I took the day off work. I’d barely slept—I kept thinking she was going to come back. When I finally got up for the day, though, I realized the situation was probably a lot less creepy than I thought. She wasn’t some long-lost relative or Rumplestiltskin baby stealer. She was under the influence of drugs, or suffering from mental illness.
Those were the only explanations.
Of course, that didn’t explain the DNA results. Or how she knew I was pregnant. But I forced all those nagging questions out of my head and tried to move forward. By the afternoon, I was feeling much better about the whole thing.
Then the bleeding began.
And my entire world came to a stop.
I began to sob. No, no, no. I can’t lose the baby. I can’t. My mom had told me once about the miscarriage she’d had, before my brothers and I were born. How it had nearly destroyed her. I thought I’d understood how horrible that was for her; but now, as I sat there staring at the smear of blood on toilet paper, I knew I hadn’t really understood. Until now.
I called Danny. He left work immediately. We called the doctor, and they told me to go on bedrest. But deep down, I knew it wouldn’t help.
They won’t be able to save your baby.
She knew. She knew I was pregnant. She knew my baby was going to be lost forever.
She wasn’t just some crazy woman. She knew.
The shrill ring of my phone snapped me out of my daze. I grabbed it—and my heart leapt as I saw the name on the screen. “Mom,” I cried. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.” Before she could say much else, I told her everything. The pregnancy. G visiting in the middle of the night, trying to break in. And the impending miscarriage…
“Kayla…” she started—and there was something about her voice that made my heart drop. “You need to find her.”
“What?”
“There’s so much I haven’t told you.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “Her name… is Grezel. She came to me when I was eight weeks pregnant with you. The doctors were having trouble finding your heartbeat, and I thought I was going to have another miscarriage.
“She offered me a deal. She would be able to save you, but in return… you would carry some of her DNA. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know why. I just knew that I was scared, and desperate, and willing to do anything to save you. Even if it sounded completely crazy.
“I met her in the woods. We did this sort of… I don’t even know. A blood ritual? That’s the best way I can describe it. I don’t believe in witchcraft or anything like that, but whatever she did, it worked. A few days later, when I went to my appointment, you were fine.”
I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. I was frozen, with the phone up to my ear, heart racing in my chest.
“Wait.” The gears spinning in my head finally caught. “But she has to be related to you. The DNA test said I’m fifty percent you, and dad, and her. So there’s got to be overlap.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “I just know that she’ll save the baby.”
“But… I have no way of contacting her. What if she doesn’t come back?”
A pause. Then: “She’ll come back.”
After the call, I just sat there. Staring at the wall. Trying to process everything she told me. Why did Grezel share DNA with my mom? Did she somehow… steal it… during the blood ritual? Maybe she was some sort of inhuman creature, that needed to suck DNA off everyone else. Maybe that was the trade.
This was starting to sound like some twisted fairy tale. One of the uncensored ones, where everyone dies horribly.
My mom was right. A few hours later, I was interrupted from my thoughts with a loud thump! thump! thump! on the front door.
I ran down the stairs as fast as I could. But when I swung the door open, Grezel wasn’t standing there. Instead, there was another piece of pink paper. Scribbled in black marker were the words:
meet me in the woods behind the r— mall at midnight. come alone.
-G
***
The forest was dark. I heard the chittering of bats overhead, somewhere, as they swept through the air for their nightly meal. The leaves crunched under my feet as I continued further in.
Just as I was starting to lose hope, I saw her.
A dark silhouette, standing in a small clearing off to my right. Wearing a long, black gown that draped so effortlessly over her body it looked like it was made of shadow. Her dark hair, streaked with silver, cascaded down her back.
“Grezel,” I called out.
She turned around. Her skin was so pale in the moonlight, it looked like it almost glowed. “I see you’ve decided to join me.”
“Can you save the baby?”
Her lips twisted into a crooked smile. “Yes,” she crooned. “Come closer.”
I slowly stepped towards her, my heart hammering in my chest. Up close, I realized she appeared older than I thought she was. Deep wrinkles cut her face, crinkling around her eyes. And her eyes… there was something off about them. Her irises were pure black—and they were too large, giving them an almost bug-like appearance.
“Are you ready to begin?”
I nodded.
She pulled a knife from the folds of her dress. The silver blade glinted in the moonlight. She smiled at me, crookedly, and drew it along her palm.
Then she grabbed my right hand. Turned it over. I let out a soft cry of pain as she dug the blade into my skin. Dark blood bloomed out of the wound, glinting in the moonlight.
Then she pressed her palm against mine.
A tingle of pain shot up my arm. I could feel it, feel something, traveling up my veins and deeper into my body. Then it dissipated, and we were standing there together, staring at each other in the darkness.
“Your child will live,” she whispered.
“And they’ll be okay? You’re not going to take them from me, or—”
“Did I take you from your mother?”
I shook my head.
She turned around, her black dress swirling around her. “We are done here.”
But something didn’t sit right with me. It was… too easy. What did Grezel get out of all this? My DNA? Why would she want to save my baby? Just to genetically be their mother? Not to steal them or raise them as her own?
“Wait!” I called out. “There’s got to be something you’re getting out of this.”
She turned back towards me, her wild dark hair falling in front of her face.
“What’s the catch? Tell me. I don’t want to spend my whole life dreading it.”
She paused, her smile growing wider.
And then she spoke.
“Your children will carry my DNA. So will your brother’s children. And so will your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren, and your great-great-grandchildren. My DNA will lay dormant in them, spreading silently, generation by generation.” Her smile grew wider. “Then, one day—when I am ready—my soldiers will come out of dormancy. And we will reclaim the forests and rivers, the earth that you destroyed. The earth that belongs to the fae.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked deeper into the forest, until the shadows swallowed her up.