above. A woman who looked exactly like Granna, but with green eyes instead of blue. Even though she appeared as old as Granna, her strength belied her age. The woman gave one tug, yanking Tressa up high enough that she could grab hold with her other arm. Tressa heaved herself the rest of the way up and over the sill.
Tressa rested only for a moment before sitting up and gazing at the woman before her.
"Who are you?" Tressa asked.
"I am One."
Tressa didn't appreciate the cryptic answer. Still, she held back her anger. The woman had saved her, after all.
"What is your name?" Tressa asked, hoping the more direct question would yield a solid answer.
"I am the Queen of the Red. I am One. I have no name." The woman stood still, her arms hanging limply at her sides. The smile on her face was too familiar, making Tressa's skin crawl. The queen might have looked like her great-grandmother upon first glance, but they were not the same woman.
"How shall I address you?" Tressa asked, promising herself it would be the last time she would ask.
"You may call me Sophia." The old woman smiled.
Tressa jumped to her feet. "I will not. You are not Granna."
The woman clicked her tongue. "Such impudence from one so young."
"I am not young," Tressa said, her anger growing, despite her wish to contain it. She stalked toward the woman, across the wooden floor covered in dirty rushes.
"Compared to me, you are but a babe." The woman reached out, resting one wrinkled hand on Tressa's cheek. "Barely born. Your whole life ahead of you." She lowered her hand. "But your life is so short. You poor people, living only a handful of years before your horrifying deaths. It's a wonder you even leave your quaint homes."
"I don't understand. Aren't you—” Tressa took in the woman once more. Seeing what others had seen. Farah had claimed she'd seen Granna in Malum. The woman in the Meadowlands had told the story of the young boy lost in the fog so many years ago. "Are you related to me?"
The old woman laughed, her shoulders shaking. "We are not related, child. Your true great-grandmother fights in the battle, riding on the back of the beast who holds her in thrall.”
“Mestifito?” Tressa asked. “What do you mean, ‘holds her in thrall?’”
The old woman chuckled and cocked her head to the side. “You do not understand, yet you were held in such a thrall by your own lover. He, in turn, is held in thrall by the Keeper.”
“Is? Jarrett’s still alive?” Tressa wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
The woman’s only answer was a cryptic smile. “It is all magic of my world. And this," she said, holding out her arms, "is only an illusion. I cannot rule the Red unless I grow and die and grow and die and grow and die. Over and over again, always taking on the form of the last child I set eyes upon. It is part of the illusion. I must keep the people here happy, let them think they know who rules them."
Tressa backed away, wishing she'd taken the time to hide a dagger or two in the secret pockets of her battle clothes.
"Because if they knew," the woman continued, "they would lose their minds, knowing what waited outside the mountains. But you," she rasped, pointing at Tressa, "you will know. Because I am dying. Someone must take on the mantle. Someone must protect these insolent, ungrateful, bickering children from what lies beyond."
Tressa couldn't help herself. She had to know. "Beyond what?"
"I knew I chose well. I've been watching you, Tressa Webb of Hutton's Bridge. You will come. You will see. You will feed it the honey."
"It?" Dread rose in her chest.
The woman's laugh echoed in the room. "Yes, it will be pleased to see you. It will be pleased to have the honey once more. The bees we harvested from Hutton’s Bridge after the fog dissipated will not produce honey here."
"I—I don't have any honey with me." Tressa held her empty hands out. She tried not to think about the honey laying in the bottom of her pack hidden in the forest.
The woman's smile turned to a frown. "Oh, now isn't that a shame? Follow me.”
They traveled down a staircase, descending for nearly an eternity, stopping eventually in a cave bathed in torchlight.
The old woman stood in silhouette at the far end of the cave, her arm reaching through an entrance to another hall,