Chapter 6 CHAPTER 6
The world was still dark when Cindy stirred. Her eyes opened to a blur of treetops bending against the dawn wind, shadows stretched long and uneven across the forest floor. For a moment she didn’t remember. Her limbs were heavy, her skin raw from the cold earth, her breath unsteady. Then sensation rushed in - dirt clinging to her bare skin, leaves knotted in her hair, the ache of bones that had been broken and reshaped.
She was naked.
Cindy sat up quickly, arms crossing her chest, though there was no one to see her shame. The chill bit at her skin, and with it came a strange tackiness around her mouth. She licked her lips instinctively and froze. Something bitter coated them. She lifted trembling fingers to her mouth, pulled away, and gasped at the dark smear staining them. Blood.
Her heart thundered. She pressed her tongue to her teeth, searching. Something lodged there, tough, sinewy. She tugged it loose and stared at the sliver of flesh pinched between her fingers. Raw meat.
Her stomach twisted violently, and she scrambled backward on her hands, gagging. Panic surged through her chest as she stared at her filthy fingers, caked with dirt and blood. Her voice cracked the silence.
“Lisa… what did you do without me?”
The answer came at once, smooth and steady in her mind, as though the other presence had been waiting.
We were hungry, Lisa said, unapologetic. I only found something to eat.
Tears pricked Cindy’s eyes. “Oh my God. Did you… did you kill someone?” Her voice broke on the last word.
No. Relax. Lisa’s voice was firm, almost amused. It was only a rabbit. A small one. I would never harm our own kind – unless you want me to.
The reassurance cooled the edges of Cindy’s terror, though not the shame crawling over her skin. She drew her knees to her chest, rocking slightly. She had no memory of it - no rabbit, no hunt, no tearing flesh. Only darkness, and the howl that had torn itself from her throat before the world went blank.
Her gaze fell to the tatters of fabric clinging to her thighs. Her only dress - shredded, useless. She searched around her, but the forest floor gave her nothing. Lisa had wandered the night away, carrying her body through woods far from where she had shifted. She didn’t even know the way back.
It was still night-black beneath the trees when she forced herself to stand. Naked, trembling, she wrapped her arms around her chest and started walking. The dirt pressed cold against her bare feet, twigs snapping beneath her steps. Every rustle in the underbrush made her flinch. She had never felt so small, so lost, so terribly human despite the power that lived within her.
The trees thinned. She recognized the edge of the Hale’s property by the broken fence post, by the row of pine stumps her foster father had cut last winter. A sob clawed at her throat, but she swallowed it. Home. If she could slip inside before dawn, she could wash, she could change, she could pretend nothing had happened.
She crept to the back of the house, heart hammering. But just as her hand brushed the doorframe, voices shattered the silence.
“Anna!” Mrs. Hale’s voice rose sharp and commanding. “Get up this instant. You’re not going to sleep the day away. I need help with breakfast.”
A groan carried back from the window above. Anna’s voice, still thick with sleep, floated into the dark yard. “Why are you waking me? Cindy’s the housemaid, remember? She should be the one cooking. But you threw her out. Deal with the breakfast without me please. This is your doing. Sending her away without thinking.”
“She’ll be back, she can’t survive out there without our help.” Hilda Hale said calmly “In the meantime, wake up and help with some of the chores. There’s just so many things to do, I wonder how she was able to finish everything by herself”
“She is a machine – cindy.” Anna said groggily.
The words slammed into Cindy like stones.
Her breath caught, the memory rushing back - the jeering crowd, Sebastian’s rejection, her mother’s fury, the shame. The Hale’s house was not home. It had never been. It was chains, and she had worn them long enough.
Her body shook. She pressed her back to the cold wall, teeth digging into her lip until she tasted iron. Go inside? Crawl back into servitude? No. Not this time.
Her eyes darted to the clothesline strung between two posts at the edge of the yard. Dresses and skirts swayed gently in the predawn breeze. She had washed them by hand at dawn yesterday when they were all sleeping, right before cleaning the house and making breakfast – breakfast that she couldn’t even have until the rest of the family had their fill. And they dared call her a machine?
With trembling hands, she reached for one - a plain cotton dress, too big but serviceable - and tugged it over her head. It hung loose, brushing her knees. She found a shawl too, and wrapped it around her shoulders, the fabric smelling faintly of soap and smoke.
Her bare feet hesitated in the dirt. She looked once at the window, where Anna’s shadow moved against the curtain, then turned away.
She would not go back.
Her steps carried her beyond the fence, past the woodpile, into the mist that curled low over the ground. The village path stretched ahead, empty at this hour, the torches from last night’s festival long extinguished. Each step felt like breaking a chain link, like leaving pieces of herself scattered behind.
“Where am I going?” she whispered aloud, her voice too small to be heard.
Away, Lisa answered calmly. That is enough for now.
“But I have nothing. No family. No place to go.”
You have me. Lisa’s voice was steady, unshaken. And we will find where we belong.
Cindy pressed her arms tighter around her body, the stolen fabric clinging to her damp skin. The air smelled of ash and pine, of yesterday’s fires gone cold. Her bare feet stung with every pebble on the path, but she didn’t slow. The Hale’s voices faded behind her, swallowed by the fog.
The first streaks of gray touched the horizon as she walked. Her breath trembled, her tears drying on her cheeks. She was alone, yes. Scared. But with each step away from the Hale’s house, a sliver of something else stirred inside her. Not quite hope - she wasn’t ready for hope. But a defiance, a whisper that she could choose her own way.
The village lay silent. Beyond it, the forest stretched wide and endless, a dark sea of trees and secrets. She had no destination, no plan, no one waiting for her. Only the echo of rejection in her chest, the bite of dirt on her skin, and the wolf inside her, watching.
Cindy lifted her face to the paling sky. The Moon had already dipped low, its silver edge fading, but in her chest Lisa’s voice curled warm and resolute.
Keep walking, Cindy. We are not theirs anymore.
Her lips parted. She drew a ragged breath and stepped off the path, away from the Hale’s, away from the girl she had been. The mist swallowed her figure, leaving no trace but her footprints in the dirt.
For the first time, Cindy Hales did not look back.