He’ll be back soon; he never takes long.

I sit on the rough wooden floor, dirt and pine needles sticking to my yellow smock as the firelight dwindles. I’m supposed to be adding wood, feeding it like Mr. John does, but the ache in my body stalls my progress. The single-room cabin is cluttered with cans, rusty animal traps and furs. Centering the room is a small wooden table that is heaped with dirty tin plates and Mr. John’s carving projects.

My rear is sticky and wet; I should clean up the blood. I should wash the dishes. Mr. John would tell me there’s no use sitting around, there’s work to be done and I’ve been abed too long. I have been watching the crack of light beneath the door – the only window to the outside we have. Two days have passed. It was almost longer than the first time. Mr. John has been irritable and restless, telling me to hurry it up and push harder, try harder.

It is done now. The baby is gone, and we’ll be safe. Orange and red, flickering. My arms are limp at my side. I know that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing. I should be cradling, holding and tending. I remember that much.

He’ll be back soon. I must get up.

–

“It’s done,” he says. He’s brought a leaky bucket of water in from the dock. He dips his hands in it reverently. They’re calloused, brushed with a layer of grime, his fingers stiff and gnarled like old wood.

I don’t respond, watching the water sluice through his hands and over his wrists, washing away what was left. He always says this is what we must do. This is what I must do. And if I do not then I will be the one taken to the docks.

“Once the bleeding stops you will return to my bed.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks. Still washing his hands, repetitive, mesmerizing. Finally, he glances up at me, still sitting by the dwindling fire. “It’s well past time you cleaned up.”

He stands straight, back popping, and moves to the table. He picks up one of his carvings like any other day. I stand slowly, body sore and legs cold. My skin itches where the blood dried.

“I’ll wash outside,” I say, heaving the bucket from the ground.

Mr. John grunts, and I leave him to his carving.

Sharp Autumn air shocks my skin as I slip through the door. It’s been days since I’ve been outside. I hadn’t realized how oppressed I’d felt in the dark, muggy cabin. The tall cedar trees tower over me, beams of sunlight shifting through the gaps of branches. My arms prickle, but the slap of cold numbs the post postpartum aches. In the distance I can see the blinding glimmer of lake water; I don’t go over there. It’s not safe.

But I contemplate it. Putting the bucket down on packed earth and taking a few mindless steps towards the lake, the golden reflection leaving sharp imprints in my vision. I know many pieces of me await me in those waters, fed to the thing in in the lake by Mr. John over the years.

There’s a clatter in the cabin and I still. My toes curl again the cold ground, dry pine needles pricking my skin.

I return to the bucket to wash.

–

There’s a monster beneath the docks, he tells me. It must be fed. He says it’s my duty, and I’m a saint for sacrificing as I do. That’s why he brought me here, because of what he saw in me all those years ago.

I tried to run before, many times, but Mr. John didn’t like that. He made it known.

Soon I will have to return to his bed. My body is almost healed, which means once again it will no longer be mine. The cabin is smokey. The fireplace needs to be swept. My eyes burn as I listen to Mr. John’s choked, ragged breathing. He’s not a peaceful sleeper. Another reason I prefer my pallet on the floor. I wouldn’t have to smell or hear him, feel his hands on me, the ache in my muscles as seconds tick by and I restrain herself from launching out of his grasp.

I can’t lie though, not for long. He knows. He says the monster tells him when I’m ready to return to his bed. The monster tells him many things.

I am restless. I shift on my pallet in the corner, prickly. It is filled with pine needles I collected. Softer than the packed dirt floor, warmer as well, when the seasons creep into the frigid months.

I think I hear something outside, shuffling, snorting. Maybe the monster? I can’t bring myself to care. The wind whistles beneath the gap of the door, eerie and low. I avoid thinking about my body, even looking at it, and instead focus on the sounds outside.

–

There are times I don’t think about much. The times when he touches me, when he looks at me. My body is never my own most of the time. But during these times, it’s even less so.

I think about the monster. I think about the lake.

–

I spend a lot of my time outside now, much to Mr. John’s annoyance. It’s cold, frost curling across the forest floor in fae patterns. I like to trace them with my fingers, numb and pink with the winter air. Mr. John says I need to be inside, where it’s warm; it’s not good for me or the baby. But inside is where he is so that’s where I don’t want to be. 

I glance at the cabin, wood smoke curling from the chimney in a faint thread. I spend most of my days watching, studying the world around me. The day is gray, and so is the lake. There’s a path leading to the water’s edge, thin, wrapping around trees with the remains of frozen shrubs peppering its edges.

Mr. John is reading. I used to like to read, but not the same things as him.

I’m not supposed to, but I begin to walk down the trail. Sometimes my foot catches a pebble. It stings much more now than it would in the summer. My heart beats heavy in my chest, tripping over itself with every step I take. Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba- BUMP.

I stop when I see the dock. It’s small, wide enough to fit two people, long enough to just reach past the boulders and detritus frozen to the shore. It’s not a thick layer of ice, not even reaching the end of the dock. I want to inspect closer, to study the way frozen ripples wrap around twigs and rock.

But there is the monster. I can’t see it from here. I can barely see any movement at all, the forest is quiet but for a faint breeze and the distant cracking of branches.

I go back to the cabin. I need to warm up.

–

Mr. John is much older than me. He claims to be quite knowledgeable, which is why we are in the forest now. As long as we provide, we are safe from all things.

But now he is sick and I don’t feel safe. He hasn’t left his bed for days, his normally bulky body looking withered. His eyes are sunken and his beard greasy. I’m required to care for him but he smells sour and rancid, causing my throat to tighten every time I’m around him.

I haven’t seen him sick before. All these years. All I can think about is the last sacrifice. Mr. John promised. It was imperative.

I can’t think about that. I can’t think how much he’s chiseled away at me.

I give him expired aspirin and wet wash clothes. Feed him broth made from an over boiled animal joint. He absently pats my hand.

“Good girl,” he says, voice raspy, similar to the mornings after he spends a night smoking and staring at the lake. I can’t join him, he says. The monster won’t like it. But sometimes I can hear the soft lapping of waves on the shore and I want to be there too. Maybe it was calling for me, soft whispers on the breeze, telling me, “It’s your time, girl, your time.”

I think I must have too much time on my hands if these are things I dream about. But even still, with that little worm of practicality in my brain, the monster calls.

–

The coldest part of winter is when I feel the first flutter. Like the rest of the forest’s rebirth, this one will be due in the spring.

Mr. John is better now, but still a bit slow. He spends much of his time staring at the fireplace, wrapped in a thick blanket while absently rubbing a smooth stone. It’s gray, lightly speckled, a shade darker than the overcast sky. It must be from the lake.

I stare at it until he notices.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Mr. John says. His hand clenches around the stone, hiding it.

I don’t, but I nod and leave the cabin.

Another flutter, low in my stomach. I gently place a hand on my abdomen, fingers already pinking from the chill. This is no different than any of the other winters. Or Summer, Spring, Autumn. My life is on repeat. So predictable.

I think about the stone, and begin my walk to the lake. I avoid the dock still, despite the ice that’s crept outward since the last time I checked. It’s thin and cracked, hardly thick enough to stop any monster from bursting out.

I can see the other side of the lake, a distant brown strip of desiccated forest. There is an energy here, calm and slow, rhythmic. If it weren’t for the crooked and ominous dock this would be my favorite place to be.

I kneel, hands digging into the cold and brittle ground.

I feel the flutter.

–

Mr. John keeps me awake at night with a dusty cough. He sounds like a broken instrument, sharp air wheezing from deep within his body, dislodging none of the irritants. He keeps me awake at night, but I’m grateful not to be sharing a bed with him.

In the morning, he shakes me awake with an ungracious foot on my shoulder.

I’ve been expecting this.

I stand, slowly. Mr. John watches. His eyes are shadowed beneath his ridged and bushy brows, small and intent upon me. I delay my movements, slow and hesitant, until his patience runs out and he pulls my shift up to inspect my stomach.

There’s a disconnect when these moments happen. I feel him touch my skin with his grainy fingers, but my mind goes to the dark corners of the cabin. I’m trapped, but not quite as trapped as when I look at him. So I gaze at the cobwebbed ceiling and wait for his inspection to finish.

“Yes,” he finally says, hands withdrawing from my body. It feels as though ants are crawling over the spot he touched. “This will be a good year. Are you ready?”

Mr. John says he brought me here because I make good company. Not initially, when I was young and excitable, but now that I’ve matured, I make the perfect partner. l knows this is because I don’t speak much anymore. I’m a presence without noise.

However, this is not one of those moments where my silence is appreciated.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, girl.”

“Yes, sir.”

He’s not asking about the birth. It’s what comes after.

–

I find myself walking down the path, though this time I don’t leave it to avoid the docks. For the first time in a long time the sun peeks through the branches. The foliage is damp with early spring dew, despite the bite in the morning air. I move slowly now, much slower than before. The ice in the shore is mostly melted, only small shards clinging to stone, being pulled away by the larger, melted swells.

I don’t know why today is different. My mind is foggy, somehow empty and too full at the same time. The time to feed the monster is coming soon. Every movement in my stomach is a reminder. Every day that passes brings me one step closer to the sacrifice.

I feel myself crumbling, a ghost in my own life. Mr. John is away, confident in my submission.

I stand before the dock, toes not quite touching the rotting wood, slick and dark. There’s only the whispered lapping of waves against the dock posts.

I step onto the dock.

I want to see this monster that’s consumed so much of me. The one thought that filters through my muddled head.

Each step I think about the monster. I want to see its face. I think about its bite, the way it’ll tear at my skin and clothes. I think about blood.

The dock creaks as I walk. It doesn’t take long for me to reach the end. I bend, kneel, body hovering dangerously over the edge. From this distance the water is gray and flat, up close it’s a shade of brown, clear enough to see dead algae on the muddy floor.

And then there it is. Back against the sky, it stares back at me, sallow-eyed, stringy haired. I reach a hand down, and as I get closer to the water, so too does the monster reach for me.  

–

I don’t think much about my life before. It hurts less if I avoid those memories. I had a family, two parents and a younger sibling. He annoyed me, always bumbling around the house and drooling on my things. I was young when I was taken, but my little brother was much younger.

Mr. John is more recovered now, but not like he was before. I watch him. My eyes used to skitter over his form, never taking focus, avoiding his presence. Now it’s the opposite.

He coughs, and he’s slower to rise from his bed in the morning. His hair is lank. Never a well-groomed man, but now he looks fragile, like a dry autumn leaf.

He’s sitting at the table, struggling with a small knife and a carving, his hands clumsy. I lay on my pallet, watching him, my stomach stretched and aching.

–

I wouldn’t call it a plan, more of a desire. The lake calls for me, the memory of the dock and what I found there itching at the edge of my mind. I wonder, is this the affinity that Mr. John found? Was this why the sacrifices needed to be made? His interpretation is wrong though. I can feel this in my bones, in my breath. Mr. John is wrong.

It’s been a long time since I’ve questioned anything, especially him. It’s exhilarating. It’s terrifying.

Mr. John finds me most of the way down the path. I’m only a few feet from the dock. He’s heaving, his breath like rust, corroded and harsh. I glance at him and then away, looking over the water as it glimmers, uncut metal skipping across the surface, prettier than the faint memory of my mother’s jewelry.

“Get back to the cabin,” Mr. John grunts, breath still fast and labored.

“I want to see the water,” I reply, taking another step onto the dock.

“You can’t,” he says. He reaches a trembling hand for me but I flinch away. I’m distracted for a moment by a foreign sense of pity. Mr. John looks so frail, more like a sickly old man than my captor.

His face transforms into a snarl, revealing brown teeth, chipped and jagged.

“You ungrateful heathen,” he snaps. “Have you forgotten your place?”

I whip away, striding to the dock as he follows. I’m nearing the edge when he grabs my hair, tugging me back. I start to fall, but twist so instead of hitting my back I stagger to my knees. He pulls my head up, spitting in my face.

“Ungrateful, ungrateful, ungrateful,” he screams, a gargoyle visage replacing his creased face.

I pull away, ignoring the ripping pain of my scalp, and I reach for the water. I know now. I met the monster and I know what it wants. There will be no more sacrifices from my body, the monster has seen to that. It hurts, to move the way I need to, but I do it anyway. I grab Mr. John’s shirt and pull him over the edge of the dock. I tumble with him, only a moment of free fall before I’m in the frigid water myself.

I regain my footing before him. The monster also sees to that, guiding my hands as I find a firm grasp on Mr. John’s neck and head as he thrashes. I can see the monster’s face in the shards of water, my own face really, determined and firm.

He fights, clawing at my wrists, my shoulders, his own head and neck. He slows, despite his frantic struggle, and then stops. I stare down at the water, no longer cracked like a broken mirror. His body is there, peaceful beneath the surface. Finally, a sacrifice the monster will recognize, a sacrifice the monster wants.

The monster stares at me, and helps push the body out in the lake when I’m ready to let go.

–

Wet clothes cling to my body, water dripping down my bare legs and wrists. The lake is behind me. The sun warms my shoulders. I feel a kick in my stomach.

I walk past the cabin, away from the lake with the monster at my back.

– Ashley Thomas