The Heart's Vengeance

It was the wailing that woke Obitus from his slumber. It was too far off for most to detect, but he was a dragon, and so his hearing–as well as his other senses–were heightened compared to many other creatures that haunted the Winderwood. It sounded like a very young voice, much in despair, located somewhere to the south of his thunder’s lair. It didn’t sound like it would make much more than a snack for himself or one of his family, but still he dragged himself up and stretched his wings anyway, taking flight to follow the cries of the little beast.

He flew less than ten kilometers before he found the child, a small girl–maybe three years old, just a toddler–huddled under a large beech tree, her knees tucked into her chest and her head buried in her hands as she cried ceaselessly. Heartbreaking, almost–if Obitus cared for humans beyond whether or not they would make a good meal. He contemplated continuing on, searching for something more substantial than this child who wouldn’t even count for a whole snack (contrary to his previous assumption), but the poor beast was so pitiful, he considered it a mercy to carry her home to his lair. She had scratches on her face and hands, and she was covered in dried mud that was caked to the skirt of her dress.

All humans know the law of the Winderwood. Anyone lost or abandoned within this forest is subject to the creatures who dwell here–and all other manner of monsters who lie within bow to the dragons, understanding that the stray children, specifically, belong to them. Aside from making the tastiest desserts, they also provide the dragons with entertainment, as their cries of terror are like music to their ears. Obitus swooped down into a clearing located just a few paces off from the girl, landing with a sound like the earth shaking apart.

The girl abruptly stopped her beautiful wailing, lifted her head and wiped tears from her eyes as she looked up at him, and smiled. This struck him as odd, considering the fact that most children become inconsolable with horror when they get picked up by one of his thunder.

“What’s your name?” The girl asked, her voice small and defeated.

“Obitus,” the dragon replied, pulling his face into something resembling a smile, though far more sinister, putting all of his fangs on display. “What are you doing out here all on your own?”

“My mommy told me we were going for a walk in the woods. She told me we could play hide-and-seek here. I was hiding in a really good spot, but she never came to find me. Now I can’t find her,” the snotty little beastie replied, wiping the back of her hand across her nose.

“Well that’s too bad, I’m so sorry to hear that your mommy left you here all alone. Would you like to come home with me? My family can become your family, and you will be warm and safe and dry, with a big bowl of stew to eat. Does that sound nice?” Obitus put on his best, most polite voice to convince the child to join him.

“Yes, please,” the girl sniffed, daring another shy but wobbly smile.

“Well then, climb aboard, child,” Obitus extended his wing to allow the toddler to clamber up onto his back. He flapped once, twice, and then they were airborne, heading back to his lair.

✤

After they returned to the dragons’ lair at the base of the Craggy Mountains, Obitus deposited the child in the cave where they kept their other captors, which was regrettably empty at the moment compared to the summer months. She was so young that she likely wouldn’t realize for a while that she was being held as a prisoner, not a guest. The few other captives knew better than to speak to her or to each other. Obitus slinked over to a fire his brothers had started while he was away.

“Fair dawn, Obitus,” his youngest brother greeted him.

“And you, Loki. Any troubles from your watch last night?” Obitus asked, making polite conversation more than being genuinely interested.

“No troubles, but there was a strange energy in the Wood last night–and an unusual flash of light far to the south of us. Hel made it all the way to the edge of the forest without finding any trace of the source of it. He didn’t cross into the human lands for fear of retaliation, but we wanted to report it to you, just in case anything peculiar occurs in the days to come.”

“Hel, anything you could glean from what you were able to smell or hear?” Obitus asked his middle brother.

“Unfortunately not, brother. Just the one flash of light that lit up the sky in the distance for maybe half a minute, and nothing after that. We should just keep our guard up,” Hel answered.

“Anything out of the ordinary about the child that you picked up?” Loki asked.

“She didn’t seem particularly frightened of me when I landed next to her, but she’s just a toddler–I don’t see what kind of threat she could pose when she will make an excellent afternoon snack for one of us,” Obitus snickered.

The brothers quietly contemplated the possible source of the light as they huddled around the fire together.

✤

The day bled into night seemingly in the blink of an eye. Obitus had taken his own flight out to the edge of the Winderwood where it bordered on the human lands to investigate the mysterious light his brothers had seen, but he also found nothing–no smells, no sounds, no scorched earth–to indicate anything was out of the ordinary. He flew home in time for dinner, which consisted of an old farmer who had ventured too far into the forest a week ago, and some deer that Hel had hunted for yesterday. He considered having the child for dessert, but took one more look at her miserable face, and decided he would like to wait and see if she would cry him one more melodious song before he gobbled her down.

It was with heavy eyelids and a full belly that Obitus settled down to sleep, the rest of his thunder joining him, save for the two on watch for the night.

✤

The girl’s heart was beating out of her chest. She knew that she had a very limited amount of time before she became a snack, so she stayed awake in terror until deep into the night, certain that most of the dragons were asleep. She paid close attention to the two who were on watch, and determined she had possibly a five minute window to accomplish her task.

She was so small, they didn’t even bother gagging or binding her when Obitus dropped her in this cave, the mouth of which was covered with a gate; however, the slats were just wide enough that she could squeeze through–barely. Painfully.

Once the dragons on watch were out of her sight and she had slid through the bars of her prison, the girl crept on lightest tiptoes to where Obitus lay curled up, sleeping on the stone ground close to the fire. The girl shivered as she drew nearer, though from the promise of warmth on this cold night or from fear of the monster she approached, she wasn’t entirely sure.

She had wound up here intentionally. She needed a scale from the breast of a dragon, just above its heart. As she crept closer, Obitus suddenly let out a large sniffle, his nose twitching in his sleep. The girl froze, terrified he would wake and find her stalking toward him. She glanced around quickly, making sure the two on watch were still around the corner, and that no other dragons had been disturbed by Obitus’s sniffle.

Assuring herself everything was fine, the girl crept on, stooping briefly to pick up a jagged piece of rock that she thought she could use to pry the scale off. She was painfully aware of the time she had already wasted, so she willed herself to move faster, determined to retrieve the scale she had gotten herself kidnapped for. She could feel Obitus’s hot breath streaming out of his nose as she got closer, and the force of it was so strong it nearly blew her tiny frame over. His scales were dry and warm and deepest obsidian, and she marveled at the beauty of this monster before she slipped her make-shift knife under a scale on his chest, about where she figured his heart would be, and yanked it toward herself with all her toddler might. To her surprise, the scale came flying toward her. She stumbled backward to catch it, just as Obitus opened his eyes.

She let her eyes meet his for the briefest of moments, then watched as he glared down at his chest and saw the trickle of blood running down his scaled body where she had plucked one of his scales from his hide. She was already running before he had the chance to glance back up at her in a rage.

“Witch!” Obitus cried, lumbering to his feet and waking the dragons nearest him as the girl ran toward the boundary line of their lair as fast as her tiny legs could carry her.

On her way across the stony clearing, she let her dagger drag across the rope holding the cage of the cave closed, and out came the few other humans who were being held captive there. This provided just enough of a distraction to the dragons that she was able to make it to the boundary line. Once she was over, she felt her bones and skin stretch back to their original shape, transforming her at once from a toddler to a sixteen year old girl. She pulled a small snail shell from her pocket, stomped it under her boot, and in a flash of blinding light, the girl was whipped out of thin air, gone.

“Witch!” Obitus roared again as the girl vanished, leaving only chaos in her wake.

✤

One Night Before

It was just past midnight–the witching hour, as her mother used to call it–when Willa slipped silently from her bedroom window, landing with a soft thud on the cold earth. She held her breath as her candle guttered in response to the impact, then let it out when the flame steadied again, careful to keep her sigh of relief away from the only light source she had on this black night.

Candlestick in her right hand, she gathered what she could of her skirts in her left, and began marching in a northerly direction, toward the very outer edge of the village she had called home these sixteen years. Windsmoor wasn’t a particularly large settlement, so Willa knew she should reach her destination within half an hour, so long as her candle provided her enough light to help her stick to the path. Living just off the eastern square of the village, the most direct route would have been to cut straight up the main dirt road leading out of the square, but Willa didn’t want to risk being seen by any other townspeople. She had no idea what she would say to them if she were caught. Going to see the exiled witch? They would send her into exile to join the old crone if she told the truth, and she’d never been a good liar. So, Willa opted to take the less-trodden path, cutting east to the Winderwood’s forest line before following it north to the witch’s cottage.

This was a path Willa had never taken in all her life living in Windsmoor, and one she hoped never to take again after tonight. Pure rage drove her, giving her the courage to brave this secret outing in the first place. She huffed, slightly out of breath, as she passed by the last of the houses that comprised the heart of the village. Between here and the witch’s cottage, there was reportedly nothing more than one post to receive goods exchanged between their village and the neighboring ones, which Willa spotted in the distance about five minutes after leaving the populated sector of town. She expected she had another quarter of an hour left before reaching the witch’s cottage. She counted the seconds down in her head for each minute, to occupy herself from the thoughts of what she was about to do.

Finally, after what felt like much longer but was in fact half an hour on the nose, Willa crested the last hill and saw the witch’s cottage tucked closely to the line of trees marking the entrance to the Winderwood just beyond it. There was still light pouring out of the windows from a fire burning within, as Willa watched the smoke trail lazily into the sky. She thought the witch still being awake at this hour might lend some truth to it being the witching hour, as her mother told her years ago, before the consumption took her. In her haste to be done with this task, she took off down the hill and did not notice the stones jutting out from the earth just enough to cause unstable footing, and before she could catch herself, Willa was tumbling down the hill.

Rocks and fallen branches caught her hands and face on the way down, and she could feel her skin torn and bleeding in several places. Her candle was smothered beneath her and lost somewhere on the hill, and she had landed in a muddy bit of lawn where the water must have pooled from the rains earlier in the day. Feeling even more furious now than she was on the walk over, she pushed herself to her feet, brushed off her skirts, and stormed to the weathered front door, banging on it three times before taking a step back to wait for the old woman to answer.

Based on everyone’s talk in town, Willa was expecting an ancient, withered old woman barely able to make it to the front door, likely with a hunched back and gnarled fingers. What she was not expecting was the beautiful middle-aged woman who answered, long black hair flowing to her waist and wearing skirts and a corset much like what Willa’s own mother would wear, when she was still alive.

“Good witching, girl. I’ve been expecting you, come in.” The witch ushered Willa into her cottage with an impatient wave of her hand, and slammed it shut as soon as Willa crossed the threshold.

Willa took one look around and was surprised to find the inside of the cottage very similar to the insides of all the homes in her village, with a few more herbs and tinctures lining the kitchen counters, and a large cauldron sitting on the fire. She had expected more cobwebs and perhaps some dead or stuffed animals. She was so taken aback that she didn’t hear the first time the witch asked her if she would like a cup of tea.

“Oh, no thank you. I won’t be staying long,” Willa said, turning to face the witch.

“Well then, what can I help you with, Willa of Windsmoor?” The witch asked, smiling as she turned to stir whatever mysterious liquid filled the cauldron.

“You know my name?” Was the only reply Willa could think of at that moment, shock coloring her tone.

“I know everyone who lives in Windsmoor, just as I knew that you were coming tonight. There is a knowing in my bones–older than me, older than Windsmoor, older than even the earth, possibly. Now, why are you here, girl?”

“I need your help with…revenge,” Willa said, some of the determination returning to her voice as she recalled the reason for her visit.

“What kind of revenge are we talking about?” The witch asked as she plopped down onto her straw-stuffed armchair.

“Are you familiar with ‘The Mourning Bride’ by William Congreve? My father took me to see it at Lincoln’s Inn Fields last year when it debuted, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few days,” Willa answered, dodging the question rather than answering it outright.

“Ah, ‘Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.’” The witch smiled knowingly, resting her chin on her fist. “So who has scorned you, my dear child?”

“Elias Winslow. He and I have been seeing each other in secret, and he promised me that we were to be married. I loved him and trusted him so fiercely, I never once questioned our importance to one another. I was expecting a proposal any time now, but three days ago he announced to the town that he was engaged to be married to Charlotte Hodge. He betrayed my trust, threw my heart in the dirt at his feet, and now I want him to pay. I want him to feel the anguish that I have been feeling for days now. I want revenge on him, for my heart.”

Willa hadn’t realized she’d started crying until a hot, angry tear caught on her nose before dropping to the rug beneath her feet.

“So it sounds like what you’ll be needing then is a vial full of revenge of the heart. Let me see if I have all the ingredients.” The witch smiled slyly and pulled a thick leather tome off of her bookshelf near the fireplace, and flipped through it for a moment before letting it fall open to a page covered in symbols and lettering that Willa did not recognize.

“Hair of a hare, eye of a pixie, pulverized snake’s fang, black widow cobweb, and…” the witch muttered to herself as she moved among the many bottles littering her countertops. “Ah, no dragon’s heart scale.”

“Dragon’s heart scale?” Willa asked from across the room.

“A scale plucked from the breast of a dragon, right above where its heart lies,” The witch explained, tutting as she tucked some hair behind her ear.

“And you’re…all out?” Willa asked, crestfallen.

“Not exactly. Dragon’s heart scale is not an ingredient that is commonly used among witches. It only goes in our most powerful potions, which we tend to shy away from as they consume much of our energy and aren’t always safe to prepare alone. The dragon’s heart scale for this potion must be gathered by the one seeking revenge, as proof of their bravery and fury. If you want to follow through with this, you will have to seek the dragon’s heart scale, and help me prepare the potion upon your return.”

“Me? Retrieve a scale from a dragon?” Willa asked in disbelief.

“It is entirely your choice my darling girl. If you want this revenge badly enough, I have a spell I can cast that will help you get into the dragons’ lair with ease, and allow you to be unassuming enough that you should be able to nab a scale without any of them being the wiser. But if the task is too daunting for you, I’m happy to send you on your way now. But I do understand the pain of a broken heart, and the revenge a woman scorned may desire, so I will help you see this through, if that is your wish.”

Willa thought then of the way she had been feeling the last three days. The inability to eat, to sleep, to drag herself out of bed to help her father around the house. She had been having to feign womanly troubles just to get him to leave her alone. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Elias with his arm around Charlotte’s waist, smiling smugly over the town square, refusing to meet her eyes, though she was certain he could feel the daggers she was staring into his soul.

“What exactly is your spell that can help me?” Willa asked before she could change her mind.

“I could change your appearance to match that of a toddler. Physically you’d be a wee little lass, but mentally you would remain the same. Looking as battered and muddy as you do right now, all you’d have to do is wander into the Winderwood and wait to be found by a dragon. You know how they collect stray and lost children for entertainment and snacks. One should scoop you up soon enough, and once you’re in their lair, simply wait for them to fall asleep and pluck out a scale. You’ll be so small they won’t see you as a threat. Once you retreat out of the bounds of their lair, the spell will wear off and you will return to your normal self. I will send you with this snail shell as well. Keep it in your pocket, and when you’re free and ready to return here, crush it beneath your foot and it will bring you straight home.”

Willa wondered at the witch’s use of the word home.

“Is there any other reason you’re willing to help me besides having also felt the pain of betrayal by a lover?” Willa asked.

“Perhaps. But I won’t tell you until you’ve returned from your task.”

“And if I choose to leave here tonight without any revenge to wreak on Elias?”

“Then I suppose our journey ends here. The choice is yours,” the witch crossed her arms, clearly waiting for a decision from Willa.

“Of course I’ll accept the challenge,” Willa answered stubbornly, crossing her arms back at the witch and jutting her chin in the air.

“Very well then, let us begin.”

✤

The witch led Willa out into the yard behind her cottage, and asked Willa to close her eyes while she began muttering something in an ancient language that was mostly lost to time. Willa felt warm and tingly in her stomach, like it was full of butterflies on a summer day. From beyond her eyelids there was an incredible flash of light that seemed as though it would have blinded her had her eyes been open, and then she felt her bones and skin shrinking, and uncomfortable pressure pressing behind her eyes.

A great gust of wind came then and carried her up and over the tops of the trees of the Winderwood, and she heard the witch wishing her good luck as the gale carried her deep into the heart of the forest before setting her down gently under a large beech tree. It was still dark when she opened her eyes, and she wondered how much time had passed since she arrived at the witch’s cottage–she hoped dawn couldn’t be far off.

Willa took a moment to look down at herself, amazed that she was physically the size of a three year old. Her hands were so tiny, and she was so close to the ground it was disorienting. She wondered how on earth she was going to accomplish this task in a body so small.

Starting to feel the desperation of her situation, coupled with her misery over Elias and Charlotte, Willa began to cry. Her cries turned to sobs, and her sobs then turned to wailing. She was a snotty, teary, screaming mess when she heard what sounded like thunder in the distance. As the sound grew louder, she realized it wasn’t thunder at all, but the sound of a great pair of leathery wings beating the air, and it was coming ever closer.

She took a moment to steady herself, pulling her knees into her chest and burying her head in her hands as the dragon landed in a clearing nearby, the ground shaking beneath her. She knew what she had to do, for Elias would pay for what he’d done to her, and she had unfinished business with the witch of Windsmoor.

So when the dragon landed, Willa stopped her crying, looked up at the monster before her, wiped her eyes, and smiled.