In a village such as this, one so close to the brush of the dark forest, there is a certain stifling suspicion. Evelina, the youngest girl of the village, found it to weigh heavy and humid, thickening as the leaves moved from their coat of dew, to frost, to their shriveled fall. From her home, she could hear the forest and its many sounds, of croaks and creaks and clicks, and stranger still, the growling of the earth, the flapping of flesh. So close to the wilderness, on the edge of the realm of man, there are things that fall beyond that great edge: fires going out all at once except for a single candle, the reverberations of a distant melody, a missing goat, or more mysterious, a goat that was not there the day before. In a village such as this, thoughts of the uncanny, or of magic, hover carefully in the minds of all. Hopeful not to whisper, not to look into the forest. Hopeful not to find anything strange in the eye of a neighbour. So when Mrs. Silvers declared her husband missing, worry swept the village. Mr. Silvers’ axe was soon found abandoned near the edge of the woods, his pile of logs untouched, and suspicion collapsed completely into terror.
The whispered unthinkable, that decimating unknown, was no longer so hushed. Evelina felt the panic consuming the village, it was almost crushing. The unnaturalness was too much to bear and the houses breathed an opaque exhale of relief when boar tracks were found on the muddy forest floor, close to his lonely axe. They knew the irksome habits of a boar, even a man-eating one, its familiar snorts when they left their fences open. Evelina, too, felt comforted by the news of the man-eating boar. They knew how to track one, how to kill one. Killing was a beautiful annoyance to be had in the face of mystery held by the thick darkness of that wild. Mr. Silvers’ body was found first, or part of it, at least. There were bits of an arm and the meaty cut of a shoulder, and a tattered outfit, as if the boar had stripped the man with a mighty tusk. The fingers were scattered and curled, still aching for the handle of his devoted axe. The oldest and most trusted tracker declared that the boar would be known by its lone tusk, and the trail closed in quickly. They stared down the single-tusked boar and the mightiest hunter threw his spear. The men watched it streak through the air into the beast’s side. Their dreams of relief crumbled as the spear pierced flesh instead of hide. The white tusk hit the ground not as bone, but as pale skin, a single outstretched arm in its place—the other had been hacked away and found earlier on the trail. It was Mr. Silvers’ corpse that flopped to the earth, the spear shuddering between two ribs.
All had known, despite the lack of spoken gossip, of Mr. Silvers’ drinking habits. Their gaze would always avoid Mrs. Silvers’ bruises as she limped across the path every morning that followed. Their pity for her was silent and discarded, but now, as they looked upon the naked body of her husband, their fear was embraced. It was easier to mash their horror into a different shape than for them to teeter on its great edge. They liked the way fury wrapped around them—anger felt so warm. The beast in their mind’s eye morphed from boar to woman and they turned back toward the village. Woman, after all, was the most common form for a village beast to take. Evelina always crept carefully along what was proper because she saw the intensity of the scorn a woman could and would receive. A wife’s wickedness towards her spouse was a most egregious crime, even without the unnaturalness of this plot, so aiming their spear-tipped anger towards her was a simple thing.
The Mrs. Silvers they came across on the village path made them halt their wrath for just a moment. No longer was she hunched and gray, she was all sharpness and fizzing where she stood. Her lips coiled into a smile as the blue of her eyes spread onto her skin, wrinkles sprawling into scales. The villagers stared in horror, but Evelina could not tear her eyes from her neighbours. Their faces, aflame with hate, twisted into something monstrous. She was looking still when Mrs. Silvers’ dress seemed to swallow her for a moment, her blue eyes peering through the falling folds. Their spears passed through the air where she stood as a great snake sprang from her clothing and slipped between their feet. Their cries disappeared with the fierce blue snake into the forest air, as the witch who had once been their neighbour was lost to its vastness.
*
Seasons passed as they do. How many is of no consequence because the uneasy quiet that wrapped the village seemed to smother the cycles of the moon. Little Evelina became Maiden Evelina. Her sister married, and she became the only single young woman in the village. Her maidenhood was agreed upon by her body soon after, as she awoke one morning to slugs of dark red inching down her thighs.
When she wiped away her woman’s blood with her hand, it smeared across her skin. When she wiped the streaks with a cloth, a dry stain of burgundy remained. When she wiped the stain with the cloth wet, the maroon faded into purple before revealing blue underneath. She wiped again and watched the blue glisten and scales slide underneath her fingertips. Everyone still, despite the seasons passed, cursed Mrs. Silvers’ name whenever calamity struck, no matter how minor. Villagers searched the edge of the forest for signs of the blue scales of the witch whenever movement caught their eyes, and now here they were, between Evelina’s legs. She took the edge of a dull knife, hoping to scrape it away like a calloused heel. But despite the burning that scratched across her inner thigh, her scales remained, blossoming up towards her navel. She wrapped her undergarment with rags to stop the dripping of blood and covered herself with her dress to block the winking of the scales. As she ate her porridge, she saw blue twinkling reflected in her spoon. A patch of scales spotted her neck, licking the collar of her dress. She made quick use of her birthday present, a spool of pink satin ribbon that she had been saving. Evelina wrapped it around her neck until the pink sheen was all that could be seen. She tied it with a bow, as if this was her necklace, as if her throat was a present that she could not unwrap.
Evelina spent her morning just as she always did, with chores and mending. All she could hear, however, was the slick sound of satin gliding across scales, a reptilian whisper in her ear that she should be afraid, afraid of her body and what the village folk would see if they gazed upon it. She would not be able to give an explanation, nor would it be needed, the village knew there was a wickedness in every maiden. As girl turned to woman, or woman to crone, so too could she turn to creature, to unnaturalness. She had not welcomed this wickedness and it would not protect her.
The village well was the farthest of her tasks, closest to the forest edge. She always saved fetching water from it until the high noon sun was in the sky so there would be no shadow cast by the forest. She heard her name as she carried the buckets but she did not bother to turn around. She knew the grubby voice belonged to Tim who, despite being only a year younger, was a full head shorter than Evelina, and she knew he had come to pinch her attention the best he could.
“Evelina!” he sang, “Momma said I’m almost a man, almost ready to marry you!”
“We are not getting married, Tim,” Evelina did not look away from her bucket as she hooked it to the well.
“Of course we are, Evelina,” he kicked at her other bucket by her feet. “Everyone knows we are. Unless a woman should die and you marry a widower instead.”
“Stop it,” she hissed, snatching the bucket away from him. She made the indefensible error of meeting his gaze as she did. Her stern tone made his little smile grow. He tugged at her skirt with dirty fingers, taunting her about the wrinkled, sagging suitors and the dust they might thrust into her. This was a typical irritation brought by Tim; he was always a thorn, a splinter, a hangnail. It was his shift of attention up her body that caused her to go cold.
“That’s a pretty ribbon.” His fingers sprang towards it. Her desperate shrieks seemed to give his fingers more speed and bravado as she clutched at her neck. She saw the triumphant smile before she felt the clean tug of one side of the bow.
Evelina’s feet had never moved so quickly, nor had they run across the forest floor. But there was nowhere else to turn as she felt the slackening of the ribbon that she held to her neck. She was still clutching it as she darted deeper into the forest. Tim’s laughter loomed close behind her so she dared not slow, not even for the branches that snatched at her face. His fingers grasped their target and, for a wisp of a moment, the ribbon tightened before Evelina fell to the ground. She gasped for breath as Tim stood above her, pulling the ribbon that was wrapped around her neck. The edge of satin can cut flesh if pulled quickly, but Tim’s widening eyes saw that it was not flesh around Evelina’s slender neck. Instead, he saw a shock of blue scales. Evelina heaved herself from the ground and Tim’s horrified gaze did not move from her, the ribbon fluttering forgotten from his fingers. He took three anxious steps back.
“Wait!” Evelina called to no avail, not knowing what she’d say if he did. Tim took three more steps backward. “Tim, stop!” Evelina begged again, and Tim drew a big breath in.
To Evelina, it all happened at once: Tim’s mouth opened and let out the starting of a great scream. The boy was just about to turn back to the village, where they would cradle his fear in their violence. Evelina yelled out for him to be quiet, but although the words left her lips, no sound cut the air. Tim’s scream stopped in his throat. His tongue tumbled from his open mouth onto the leaves with a wet slap. The tongue flopped on the ground like a fish, and Tim’s face blanketed with horror. Evelina watched his tongue dance, then finally still, and Tim fell to his knees. He clawed desperately at his now empty mouth, searching for his tongue, the tongue that belonged to him, that would not abandon him like the muddy one at his feet— before blood began to gush forth. Evelina watched the red drip from his lips down his chin just like what had dripped down her legs that morning. The blood gurgled in the small boy’s throat as he tried to scream once more. Evelina gagged, a metallic taste hovering over her palate. She tore through the woods, didn’t even remember starting to run. Evelina left the little boy from her village with his blood down his front. She dove into the forest’s darkness, running deeper, further from the village and closer to the home of the witch.
*
A witch is only difficult to find if she does not want to be found. Evelina found herself running between trees, not noticing the way they bent and swayed her along the path. The witch’s house was immediately apparent to Evelina. It sat mossy and old, dark smoke coming up through a stout chimney. Evelina felt its pull, its crook of a finger until she had her knuckles rapping upon its rotted oak door.
The witch was not what Evelina remembered. In some ways she was greyer; her hair, her hollowed eyes, her deep lines. But in some ways, something in Mrs. Silvers sparkled, the shine of her hair, a glimmer in her eye, and a constellation of scales scattered across her chest and collar. The twinkle seemed to flash at Evelina as the witch turned away from her lit fireplace to face her.
“I hardly expected you to come to me with such a dilemma, Little Evelina,” the witch said.
Evelina could see the rest of the home out of the corner of her eye—and home was the right word as everything about it felt lived in and warm—but dared not turn away from the witch whose face was licked by the shadows of flame. Evelina hardly knew what to say, she felt frozen in the strange situation she found herself.
“How do you know why I came?” she managed, her voice higher than she wished.
“Well for a start, you brought the evidence,” the witch said with a nod of her chin toward Evelina. Evelina followed the witch’s gaze to her closed fist and flinched. The tongue dropped to the dusty wooden floor, unfurling as if rolling an R. She swore she hadn’t picked it up, she would have remembered that. And yet, her palm was wet.
“Can you help me?” Evelina asked.
The witch crouched down and squinted at the tongue as if discerning a kind of flower on the forest floor.
“I can only help you help yourself.” She looked up at Evelina, open and waiting. “What is it that you want to make happen?”
Evelina began to say she wanted things back how they were, but did she? Did she want Tim’s tongue following her, still wagging in his mouth? She didn’t want to go back to her village life waiting for Tim to come of age so they could marry. She imagined his wet tongue panting on the side of her neck as he thrust into her.
“I want to be free of this burden,” Evelina said, her nose wrinkling as she stared at the pink flesh on the floor between them.
“You know what he’ll do with it, don’t you?” Mrs. Silvers asked. “He’ll tell lies that complement the truth. They’ll know what you’ve done and worse.” Evelina couldn’t help but imagine his mother’s face staring into the gaping empty mouth where his tongue used to be. She imagined the strained sounds he’d make in place of speech, moving a muscle he no longer had. Evelina could only make one decision. The others were for a different person, an unfathomable Evelina.
“I know. I know I can’t go back.”
Mrs. Silvers appraised Evelina, a quick look up and down, before she motioned her towards the door to follow. Evelina quickly wrapped the tongue in a stray cloth.
She led Evelina back into the forest, which felt more familiar now in its strangeness. A magpie watched them walk, tilting its head as they snapped the branches they stepped upon in their wake. The witch stopped at the river, which at a first glance seemed shallow, but as Evelina stared into its rushing waters, the dark murk of the water seemed to descend further, growing darker until it was inky blackness.
“Set it free,” Mrs. Silvers commanded and Evelina went into her ankles, the water not as cold as she expected. She unwrapped the tongue, letting the cloth get carried away by the current, and submerged it, holding it with both hands. She felt it wriggle, and she let go. In a splash of pink, the tongue sprang forth, like a fish awakened by water in its gills, and then it was gone.
*
That night, when Evelina curled up on Mrs. Silvers’ floor, Evelina would dream she swam into the current of that river. She would swim down, instead of following the tongue west towards the village. Even in the dark depths she could see the sparking of her scales, trickling up her body. In a forest such as this, one out of reach of what is known, but yet in reach of the realm of dreams, she can dive endlessly into the blackness of the water until she wakes.
