Red Snow

Part 1

DAPHNE KNEELS AT the base of the largest apple tree in the Forbidden Forest, rummaging beneath the frozen crust of snow for the Guardian's dagger. Her hands are raw, and her nose is starting to run. Weak afternoon sun reaches like fingers through gnarled branches, and despite the perpetual winter, glowing red apples dangle from the branches like globules of blood.

An airplane whines overhead. Wiping her nose with the back of a frozen hand, Daphne stops to watch its progress across the muted sky. She wonders if the pilot sees her solitary line of footprints carving a path in the snow. Or do the witch's wards hide this place, even from above?

"Get on with it, slowpoke," hisses Eugene. He can't quite help being sibilant as he is a six-foot long, Day-Glo orange and aqua, talking snake. He insists he was once a man, and though Daphne works for a powerful witch clan, she believes Eugene to be delusional. There is no magic that could imprison a man in a snake body. Granted she doesn't know much about the subject. Beyond the magic that manifests in her log cabin, Daphne cannot conjure a single spell herself. Still, she tries to humor him. It costs nothing to do so.

"I'm trying," Daphne insists. "Why don't you slither underneath the snow and help?"

"Are you serious? It's freezing in there."

She quirks a brow. "You're cold-blooded."

"You're not the first woman who's told me that."

"I'm not a ..." woman, Daphne was about to say, but she is a woman. She's used to thinking of herself as a girl, though the curves on her body certainly argue the contrary. Since the age of five, for thirteen years now, she's been Guardian of the Forbidden Forest, living alone with almost no one to talk to but a snake. Time marked by these monthly feedings and the harvest visits from her mistress, Claudia, High Priestess of the Malum Coven.

"Not a what?" asks Eugene.

"I mean, you're not a ..." Daphne chides herself for almost challenging Eugene on his fantasy of being a man. She has hundreds of her own fantasies she wouldn't want refuted.

Eugene flicks his forked tongue. "You are not anything but annoying. On with it now. There's a succulent jackrabbit about one-hundred yards from here on the menu. So hop to it."

Daphne hates when Eugene talks about his meals. "Jackrabbit? Thinking too big once again. Remember what happened last time? How long was that poor thing stuck in your, um, throat?" Daphne shudders at the memory. "And you really should stop with the bad jokes."

"A man's got to keep himself entertained somehow."

She smiles in spite of being half-frozen and anxious about the impending pain. "Ah, here it is."

Removing the golden dagger from the blanket of snow, Daphne grips the bone handle. Her forefinger traces the star, eye, and triangle carvings. Melted ice drips from its deadly point. The trees quiver in anticipation, their hunger almost palpable.

Trying not to focus on the cold seeping through her thin jeans, she holds the knife above her left palm and takes a deep breath. She exhales. Even though the pain lasts only a second, she despises this part of her duties. But Claudia has been clear about what will happen if Daphne fails in her monthly task.

"On with it already," says Eugene, tail twitching.

Daphne glares at him, closes her eyes, and sings the requisite verse:

"As Guardian of the sacred trees,

I offer my blood to thee.

What's given freely,