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This is the Beginning 
by Donna J. W. Munro 

Content warning: Deals with the aftermath of rape, historically.

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Meredith hated the woods.

Inky shadows. Paths that led to nowhere. Glittering eyes punctuating the dark.

Every bone, every thought rebelled against following the forbidden path to the witch.

Yet, who would help her if she didn’t?

She hummed a trembling song as she followed the narrow trail deeper into the wood. Birdsong thinned as daylight faded. As night fell, shifting leaves revealed pinprick stars so bright Meredith thought she might touch them. It was all nature’s vile magic. If only she could go back to Pa and Moe.

She couldn’t though.

Not with what she was carrying.

The underbrush thickened on the sides of the trail and mist rose from the roots of trees, cold fingers touching her ankles. As she went, the bright gazes of night creatures watched her cross their territory. Foxes she’d thrown stones at when they’d stolen chickens chuffed from their dens. Owls hooted on branches worn with claw marks. Raccoons laughed on the edge of the path and coyotes yipping in the deeper dark.

She understood their calls and they made something inside ache with need.

She wouldn’t listen. They were darkness. Her brother Moe was the light. Church was the light. Her home…

Only since that night, it didn’t feel like home.

He’d taken that from her.

“It’s me or the church, pretty Meredith. You have a week to decide. Shame your father or take my hand,” he’s said leaving her sobbing in the shadow of the manor. His home. Hers if she’d take him.

In a week, she’d felt the seed root. She’d vomited every morning and the wives who shared the coup whispered between hens. Meredith knew they’d share more than gossip when she showed. They’d share shame and blame with her if she give herself to the convent.

At least there her punishment would be private.

Meredith shook her head to drive the thoughts away. None of it meant a thing if she didn’t stop the unwanted gift growing inside. The nuns took spoiled flowers, but not fruiting ones.

As she got closer, she remembered the things her mother and the priests taught about witches. How she should be trembling seeking out the servant of Satan this way.

But her tears had been cried over the blameless manor boy who bowed and prayed and ate the host without choking on it even after what he’d done to her. She only had tears for Papa and Moe. Only they deserved her worries.

She’d go away and spend the rest of her life atoning and Papa would understand.

He’d never blame her.

He’d sent her with the tax, after all.

He couldn’t leave the field or there’d be no food, so she went into the manor boy’s trap.

Remembering blinded her and Meredith’s foot snagged on a stone. Something caught her and lowered her gently to the forest floor. Warm power surged around her. She kneeled inside the wonder of it, brighter than slanting sun through the stained church windows back home.

The cone of light filled the glade with a brilliant white. In the center, a dark figure stood as tall as a tree.

“Meredith, why do you mourn?” The figure asked, glaring down at her.

Meredith’s fear about her father and brother faded, until the only thing that she was aware of was the thing the boy from the manor had given her. It pulsed in the center of her.

Meredith sobbed.

It is the end of my freedom.

It is a reminder of my pain.

My father’s shame, my brother’s fights when he hears I’m a whore.

Unwanted.

Unasked for.

The truths flowed from into the swirling energy around them.

The figure swept forward and knelt in front of Meredith., suddenly just an old woman with ruddy cheeks and smiling eyes.

“It’s not your fault, Meredith.” The old woman put her hand over the bump. “It doesn’t know shame or hurt right now, but it will. If it is born, it will bear your sadness, your father’s shame ,and the hate of the act that made him.”

Meredith knew it was truth.

“I can’t go back home. The women know. But I can be free of the manor boy. I can spend my life in penance––”

“For what?” Around them the cone of light faded, leaving the bright eyes of nature peering out from every scrub brush.

“For…” Meredith remembered delivering the tax with down cast eyes. Pulling her shawl tight to hide her hair. She was all the things the priest said a good woman was. Humble. Modest. And he still pulled her down into the chaff. He laughed as she fought. “I don’t know.”

The old woman pulled her up and tucked her into the warm folds of her cloak. “Tea. Tea and then if you still want to be free, I will do it. It will hurt but the babe will return to the goddess. You will heal. No child should be born of hate. No woman should be made to bear her attacker’s seed.”

They walked to the woman’s cottage. It was as tall as the old church, made of the boughs of the trees, risen rocks with windows of crystal, and a roof of moss. The windows glowed with flickering light and the shadows of woman inside.

“After… you can stay. Help us care for others.”

A convent without the punishment? A place where she would have value instead of a stain? Meredith nodded and followed the woman inside to a room with a padded bed and a low stool.

“Will I go to hell?” Meredith asked, gaze skimming the knives. “If I die?”

The old woman chuckled and gave Meredith a gown and some sleeping willow to chew. “As far as I can tell, you just left hell, child. We walk into a kinder future here.”

Fiction © Copyright Donna J. W. Munro
Image © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose

More from author Donna J. W. Munro:

Revelation: Poppet Cycle Book One

In a dark future, people with money live in doomed cities and use the recently deceased as
repurposed servants and workers called poppets. Ellie DesLoge is the teen heiress of the
company that makes and distributes poppets–your basic reprogrammed flesh robot complete
with training chips and kill switches. If Ellie does everything her Aunt Cordelia says, she’ll have a
life of wealth and power. If she chooses to be what is planned for her, life will be perfect.
Everything she ever dreamed. But something about her sweet poppet Thom goes against what
Aunt Cordelia and tradition have taught her. Will she choose to believe what everyone knows is
true or will she follow what her heart tells her about Thom? Her choice will change the world.

Available on Amazon!