THE THORNBEARER
My first short story contest
In a village trapped by eternal winter, a girl named Mila dreamt of bad omens. Accused of being a witch when the village's well runs dry, Mila flees into the forest. Guided by a magpie and aided by a forest’s ancient spirit, she ventures into the depths of the forbidden woods, where secrets of old curses and forgotten creatures roam free. To break the eternal winter, Mila must make an ultimate sacrifice.
Trigger warnings: Dark themes, blood; mention of death; brief mention of children’s death (not detailed)
Mila’s dreams had always found a way of coming true. Once, she saw a baker’s wife with her teeth falling out one by one. Not long after, all of her children froze to death. The other time, she dreamt of a neighbor family of seven falling from a ladder, each marked in the same place. The father of the house, the only provider, died while hunting.
She tried to warn them, help them; yet they never listened. The endless winter that settled upon the village had seeped into the people’s hearts as well, hardening them to stone. Yet, despite the scorn she knew she would face, Mila told her neighbors her last dream. She had dreamt of the well and her standing before it, barefoot on the thick carpet of snow that never thawed. She leaned over the edge, but the dark below was endless, a hungry mouth yawning wide. A hand reached up from the depths, pale and dripping, clutching for her wrist.
“You’ve called this upon us,” an old man hissed after the well dried up. “Always whispering about spirits. It’s your fault.”
Others took up the cry. Witch. Cursed. Dangerous. Mila protested, urging them to acknowledge the truth - that the endless winter was wrong, and creatures roamed the village at night - but no one listened. They never listened. Better to silence the bearer than heed her warning. Her punishment was simple and cruel: at dawn, she would be walled into the dry well, her spirit offered to appease the hunger of the season.
The same neighbors who had seen her grow up seized her and dragged her to a cellar. The door slammed shut, the lock clicked, and she was left alone in the dark with only a small window and a shivering candle for company.
Her parents had been dead for years now, claimed by the same unforgiving winter that lasted for generations. As she folded herself next to the window, Mila wondered if they would have stood with her against the village. Or would they have accused her of dark magic as well?
Deep inside her half-frozen bones, Mila still clung to the notion that the winter was unnatural and the visions that haunted her all her life held truth. They spoke of the forbidden village Zmeykovo and the terrible creatures that lurked in its shadows. Deep in the night, when the whole village slept and Mila counted the minutes until dawn, a fast tap, tap, tap against the window made her spring up from her seat. A magpie sat on the sill, moonlight reflected in its feathers black as ink against the snow. It tilted its head, watching her with one intelligent eye, then pecked sharply at the window again.
The glass shattered. Mila threw her hands over her face on instinct as the shards spilled inward. Cold air rushed inside, smothering the candle that had been shivering in the corner. In the sudden darkness, she met the magpie’s gaze. It looked at her again and took off.
A beat passed, two. Mila’s mind spun. Stay and surrender to the punishment she did not deserve? Or leave to seek answers?
The magpie’s squawk filled the night, and Mila was climbing out of the window, boots sinking into the snow. The choice had been easy.
The woods were eerily silent, the sound of Mila’s boots crunching the snow below echoing. Moonlight followed her like a lantern, illuminating the twisted, gnarled silhouettes of trees scattered about, their branches cracked under the heavy snow. Mila’s breath came out as puffs of smoke as she hurried after the magpie. The bird led eastward, deeper towards the Forbidden Forest.
At the forest’s edge, she paused. The trees were taller here, evergreen and so tightly woven that even the moonlight barely filtered in. Mila glanced back, her gaze following the footsteps that trailed behind her and towards her village, still asleep in the valley below, houses like blotches of ink against the glaring whiteness. The magpie beckoned again, fluttering deeper into the dark. Mila’s chest tightened, but she took a deep breath and stepped forward, as if crossing a threshold.
‘’Where are we going?’’ Mila called after what felt like hours of following the magpie. Her voice, though barely a whispered breath, reverberated all around, the only sound in the hush of the snow. ‘’Where are you taking me?’’
The deeper she went, the more oppressive the forest felt. Each step felt as if Mila were intruding on its slumber, the back of her neck prickling as if unseen eyes followed her. She kept her eyes on the magpie, its black and navy feathers flashing in snatches of moonlight whenever the canopy broke.
Then, abruptly, the magpie vanished between the trees.
Mila’s heart lurched. She spun, her long, dark hair whipping as she looked about. The snow beneath her boots seemed untouched, the path behind her undisturbed. A sound split the stillness, and Mila’s breath quickened. A snap, followed by a heavy groan - like a giant shifting in its sleep. The earth trembled, and the snow from the branches shook loose, sifting down like sugar dusted over a cake.
Ahead of her stood a large tree, unlike the rest. A tree that looked as if it had snapped off a hill, looming. Its bark glistened in the moonlight - untouched by frost; its branches green and lush, impossibly alive in the dead of winter. Colorful buds of flowers dotted all around like drops of spring. Above, a flock of magpies circled.
Mila stepped forward, curiosity larger than fear. The shadows twisted, the tree trunk shifted and stretched like a wrinkled face of an old man, and eyes opened - yellow, ancient, unreadable.
Mila stumbled over her own feet and fell, her pale fingers splayed over the cold snow. Her pulse thundered, echoing in her ears. It was a Leshen! A creature from old wives’ tales used to frighten the children from wandering too deep in the woods, an ancient guardian of the forest.
The Leshen said nothing, but the air trembled with its presence. A pressure filled her head, as if invisible hands pressed into her skull and images flashed before her eyes. A woman with hair white as snow, kneeling in the middle of a scorched forest. Above her loomed a figure with wings as large as clouds, silver scales covering every part of his body. Half dragon, half man. Zmey - the name filled Mila’s mind. The Lord of the forbidden village Zmeykovo. He pressed a thorn of ice as big as a hand into the woman’s heart, and from her scream poured a storm, a blizzard spilling outwards, away and away, covering everything in its path, freezing the rivers and the lakes, drowning the world in endless winter.
The vision shifted, time accelerated, and unraveled in a blur. Faces changed, woman upon woman upon woman stood against the Zmey, the only barrier between him and humanity. In forests drowned in mists, in the bluest of oceans, in the deepest of lakes - they fought him and carried the thorns of his curse. Visions rippled in a haze: dozens upon dozens of dark-haired women standing in line, blood being poured from palm to palm, from one to another and another, all in endless cycle.
Mila’s mind spun, images rising and falling all around her. ‘’What does it mean?’’ she wanted to shout, but words never left her lips. The vision persisted, the row of dark-haired women standing in line, eyes glowing and staring. At the end of the row stood one unlike the rest, a single silver-haired one, frozen in a storm. Then the women’s eyes shifted, clearing, and every face became Mila’s —same pale skin, same blue eyes, same long dark hair.
Mila clutched her head and screamed as it all came to a standstill, mind ripped apart and pieced together anew. The Leshen’s glowy eyes stared into her soul, and a sound filled her head, like wind howling amongst the trees: The chain is broken. The blood is wrong.
Tears fell unbidden as Mila pressed deeper into the heart of the woods, boots swallowed by the snow. The air has grown colder; her breath rose as steam towards the dark sky. This time, there was no need to follow anything, yet the magpies watched from the branches, silent sentinels.
A roar split the night, and Mila whipped around. Trees splintered and fell, and fire burst over the dark sky like comets. From the skies came creatures of tale and terror—rusalki shrieking, cockatrices wheeling, the many-headed Lami thrashing flame. The Leshen had warned her they would come; I will meet them - his words had echoed in her mind as he let her pass under his branches.
Mila ran as nightmares came alive behind her, utnill she saw it: carved out of large tree trunks and branches, ancient and half-swallowed by roots, a tiny hut and a single illuminated window. Breathless, she burst inside. The magpie - her magpie that had led her away from her village followed her in and settled on her shoulder.
A woman lay upon a slab of wood, hair white as snow, her body encased in ice. It climbed her legs, her arms, her chest, like glass grown from within. A single thorn jutted from her heart, black as obsidian.
Mila staggered, the frosty air in the hut making it hard to breathe. The vision from the Leshen burned still in her skull - dark-haired women absorbing the curse throughout generations, their blood passed from palm to palm, their role regenerating into others. Until at last, the line was broken; and there she was: the single silver-haired woman, wrong, out of place.
The magpie croaked, sharp and final. With trembling hands, Mila grasped the thorn. The cold bit deep, but she pulled. It was easy, like pulling a hair from butter; the thorn slid easily as if it longed to be free.
The ice cracked. A sound like a thousand shards shattering filled the hut. The woman’s body shuddered, then dissolved into water, gushing from the slab on which she lay and soaking the floor, Mila’s boots, everything. The woman was no longer; only a single dark thorn remained in Mila’s hands.
She sank to her knees, tears flying with abandon. The Leshen’s parting words clung to her pounding heart: You know what must be done. Could she? Would she sacrifice herself for people who so easily discarded her? That wanted to wall her up alive? For the world that knew not of her existence?
Mila’s gaze dropped to the thorn, its tip shimmering faintly, heavy with the weight of centuries, of sisterhood and courage. Perhaps this was why her dreams always came true. Perhaps this was why she had been born — to bear the thorn as those before her had.
With a shuddering breath, she pressed it against her chest.
Agony bloomed as the thorn pierced her heart. Her cry rang through the hut, through the trees, through the forest, drowning all sounds. Yet with pain came something else — warmth, strength. The ice melted, dripping down walls and roots, flooding into the soil.
Outside, the snow cracked and heaved. The eternal frost gave way, thawing with such speed that rivers burst from frozen ground, roaring and carving paths through the valley. The Forbidden Forrest became an island, cut off by a river that had not existed the day before.
Mila stepped outside, though her body no longer felt wholly her own. Her heart had absorbed the thorn, and it beat with the strength of every woman that came before her.
The magpie circled once again above her head, then vanished in the night. Wind rushed through the branches, caressing her cheek, carrying her tears through the woods. Bright flowers peeked through the lush grass, pushing past the melting snow—nature stirring awake.
From that night on, the woods stood apart, and people whispered of the girl who vanished, the spring reborn, and the forbidden island that rose from the storm.