissing, I pulled my arm in front of me. Blood trickled from the gash, traveling down my elbow and plopping onto the roots and leaves. Gritting my teeth, I held thewound against my cloak’s fabric.
Quite brave, lad, I thought bitterly.Startled by a rabbit in the bushes.
But there was a charged sensation in the air—not unlike the tension before a lightning strike. I thought it was my own pulse in my ears, thrumming from the pain, but no. That was separate. Something else, carrying its own rhythm, occupied every conceivable space between the trees around me.
Holding my breath, I kept my eyes fixed on the wound, terrified of what I’d see when I looked up.
I had no choice.
Slowly, I lifted my gaze. At first, nothing seemed amiss.
And then, a hint of white behind the oak tree caught my eye. It was nearly invisible, easily mistaken for a trick of the light. But the longer I stared, the clearer it became: a ghostly pale hand gripped the trunk, the rest of its arm disappearing behind.
I eased backward and blinked hard, willing it to be nothing more than a frightened imagining. Tilting my head, I dared to seek a better look at the phantom owner of the hand that surely didn’t exist.
