One Night in the Woods

The only sound in the forest besides the pounding of Artemis’ feet through the underbrush was the pounding of her heart in her chest. The light of the moon was her only companion as she hurdled overgrown bushes and dodged unruly branches and tried to keep her panting breaths quiet. Her feet had gone numb some time ago but she couldn’t afford to stop now. To stop would be to allow herself to be caught, and to be caught was to die.

There was not so much as a dirt path to guide her through the trees, but that was not enough to deter the girl from finding her way as the night around her continued to darken. The sound of a twig snapping somewhere to her right distracted her just long enough for the skirt of her gown to snag on a particularly jagged branch, sending the girl tumbling to the ground. When she finally managed to right herself, she found she was no longer able to tell which direction to run.

To her left, she saw nothing but trees. There were trees to her right, trees behind her, and before her the trees continued far into the distance. The ubiquity of her surroundings wasn’t the only thing keeping the girl stuck where she stood. Nighttime had almost completely descended upon the forest. Artemis could feel her fingernails biting into her palms as she squeezed her fists at her sides in frustration. She narrowed her eyes and took another squinting look at her surroundings. It had taken only one evening of marriage to send her running from the town she’d called home all her life and the thought of enduring years— no, decades— more of such torture was enough to keep her tired and stinging eyes searching for any possible means of escape.

There. She’d written it off as a shadow at first, but upon closer inspection, Artemis could tell there was a structure of some sort just a short distance to her left. It didn’t look like much, but if her husband overlooked the little shed as she nearly had, maybe she could wait out the night there before completing her vanishing act at the break of day. Just the thought of it had the corner of the girl’s mouth twitching upward. She lifted a frozen foot and hurried toward the shape between the trees.

When she reached the form, she was surprised at just how large it was. The old, abandoned barn was empty apart from the deep and cavernous shadows that seemed to have crept into every corner. Stepping further inside, Artemis found the hay spread across the floor did little to soothe her aching feet, but the roof overhead looked to be mostly intact, which served to reassure the girl that the elements would be the least of her worries as the darkest hours inched closer. On either side of her the walls seemed sturdy enough, though there were large open doorways at either end of the barn, which didn’t do much to keep out the cold. Still, it had to be better than squatting under a tree in the dirt. The girl had just begun gathering hay to make her bed when she heard it.

It was more than just a snapped twig somewhere in the trees. This was a cacophony of disturbed vegetation as something heavy crashed through the brush and landed with a dull thud and a disgruntled moan. Her husband, no doubt. And he’d sent her heart beating for all the wrong reasons. If he’d tripped where she had, he was very close. Too close.

Footsteps had resumed out amidst the trees. Slow, deliberate, and perhaps getting quieter. Could he be headed in the wrong direction? Unwilling to take any chances, Artemis scurried deeper into the shadows in the corner of an empty stall. She was certain she would be well concealed there, but her eyes had not yet adjusted to how very dark the barn around her had become. As she sat back against the wall behind her, her hip hit something hard that rattled against the stall with a metallic clank. The girl bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain and listened intently. With any luck, her husband hadn’t heard anything and would continue on his way.

Then again, Artemis had never been very lucky.

Sure enough, the footsteps that had nearly faded away were growing louder now, their pace quickening. The girl eyed the open exit at the back of the barn, but the only reason she’d made it this far was because of her sizeable head start. Her husband was too close now. It was too late to run. It was pointless to hide. Artemis dropped to her knees in the middle of the hay, squeezed her eyes shut tight, and did the only thing left to do. She prayed.

Please, she thought desperately, please keep this man away from me. I cannot love him and I cannot live the rest of my life with a man I do not love, chosen for me by people who do not understand. I wish to be free of my ties to him so that I can choose for myself a person to spend the rest of my life with. A good person who makes me happy, not this vile man who only smiles when there’s a drink in his hand. Please do not let him find me, do not let him keep me. She paused a moment, steeling herself. Do this for me now, and I shall do anything you might ask of me. Please.

When she was young, the village preacher had warned Artemis and the other children of the dangers of praying without naming the god who was meant to hear your prayer. His words rang hollow in the girl’s ears as she rose to her feet, opened her eyes, and unclasped her shivering hands. A flurry of motion caught her eye somewhere above her and she gasped to find she was no longer alone.

It was a bird. An owl, by the looks of it, perched high up in the rafters. Even through the darkness Artemis could see its heart-shaped face as white as the full moon. If she hadn’t seen it stir, she might’ve thought it was fake for how still the creature stood, carved or whittled by some now absent farmer years ago. There was a sense of peace about the statuesque bird, and the girl felt her frantic heartbeat begin to slow once more as she huddled there in the stall watching the bird as it watched her. She hardly noticed as the breeze picked up, whistling through the otherwise quiet barn and whipping loose strands from her braid against her frigid cheeks. It barely registered to Artemis that the pitch black around her had swallowed everything but that milky white face. Until he arrived.

There he stood. The man she had claimed “for better or for worse” that very afternoon was standing just outside the entrance to the barn looking every bit the ‘worse’ she’d mentioned in those vows. The sweat on his brow glinted in the light of the moon. The tie he’d barely bothered to knot in the first place had come completely undone and hung loosely from his thick neck. The gut he couldn’t manage to tuck into his belt heaved with each laborious breath the man wheezed in and out. He raised an unkempt eyebrow as if to suggest that, should she fail to step out of the barn of her own accord, he would come in and drag her out.

Let him try, Artemis thought. She had fought so hard to get away from this man, she wasn’t about to make it easy for him now. Having sensed her refusal to come quietly, the girl’s husband lowered his brow and coughed a wet guffaw before taking a step forward. Then another. There was nowhere left for the girl to turn. No one left to turn to. Her parents had failed her and, evidently, so had her god. Peering upward, Artemis found that even the owl had abandoned her in her hour of need. As her husband drew closer, all the girl could do was shrink against the wall of the stall, close her eyes, and wait to be clamped in his crushing grip.

But he never made it that far.

Before she felt him lay a finger on her, Artemis heard the man cry out, followed by a sickening crunch.

When her eyes flew open, her breath froze in her lungs at the sight of her husband lying lifeless on the floor of the barn. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the grotesque angle at which his neck was twisted. The girl simply stared at the body, not trusting her eyes and not daring to believe the method by which her prayers had been answered. Then there came a rustling sound from above.

Snapped from her stupor, Artemis raised her eyes to find the owl from earlier had returned to its perch. Curiously, she tilted her head as she gazed at the bird and gasped in shock when the bird mirrored her action. Artemis narrowed her eyes at the creature and couldn’t help the words that slipped past her lips.

“Thank you.”

As if in response, even in the dark of the midnight hour, she could’ve sworn she saw the damn thing wink.