The Twisted Tale of Saffron Schmidt Page 7

  Lost in old memories, Walter stared straight ahead, as if back there all that time ago, experiencing the same thing all over again. “I thought I saw a cat.”

  “Like Mouser?” Saffron asked, thinking of their tabby female who kept the barn and feed shed pest free.

  “No, no, no. A big cat. Flashes of orange and black and an almighty roar are what stick in my mind, but after that, I passed out. The next time I woke up, I was in someone’s log cabin out in the woods.”

  “Whose?”

  “I don’t know. I tried so many times to find my way back there but never succeeded. I just ended up going around in large circles. But I remember waking up inside this small hut, laid on my back on a table. An old lady dabbed at my wounds, telling me I would be okay. She was drawing the venom out of my blood. I know it was real. I still remember the crackling of damp logs on the open fire, the sting of my flesh as she placed gauze over my wounds, and I can still smell the delicious stew she had on the stove. I know it happened. The last meal she fed me was the most delicious venison pie. I haven’t eaten that since I was a boy. Your mother hates it. I know it was real.”

  He banged a clenched fist on his knee, his knuckles white and his teeth scraping together. Saffron took a minute to soak in his words. A cat? Orange and black? That would be a tiger...but they don’t roam these parts. An old woman in the forest in a log cabin? Someone would have come across her dwelling by now, surely?

  “What happened next?” she asked, curious what the rest of the village would say about his curious tale.

  “I found myself atop Hanna’s mother, Adele, good old mare she was. I came to just as we rode into the market square. When I collapsed on the ground, a story of a bear attack rolled off my tongue—the wounds proved it. What I couldn’t prove was the old lady who’d saved me. The doctor eventually asserted that I’d dreamed of comfort and being tended to as my body fought the infection. When I was strong enough, I’d found my way back to Adele and ridden back to the village. Apparently, I hadn’t been seen for almost a week. They’d sent search parties looking for me but found no trace of me, let alone anything that happened.”

  “That is kind of plausible.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Except I never took Adele with me in the first place. In fact, my uncle had been ploughing his vegetable patch with her just that morning when I reappeared. He’d left her hitched up to the plough whilst he went to fetch a pail of water. When he came back, she had simply vanished.”

  Saffron’s jaw dropped. Something extremely peculiar was happening here. Were her father’s stories true or were they just the ramblings of a wounded man caught in the illusion of a heated infection?

  Chapter Twelve

  That night, Saffron was afraid of going to sleep. She knew, after her father’s story, that what would come to her in her dreams would be a mangled frightening mess of what he’d shared with her...

  Standing in the middle of the forest, Saffron looked around her. Above her, the moon shone in all its glory, full and round, casting a bright silver glow over the earth. She noticed the trees in full bloom, the canopy of leaves and branches thick overhead, yet somehow, the lunar light penetrated the dense foliage.

  “Saffron.”

  The silky-smooth voice had her whirling around in a second, but there was nothing to see.

  “Saffron.”

  She spun around again, still seeing nothing.

  “Saffron.”

  Turning around and around, Saffron soon made herself dizzy. She shouted in frustration, “What do you want? Who are you?”

  Despite now standing still, Saffron’s world still moved around her, the effects of the dizziness grasping a firm hold of her. When everything stopped moving, she slowly glanced to her left. She screamed. A pair of big brown eyes stared at her, a thick band of grey fur separating them.

  Saffron stumbled backwards. As she did so, the intense moonlight enabled her to see more of the face mere feet from her own. An elongated snout, giant pointed ears, a leathery black nose...

  “Oh my goodness,” she whispered, tears of fear springing up from nowhere.

  The wolf opened its mouth, revealing a jaw full of enormous teeth and two gigantic canines. Saffron fell over, scrabbling away from the looming head of the massive wolf. It took one step, placing both paws either side of Saffron’s head. A sliver of drool slid off one of its canines, landing on the ground next to her head.

  It lowered its head, its hot breath blowing over Saffron’s face. Saffron raised her arms to protect her face, squeezing her eyes shut as she waited to be ripped to pieces...

  Gasping for breath, Saffron sat bolt upright, covered in sweat. She realised now that this beast was taunting her in her dreams, revelling in the fact it could kill her over and over. Stubborn determination ignited in her veins.

  Slowly calming her heart rate, Saffron eased herself back onto her pillows. She realised that despite the other girls who would be in the running for this ‘prestigious’ position of being an Offering, her sixth sense told her this was going to be her turn.

  Whether she liked it or not.

  And so she lay there, wide awake, until dawn broke, thinking of ways to best this beast.

  SAFFRON DECIDED THE first thing she needed to do was focus on her physical fitness and strength. That morning, she rose, just as the first rays of light broke through the last of the night and headed out for a jog. By the time she was halfway around the perimeter, she was doubled over, wheezing for breath. Fury and the will to not give in pushed her on, forcing her to finish her run.

  Reminding herself that she would only find this easier with each day that passed, Saffron swore to herself that she must do this every morning, come rain or shine. Being so close to the treeline as well would allow her to pick out certain patterns or markers in the trees, making it easy for her to spot her way out, should she need to.

  She knew once she went in the forest, she’d lose all sense of direction and navigation. Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs hadn’t worked so well for Hansel and Gretel, so the idea hadn’t even been in contention with her. Attaching ribbons to trees or shrubbery would only give away her lack of faith in her town and her people, and that wouldn’t be well received.

  When Saffron returned home, she took a long bath, soothing her aching muscles. Then, she headed into the kitchen and made herself a bowl of steaming porridge whilst putting some rolls in the oven for the rest of her family.

  Much to her surprise, her father waltzed into the kitchen just as she scraped the last of her oats into her mouth.

  “Good morning, Saffron,” he said, placing the kettle on the stove. “You’re up early today.”

  “I know I’m next, Papa,” she said, bluntly.

  Walter raised an eyebrow, silently asking his daughter a question.

  “The Offering. I know I’m next.”

  “How do you possibly know that?”

  Saffron sighed, then confessed her darkest secret. “I’ve been having dreams, dreams of a beast in the forest. Last night they intensified by a hundred. I know it’s me. It’s taunting me, showing me what’s going to happen when I get out there.”

  “How do you know this isn’t affecting the other girls who are seventeen this year? How do you know it’s not visiting their dreams?”

  Saffron shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t. It’s just a hunch. But I’m pretty convinced.”

  The kettle whistled, cutting through their conversation. Saffron drank her glass of milk, mulling things over in her mind. When her father took a seat opposite her with his cup of coffee, Saffron dared to ask a dangerous question.

  “Papa, would it be possible to perhaps learn some of your smithery?”

  “Now why would you want to learn that?” he asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “The forge is no place for a woman, lesser so for a young girl.”

  Saffron shrugged her shoulders. “I’m curious about how you make things. It’s intrigued me for a long time.”

  “Daughter, we had a heart to heart yesterday. Please do not go back to thinking I am unwise to your plans.”

  Saffron frowned. “What plans?”

  “There is a reason you want to learn smithery only now. What is it?”

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Saffron closed her eyes and whispered, “I want to craft a blade, one lethal enough to take out the beast.”

  Walter leaned back in his chair and laughed. “I admire your spirit, dear girl, I really do. But no blade could take out that thing. Did you not listen to my story?”

  “Yes, Papa. But I cannot go in unarmed. I need to have something, even if it won’t kill it, but at least to maim it. Anything that can help me in any way.”

  “Saffron, you probably won’t survive the first night. You do know this?”

  A bolt of terror shot straight through her. Suspecting something and having it confirmed were two entirely different things. “That doesn’t mean I can’t go down without a fight, right?”

  Walter pursed his lips.

  “Consider it a dying girl’s last wish?”

  Her father sighed. “Ok. It’s Sunday today, my day off. Come to me tomorrow, after school. I’ll start teaching you the basics.”

  Saffron wanted to throw her arms around her father and thank him, but she knew that would do nothing but make him uncomfortable. Instead she just said, “Thank you, Papa,” and kept her screams of joy internal.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saffron was elated at her father agreeing to show her how to forge her own blade. School slid by in a slow, torturous hell, almost as if time itself was mocking her. Eventually, the final bell rang and Saffron was free.

  Running all the way across town and beyond, Saffron decided it was an extra spurt of fitness that would do her no harm. Some of the townsfolk gave her curious glances as she sped past them, wondering what had her in such a desperate rush.

  They’ll understand soon enough she thought to herself.

  By the time she reached the forge, Saffron had just started to feel the now familiar burn in her lungs when her body was at its limit. She smiled to herself and decided it felt good, it reminded her she was alive.

  “I’m here, Papa,” she said, bursting through the small personnel door on the side of the huge wooden workshop.

  The instant she entered, a wall of heat hit her, rocking her back on her heels. “Wow,” she breathed. Suddenly catching her breath in such humid conditions became a difficult task.

  Walter walked over to her, chuckling. “Bit warm for you?”

  “That’s insane. How do you work in this heat?”

  “You get used to it. It’s lovely in the winter, not so much in the summer.”

  Saffron raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t even thought about working in this during sweltering heat waves.

  “Did you bring a change of clothes?” Walter asked.

  Saffron nodded.

  “You can get changed over there.”

  Saffron followed his pointed finger to a huge water butt. It must have been the size of a car. Seeing that made Saffron notice just how big of a place her father’s forge was. It was essentially an old barn, the ceiling metres above her, coming together in a traditional pointed shape. Easily ten metres wide and fifteen metres long, they could fit their entire house in here and have room left over.

  In the centre stood a huge brick-built pit with heaps of coal glowing red hot in the middle and thick orange flames dancing about on top.

  “Is that it?” she asked, pointing to it. “Is that where I’m going to make my blade?”

  Walter nodded. “That’s the forge. But we’ve got lots to learn before then.”

  Not needing to be told twice, Saffron hurried over to the water butt, changing into her old clothes as fast as she possibly could. She emerged, grinning wildly.

  “Basics today, Saffron,” her father said. “We’re not forging anything for a little while yet.”

  Her heart dropped to her feet but she understood she needed to learn about processes, tools and vital rules before even picking up a block of metal.

  Over the next two weeks, Saffron learned everything about working in a forge, from tongs and rasps to bellows and swage blocks. She watched her father create all manner of things from horseshoes to swords to hammers, her eyes always wide open in fascination.

  The ghastly wolf still haunted her dreams, every night, without fail. Dread of sleeping had taken a hold of her to begin with, but now she was almost welcoming of its frightful, monstrous head, looming over her. She refused to let it intimidate her and turned her throat-closing terror into drive and determination to beat this thing, one way or another, whatever the cost.

  Her physical fitness was improving everyday which she noticed herself when she ran to the forge after school, puffing less and less with each time. Today, Saffron was watching her father create something in the forge. She frowned as she tried to see what exactly he was making.

  Two circular shaped ends were joined by a slender middle, just about long enough for a hand to grip the middle of.

  “Papa, what are you making?”

  Walter grinned as he hammered the strange object into the shape he desired. After nearly an hour of beating the hot metal, he dropped it in the cooling tank and then presented it to Saffron.

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your morning runs, Saffron,” he said. “You need more than just being able to run to stand any chance of fighting this thing.”

  Saffron frowned. “What do you suggest?”

  “You need strength. This beast is fast, Saffron. It may be big, but it moves with the speed and reflexes of a deer. This—” he said, pointing to the strange shaped object “—is called a weight. City folk use them in their gymnasiums.”

  Memories of learning about the City’s culture years ago at school sprung forward, flooding Saffron’s mind. “Of course. I remember now. Dumb bells aren’t they also called?”

  Walter smiled. “Yes, well done. I’m making you your own set so you can build up your muscles. It’s no use being able to run if you can’t climb a tree.”

  Realisation dawned in Saffron’s mind. Her father was right. “Thanks, Papa. I really appreciate this.”

  “When they become to easy to lift, I’ll make you a heavier set.”

  Saffron couldn’t hide the grin spreading over her face. Her father spent the next hour showing her different exercises and ways to warm up and cool down, properly.

  “How do you know all this?” she asked him. “We never learned the ins and outs of City folk’s training regimes at school, just the basics of what they do in their gymnasiums.”

  Walter gave his daughter a crooked smile. “With age comes wisdom and experience, dear girl. You’ll collect your own treasure chest of knowledge as you progress through life.”

  Frowning at his cryptic answer but thinking no more of it, Saffron revelled in all the information her father was freely giving to her. As she settled herself down to sleep that night, she couldn’t help but think how her impending death sentence had somehow developed the relationship with her father to a whole new level she never thought possible.

  For the first time in a long time, Saffron fell asleep with a warm smile on her face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the next supply trip came around, Saffron very nearly missed it. Just as the wagon pulled out of the town square, she ran after it, yelling and waving at Frau Mueller for her to stop it.

  “You’re late, Saffron,” she said, offering her a hand up into the back.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been in the forge with Papa.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed you spending a lot of time in there lately. Is everything alright?”

  Saffron offered the woman a small smile. “Perfectly fine.”

  Thankfully, Frau Mueller didn’t push the conversation any further. Saffron had wanted to stay in the forge with her father. She’d actually been crafting her very first piece of metalwork—a horseshoe, but it was something at least. However, she felt she owed Sam an explanation as to why she hadn’t read his books yet, rather than just not turning up and making him worry he’d incorrectly trusted in her.

  Nerves churned around inside her as she thought about his reaction to her not bringing the books back. Would he be angry? Would it get him in trouble? Saffron chewed her lip the whole ride there, anxiety taking control of her. The journey there seemed to take forever and by the time the wagon finally stopped, Saffron was a jittery mess.

  She walked into the library, sheepish, and her mind spinning with ways to word her poor excuse.

  “Hi,” Sam said, giving her a beaming grin. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, thank you. How are you?”

  “All the better for seeing you,” he said, looking at her empty arms. He raised an eyebrow. “Did you forget something?”

  Saffron’s cheeks flared with heat. “I’m really sorry, I just haven’t had time to read as much these past few weeks. I’ve been really busy preparing for a big event and my reading has just taken a backseat. I’m so sorry. Can I keep them another month? Please?”

  “Of course you can. I’ll just move the due date on the system so it doesn’t flag up. Plus, the fact you didn’t bring them with you kind of leaves me with no choice...” He flashed her a cheeky grin.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, pressing her hands to her cheeks in an effort to calm the burn of her skin. “I kind of had a feeling that you wouldn’t mind...”

  “You’re right, I don’t mind at all. So, this big event, what is it? Tell me more.”

  Saffron jerked her head back, completely taken aback by his interest in her town’s goings on. She hesitated, not sure how much she could say. “It’s just this stupid thing we do every once in a while to honour our forest gods.”

  Well aware that gods were a ‘thing’ in the City, Saffron figured phrasing it that way instead of as forest spirits would be better received.

  “Nice,” Sam replied, nodding his head. “So what do you do to honour them?”