When sunrise stains the pale sheets of the morning sky blood red, and lighting rages atop the mountains, they send the maidens into the forest, crimson-clad offerings to the Lord of the Wood. If one of them pleases Him, the elders say, the storms will spare the newly sprouted crops.

This morning you are among the maidens, trembling as you tread the path that leads to the heart of the wood, where the moss- and mushroom-carpeted earth barely feels a faint caress of sunlight during the warmest part of the day.

And when He finds you there, what follows is fierce and beautiful, and leaves you as undone as the stained silk of your dress.

You sleep on the soft moss, and when you wake in the barely lit morning of the darkest part of the wood, He is gone.

He is gone, leaving you with nothing but torn silk, shaking limbs, and the terrifying, glorious knowledge that the Gods are real, that They walk among us, that sometimes They touch us in ways that leave us changed forever. You return home. The crops flourish. No one thanks you for saving them.

The moon grows from dark, to full, to dark again, and your monthly blood doesn’t flow.

The day your water breaks, low clouds ride in on the backs of the ravens who follow you, cawing and wheeling, as you pace circles around the outside walls of your cottage. You can’t bear to go inside, though the midwife urges you to. With each contraction, more ravens arrive, and when you crouch by the garden gate for the final push, the rising wail of the wind and a cacophony of bird calls drowns your screaming. As the midwife eases you to the cold earth, the ravens come to rest in a silent circle around you. You know before you see the baby’s subterranean eyes she will never be yours, never was yours. Her hair is a black, feathery crown, rising from her scalp in a way that makes you laugh, and then cry.

“Raven girl,” the midwife says as she wipes your daughter’s face.

Three days later you carry the child  in still-shaking arms up the hill of the dead. You place her on one of the great, gray stones, wrapped tight in a new woolen blanket. The ravens circle, and you walk away without looking back. You couldn’t see anything even if you tried: your vision is blurred with tears. But as your feet touch the steep path to descend to the village, you think you hear a crow-rough voice say “It’s about time you came to me, little one.”

The year warms, but you remain cold, haunted by the love of the God and the child you’ve given to the ravens. She will grow up in the company of the dead, and you … you have no idea what you are now. Since your night in the arms of the wood, you can’t bear the touch of mortals. You have bedded one God and birthed another, and though you aren’t a God, you’re no longer fully human.

You eat, and bathe, and tend the crops with your neighbors, but you’ve lost your taste for the fruits of the fields. Now you hunger only for wild things: mushrooms growing at the feet of ancient trees, berries from a thorny vine, icy water from a shadowed creek, the flesh of forest creatures.

Your neighbors won’t look you in the eye, and conversations in the village square stop when you draw near. When you enter the apothecary, seeking a cure for the ache in your chest, you feel eyes on your back and smell fear in the air. You can’t sleep in your bed at night: you can only rest in the forest with the chattering of the creek in your ears. 

Until one night you put on the moss-stained tatters of your dress and follow the woodcutters’ path from the village. You carry nothing but a sharp knife, and flint and steel. You come to the place where the wide path fades out as the land rises, rocky and forbidding, from the forest floor. A half moon hangs cold and pale over the stones and you stand at the edge of the human world, listening to the frogs and crickets.

You weep, and you promise yourself this is the last time.

You breathe, and the cold night air fills your lungs, but you are not cold.

You dry your tears and step off the path into the uncharted shadows under the trees.

Story copyright Michelle Simkins, 2025. Please don’t reproduce in any format without the permission of the author.

Forest image by Rosie Sun, courtesy of Unsplash

If this post inspired or informed you, or just made you happy, feel free to buy me a cup of ko-fi or purchase an item from my ko-fi shop. Your support helps with the cost of web hosting and other expenses, allowing me to spend more time creating posts for you.

If you enjoyed this short story, you may enjoy my novella, Briar, available on kindle and in other digital formats.