The woods were cold quiet save for Mirio’s panting. He looked behind himself and saw his footsteps stretch out behind him, further and further away in the snow and the fog. His home village had vanished, downed in white. Mirio was a child, no older than seven years old, and he was now completely alone in the world.

He didn’t know what to do. He would have cried, but he didn’t know if he wanted to… he was completely numb, like his fingers. Like his back. 

His back had been in so much pain as the parasite inside of it had eaten its way up. He had screamed and cried and spent most of that time fainted… he vaguely remembered his mother, sick with worry, leaning above him, and her strained face was imprinted on his memory form some rare moments of lucidity that he had had. 

And then, when he had been capable of walking again, she had told him to leave, run, go away as far as he could. She had said that he carried something terrible, something in his back… Something alive. That had eaten his bones and was now living there. He couldn’t feel it, it was like his back was numb after so much pain. But it was there now, and there was no way he could dislodge it or he would die. He couldn’t really live without a spine now, could he? 

He just wanted it to stop. The nightmare, that was. He wanted to wake up from this dream… this forest that felt more and more like a dream with every step he took in the snow. 

But it didn’t stop. The woods were still just as quiet as before. 

Mirio wandered on. Wandering was a good word for it all, because he was walking nowhere and only getting further from home… but it was a good thing, right? Mother had said… mother had said that he would die. That they would come for him and kill him.

“You need to go,” she had said. “The inquisitor is coming.” 

She had tucked him in and pushed him out through the garden. She had seemed scared, and he had wanted to cry then (not like now) but he had been too afraid to make a sound. 

“Keep walking,” she had said. “Find a road and keep walking, and they won’t find you… you will be safe.”

And she had kissed him on the forehead, turned him around and pushed him on the shoulder. And he hadn’t turned around until she was long gone, or rather he was. He missed her already. 

“Mom,” he sobbed. 

“Don’t worry, Mirio,” she had said. “You’re strong. You got a lot of magic in you…” 

He knew that, he knew that he had a lot of potential, they had made the evaluator come and she had said that she saw great in strength. But he had never been taught to use it, his mother had said that he had been too young to learn any other spell than lighting the fire… which he succeeded at every time, but how was that of use? There was no fireplace here. And he wasn’t… exactly cold, although he could feel the magic humming in his hands to keep them warm. 

What would happen if he ran out of magic? Would he be cold then? Would he freeze like the icicles he so liked to break off the roof in the morning? 

What then? Would he just die?

Mirio walked some more. The forest became denser, the trees larger and larger; there hadn’t been any other human living here for a very long time. And yet he found a resting place against a tree, among the roots, one where he could lay against the trunk and feel somewhat comfortable. 

The cold was creeping on him after all this time. He could feel his hands growing numb through his gloves, and he couldn’t quite fold his toes anymore. It wasn’t painful but he wishes he could go home and drink some warm tea… 

He rested his cheek against the warm bark as he curled into a tighter ball. There really wasn’t a sound other than the one of the wind playing with the leaves, somewhere high above him. From time to time, a gush pierced through, sending small flakes from the branches flying into the stillness of the forest. It was pretty… 

Mirio wondered why he still didn’t feel like crying. He knew that he was sad, but he was overpowered by a tiredness like he had never felt before, which slowed everything down and made him feel heavy, so heavy… his eyes were closing on their own. 

And that is when a strange fox stepped out of the bushes. 

She was blue, a shimmering, almost sky-like blue which had her lustrous fur shimmer with each of her mouvements. And she didn’t have just one tail, but four, which shifted and seemed to float after each of her step, like a trailing thought. It was one of the most graceful creatures Mirio had been given to see, truly; he was stunned. 

Or he would be if he wasn’t perfectly content to remain right where he was, completely still. 

“Why, it’s a child,” she said. “A small one too. I thought that a trapper had been lost again.”

She was talking about him, but the realisation seemed to only hit him after the fact, like in slow motion. And, really, it didn’t really matter if there was a talking fox right there, as long as he got to remain still and not move. 

“What is your name, child?” asked the fox. 

“Mirio,” he said. 

“I see,” said the fox. “Mine is Serentina, and I am a Foxtopi… are you aware that you are on my and my mate’s domain?” 

Mirio shrugged. 

“What are you doing here, Mirio?” 

He shrugged again, this time slower. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that this place, leaning against a random tree in the deepest part of the woods, was anywhere. He hoped that it didn’t matter too much because he still didn’t feel like moving.

But it seemed that something about his demeanour worried the creature… the Foxtopi named Serentina. She tilted her head, took a few more steps in his direction, and sniffed him. 

“You smell sweet, Mirio,” she said. “But also… are you all right”

Mirio shrugged, then closed his eyes. The more time passed, the more comfortable this tree felt. Which was surprising. He didn’t remember trees feeling so comfy that he could sleep against them… 

“Oh dear,” said the fox. 

Mirio heard something that sounded like cloth unfurling, but not quite. This got him to open his eyes once more, only to see that there was now a beautiful woman where the fox had once been, reaching for him. Her skin was the same colour as the fur of the fox, so he immediately wondered if they were the same creature… not that it mattered. 

She took his hand through his gloves and he felt like a shock of warms shoot through them; it was painful, and he realised that it was only revealing the true pain his limbs were going through as they were slowly freezing - a pain that was being numbed. He winced. 

“You’re too cold,” said Serentina. “If this goes on you will freeze. Where are your parents?” 

“Mom… mom is at home…” 

“Did you get lost?” 

“I don’t know…”

“I see. You’re only human after all, I can’t leave you here…”

The woman reached for him, picked him up from his spot, and held him in her arms as she stood up. He knew that he shouldn’t be following strangers, or let strangers take him anywhere at all, but he was too weak to resist. Weak because the cold was getting to him again, the magic had only been a jolt for him. And he wasn’t even sure if that role applied to talking foxes that turned into women… it probably did. 

She started to walk, carrying him away. Even though she was in a long dress, she didn’t seem hindered by the snow or bother by the cold.

He wondered if he should tell her about the thing in his back. Not that he had the strength to explain or even knew what was happening, actually, but that was maybe important for her to know. Maybe she would understand why he had to run away from home after his mom told him to if he told her about it. 

Or maybe she would kill him. His mother’s warning sounded loud and clear in his mind… and Mirio didn’t want to be killed. 

The rythme of her steps were a back and forth that was almost like a rocking; Mirio felt his eyelids become heavier and heavier with each moment. He almost started… to feel warm…

Something changed around him, a shift in pressure and a rise of magic, like feeling a water current running through planks of wood. He opened his eyes once again, but it was already too late and things had changed around him. Instead of a woodland, she was now walking up a path in a park which was tended to carefully. His head was too heavy otherwise for him to lift it and he couldn’t see where they were going. 

He heard a door open before he saw its edges appear in his field of vision, and a wave of heat hit him from all around. He was inside some place, a house; he felt a little uneasy but he had no other recourse but to let things happen.

“I’ve found this child alone in the woods,” said Serentina. “He is not doing all right, he’s freezing. Lit a fire and prepare a warm drink of some kind…”

She passed whoever she was talking to swiftly, without an answer from them, and entered another room. Mirio felt his cheeks tingling from the heat but didn’t feel the heat itself - being warm was painful but he was too weak to protest or rub his cheeks to make them numb. 

“Don’t give up now,” she said. “Stay with me Mirio.”

She set him down on a seat and went to pry away his coat. That is when he realised that the coat had been wet, and then had frozen; it was stiff and hard to pull off, and Serentina had to move him around so that he could slide out. Once that was done, she pulled off the glove that remained - the other had gone with the coat - and his scarf, which had been tucked in his collar. Finally, she wrapped him tightly in a wool blanket before pulling off his boots. 

He felt a lot lighter but still very tired. 

“Give me your hands,” she said. 

He gave them to her and he felt, once more, a jolt running through him, but this time more pronounced; it was painful, but not a sort of pain that he couldn’t stand. He whined and tried to pull his hand away but she had a firm grasp on it and refused to let it go. 

“Here,” she said. “Here, take some of my power.” 

She let go of him shortly after that, but by the time that happened there was sharp tingles in the end of all of Mirio’s limbs as his hands and feet awoke from their numbness. He pulled them all under the blanket and rubbed them together, a little disoriented. She, on the other hand, watched as life was blown back into the child, nodded, then stood up. 

“I think we caught it before it because really bad. The frostbite, that is.” 

Frostbite was a really good name for what Mirio had felt before, and so he knew right away that this was what he had gone through even if he had never heard the word before - his mother had always talked about “catching a cold” when she had expressed concerns about him going outside.

“You are still going to need lots of rest and good warmth,” said Serentina. “Otherwise you’ll be weak and you will catch something nasty. Who could have sent you out there in this weather?” 

She didn’t wait for an answer that Mirio didn’t have and left somewhere. She walked with the determination and the ardor of someone that often had a purpose and wasn’t used to have her will denied. He had seen women like that, the teacher of his village, the occasional lady that came by, women with status and power and so even if he was young he recognised the energy. But that begged the question: what did she command in this forest? 

Someone else came into the room soon after, someone with footsteps that sounded very different from the ones of Serentina. He turned the head, and what he saw emerging from behind the couch and in front of him was the most stunning creature he could have imagined. 

It was humanoid in shape, but clearly made of stone, or at least looked like some sort of carved statue. Shiny eyes, and at every articulations there was some wooden fibre that bent like flesh would. It walked to the fireplace without sparing Mirio a single glance, carrying a basket filled with logs, that it started to place in a pile after having dusted the ashes out of the way. 

It prepared a fire like Mirio’s mother did when it got cold in their home, with tinder and a flint stone. It remained still before the small flames to see if the fire was catching on then, very slowly, it turned its head to look at Mirio on the sofa behind it. Its eyes were two pits of unnatural darkness with a spot of white that looked like a pupil. And its eyes were the only feature in its face! The rest was smooth and marble-like. 

Mirio didn’t dare move. He was terrified. He was relieved when he heard Serentina’s steps once more.

“Is the fire ready?” she said; from the sound of her voice she had just entered the room. “What are you standing around doing? You can see that the fire is burning, now go! Go get the milk warmed.” 

The thing stood up and started to walk away. Serentina appeared once more in Mirio’s field of vision. She fussed a bit with the folds of his wool blanket, rearranging them without making a difference, before she turned around suddenly. 

“Perhaps we can get the sofa closer to the fireplace, it’s going to take a while before it’s really hot enough to reach you. Too bad for the cinders that fly around and make holes.”

Serentina waved her hands in the air and Mirio felt the entire piece of furniture move below him. He realised that she was using magic! And she hadn’t even uttered a word to cast the spell. That was completely different from the magic he had seen in the past. 

Maybe she would teach him…? 

He was a lot close to the fire now, but he felt strong enough to look at something else. He started to move, got on his knees while keeping the blanket around him and tried to follow what Serentina was doing around the room. She seemed to be fetching some more pillows from other seats and various items. She seemed worried for him and he could tell that she was fussing. 

But that was when he realised how opulent his surroundings were. There was a large oil painting on the wall showing a few artistically nude women near a creak; some of which had horns and other non-human appendages. And there was an astonished amount of ornate furniture all around, some of which had golden strings, as well as ornate sculptures in the furniture and plaster moulds in the corner of the room that looked like vines. He was starting to doubt his own memory, because he couldn’t quite understand how a place with this many wonderful and expensive things in it could be in the middle of the woods. Maybe he had slept, and she had brought him into a big and affluent town? 

He somehow doubted it, but he also struggled to make sense of it all. 

“My wife is not home, but if she was she wouldn’t be pleased with the fact that I brought a human in her home. But who cares…” she came before the sofa and placed a bunch of cushions all around Mirio as she kept talking. “She’s gone who-knows-where, at the other side of the world, “fetching ingredients” she says. It’s a joke, and she leaves me here on month on end with no news… so I do what I want. And even if she was here, I’d tell her that I couldn’t leave you to did. You’re just a child, what monster leaves a child to freeze to death? Her, maybe, because she doesn’t like humans… how is that? Are you comfortable?” 

He was almost as comfortable as he had been in the snow as he was about to be frostbitten, except that this time he felt warm as well. He nodded at her and she offered him a brief smile.

“Good,” she said. “I sent a golem to get something to drink for you, it should be back in a moment. Something warm.” 

“Milk?” 

“Goat milk, yes. From our goats. We have goats because their ingredients are often useful for all sorts of potions…”

She trailed off, seemingly thinking of something in relation to what she had just said. And then she frowned, displeased, and grumbled,

“Of course, that my wife likes to use in potions… but since she’s not around, we only have them for the milk. And they keep escaping and destroying the garden, which is a bother… my poor snow flowers. And all the rare ingredients that they have gobbled up… we can get horns as payements rather than have goats; I’ll have them killed and serve them at the welcome feast of my wife’s return.” 

Serentina wandered away once more, and didn’t come back for a while. Mirio was a little surprised by this and wondered what she was doing, but during that time the fire was starting to really catch on and was quite entertaining to watch. He observed it, and realised that his eyelids were becoming extremely heavy. 

There was one more interruption to his rest though. The thing that Serentina had called a golem came back, its steps heavy on the ground and waking Mirio from his half-slumber. The child watched the thing drag around a table that was around the height of the sofa until it was in front of him, then place a jug of smoking milk and a glass on it before leaving without another word. Mirio still thought it was creepy, but he was now convinced that the golem wasn’t harmful. He served himself a glass of milk, used it to warm his hands for a while, then placed it down and went to nap for good. 

He woke to Serentina sitting next to him and stroking his hair with one of her four tails. It was very gentle, so gentle that he could have remained half-sleeping, but he was too curious to not look at what was happening. 

He looked up, and noticed that what he had first observed to be mere tails were in fact tentacles; he hadn’t taken a good look at them up to that point. He trusted Serentina, so even if the appendages struck him as odd and even bizarre, he wasn’t spooked by them. 

“You’re awake, Mirio,” she said.

“Yeah?” 

“I had to leave for a while, there was something I had to check about where you had come from. You’ve been walking for quite a while in that forest, haven’t you?”

“Yes…”

“Can you tell me about where you come from?” 

“I come, erm… I come from Buckrest.”

“Buckrest?” She seems surprised. “My, that’s even further than I thought. No wonder you were freezing. Did you walk all night in the woods?” 

“Two nights, I think,” said Mirio. 

“Two nights?” 

She looked at Mirio a little strange, frowning like she was trying to think of something. Mirio, still lying on the pillows, looking at her on the side, was still pretty sleepy and couldn’t guess what she was thinking about, not even a little bit. 

“You walked all night in those clothes? Wasn’t it dark?” 

“No, no…” said Mirio. “When it was too dark, I slept where I could.” 

“In the snow?”

“I wasn’t cold at the beginning… I’m cold only after a long time. It’s because I have a lot of magic in me…” 

“A lot of magic, huh?” repeated Serentina. “Well, I suppose it makes sense, yes, that you would have a bit of that. You must have depleted it to keep warm.” 

He nodded. He didn’t know what depleted meant but he was certain that it explained what had happened to him, just like when she had used the word frostbite. 

“But that doesn’t explain why you were in those woods, Mirio,” she said. 

He didn’t answer.

“You can tell me, you know,” she added. “I can help you.” 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just…” Beat. “I ate a pastry from a funny bad as he was selling them, and it was just a coin… and then, after, I got very sick. My back… my back was hurting a lot. Mom said there’s something in it, now.”

Serentina stayed quiet for a while, looking at him; it was the intensity of her gaze that had made him quiet, he was scared that he had said something bad he shouldn’t be saying, even if she had said that it was okay.

“What else did your mother say about it?” she asked when she realised that he had become quiet. 

 “She also said that people would kill me if they find out.”

“Kill a child? And so she told you to run away because of that?” 

“Yes. She said that I had to hide, and that I couldn’t show my back to anyone. Or they would kill me.” 

“I see… Mirio,” she said. “Can I see your back?” 

He pulled his blanket closer to him, as if to try to stop her from tearing it off him. But she didn’t have the intention to do any of that, in fact she only seemed to look at him with more gentleness in her blue eyes. 

“I will do nothing, I will just look. I think… that we are more alike than you would think, you and I. I will not kill you, but I need to know what happened to you. And I will know if I see it.” 

“I think there is something in my back,” said Mirio. 

“I know.”

“Something… something alive.” 

Serentina nodded. “I think so too.”

“Is it bad?” 

“Oh… Mirio. Don’t worry. You will be okay. I found you. And I won’t let anything happen to you. I don’t think it’s bad… what’s done is done. But if it’s trying to be bad, or if it will be, I will stop it. You see, I know powerful magic… I can do a lot of things. I can even create golems.”

“The thing that turned on the fire?” 

“Yes, I can create that, so you can see, I am powerful. And my wife, the mistress of this house, is even more powerful. So you must not worry. But I can’t do anything or know anything if I can’t look.”

Mirio hesitated for a while longer - a lot longer. He had only just met her but he wanted to trust her; he wouldn’t call her “like his mother” because she wasn’t, she was very different, but she reminded him of the mother of a friend which had always been very kind and gentle with him. And he had no one else to tell him what he should do, and he didn’t know what to do otherwise. He wanted to give her the right to make decisions for him because he could sense that she knew what she was talking about and only wanted to help him. 

Without a word, he stood up and shedded his blanket. And then he started to take off his shirt with his back to her. 

She gasped, covered her mouth as her eyes widened in horror, and suddenly he was very scared that something was not right. 

“What is it?” he said. 

“Nothing, nothing— calm down, stay calm… I can take care of this.” 

“What is it?” he repeated. 

He reached behind him, tried to touch his back. And that’s when he found it, between his shoulder blades and right under the back of his neck: strings jutting out of a bump, scarred skin, wound crust. He knew that this wasn’t right, he knew that this was what had made her react: when he touched it, he realised that the bump was entirely numb and that it felt nothing, which was why he hadn’t discovered it earlier. 

Scared out of his mind, the child started to cry. 

“No-no-no, baby, don’t cry, it’s all right.” 

She turned him around and she embraced him. But he couldn’t stop crying, too much was happening at once and the bubble was finally bursting. Tears rolled down his cheeks and there was too much snot in his nose; he ugly cried, and with it came all the worry that a child his age shouldn’t have to carry but that had been placed upon him anyway. 

She seemed to understand that there was no stopping it once it had started, and didn’t tell him to stop crying again. But she held him with the calm and the quiet of someone that wasn’t worried, and even though he was still scared it was her demeanour that let him know that it was all right. Even if he shuddered in disgust at the thought of touching the bump once more, even if he hated that it was on his back, he calmed eventually, even if his body kept shaking and small sobs escaped him.

“It’s just a scar,” she said. “Just a very ugly scar on your back, it’s fine…” 

“What happened?” he asked. 

“You don’t know? You don’t remember?” 

Mirio thought, for a moment, that he was going to cry again, but it was only a passing sob, a small fit. The storm had passed, and there were few tears to cry at the moment. It would come back, but later. 

“You don’t know… why would they do such a thing, and who could do that to you?” 

“Was it the thing in my back that did this?” 

“No, it wasn’t… the wound, it’s…” she hesitated before describing the marks she had seen. “It’s sown with string. From the outside. Someone did this to you, it has nothing to do with what’s in you. And there’s a second one at the bottom of your back, right where the tails would be coming out if you were me.” 

She leaned back and looked at him in the face. 

“Mirio, I think they tried to sew in whatever it was that is in your back. Like… lock it in.”

“Why?” 

“To hide it, probably. But they can’t do that. They probably didn’t know better… did some sort of doctor come to visit while your back was hurting? Do you remember?” 

Mirio did remember a doctor, the village doctor which came for visits when he had a cold… he had come while his mother had kept him in his room, and they had discussed things in a hushed voice in the living room even before he had come to see him. 

“Yes,” he said. “But he only gave me medicine.”

“What sort of medicine?” 

“In a cup. It tasted very very bad but he said I had to drink all of it.”

“And then… did you sleep?” 

Mirio remembered that part only confusedly, like he had dreamt it… he remembered sitting on his bed as his mother and the doctor waited in silence. 

“I think I did,” he said. “Right after that. It wasn’t painful… my back wasn’t painful.”

“That medicine must have put you to sleep. That’s when it happened.”

 Mirio didn’t reply. He shuddered in horror though at the thought that this horrible thing had been done to him by someone he trusted. He remembered the doctor… he had such a kind face.

“And I need to open it back up,” she said. “I cannot know what you have in your back without that.”

Mirio tried to back away, as his first instinct was to try to get as far as he could from anyone that would to this to him again. “No,” he said. 

“I have to, Mirio. You’re going to have to be a very courageous little boy. I will give you the same medicine that makes you sleep, and when you’re sleeping and feel nothing I’ll pull the strings away. It’s like you just take a little nap.”

Mirio felt tears well up. 

“No no,” said Serentina. “There is no need to cry. It will not hurt. But I have to do it if I want to help you. It could even be that… oh, I don’t want to scare you, but if it chocks and dies because it can’t breathe, that you will die too, and I will not allow this to happen. It’s the only way I can help, Mirio.” 

He looked away from her, at the fire that was still very hot but slowly dying out. He himself couldn’t quite articulate why he was so terrorised, but he couldn’t make the fear go away. He remembered his father telling him that true courage came when one was scared but acted anyway for the great good; he realised that now was such a moment to show true courage. 

“It will not hurt at all?” 

“It might hurt when you wake up,” said Serentina. “But I will give you medicine so that it doesn’t, and you’ll just need a few days to recover. And then I’ll never have to do it again.” 

Mirio remained quiet; more than thinking, he was doing his best to still his beating heart. He didn’t manage, but he steered his resolve and nodded anyway. 

“I will do it, I will take the medicine,” he said. 

“You are a very, very brave little boy,” said Serentina. “Come. We’ll do it now, there’s no time to lose.” 

He put his shirt back on and followed her out of the room. His heart was beating, beating, beating, but he wasn’t as scared anymore. Now that he had decided, a strange calm was filling him. He followed her, as it was said before, to a strange sort of lab that she seemed to know well; she had soon found the same concoction that the doctor had given him and had prepared it for him. And he, with her encouragements, drank it to the very last drop.