A cold feeling twisted my insides. I needed to Aunt Ellena to the cave fast. Yet I couldn't help the desperate need to say, "My father...you said that he landscaped gardens." Landscape designer—quite a fancy title for a gardener. I liked it, even if it wasn't true. "But he was a footsoldier, an enforcer, for House Malan."

My aunt blinked and suddenly sucked in a deep breath that expanded her chest. Her features became more animated as her gaze sharpened and her pupils expanded. "Yes, he was," she said carefully, more mentally present, which eased my fears. "But he wanted to try something different. Your mother told me that he had a green thumb and whenever he had spare time he spent it out in his own special plot of land in the Malans' garden."

I wiggled my fingers, grinning. Exactly what I loved to do too. Excitement bubbled beneath my skin. It thrilled me that I had some small part of me in common with my father.

The cotton fabric of my aunt's sweatpants wisped together as she trudged up the incline. I hurried to catch up, shining light ahead. An icy shiver washed down my back and raised the hairs on my arms, as we skirted around an old gnarled oak with jutting roots. It seemed as if sinister faces were carved within the furrowed bark and they leered at us, staring with dark intent, as we passed by.

My aunt spoke again. "You know how it is in our world. It's hard to shift what you're naturally good at, into what you love to do, what you have a passion for." She reached out to pluck a small serrated leaf from a tree and rubbed her thumb over its rough surface. Her voice was much quieter and a touch despondent when she said, "He loved gardening. Turning his hands to the earth to grow and nurture plants."

Of all the photographs I had of my mother, Asta, she barely smiled in any of them. "My mother's heart must have broken after he died."

"It shattered..." she breathed.

She blinked rapidly as if trying not to cry. She squeezed my hand, smiling warmly with pride as she stopped walking to face me. "But she had you, and you were the brightest light in her world. She loved you so much, so very much, Tabitha." She tucked a loose tendril of hair that had come free from my ponytail behind my ear. "She took great care of you. Sang to you. And as a babe, she'd held you in her arms all night long and told you the stories of our Gods. Skalki was her favorite. She'd rock you to sleep while telling the tale of how the goddess had braved Nine Hells for her mortal lover. When you grew a little older she took you on grand adventures, and at night, sat you on her lap and read to you until you fell asleep."

I didn't remember those things but it felt nice and comforted my soul that my mother had been devoted to me. And then my smile slipped from my mouth as I remember that one night, when I was seven years old, everything changed and I lost my mother and gained my aunt.

"What happened to her? What were we doing out here in the Hemmlok Forest?"

Who would take a child here?

Aunt Ellena hesitated a moment before she shook her head, and lifted a shoulder. "I-I...don't know..."

But she'd hesitated, and for a brief moment, some nervous emotion had flared in her eyes. It had come and gone so quickly that I wasn't sure if I'd seen it.

In the shadowed recesses of my mind, I kept something tucked away, a thought that unsettled me, and I didn't like to examine it very often—a suspicion regarding a darker possibility of this thing that haunted my aunt. I didn't know how long it had been hiding inside my aunt and neither did she. She didn't know precisely when it had cursed her with its presence or how it had come to be. But every so often, I wondered if Aunt Ellena had been part of what had happened out in the Hemmlok Forest fourteen years ago.

Aunt Ellena's hair was pulled back into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Fine tendrils had come loose and cast thin shadows across her cheek and temple as she stared wide-eyed into the darkness, lost in sorrowful thought.

"What about you, Aunt Ellena?" I asked quietly. "It must have broken your heart to lose your sister."

I didn't have any siblings. I couldn't bend my mind around the agony my aunt must have suffered and hidden from me when her elder sister had mysteriously died. My mother's disappearance from my life left a strange mark on me personally. I think, perhaps, only my aunt really understood the truth, but she never spoke to me about it either. Because I had no memory of my earlier years, I didn't know my mother, Asta, the way I truly wanted. I didn't have a connection with her. I barely knew her from the handed-down stories. All we shared was a last name.

But my aunt...

My Aunt Ellena loved me and raised me and cared for me. I knew with surety if something terrible happened to my aunt and she was taken from me forever, the wretchedness and heartache at losing her would destroy me.

My aunt expelled a raw breath, dropping her gaze to her dirt-stained shoes as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her shoulders fell and her voice cracked as she said, "I was. Asta and I were very close and we were best friends as well as sisters." She clasped a hand to her chest, kneading the cozy fabric of her hoodie, and breathed in deeply. Her voice grew stronger as she met my gaze and reached out to cup my chin with cold fingers. "But you were young and lost and frightened and you needed me. So I think we both gave each other what we needed from the other."

There weren't words that could express what was in my heart. So I showed my aunt by pressing closer and enveloping her in a hug. Her hand dropped away from my chin and she wound her frail arms around my back, squeezing tightly back.

I might not have my mother or father, but my aunt, and the love she'd given me every single day since I came into her care, was all I ever needed.

When we finally pulled apart, contentment shone brightly in my aunt's eyes. She affectionately patted my cheek while smiling broadly. We turned back to our journey and climbed upward, the eternal gloom settling around us like a presence. Mist swirled and brushed against my exposed skin like a breath of morning dew, and stale air, thick with mildew, tainted my lungs with every swelling inhale.

I still needed to keep her distracted and there was something else I was eager to discuss. "Aunt Ellena, don't you think it's time to put you first?"

The forerunners of Cernesse were almost upon us and very soon I'd save my aunt from that thing inside her. It could do whatever the hells it liked, just as long as I got my aunt back.

"You know Markel's rather fond of you," I said.

She sighed. "He's a sweet man."

"Maybe it's time to start dating." Ever since I'd come under my aunt's guardianship I'd never seen her with a man. Markel had quietly sat in the background and now he finally was pushing forward and coming to the fore. "I'm pretty sure Markel would like to take you out one night. It doesn't have to be anything serious, but I'm pretty sure he'd like to spend time in your company and perhaps you'd enjoy it too."

She fussed with her hoodie. "I'm too busy looking after you."

A chuckle burst from my throat. "I'm grown up now, Aunt Ellena. You don't need to worry about me."

She tipped her head to the side, her eyebrows rising. "A parent never stops worrying."

"Papa Markel has such a nice ring to it."

"Tabitha," she warned, trying not to laugh. However, both of her cheeks pinked darker than what the nippy air had encouraged.

I laced my fingers together and held my joined hands up high against my chest, begging her. "Please, for me and Markel, put us both out of our misery."

She clicked her tongue. "He hasn't asked me out."

"Because you can be so standoffish."

My aunt tsked me, a touch disturbed by my opinion "Standoffish? What makes you think that?"

"You've always seemed,"—How do I say this?—"a little reluctant to encourage anyone's interest."

My aunt did a slight shake of her head as if to admonish me and deny the truth of it.

"Perhaps it's because you loved someone a long time ago," I said aloud, more to myself, indulging in a bit of musing. She shot me a startled look, taken aback. I forged on and nudged her with my elbow, half-joking. "Aunt Ellena, did someone break your heart?"

Astonishment had my footsteps slowing as I watched anguish pinch her features tight.

I should have stopped there, but I was curious to find out and I had the urge to push her into doing something for herself. She'd lived her life for me, and now it was high time she lived life fully for herself. I said softly, carefully, "I would have thought that you'd have married... Or at least taken an interest in someone else, perhaps when you were younger."

She gnawed at her bottom lip. I could see the indecision on her features, the back and forth—should she indulge me with the truth, or not?

Finally, she spoke, a little bit rushed as if she might change her mind and say nothing at all. "I did. There was someone. Someone I loved very much." She looked up at the canopy of shifting leaves as she lifted a shoulder and the words spilling from her trembling lips were whispered and broken. "But it wasn't to be... I fell in love with someone who could never be mine..."

My mouth fell open.

Oh my freaking gods!

I did not see that coming.

A slew of questions tumbled around in my head in a messy jumble. Who could this man be? Was he one of the upper ranks or another servant? What had happened? Did Aunt Ellena still see him when the servants came together?

Heedless, I went to ask—Did he marry someone else?—when the torment glistening in my aunt's eyes stopped me. A moment later she rallied herself and stiffened her spine. She didn't want to reveal anything specific, but she did share this in a rather matter-of-fact tone that silently told me she didn't want to speak about it further. "It was a very long time ago and I moved on."

My aunt pushed on ahead. I quickly followed, then took the lead. We'd almost reached the cave and the incline had become much steeper. I had so many thoughts and questions for my aunt, and by the way, she'd said I moved on, it obviously hadn't ended well between them. By her stoic expression, I knew she didn't want to discuss it further. So we kept silent company as we clambered up the path strewn with curled dead leaves, spindly bushes, and twisted roots.

I held onto prickly branches that pierced my palms and dug my heels into the soft earth to assist Aunt Ellena and help haul her up the steep slope. Leaves and twigs and small stones clattered as they rained down the incline behind us.

Aunt Ellena's lungs rattled and her breathing was labored from exertion, and that thing beginning to arise had begun to disorientate her once more. Too often her pace slowed, body swaying as she gazed into the fathomless black of the forest as if bewildered at finding herself out here. I tugged sharply at her hand, encouraging her to come back and be mentally present, to keep following me upward.

My heavy canvas rucksack was cumbersome on the journey toward the cave, and my shoulders ached from its weight digging into my nerves. Finally, we scrambled up the last part of the incline and reached the small ledge in front of the cave. I half-bent over, bracing my hands on my knees to suck in cool air to ease my burning lungs and trembling thighs, and catch my breath.

Behind me I heard my aunt say, her reedy voice quavering, "I'm afraid, Tabitha."

I straightened and swiftly turned back to her. The dark clothing hung off her frail figure and the cuffs of her sleeves swamped her fragile wrists as she kneaded her hands. She stared wide-eyed into the darkness, looking so lost and frightened, wretchedness wrapped around my heart with thorny vines.

It was during these nights with a pale, fat moon, that I became the parent, and her, the child. I took my aunt's hand, both of ours chilled from the autumnal night air, and brushed my thumb back and forth over the back of her papery-thin hand. She gave me a watery smile.

Lies...lies began to spill from my lips and I couldn't do anything about it. "It's okay. I'm here, Aunt Ellena. Nothing is going to hurt you," I reassured her, softly.

Cool leaves tickled the sensitive flesh of my palm and the backs of my fingers as I pulled the draping ivy aside. There was an urgency, rising like the moon above us, to go inside the cave where it would be relatively safe. I ducked into the pitch-black cavern, lit up only in a small patch of yellow torchlight, and held the ivy so my aunt could follow.

She hesitated, her green eyes gleaming with fear as she bit her lip. I gently tugged her hand, encouraging her to move inside, hating myself for what I was going to do to her, what I had to do.

Sticky threads caught across my face and hair, along my body, my aunt's too. This time I didn't bother to wipe myself free of them, I was going to walk through the tangle of spiderwebs a moment later anyway.

A low warped hum emanated from the magical stones inset inside the mouth of the cave, and in the darkness, the scrape of tiny feet on rough-hewn stone rippled through the chamber—from the very back of the tunnel and along the walls and above on the cavern's roof. My aunt huddled close beside me, her bony arm jabbing into my shoulder.

The Bloodhound growled—a rumbling sound that skipped along my bones.

The krekenns shied away from me, but they couldn't help themselves when it came to my aunt. Their tiny mouths chittered in feverish excitement as they scuttled across the messy nest of cobwebs or surged across the floor like a tipped-over bucket of water. They were eager to bind my aunt.

Aunt Ellena drew back bewildered. "What are they doing?" She asked the same question every time as if she'd forgotten each experience she'd endured at every full moon.

Part of me worried that it would break free from the krekenns. Tonight wasn't as powerful as the Blood Moon had been six months ago, but tonight it was a Hunter's Moon.

"I'm frightened..."

The krekenns scrambled up her legs. She frantically swiped at them, jittering on the spot in terror. Her mouth parted as a warbling scream crawled up her throat. I shushed her, and grabbed hold of her hands, clenching them both tightly. "Look at me Aunt Ellena," I commanded. The fierce edge in my voice forced her gaze to snap to mine. I tugged hard on her hands, jolting her out of her mindless panic. "It's okay, it's okay... Just stand very still," I ordered her.

She did as I asked. She stood still as the krekenns bound her in their special webbing—a strong silvery material. Nothing could break free from that webbing, almost nothing, until morning arrived and it had been weakened by that thing thrashing and fighting to be free. At my touch, the webbing would dry to dust and scatter like ash.

But that was many hours away.

"It's okay... it's okay... I'm here... I'm here..." I soothed her.

The krekenns bound her fast and furious, like a bobbin on a sewing machine spooling thread—faster, faster, faster.

My aunt was crying now. Sobbing with fear. Unable to even struggle.

I held her hands until I couldn't. I kept talking until her eyes and ears were wrapped in silvery threads and she could no longer see or hear. I hated this happened to her. Agony pierced my heart at her whimper. Heat pricked the back of my eyes at her lips damp with terrified tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I kept whispering, drawing away. The threads connecting her to the main mess of webbing were drawn tighter and tighter by the chittering krekenns, and she was bodily lifted into the air. Her silver-bound body rose higher and higher until she was suspended amongst the nest of spiderwebs like a wrapped fly waiting to be sucked dry by a spider. Exactly like the small forest animals I'd tossed in there this morning to feed the tiny otherworldly creatures.

And then it arrived in a burst of wrath.

A flash of sharp needled teeth.

"Tabitha..." the thing hissed, a harsh note of fury.

A shift in the body encased with krekenn webs. A ripple, as if its bones were pushing against the threads, jutting out and moving down my aunt's spine like a cresting wave.

"Let me free!"

Guilt drove me backward. I stumbled into the thick ivy. The vines ensnared me almost like my aunt. For a moment, pure panic crashed down upon me and panicked sounds came from my throat as I tugged and pulled, trying desperately to free myself. I reeled off-balance as I lurched outside.

Worry and hate wracked my body, that my aunt had to endure this every single time the full moon sat high in the sky. I had no choice... No choice.