Page 2 of The Maiden and Her Monster

“It was dark. I couldn’t tell the difference between black perphona and the poisonous plant I brought you last time.”

Imma’s face fell before frustration tightened her jaw. “I told you, there’s a bright white variegation that runs through the black perphona. Devil’s alphonsa is completely black.”

“ You try finding the time to wander around Mavetéh and stare at plants, No’omi!”

Abba said the forest’s name like a slur. Malka shivered, wondering if the woods could hear its name said with vitriol in the darkness.

Imma brushed her wet hands on her apron, decorating the stained white cloth with streaks of muck. “We’ll have nothing by the month’s end without that herb. Sick people are showing up at our door every day now. I’m going to have to start turning them away.”

Eskravé was never a wealthy village, but it wasn’t a poor one, either, before Kratzka ?ujana became Mavetéh.

But the forest’s curse brought more than the fear of stolen maidens to Eskravé.

In the months before the Rayga took its first maiden half a decade ago, a wickedness had descended upon the forest. Felled trees rotted before woodcarvers could shape them, animals became rabid and inedible, and many plants began to shrivel and die.

They had chalked the change up to an unusually long winter—until spring came without its normal growth, and her village could barely make use of Kratzka ?ujana at all.

Then, they found the first woman’s body.

Abba tapped his fingers on the table. “Then make the trip south to Szaj-Nev with the traders and get more there.”

Szaj-Nev might be free of monsters, but it was not an old-growth forest like Kratzka ?ujana, and black perphona struggled to grow there.

Though Mavetéh had shriveled up many of the plants that had once grown beneath its trees, pockets of black perphona remained. A blessing from Yohev, Imma called it.

“Maybe I should just go into Mavetéh,” Imma said. “It would not be so dangerous if the sun has not yet set. I would know what to look for. It would be quick.”

Malka’s chest seized. She imagined the blackened copse of trees, gouging into Imma’s chest and squeezing her heart until it burst like an overripe plum.

“No,” Malka said fiercely. “It’s not worth the risk.”

“Listen to your daughter, No’omi. She speaks sense.”

Imma crossed her boney arms. “There’s no sense to any of it.

We go into Mavetéh, we die. We avoid it but spend all our resources getting materials and food from farther places like Szaj-Nev, only to use them up combatting this strange sickness.

And after all that, what is left? Just enough for the Church to collect in tithes. ”

“Those damn tithes.” Abba stood with a huff, the splintering wood groaning under the shift in weight. He knocked into the table, sending the yahrzeit candle they had lit for Chaia tumbling to the ground.

Malka yelped, hands flying to her cheeks as she and Imma danced on the flame to extinguish it. She fell to her knees, collecting the spilled ash in her palms. Cradling it like something precious.

“Oh, quiet, Malka.” Abba pinched the space between his brows. “That headstrong girl got what she deserved.”

Malka stared at Abba. You’re wrong! she wanted to retort. You didn’t know her. But Abba was already red-faced and agitated. She didn’t want to worsen his mood. Not with her sisters in the next room. She tried to even her breathing, but tightness still caved in her throat.

Hadar’s shriek interrupted the heated silence between them, causing Malka to jolt. The ashes she had cupped in her palms spilled to the ground once more.

Both sisters came into view. Hadar ran to Imma, clinging to her legs and burying her face in Imma’s wool skirt. Her words were muffled, but unmistakable.

“The Paja is here.”

Danya wrapped her arms around herself, but it didn’t hide her full body shudder. “We heard their drums from our window.”

Malka’s stomach coiled. Already?

Imma cursed. She hurried around the room, smothering the fire after using it to light a lantern.

Abba gripped Hadar’s arm. “Wait in your room with Danya.”

Danya scoffed. “Abba, I am old enough to come—”

“You’ll stay with Hadar.” His firm tone made Malka flinch.

Danya opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. With a sigh, she decided against it and nodded instead.

Relief teemed, knowing how rapidly Abba could snap, how his eyes could sharpen like an arrow, setting sight on his target. Malka had felt the pierce of it too many times.

“Malka, get the spices from the back.”

Imma’s request drew her attention.

At the back of their house, she grabbed the large key hanging on a nail by the door. The icy weather hit her like a fist. It pinched at her skin, which puckered a soft pink across her nose and knuckles.

Snow lightly fell from the swollen clouds above, casting a white film over the treetops in the distance, made even brighter by the glistening moonlight. The fog pulled down into Mavetéh, like even Yohev’s own sky was victim to its dangerous draw.

Malka’s heartbeat quickened, and she refocused on the locked trunk.

It was dark, and in her haste, she had not procured a candle.

Only the soft light from the back window and the reflective brightness of the snow guided her hand.

The key hit against the lock a few times, made difficult by the lack of light and the chill stiffening her soot-covered fingers.

Malka hauled the trunk open, and a few flecks of snow fell lazily to the ground.

The scents overwhelmed her. The rich musk of frankincense, the sickly sweetness of goldenmase.

Though they kept the spices for the tithes separate—outside so they would never be tempted to use them—Malka couldn’t help but remember how the scent of goldenmase once filled their house.

Imma used it for everything. Hot, golden baths which soothed her muscle aches from long days hunched over gardening; a salve of Imma’s own conception that helped her inflamed, cracked skin in the winter; and the dried stems of the plant that sweetened their apples as the scents and flavors baked together in the oven.

She filled the sack with jars.

Malka jogged to the road to join her parents, jars clinking inside the sack. They walked in tense silence, interrupted only by the brief greetings of their neighbors as they continued toward the shektal, the village center and marketplace.

“Three months!” a voice admonished behind her. It was Minton, the village metalsmith who made their Shabbos and yahrzeit candle holders. “Do they think we are made of grain and spices? That we don’t have our own mouths to feed?”

“Something must be wrong,” said Masheva, his wife. Her voice was hoarse, like she had recently woken. Imma had given her a sleeping draught to help with her nightmares, and Malka hoped it had soothed her sleep. The Paja’s interruption couldn’t have helped.

They drifted ahead and Malka strained to hear Masheva. “Do you think there’s trouble within the Church?”

The Order of the Paja was the Ozmini Church’s creation, charged with tithe collection across every Ordobavian village.

For as long as Malka could remember, the Paja had come to Eskravé.

Collections used to be yearly but now were unpredictable and more frequent than their resources allowed.

Only three months had passed since the last collection bled her village dry.

Malka had had to soothe a crying Hadar to sleep while hunger cramped their bellies for weeks afterward.

On the shektal steps stood an unfamiliar man, at ease despite the firm clasp of his hands behind his back.

He was draped in robes the color of stained wine, hair hidden underneath a golden squared cap.

Gold prayer beads looped through his belt.

There was something sinister about the dip in his smile, the way his lips tugged back enough to catch a glimpse of his yellowing teeth.

Malka shoved her trembling hands further into the folds of her skirt to hide them.

Next to him stood Lord Ka?par Chotek, a wealthy Ozmini landlord who owned half of the houses in Eskravé and managed the village’s formal municipal business, including the market dealings. He was dressed in his work regalia, but his hair was disheveled. He must have readied in a rush.

Fear bubbled in Malka’s chest as her nerves built.

She thought of the collection three months ago, when scant resources prevented them from satisfying their tithe requirements and golden Yahadi necklaces were taken to be sold as consequence.

A comforting symbol to her—the small flame representing eternal light—melted down to nothing.

What would they take now?

“We are sorry to disturb you at this late hour,” Chotek began. “The weather, as you can imagine, has made travel difficult. We offer a warm welcome to the Order of the Paja, led by Father Bro ? ek, after the long journey they have made from Ordobav’s western border.”

His words sounded rehearsed, curated carefully after years of practice.

He spoke like the noble he was, clear and distinguished in his native language of Kra ? ki, no doubt accentuated by the priest’s presence at his side.

Kra ? ki was the language of nobility and municipality.

Over the past few decades, it had even become the language of church administration instead of the ancient Jalgani script.

Malka could speak Kra ? ki, but the smooth vowels were made harsh by her Kra ? -Yadi tongue—the language most Yahad in Ordobav spoke.

She remembered her first interaction with Chotek, how her mouth felt clotted with honey when she spoke Kra ? ki, how her tongue could not find the right place to rest for her words to take shape.

You’d have a beautiful voice, he had said to her once. If your people’s language wasn’t so barbaric.

To this day, Malka found ways to avoid speaking Kra ? ki.