We don’t sleep anymore.
There are seven of us. Brothers. We’ve worked these mines for thirty years. Seen cave-ins. Seen men crushed. Seen things that would break most people.
Nothing prepared us for her.
She showed up three months ago. Stumbling through the woods. Torn dress. Pale skin. Lips so red they looked painted with blood. Said she was running from someone who wanted to hurt her.
We believed her.
God help us, we believed her.
—-
I found the first body a week after she arrived.
A deer. Its throat opened clean. Not torn like a wolf would do. Cut. Precise. The blood was drained into the snow in a perfect circle around it.
I didn’t tell my brothers. Thought maybe it was nothing. Maybe some hunter we hadn’t seen.
Then the birds started dying.
Dozens of them. Scattered around the cottage every morning. Their eyes were open. Their beaks were frozen in silent screams. She swept them away before breakfast like they were autumn leaves.
“Strange winter,” she said. “Animals get confused.”
Her smile never reached her eyes.
—-
Hamish saw her do it.
He told us in whispers while she was at the well. His hands shaking. His face the color of old snow.
“She was in the woods. Past the north ridge. There was a woman. The queen’s huntsman’s wife.”
“What happened?”
He couldn’t finish. Just shook his head. Started crying.
We found what was left the next day. Buried under pine needles. Arranged carefully. Almost lovingly.
The heart was missing.
—-
We tried to leave once.
Packed our things in the night. Quiet as we could. Made it to the tree line before she appeared.
Just standing there. In her nightgown. Snow falling around her but not on her. Like even the weather knew better than to touch.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “Just checking the traps.”
“All seven of you?”
Nobody moved.
“I need you here.” Her voice was soft. Reasonable. “I can’t stay alone. You understand.”
We understood.
We went back inside.
—-
The old woman came to the door last week.
Selling apples. That’s what she said. But her hands were trembling and her eyes kept darting to the windows. She was looking for something. Someone.
“She’s not here,” I told her. “Gone to the stream.”
The woman grabbed my arm. Her grip was iron.
“Listen to me. She killed my daughter. Took her face. Took everything.” Tears cut through the dirt on her cheeks. “I was the queen’s midwife. I was there when she was born. When she was born wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“Empty. Nothing inside but hunger.” She pressed an apple into my hands. “This will stop her. It has to stop her. Please.”
I heard footsteps behind me.
“Who was that?”
I turned. She was there. Snow in her dark hair. Water dripping from the bucket in her hands. Beautiful. Terrible.
“Nobody. Just a peddler.”
She looked at the apple.
“For me?”
“I… yes.”
She took it. Bit into it without hesitation. Juice ran down her chin. She chewed. Swallowed.
Nothing happened.
“Sweet,” she said. And smiled.
—-
I found the old woman’s body that night.
Same as the others. Arranged. Drained. Heart gone.
The apple was beside her. One bite taken.
She’d switched them. Of course she’d switched them.
—-
There are seven of us.
There used to be eight brothers. Before she came. Before Hamish saw what he saw and tried to run on his own.
We don’t talk about Hamish.
We don’t talk about the locked room in the cellar. The sounds that come from it at night. The way she goes down there with her sewing kit and comes back with her lips freshly red.
We just work. And cook. And clean. And pretend.
The huntsman is dead. The queen is dead. The old woman is dead. Everyone who knew what she was is gone now.
Except us.
Seven witnesses who will never speak.
Because we’ve seen what happens to people who know her secret.
And every night, she counts us.
Making sure we’re all still here.
Still quiet.
Still hers.
—-
She’s humming in the kitchen right now.
Baking something. The cottage smells like apples and copper.
I’m writing this in the margins of my ledger. Hiding it in the mines tomorrow. Maybe someone will find it. Maybe someone will understand.
She’s not the victim of this story.
She never was.
And if a prince ever comes to wake her from some fake slumber, I hope he reads this first.
I hope he runs.
We can’t.
But maybe he still can.
