The Springborn

SABELLA

JANUARY 1, 1886

I t is the first morning of the New Year, and strangely warm for January.

Antlers discarded, I walk along the banks of a winding stream. Pieces of ice stick up from it like shards of glass, sparkling in the bright sunlight. Clear water burbles and hisses as it flows against and around the ice.

A few yards upstream, a buck bends its sleek, brown neck and laps water. His antlers are majestic, a wild crown spreading above his ears. I hold my breath until he ambles away.

My fingers probe beneath my woolen bonnet and find the twin stubs of my antlers. These little nubs have no feeling, like fingernails. Less than two hours since Father’s sawing, they’ve grown by only the smallest of degrees. But if I tarry past sunset and into the night, they will lift the bonnet up off my head or poke through it.

I lean over the stream, then push the bonnet back so it falls to sag behind my neck. I squint downward to catch my reflection. My face is milky pale, as one might expect in a girl who is a stranger to the noonday sun. My eyes are brown flecked with green and gold. The stubs of my antlers sit surrounded by my reddish-brown hair, almost hidden. I spread my hands over my head to imitate the buck’s rack. I can only imagine what I must look like with my own antlers fully formed, since Mother forbids me to look into the mirror before Father attends to my “affliction.” Might the antlers lend some beauty to my appearance?

If someone were to observe me in my true state, would they tremble with fear or sigh with wonder?

Do I hate the antlers, as Mother and Father do? Sometimes. They have cost me much and yielded only misery. But the antlers have been part of me long enough that I imagine to lose them forever would seem like losing a hand or foot. I often wonder if they were meant as a gift or a curse—or both.

A branch snaps nearby. A chickadee in the brush sounds a warning call as it takes flight. I replace my bonnet hastily and scan my surroundings. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash against the snowy landscape. A silhouette ducking behind a hemlock tree, a wisp of someone dressed all in black.

I freeze like a startled fawn. Nausea twists my stomach. Could the watcher perceive from afar the two small bumps on the head of this imprudent girl? I hope with all my heart that he is merely a passerby, someone who did not recognize me. As I rarely leave the house, most of the townspeople would be hard pressed to name me on sight, but still…

There’s rustling in the brush, and I think I hear the soft thud of his footfalls grow fainter and fainter. I wait long minutes, hardly daring to blink until I am certain he is gone.

The man has fled, but to where? Whom might he tell if he has seen my secret?

My ruination, Mother’s favorite prophecy, could be at hand.

I should run, but my knees wobble with weakness and my mouth is dry as a desert. I stoop to capture a handful of water. I drink, and the liquid’s chill numbs my throat. Bitter cold spreads throughout my body as I realize the stranger has stolen something valuable from me: the peace I’d known in wandering alone. From now on, I must get rid of the antlers in haste and return home without delay.

What was left of my girlhood freedom has vanished like a vapor in the wind.