Chapter 7: The Face of Hunger

Chapter 7: The Face of Hunger

The moonlight in Huldra’s Rest was a sterile, unforgiving white. It bleached the color from the mossy ground and turned the surrounding pines into jagged black cutouts against a starless sky. Alex stood in the center of the clearing, his breath pluming in the frigid air, the iron spike and ash branch held in a death grip. The woods behind him were silent now, the tormenting whispers gone, but the presence he had felt stalking him was still here. It was no longer hiding. It was waiting.

He scanned the ring of trees, his heart a frantic, trapped bird beating against the cage of his ribs. The silence was the most terrifying part. It was a listening silence, ancient and patient, the silence of a predator that knows its prey has finally run out of room to flee.

Then, from the deepest shadow between two towering pines, something moved.

It wasn't a sudden lunge, but a slow, deliberate unfolding, like a nightmare taking form. A single, impossibly long arm, pale as bone and jointed like a spider's leg, reached out and gripped the trunk of a tree. The fingers were thin, ending in dirty, claw-like nails. Another arm followed, and then the figure stepped out of the darkness and into the stark moonlight.

Alex’s breath hitched in a choked, silent scream. The silhouette he’d glimpsed in the woods was a crude sketch; this was the finished, terrifying portrait. It was a horrifying mockery of a woman, standing nearly eight feet tall, its emaciated frame wrapped in what looked like gray, mottled skin or ancient bark. Its limbs were too long, bending at angles that defied biology, giving its slow, deliberate walk a grotesque, insect-like quality. Long, matted black hair hung in a greasy curtain, completely obscuring its face. From beneath the filth of its hair, a single, coarse, gnarled cow’s tail dragged listlessly on the moss.

This was it. The face of his nightmares. The architect of thirty years of guilt. The Huldra.

It stopped ten paces from him, its body unnervingly still. The air grew thick, heavy with the cloying, sweet smell of decay he’d noticed on the path. Alex raised the iron spike, the metal feeling like a child’s toy against this towering monstrosity.

“I’m here for the feather,” he managed to croak, the words tasting like sand in his mouth.

For a long moment, the creature was silent. Then, the curtain of matted hair shifted, and from the deep, absolute blackness where a face should be, two golden eyes ignited. They were not the eyes of a beast. They held a chilling, ancient intelligence, and they fixed on him with an unnerving focus.

When it spoke, the sound was a horror in itself. It was a layered, discordant voice—a rustling of dry leaves, a scraping of stone, and the faintest, most terrible undertone of a woman’s whisper, all woven together into a sound that vibrated deep in Alex’s bones.

“The feather is the prize,” it rasped, the words seeming to come from the air around it rather than a mouth. “The prize for the chosen. You are not the chosen. You are the father.”

Its unnatural stillness was more terrifying than any sudden movement. It was studying him, appraising him. The cold iron in his hand pulsed with a faint warmth, and he saw the creature’s long fingers twitch, a subtle acknowledgment of the repellent metal. Abernathy was right. It felt it.

“I’ve come in her place,” Alex said, finding a sliver of courage in that small reaction. “The game was for her, but I’m answering the call. Take me. Let her go.”

The golden eyes seemed to narrow, a flicker of what might have been curiosity, or perhaps amusement. “An interesting offer. The pact is old. It was made to claim the town’s children. A tribute of innocence to keep the hunger at bay.”

The creature took a slow, silent step forward, its too-long limbs moving with a horrifying grace. “The pact demands a child whose token is taken. It does not speak of a parent who comes in their stead. But the debt… the debt must be paid. A life was offered in the circle. A life must be given at the creek.”

It tilted its head, a gesture so unnervingly human it made Alex’s skin crawl. “You are a Miller. The second of your line to stand before me. The first ran. You… you have come back. The debt of your sister’s life was never paid in full. Your fear was only a sip. But your life, given willingly for your child’s… that would be a feast.”

The deal hung in the air, heavy and poisonous. His own life. A clean trade. His guilt for Ruth, his love for Lily—it all coalesced into a single, screaming impulse. To say yes. To end the fear, to pay the price, to save his daughter. It was an escape. A final, absolute penance.

He opened his mouth to agree, to accept the terms of this monstrous contract.

But before he could speak, a new voice cut through the clearing. A young girl’s voice, bright and familiar.

“He’s very brave, isn’t he?”

Alex’s blood turned to ice. From behind the towering form of the Huldra, a small figure stepped into the moonlight. She wore a simple, old-fashioned dress, and her dark hair was long and neat. She looked about twelve years old. She looked exactly like the faded photographs in his mother’s albums.

It was Ruth.

His sister. Or a perfect, phantom copy of her. She wasn’t a shimmering ghost or a terrifying specter. She looked solid. Real. And she was smiling, a calm, pleasant smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were empty, reflecting the cold moonlight like chips of glass.

This was the girl Lily had met. The friend who had taught her the game. The lure.

“Ruth?” Alex whispered, his voice breaking. The iron spike suddenly felt immensely heavy, and his arm trembled.

The phantom of his sister tilted her head, her smile unwavering. “Hello, Alex. I told you I was waiting.” Her voice was the same one that had tormented him in the woods, the perfect imitation of a memory he held sacred.

He stared at her, then back at the monstrous creature she stood beside as if it were her parent. The Huldra’s golden eyes glowed with satisfaction. The connection was undeniable, a master and its tool. His grief, his deepest wound, had been fashioned into a weapon and turned against his own daughter. The sheer, calculated cruelty of it was a physical blow.

“She is a good lure,” the Huldra’s voice scraped through the clearing. “Born of your own memory. Your own guilt. She whispers to the lonely. She teaches them the game. She brings them to my table.”

The phantom Ruth took another step forward, her smile widening into something that was no longer pleasant. It was sharp. Predatory. “It’s a fair trade, Alex. Your life for Lily’s. You can finally make up for running away. You can be a hero this time.”

The offer, which moments ago had seemed like a noble sacrifice, was now revealed for what it truly was: the final, exquisite turn of the screw. It wasn't just about taking his life. It was about making him surrender his will, his hope, his defiance. It wanted him to break, to give in to the guilt it had so expertly cultivated.

He looked at the smiling phantom that wore his sister's face, then at the towering, ancient hunger standing behind her. He saw the trap in its entirety. The game. The lure. The impossible choice. It was all a perfectly designed machine to harvest despair.

A cold, hard fury began to burn through the fog of his terror. They hadn't just targeted his daughter. They had defiled the memory of his sister. They had used his love and his grief as bait.

They thought they had him cornered. They thought they had won.

He tightened his grip on the mountain ash, the brittle wood a fragile promise of defiance. He looked past the smiling phantom, directly into the Huldra’s cold, golden eyes. The pact would be honored, it had said. A debt would be paid.

But not like this.