Page 18 of The Maiden and Her Monster

The Great Oak was unruly at night. Malka learned this as she feigned sleep, determined to see if Nimrah would sneak out again.

She lay there, focused on breathing deep and even.

Every so often, the Great Oak would groan and rile its branches, drumming against the roof of Nimrah’s hut.

It rattled her, but thankfully did not wake Amnon, who snored lazily at her side.

It could have been minutes or hours of Malka waiting in anticipation when Nimrah finally rose from the ground.

Her footsteps creaked around the room. In the kitchen, she rummaged through a drawer and collected several jars.

They clinked as she stuffed them in her bag.

One was particularly pungent—a sweetness that made Malka’s nose twitch in recognition.

The Great Oak wailed again, louder, as if it were in the throes of a violent dream. Malka spared it a glance; a mountain of sap had oozed from its bark and pooled onto the ground. From her sidelong view, it could easily be mistaken as blood.

“Quiet,” Nimrah chastised, voice barely above a whisper. The tree, much to Malka’s surprise, listened.

The golem began to survey them. Malka shut her eyes, heart pounding, desperate not to betray herself.

It was silent, and for a moment, Malka thought she had been caught. But then Nimrah’s footsteps creaked against the floor again, her cloak flapping as she stepped outside into the grueling wind. The door closed with a soft rattle.

Malka waited a beat, then two.

Silently, she got to her feet, and followed Nimrah out the door, sparing one last pleading look at the Great Oak, praying it kept quiet.

Malka had grown too accustomed to the ever-burning hearth in Nimrah’s hut. The cold pinched her raw, the sharp bite of its greeting an ominous reminder of how swiftly it could puncture her once again. She hid deeper in her warm cloak.

Malka relied on the dim light from Nimrah’s lantern for her navigation, having forgone her own to conceal herself.

Ahead, Nimrah set down her light and bent low to examine the ground. Malka squinted but couldn’t see what had her attention. Nimrah withdrew something from her satchel. From the way she balanced it, Malka could only tell it was not much larger than the size of her fist.

There was a scraping sound, then a curse.

Malka tried for a closer look, but she was too far, and the barrier of night too stalwart. No matter how much she blinked, her eyes refused to adjust to the fuzz of blackness, especially with Nimrah’s shadow blocking the lantern.

Malka stepped forward cautiously. One foot ahead, then the other. Yet she was no match for the network of roots below her. Her foot snagged on one and she careened forward, yelping as her hands barely caught her fall.

Pain shot up her wrists. They’d develop matching purple bruises to her ankles.

Nimrah whipped around, task forgotten as she whisked the lantern from the ground and held it out at arm’s length. “Who’s there?”

Malka held her breath, hoping her cloak would camouflage her in the dark.

“I see you there, by the tree. Come out.” She did not raise her voice, but the threat was palpable. Almost worsened by her calm demeanor.

Malka could try to stay there, silent and frozen, until Nimrah grew exhausted of waiting. If the golem did wait. Something, though, told Malka she was not the patient type, nor was she the type to exhaust.

Slowly, Malka rose from her knees until the light caught her face.

Nimrah’s grip on the lantern loosened, her arms relaxing. “It’s not safe for you to be here. Go back.”

“You’re keeping secrets.”

“ Secrets, ” Nimrah tsk ed. “Have you considered that my business is simply not yours to know?”

Malka raised her chin to the expansive, gnarled root of the Great Oak which Nimrah hid behind her person. “What were you doing just now?”

“What part of not your business was unclear?”

Malka skirted around Nimrah’s attempt at a block, and found a familiar herb scattered over the root. “What are you doing with the devil’s alphonsa plant?”

Her veins turned to ice. If Nimrah had healed her with herbs, Malka didn’t want to find out what she could do with poison and Kefesh at her fingertips.

Nimrah’s forehead creased, mouth slightly agape. “You know what that herb is from this distance?”

Malka shrugged. “It’s very distinct.”

“It’s crushed—it could be any herb. Maybe it’s black perphona.”

“It’s not,” Malka said confidently, taking another step forward. “Black perphona has a potent odor, like burning citrus. Unlike its poisonous look-alike, which deceptively smells sweet, like caramel. I smell it now just as I smelled it before you walked out of your hut.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m a village healer’s daughter.”

Malka was close enough to see Nimrah’s face smooth. “With such knowledge of herbs, I’m surprised you’ve never been keen to use magic to assist with your healing duties.”

Malka blinked. Nimrah said it so casually, like she was teasing. “Healing isn’t magic.”

“And yet you’ve been drinking a tea made from Kefesh to heal your ankle.” She eyed where Malka soothed her wrist with her thumb. “And now most likely your wrists.”

Malka resisted the urge to touch the skin at her throat. “I know magic exists, but I refuse to use it. It’s forbidden.”

“Not all Yahad believe Kefesh is forbidden.”

Malka recalled the Balkisk Yahad and the vendor who had unbruised his apples. “Their hubris will catch up to them.” It was what Baba had always said.

“You sound naive.” Nimrah crossed her arms. Long gone was the look of surprise Malka had managed to evoke from her with her honed knowledge of herbs.

“Maybe. But I do know one thing. The Maharal used Kefesh to create you, and you betrayed him.”

Nimrah’s jaw clenched. “You don’t know anything.”

“I trust what my ancestors say, and the stories that have been passed down to their children as warnings. Kefesh is not something I hold, nor do I want to.”

“I’m not so sure about that, village girl.

I was made from gathered stones and clay.

It was prayer and intention that brought me to life.

The Maharal is magical because of his devout prayer and belief.

I have seen you whisper prayers over your meals.

I know the meaning of the necklace you wear.

Do you not also think you could wield prayer into magic? ”

Malka clutched the flame necklace against her chest, ignoring the twinge in her wrist, and pressed her thumb into its points. “Prayer is not a weapon to wield.”

“Kefesh is not always used as a weapon. The tea, for example. How can you say it’s only a weapon when it has healed you even now?”

“Kefesh is not to be trusted, including any creatures made from it.”

Nimrah’s lips thinned. “You know the monsters made by Kefesh in this forest and you have assumed that is all the magic can do. But it can also be good.”

Was that how Nimrah saw herself—a righteous creation of Kefesh? Malka scoffed. “Kefesh is not neutral. Not when it can easily turn into something the commander did not intend. Like the story of Tzvidi and the library. Do you know it?”

“Yes, I do,” Nimrah responded. She kicked a rock by her foot. “So, this is truly how you get your information, then. From bedtime stories.”

It struck her again, the dissimilarity between the golem of the stories and the half woman, half monster before her. A monster who had turned on her master, cold and unflinching. Maiming and killing a child. It was hard to believe, in that moment, they were one and the same.

But if Malka had learned anything from the traveling Paja and her father, the worst monsters often wore the faces of ordinary men.

An owl screeched, and Malka jumped. She wrapped the cloak tighter around herself, though it had dampened from her fall.

“It doesn’t matter if Kefesh has the potential to be good.

There is always the danger of the shalkat.

Of rearranging the letters of the spell to transform it into something worse. ”

Nimrah scrunched her brow in deep thought. “Say that again.”

Malka opened her mouth, then closed it. “What?”

“Say what you just said.”

Cautiously, Malka acquiesced. “With Kefesh, there is always the danger of shalkat rearranging the letters from their original intent to become something worse.”

“Rearranging the letters,” Nimrah said, eyes drifting somewhere left of Malka. “Maybe…”

Malka didn’t think she had said anything so thought provoking. Only what was obvious to all who knew Kefesh’s infamous legacies. But Nimrah did not seem to agree.

She waited for Nimrah to speak again or dismiss her. But the golem did neither. Instead, she walked away without another word, the cloak enveloping her into the blackness of the woods as she went, the scattered devil’s alphonsa on the ground forgotten.

Malka contemplated following her, but the cold had made her ankle stiff with pain and already she was losing sight of Nimrah. She refused to let her curiosity skew her judgment anymore than it already had.

Sighing, Malka returned to the hut, where she settled quietly next to Amnon and tucked her cloak tight around herself as if it were a blanket, hoping the fire would dry it as it would warm her.

It was not long before sleep came.

By late morning, Nimrah still had not returned.

Amnon wiped breadcrumbs from the corner of his mouth with his thumb and reclined in his chair, finished with his breakfast. “How’s your ankle?”

Malka lifted her foot and rolled it around, testing. It ached still but the pain had lessened. She leaned forward, settling it on the ground. She could apply pressure without losing her breath in pain. “Much better.”

Her wrists, too, hadn’t fared as poorly as she expected. She was loath to admit the tea played any significant role.

“Think you can walk for long periods again?”

Malka nodded.