Deerhill

Prologue Indigo Westick drove her boot into the werewolf’s throat. It thrashed beneath her, claws raking dead leaves and finding purchase in her pant legs, but she held firm. Thunder cracked overhead, and her mother glanced back at her, lowering her rifle from the dead werewolf at her feet. “Finish it, Indigo.” “Mom,” Indigo started, a moment of doubt flickering across her mind. “Indigo.” Indigo looked down. The younger werewolf looked up at her, eyes wide and afraid, a strange amount of humanity in this monstrous body. She pulled the trigger. Thunder swallowed the shot. The body went still. Indigo turned to find her mother clutching her stomach, blood seeping between her fingers, gun forgotten on the ground. “Mom,” Indigo dropped her gun and ran to her mother, just as her knees buckled. Indigo caught her on the way down, easing them both to the forest floor. “Hey, you’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.” “I don’t think so,” Margot said, lifting her hand for a moment to show the gore beneath it. She pressed her palm back to her stomach, holding herself together again. “We can get you to a hospital,” Indigo insisted, setting her mother back against a tree. Margot reached up and tugged a fistful of Indigo’s hair, her gun forgotten, her grip sharp and insistent. “Take your sister to your uncle’s. It’s just you now, Indigo. Don’t settle down. Don’t stop moving. Never stay in one place for too long. No friends, no family. It’s just you.” “Mom-” Indigo caught her mother’s hand as it dropped. “Promise me,” Margot said, her tone steely and cold as always. Serious. Indigo took a deep breath and forced the words out. “I promise.” Indigo looked up at the clouds overhead, early morning hues of pink and orange giving promise to a nice, sunny day. Spring was full of rain, and Indigo was ready for a day with clear skies. “Think Ducky’s doing fine?” “She’s more than self-sufficient without us,” Margot said. Indigo disagreed, but she knew Margot was trying to make her feel better about how long they’d been gone. “That being said, we should head back soon.” Indigo sighed and looked at her hands as she played with a stick, scraping the bark off with her thumbnail. “It’s not that cold out, and the rain has stopped.” “Indigo,” Margot said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “We didn’t think we’d be out here this long, so we didn’t bring enough food for another day.” “I can go hungry,” Indigo pleaded, looking up at her. “I’ll be alright. Like you said. It’ll warm up soon, and then I can stay.” Margot gave her a sad look, and Indigo had to look away again. “You’ve never been able to handle the smell of dead bodies, Indigo, and the heat will only make things worse. You have to bury them and go back.” Indigo knew she was right, but the fire was warm, and her mother was right there, and the forest was quiet. If there were monsters hiding in the trees, they were letting her be for the moment. She was rarely left alone, rarely safe from harm. The break was nice. The serenity of the forest was a treat. Silence passed over them, until grief squeezed Indigo’s lungs flat and she had to get up. She shuffled to her mother and sat back on the ground, laying down with her head in her lap. Margot brushed her fingers through her hair, just as she always had, ever since Indigo was young. But the warmth from the fire didn’t reach her from her mother’s lap, and the heavy smell of blood made her nauseous. But she had puked up all of her food two days ago, and had barely even remembered to drink anything. “Think it’ll rain today?” She asked. She had asked it every morning for the past two days, and every day Margot had predicted that it would. But today her question fell on deaf ears, and the sky was too clear to predict rain. Indigo readjusted her head on Margot’s lap, and felt dried blood from her rough, denim jeans scrape against her face. “Mom,” she repeated, watching as the fire too far away crackled and slowly died. “Do you think it’ll rain today?” She was met with the silence of the forest, and nothing more. She watched the fire die down into smoldering coals, and then cease to exist entirely. She felt bugs crawling around her, and the flies picking at her mother’s skin and laying maggots in her shredded body tickled along her face and in her hair. Eventually, she managed to force herself back to her feet. As she walked back to her makeshift fire, she looked around to gather more sticks and was met with deer eyes, barely a yard away from her. She hadn’t even heard the gentle creature, and it looked at her with more sympathy than she’d received in her entire life. A silent understanding passed between the two of them, and Indigo abandoned her search. The forest could no longer allow her to mourn. The natural order had to resume, and it could not promise Indigo safety any longer. “Thank you for the gift,” Indigo finally said to the deer. The creature bowed its head, and Indigo watched as it toed its way back through the woods. Instead of searching for sticks, Indigo gathered their bags and hunting supplies, and then found her shovel. The ground was soft, and easy to dig up, and Indigo worked numbly until she was knees deep into the forest floor. Dragging her mother’s body to its shallow grave was easier than expected, and Indigo did not say goodbye.