In my tenth winter, I discovered that a monster bided at the Keep at the End of the World. We didn’t call it that, of course; that was the poetic name granted by minstrels and troubadours who romanticized such a foreboding fortress. They gazed from a distance, imagined the mysteries within, wrote their odes, and passed through, ensuring that others would come to gawk and marvel.
Villagers just called the citadel Bitterburn, for the frozen lake that surrounded it. Born from a lack of creativity perhaps—our town bore the same name, and I didn’t refine much upon it. Back then, I listened to the whispered stories with wide-eyed awe and ate roasted chestnuts with vicarious glee as the merchants packed crates full of tribute—dried fish, spices, and grain—to get the beast to leave us be. That winter I had a new, red coat and shiny black shoes, and all my friends had plenty of wood to keep them warm.
In my fifteenth winter, the stories were less riveting. I had someone special then and we walked out together, whispering of secrets, the details of which I’ve long since forgotten. Supplies were a bit scarce, but we ate more porridge and made do during the long ice. I remember that Owen and I kissed beneath a tree laden with snow, and as our mouths touched, shy and tentative, the boughs broke and dumped white all over us.
He had nothing, did Owen, but it didn’t matter. I loved his crooked smile and his scarred hands; he was apprenticed to the smith, and one day, he would make the nails to build our houses, staves for barrels filled with our beer, and shoes for the animals that worked our land. We only had to hold on through a few more winters. But Owen took ill when I was ten and nine. He died of fever before the thaw. Life was bleak and unfair. That was the lesson I learned that season, engraved on my heart with indelible ink.
In my twentieth winter, the town of Bitterburn barely saw spring. We went from cold to cold with two scant months of sunlight. The farms brought little to harvest, and we could scarcely afford to send anything to the keep. Yet the Burgher insisted, and so we did, out of fear of terrible consequences. My anger grew as people starved.
In my twenty-first winter, I’d had enough. I would go to the keep myself and see an end to this, one way or another.
1.
In the back of the miller’s cart, I huddle deeper into my gray wool cape.
Despite my attempt to sneak away, my family has followed me to the town square. Da shouts at his wife as I try to make myself smaller, my meager belongings arrayed around me. I wish I still had something that belonged to my mother, but Da sold everything of hers, including the precious storybook she made for me. My sisters are weeping, barely tall enough to see over the bottom of the cart. Ignoring the dispute, folks go about their business, carrying baskets and drawing water from the well. Though we’re just past the first days of fall, an icy bite already hangs in the air, the threat of a winter worse than the one we barely survived.
My stepmother’s quiet pragmatism cuts through Da’s bluster. “This is for the best. We could do with one less mouth to feed this winter, and with Owen in the ground, who would marry one as strange as her?”
I am odd indeed because I believe women should choose their own fates, because I talk back, I don’t bow my head, I love to read, and I’m tired of belonging to my father and not to myself. There’s also the weird happenstance of me dreaming of things before they happen, leading to all sorts of hateful gossip. When Owen’s eyes first twinkled at me, his affection seemed like more of a gift because of all that, but . . . that future is no longer open to me. I must walk a different path.
“Amarrah isn’t coming back?” That’s Tillie, snot streaming from her red nose. Her twin, Millie, bursts into fresh tears, and they both reach for me.
I don’t move. Because Da has stepped back from the cart, lowering his head as if he agrees with my stepmother. Though I’m committed to this course, that stings a little, it does. But with Owen gone, nobody in Bitterburn will miss me. If I can end this, somehow, best that