Ancient tree trunks blur together in my vision, fusing into a sea of dark brown wood. The basket I'm holding loosens from my grip, tumbling to the forest floor. My knees buckle and smack the ground, sending a splitting pain through my bony shins. I bury my hands amidst leaves and shrubs, my palms braced against the dirt. My head spins, and nausea roils in my gut.

Stay strong.

In the distance, Merla's voice rings through the forest.

"Girls, where are you?"

Footsteps pound in the distance, followed by squeals of laughter. The sound draws closer and closer, but I am too ill to stand, to run. I lift my gaze as the blurry figures of Lenore and Clementine crystallize, weaving between hazy brown stalks. Their laughter fades, and my pulse ticks up.

They come closer, closer, closer still.

I feel too weak to move, yet I feebly push myself backward. Bile pushes up my throat. I pause, panting, trying not to retch at the girls' feet like I have so many times before.

I blink, and the girls are in front of me, looking down at me.

Judging me. My eyes flutter, then open wide, catching the full strength of their glares.

"Elowen, the ugly."

"Elowen, the weak."

Elowen's too sickly. Why is Elowen living with us? She's going to spread her disease to us. Then we'll all look like her.

When will she just... disappear?

Voices slur in my head. I can't tell which are from the present moment and which are echoes from the past.

"Why are you even gathering herbs?"

The world spins back into focus, and I look at Clementine and Lenore's sneering faces.

"You're only going to make us sick with your disease." Clementine pulls back her foot and kicks my basket. It flies through the air, smacking into a tree trunk while herbs scatter across the forest floor. My vision blurs once more, this time with tears. I spent all morning scavenging the best plants for Merla's stew. And now, it's all... gone.

Clementine and Lenore off through the trees. Slowly, sensation returns to my limbs, and the cloud dissipates from my head. I take in deep gulps of oxygen, trying to ground myself. My fingers dig into the earth.

You need to get up.

I swallow. A single bead of sweat pricks my upper arm. My limbs are still weak, flimsy, unusable. I blink several more times before the spinning slows, and I'm faced with solid, unmoving ground. I test my weight against my arms, ensuring they're steady, before pushing myself upright.

Sweeping my gaze over trees and shrubs, I spot my basket, now lying on the ground with a split on the side where it struck the tree trunk. A few herbs lay beside it, and I stuff them inside the basket before trudging back to the cottage.

The afternoon sun breaks through the trees, growing in intensity as I approach the town. They part to reveal Merla's cottage, surrounded by honeysuckle and marigold bushes. Vines and flowers weave their way down from the wooden roof and encircle the rounded entrance in a yellow, pink, and green halo, beneath which Merla stands. Her lips press into the tiniest, sympathetic smile, an apology for her two daughters. The trees must've carried an echo of their taunts to her.

"Did you find the herbs?" Merla asks.

I hand her the basket with the small bundle of herbs I salvaged. "Would... would you like me to get more?"

Merla swallows, eyes darting to Clementine and Lenore, who were peeling potatoes for the stew. Four-year-old Oliver sat beside them at the kitchen table, shoving a potato eye up his nose.

"Mother, Oliver's messing with the food scraps again," Lenore says. She presses a finger to Oliver's other nostril and instructs him to exhale through his nose. I look away before I view whatever mess ensues, refocusing on Merla. Her soft gaze examines my face.

"Would you gather the noisop stalks?" Merla asks. "We could use the extra nutrition and sweetness in the soup."

This is Merla's way of giving me an out, a way to escape my adopted sisters' taunts. I nod eagerly.

"Of course," I say quietly. I reach for my basket at my feet and walk down the cobblestone path leading away from the cottage and into the trees.

My feet crunch on debris as I enter the forest. With no one around, the forest generates its own symphony of sound. Boughs creak overhead; the underbrush rustles with the tiny patters of footsteps. A breeze whispers through the trees so that leaves flutter slightly, like soft chimes. It might even be considered idyllic if I hadn't grown up with the legends of the wood. There's a reason why criminals are marked by the village's curseweaver and sent into the forest to meet certain doom.

Children are warned never to venture too far inside, to stay on the outskirts lest the trickster trees skew their path to whatever fate befalls the criminals. Either that, or they'll run into a lost criminal still wandering amongst the endless trees. No one truly knows what happens to them, only that whoever enters the woods never returns.

Perhaps that's why the village is suspicious about me. Not only am I gangly with bright white patches bottling my already pale skin and suffer from illness "attacks," but I was found as a toddler alone in the woods. To date, I am the only human our community has seen exit it. Some think that I'm the descendant of two criminals, that lawlessness runs in my veins. Some think that I'm a wicked spirit. Others just shun me for being different, for being horrible to look out, for being "diseased." No one wishes for my sickness to spread. No one wants themselves or their children to become like me.

Only Merla has taken pity on me. She took me in, raised me among her own daughters and now son, despite the hostility her husband expressed toward me until he died two years ago. I was blamed for that, too, but Merla fought for me and saved me from the woods.

Never again. Never again will I allow myself to get that close to death. I will prove myself to my community. One day they will see that I am not a threat or a malicious spirit. I may not know where I come from or why I am unlike them, but I have no ill intentions and will prove to be a valuable member of their town.

And it starts by collecting a few herbs. A few herbs for Merla's soup, so that she and her daughters can tend to the garden, prepare the eggs for the market tomorrow. There, we trade for our weekly supply of meat, cheese, and if we're lucky, some delicious freshly baked sourdough, supplied by the other community members.

I wish I could be more a part of the town, wish I could be one of their own. The town is a symbiosis of its members, all relying and benefiting from the goods others can provide. We have almost no need for external involvement from other towns.

Amidst the greenery, I finally spot a few small stalks of noisop. I crouch down, plucking the tender stems from the earth and placing them inside my basket. On I go, looking over my shoulder at all times to ensure that I can still see the setting sun peeking through the edge of the trees.

At last, green stems blanket the straw basket, and I turn back to the house, shielding my eyes from the orange sun that has almost entirely sunk in the sky. A wave of nausea swirls in my stomach again, but I keep walking, keep trying to pretend that it's fine, that I am normal.

Normal.

As I approach the cottage, I see an old woman standing by the front door. With a halo of gray hair frizzed around the back of her head, it appears to be Ms. Habbard, the elderly widow two houses down from ours. I can't make out what she says to Merla, though her voice sounds sharp, on the verge of shouting. She gestures wildly as she talks, far more animated than her fragile appearance would lead one to expect, while Merla calmly nods. Her eyes latch onto me as I approach. Whether her glassy blue stare holds dismissal or fear, I cannot tell.

Ms. Habbard turns around, gaze hardening into a glare when she spots me. "And the perpetrator dares to show her face."

My brow furrows, and I look at Merla. She purses her lips in a fleeting, supportive smile.

"I'm sure there's another explanation, Mr. Habbard," Merla hedges.

"Such as what? You think a rabbit shredded my pumpkin patch?"

"There are many other wild animals in the forest."

Including many we have yet to discover, I add silently.

Ms. Habbard shakes her cane. "No, no. This was a deliberate attempt to sabotage them right before the autumnal harvest festival. I was going to sell them in the River Town, to try to earn some emergency funds. You know how it has been since Matthew died. And now, I only have a few remaining cabbages to trade at the market tomorrow. How am I going to get enough to eat? How will I survive the winter?"

"I am happy to share some of our eggs with you for free," Merla says quietly.

Ms. Habbard laughs. "Oh yes. A few eggs in exchange for the wicked one's deeds. How about you chain her up before she causes any more damage?"

Tears prick my eyes. "But... I didn't do it!" The words spill out before I have a chance to stop them. Ms. Habbard turns back to me, her gray eyes like steel. I bite my tongue to prevent myself from saying more, from pleading with her to just believe me.

"Don't you lie to me, wicked girl," she growls.

"I doubt Elowen would have the strength to rip apart your pumpkin patch," Merla says. "You know she—"

"The only disease that she has is one that infects her soul," Ms. Habbard says. "Now you better keep her close, keep an eye on her at all times, and make sure this never happens again. You can only go on protecting her for so long, Merla. There's going to come a day when she'll atone for her actions. The question then will be if you'll be punished too, for negligence, or even aiding and abetting her." Ms. Habbard spins around and hobbles across the stone path, shooting one last glare at me as she goes out of her way to walk around me.

The clip-clop of her shoes and cane fades. In her wake, all I hear is the blood pounding in my head, constricting my brain. Whenever there's a tragedy, I'm always the one to blame, even though I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. I love my neighbors, even if they despise me.

My eyes blurred with tears, I look at Merla, who stands frozen in the doorway, seeming as shell-shocked as I am. Finally, she shakes her head, clearing the glassy look from her eyes.

"Come, Elowen. Let's finish the soup."

I numbly follow her inside.