Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The snow in the forest was deeper than in the village.

I waded through the drifts, my cloak’s hem dragging a long red trail behind me. The path was eerily silent-no birds chirping, no sounds of beasts. Only the copper bells at my wrists jingled softly, as if someone were leading the way ahead.

By the time the small cabin appeared at the edge of the woods, night had completely fallen.

It was much shorter than I had imagined. The windows were crooked, and the door stood slightly ajar, leaking a faint yellow light. Bundles of dried herbs hung beneath the eaves; covered in snow, they looked like rows of pale, withered fingers.

Standing at the threshold, the scent of blood grew heavier.

“Grandmother?” I called out tentatively.

A raspy voice answered from inside. “Come in, child.”

The voice was so familiar it made my scalp tingle. It sounded like Rong Duyue, yet older, drier.

Steeling myself, I pushed the door open. Inside, there was a bed, a table, and a fireplace. The flickering firelight cast dancing shadows over a figure huddled on the bed. Wrapped in a blanket, only half of the person’s face was visible-high brow, sunken eyes, and a narrow, sharp nose. She didn’t look like any old woman I knew.

However, she wore an off-white headscarf, and a wooden comb I recognized lay by her hand. That comb belonged to Grandmother.

My throat tightened, but I continued to approach, step by step.

The person on the bed suddenly opened her eyes.

Those eyes were too large. The whites were tinged with blue, and the pupils looked as if they had been soaked in black ink. She stared at me, her mouth slowly curling into a wide grin.

I wanted to retreat, but it felt as if something were pulling at me. Possessed by some strange impulse, I recited a nursery rhyme I often heard as a child.

“Grandmother… why are your eyes so big?”

The figure on the bed laughed, her voice low and raspy, like a beast grinding its teeth. “The better to see exactly who it was that sent you in here.”

My entire body froze.

In the next instant, she bolted upright. As the blanket slid away, I saw that this was not the body of an old woman at all. It was the physique of a young man-lean shoulders and back, a chest wrapped in layers of blood-soaked bandages, and neck and arms covered in black cracks that spread like a spiderweb beneath ice.

I let out a sharp cry, snatched the silver knife from my basket, and lunged.

He didn’t dodge. He let the blade sink into his shoulder, let out a muffled grunt, and raised a hand to cover my mouth. His strength was terrifying.

“Don’t make a sound,” he hissed against my ear. “She’s here.”

A slow scratching sound suddenly erupted from outside the door.

It wasn’t just one.

It was many.

Something was rubbing against the wooden door from the outside, over and over, creating a grating sound that set my teeth on edge. Shadow after shadow flickered behind the window paper-some like wolves, others like humans with hunched backs. My palms were instantly slick with cold sweat.

The man gritted his teeth and pried up a floorboard, dragging me straight down with him.

The cellar was damp and cold, filled with old clothes trunks and dry firewood. He pressed me down firmly, but he himself sank to one knee from the blood loss. Using the light leaking from above, I finally saw his face clearly: pale skin, a sharp brow, and a faint, dark red mark like a scar at the corner of his eye.

He wasn’t human.

At least, not entirely.

In the darkness, his pupils were narrowing into thin, vertical slits like those of a wolf.

I gripped the silver knife, my hand shaking so hard I could barely hold it. He stared at the area behind my ear and suddenly whispered, “So you really are her daughter.”

My heart constricted. “You knew my mother?”

He didn’t answer, only looked up at the ceiling.

The scratching at the door stopped.

In its place came a sound of footsteps I would never forget for as long as I lived. They were shuffling and slow, like wet cloth dragging across the floor. The footsteps circled the house once before finally stopping directly above the cellar entrance.

A voice, terrifyingly familiar, drifted through the floorboards.

“Jinghong, open the door.”

It was Rong Duyue’s voice.

But I had seen her with my own eyes tonight, sending me into the forest.