The Book of Lost Things [59]
“You made her that way?” David gasped. Even though he was frightened, his disgust at what the huntress had done suffused every word. The huntress looked surprised at the venom in his voice and seemed to feel that some justification of her actions was required.
“A hunter is always seeking new prey,” she said. “I grew tired of hunting beasts, and humans make poor game. Their minds are sharp, but their bodies are weak. And then I thought how wonderful it would be if I could combine the body of an animal with the intelligence of a human. What a test it would be for my skills! But it was hard, so hard, to create such hybrids: both animals and humans would die before I could bring them together. I could not stem the bleeding for long enough to make the union possible. Their brains died, their hearts stopped, and all my hard work would turn to nothing, drop by red drop.
“And then I had some good fortune. Three surgeons were traveling through the forest, and I came upon them and captured them and brought them here. They told me of a salve that they had created, one that could fuse a severed hand back upon its wrist, or a leg to its torso. I made them show me what they could do. I cut the arm from one of them and the others repaired it, just as they said they could. Then I cut another in half, and his friends made him whole again. Finally, I severed the head of the third, and they fixed it again upon his neck.
“And they became the first of my new prey,” she said, pointing to the heads of the three elderly men on the wall, “once they had told me how to make the salve for myself. Now each prey is different, for each child brings something of itself to the animal that I fuse with it.”
“But why children?” asked David.
“Because adults despair,” she answered, “while children do not. Children accommodate themselves to their new bodies and their new lives, for what child has not dreamed of being an animal? And, in truth, I prefer to hunt children. They make better sport, and better trophies for my wall, for they are beautiful.”
The huntress stepped back and regarded David carefully, as though only now becoming aware of the nature of his questions.
“What is your name, and where have you come from?” she asked. “You are not from these lands. I can tell from your scent and your speech.”
“My name is David. I came from another place.”
“What place?”
“England.”
“Eng-land,” repeated the huntress. “And how did you get here?”
“There was a passageway between my land and this one. I came through, but now I can’t get back.”
“So sad, so sad,” said the huntress. “And are there many children in Eng-land?”
David did not reply. The huntress grabbed his face and dug her nails into his skin. “Answer me!”
“Yes,” he said, reluctantly.
The huntress released him.
“Perhaps I will make you show me the way. There are so few children here now. They do not wander as they once did. This one”—she gestured at the head of the deer-girl—“was the last that I had, and I had been saving her. Now, though, I have you. So…Should I use you as I used her, or should I make you take me to Eng-land?”
She stepped away from David and thought for a time.
“I am patient,” she said, at last. “I know this land, and I have weathered its changes before. The children will come again. Soon it will be winter, and I have food enough to keep me. You will be my last hunt before the snows descend. I will make you a fox, for I think you are even brighter than my little deer. Who knows, you may escape me and live out your life in some hidden part of the forest, although none has yet managed it. There is always hope, my David, always hope. Now, sleep, for tomorrow we begin.”
With that, she cleaned David’s face with a cloth and kissed him softly on the lips. Then she carried him to the great table and chained him there in case he tried to escape during the night, before extinguishing all of the lamps. In the firelight she undressed herself, then lay naked upon her pallet and fell asleep.
But David did not sleep. He thought about his situation. He recalled his tales