*Elderglen, 1842*
They buried the boy at midnight.
No name carved into the headstone. No prayers whispered. Only the sound of shovels cutting through frostbitten soil and the wind howling through the trees like a mourning mother. The villagers stood in silence, lanterns casting thin circles of light around them, their faces pale with fear, not grief.
He was the sixth.
The priest did not bless the grave.
He couldn't. Holy words withered in his throat, choked by something colder than the winter air. Beside him, the midwife clutched her rosary so hard the beads cracked in her fist. And the boy's mother—what was left of her—wasn't allowed to watch. She had been locked away, muttering the same words over and over again.
*"He wasn't like the others."*
*"He heard them calling."*
*"He walked into the forest... but the forest walked back."*
They buried the body, but they knew the soul had already been taken. Not to heaven. Not to hell.
To the woods.
To whatever waited past the blackthorn trees.
They were all thinking the same thing: one more to go.
One more son.
The seventh.
And he was already thirteen.
—