The Silent

Eve

These are the rules Eve had to obey as a child.

First rule: do not go far from the house. "If I cannot see you," her mother would say as she brushed Eve's hair at night, "you've gone too far." They lived on a farm off the main road to the town of Richton in Sierdan. There wasn't much Eve could do that kept her within sight of the house. She could visit the goats. She could visit the chickens. She could go to the well and she could go to the barn. She did all of these things, frequently, because even if she couldn't go far, she could still help around the farm. Mostly, she looked after the goats and chickens. She was always good with animals.

Second rule: under no circumstances are you to go into the woods. Even if you are within sight of Mother or Father, even if things seem safe, you do not go into the woods. She never questioned this. She never felt the need to. At night she would hear the howling of wolves outside and thought that was why she wasn't allowed. She remembered hearing the squawking of chickens outside her window one night. Her tears had woken father. He'd left the house, axe in hand. When he came back, there was blood on the axe and the body of a fox in the yard. He skinned it later and used the fur to make a winter cloak for her. Even though the creature was dead, knowing that it had been able to sneak into a safe place and kill one of the chickens frightened her. Knowing that it had come from the woods was reason enough to avoid them. Foxes might not have been wolves, but they seemed much more dangerous when she was a child.

Third rule: do not speak to strangers. If someone comes to the house, you go to the barn or the root cellar and stay there until Mother or Father comes for you. IF you see something coming down the road, tell Mother or Father immediately and hide. This didn't happen often. If Father needed to see someone, he went to them. Their farm was isolated enough that people didn't pass by it often. It made Eve worry about her mother. She left so rarely, saw other people so rarely. Didn't she get lonely? Eve had no friends her age, and while she loved her parents, the goats, and the chickens, it could be lonely. If it was lonely for her, it must have been lonely for mother.

"I'm not lonely," her mother replied when Eve was older and finally asked the question. "I have your father, and I have you." She'd finished braiding Eve's hair and leaned over to kiss her temple. "That's more than enough for me."

Eve loved her mother, and her father, and she knew they loved her. If they asked her to do something, it was for a reason. That was why she'd always followed those three rules, even when they didn't make sense. She thought she'd never break them; she thought she'd never have to.

Then Father was sent away to help the militia keep bandits away from Richton. And then Mother fell ill.

That was when she broke all free.

Eve had only meant to break the second one: Never go into the woods. She had a good reason to break it. There was a plant that grew there, something that could help with Mother's fever. Eve didn't go too deep the first time and she made sure to go during the day, when the animals wouldn't be out so much and after Mother had fallen back asleep. Eve still felt like there were eyes on her as she walked along the path, her eyes darting back and forth as she searched for the plant and its blue flowers. Nothing bad happened; she found the plant she was looking for, and came back home safely. She didn't tell Mother where she'd found the flowers. She had to lie and say there was still some left with the other herbs. Mother was too sick to doubt her—so sick, in fact, that Eve soon had to leave again to find more flowers.

The second time, she caught a glimpse of people in the trees. They were gone when she looked their way again, but she knew they were only hiding. The fear of them, of whatever they were and that they might be the real reason her parents told her not to go into the woods, nearly sent her running home without the flowers. But she stayed, because Mother needed it. Because Mother would die without them. She found the flowers. She went home. But it wasn't enough, and she was back again with a day.