Eight more nights have passed, and I am ready to throw myself off the nearest bridge. I spend hours each night imagining peace as cold water closes over me.

The first time I tried to end my life was ten nights after I killed him. Ten nights of running. A dozen people dead in my wake. I had tried every other possibility. What if I hid at night? What if I took refuge in a church? What about a cathedral? None of them saved me. None of them saved others.

If I did not run, others died. He had no interest in killing me. The goal was to break me.

On the tenth night, I heard a train, and I lurched to the tracks and laid down on them. He caught up then.

“Run,” he said.

I ignored him.

“You know what happens if you do not run.”

“You will find someone to drag here and kill in front of me. Will you kill them in front of my corpse?”

He hit me then, his fist punching my skull so hard that for one blessed moment, I thought I saw darkness and peace.

“You think this is the way out?” he said. “It is not. Take your own life, but know that if you do, I will return to your home and kill everyone you cared for. I will start with your grandparents and then your servants and then your aunts and uncles and friends and I will not stop.”

The train whistled in the distance, and a cowardly part of me wanted to stop up my ears to his words and stay where I was. But I could not. He kept listing those he would kill, until I pushed to my feet and ran.

Now I find myself praying for a bridge. Praying that one appears out of nowhere, and I stumble off it before I can save myself. Surely, he would not punish others for an accident.

I laugh, the sound bitter in the silence.

He will punish others at the slightest excuse. My only choice is to run until I perish of exhaustion. That is what he wants. I know because I asked him, screamed the words, demanding to know what he wanted.

“For you to suffer, and then for you to die. Run until you die.”

After the boy’s death, I tried rushing my end along by going without water, and all that happened was that my muscles cramped and I collapsed. When a passing farmer stopped his cart, my pursuer killed him and told me to drink his water and run or he would go into the nearest house and kill whomever he found there.

Will he be satisfied when I am finally gone? I believe so, but here is the inescapable truth: I do not want to die. I will, if that is the only way to stop the massacre I leave in my wake, but I keep thinking there must be another way. A way to survive.

I murdered him once. I would happily murder him a hundred times. If someone told me the solution was to kill him slowly and horribly, in a way that would haunt me more than his ghost ever could, I would do it.

But you cannot kill what is already dead.

The old me would have thrown herself into finding an answer. She would have traveled to every library she could reach. Tracked down every old woman that someone whispered was a witch, every old man they said was a magician, every person that anyone said could lay the dead to rest.

But how do I do that when I cannot stop running? When I have no money to pay for their services?

I have tried to consult the dead themselves. I see them now, where I never did before. It is as if his death rent open the veil, and I now bear witness to spirits trapped on this plane. I see them, beseech them, and get nothing in return. They cannot speak to me. Only he can, and when they see him, they scatter like dried leaves on these autumn days.

All except one.

As I run across the open moors toward a distant forest, I glance at the boy. It is the one my pursuer killed at the campfire. Georgie is his name. I had been told all their names; I just learned never to think of them that way. If I attach a name to one of my Good Samaritans, then I might begin to attach myself, to imagine they could help me and I do not need to flee.

I do not think of them by their names when they stop to help me, but I still know them. Some days, when I lie under a tree, praying for sleep, I recite their names to torture myself.

I do not know why Georgie is still here. I have told him to go, begged him to pass to the next world and find peace. He hears me. He only sets his jaw and grips his pistol tighter and marches along beside me as if still bound by his mother’s command to protect me.

Georgie does not flee when my pursuer comes. He snarls at him and shoots his gun, as if it is not simply an ephemeral imagining of a weapon. He shouts words I cannot hear.

My tormenter only sneers and mocks me. “It seems you have an admirer. Have you told him what you do to men who admire you? Who only want to care for you?”

There has been no sign of my pursuer tonight. If I stay far enough ahead, he leaves me be. It is only myself and Georgie. When we near the forest, Georgie slows. His head shoots up, and his arm flies out to stop me.

His arm cannot physically touch me, but I owe him my respect, and so when he tells me to go one way or not go another, I listen, whether I believe it helps or not. It is the least I can do.

The problem this time is that I need a place to slow down and I cannot do it on the open moors. Lights flicker farther down this dirt road and smoke curls in the distance, telling me a village nestles on the edge of the wood. I know this trick. My pursuer is staying out of sight, allowing me to think I am safe. Then, when I reach that village, hoping to find an apple tree or a bowl of milk left for the fair folk, he will appear and use any excuse to kill whomever is close.

My only choice here is the path breaking off and wending into the silent woods.

When Georgie objects, I say, “I cannot go through the village. You know that. You saw what he did when we tried three days ago.”

Georgie peers out over the landscape. From the village comes the distant laugh of someone stumbling home from a tavern.

Georgie still contemplates the road.

I shake my head. “I will not take chances. Every time I have, someone dies.” I meet his eyes. “You know that.”

He looks back the way we came.

“What is wrong with the forest? I have slept in them during the day, and come to less harm than if I venture into a town or nap in a field.”

He crosses his arms.

“Georgie,” I say, my voice sharpening with frustration. I gentle my tone. “I know you are trying to help, but look at that forest.” I sweep an arm out. “It stretches as far as the eye can see. It might take me all night to get through it, and there’s no one in there for him to kill. I can find water. Snatch berries and nuts. Maybe even sleep. I am so tired.”

Georgie tries pointing out a convoluted path around the town.

“Why not the forest?” I ask.

He tugs a crucifix from his shirt and makes a sign against the evil eye.

“If you are telling me there is something wrong with these woods, I am not sure I care. It cannot be worse than what I am already enduring. Cannot be worse than him.”

His jaw sets.

“Georgie, please. You know you cannot actually stop me, but I hate to upset you. May I take the forest. Please.”

His hands move in a complicated series of gestures, and I have no idea what he is trying to communicate. When he finishes, though, he strides toward the forest, and I exhale.

“If we see anything bad,” I say, “I will run back out. I swear it.”

He does not answer. Just continues marching forward, leaving me to follow.

* * *

I see nothing wrong with the forest, and I cannot help wondering whether something about it triggered a superstition for Georgie. Since being on the road, my eyes have opened in ways I never thought they were shut.

I realize now that my parents must have kept such talk from our ears. They would have dismissed it as peasant superstition, not for their educated daughters. I hope they are not anyplace where they can see me fleeing from a vengeful specter and realizing that in protecting me from “nonsense,” they had failed to prepare me for reality. A reality beyond anything they thought possible.

I dream of being able to speak to witches and magicians and anyone who might help. But that is a fantasy. The reality is that I have met several who style themselves as such, and none have imparted anything useful. When I ask about protection against ghosts, they say things like making the sign against the evil eye or burning vervain. Useless against the one who pursues me.

Knowing how rife such superstitions are, I suspect something about this forest reminds Georgie of old stories. A twisted tree, gnarled limbs reaching toward the moon? Rings of mushrooms that whisper of the fair folk? The soft moan of the wind and creaking branches? He does not point out anything in particular, but as we walk through the woods, he remains wary, jumping at every sound.

When I drink from a burbling brook, he jumps as if I am about to ingest arsenic. I pretend not to notice and drink deeply, the water cold and clear. The old me would have played it up, grabbed my throat and pretended to choke. The new me knows there is nothing funny about death.

I glance at the moon, just visible through the treetops. “It is nearly midnight, and there has been no sign of my pursuer. Perhaps he fears the woods as well.”

I am being serious, but Georgie scowls as if I am teasing him. We continue walking, Georgie in the lead, his gun in hand. Despite his obvious unease, I look around, and I am entranced.

I will not say the forest is beautiful. Not in any ordinary way, but there has always been part of me pulled more to the fascinating than the lovely. To a spider web glistening with dew. To the weathered and mossy skull of a stag, antlers reaching from a pile of autumn leaves. To a dead tree, wood worn soft, gnarled branches snaking out. Those were the things that captured my imagination, until I killed a man and he told me to run, and then it seemed as if I might have conjured him up, through my love of the strange and eerie.

Being in this forest, I see my mistake. There is nothing but beauty here, in every spider web and worn skeleton and gnarled tree. There is no beauty in him. There never has been, even when Grace would sigh and whisper to me at night “Do you not think he is handsome?”

No, I never did. My mistake was humoring her, never wanting to whisper to her of the ugliness in the world. She was seven years my junior, and I wanted her to have a life where a handsome face meant a kind heart, and that is truly the greatest sin I ever committed. Not killing a man, but refusing to kill my sister’s hope.

As I walk, something catches my eye. I turn just as a shadow passes through the bushes. Every muscle tenses, my heart racing, my legs ready to race too, as I strain for that dreaded word: Run.

“Hello?” I say.

Georgie wheels, his gun raised. He peers about and then frowns at me.

I start to say I saw a shadow, only to realize it will give him cause to insist we leave the forest. Now that I look closer, the bushes are not large enough to hide my pursuer. They are no more than a yard high, and he is never the sort to stoop.

I no longer see anything behind those bushes, and so I shake my head and we continue on. Yet something still prickles at me. Not a tingle of fear but of awareness.

Something is here.

In the forest.

Something is here, and my pursuer does not dare enter while it is.

I do not know that, of course. It is a fantasy I have concocted, where whatever lurks in this woods is a guardian, not a threat, because I so desperately need that.

Only I already have a guardian. I have Georgie, and whatever is in here frightens him.

If it scares him, it should scare me, and perhaps it is simply that I am bone-weary. Ready to throw myself off a bridge into what might be eternal damnation because I feel as if it cannot be worse than what I already endure.

I look into the darkness, and I imagine running toward it, throwing myself into it, letting it envelop me.

Letting it cradle me. Letting it devour me.

I no longer care which.

Georgie strides back and stands before me, with his gun raised. I listen, every sense straining, but there is only the whisper of the wind rustling through the dried leaves above.

He spins and his mouth opens, shouting a soundless word. A word I know so well I swear I hear it.

“Run!”

Shouted not in anger but terror, his eyes wide.

I could claim this is a trick. He wanted me to leave these woods, and so he is frightening me into doing it. His face tells me otherwise.

I hear it then. A strange thundering. I look up to see a black mass covering the moon. The mass undulates, the moon peeking through and then gone again, plunging the forest into darkness. Then Georgie is racing toward me, waving his arms.

I turn and run.

The strange thundering draws closer. It cracks and whooshes, the sound so unnatural that I must look. I glance over my shoulder to see . . .

Birds.

So many birds that they seem a black cloud. Then, as one twisting mass, they dive.

“Georgie!” I shout, skidding to a halt as the birds engulf him, silent but for the beat of their wings.

I swear I hear him scream. Somehow, I hear him scream. Then the birds fly up, over my head, and the path behind me is empty.

“Georgie!”

I run, looking left and right, but there is no sign of him. Heart pounding, I wait for him to reappear. I tell myself he is fine. Ghosts are already dead. They cannot be harmed, as I well know from dealing with my pursuer. Whatever happened here, it simply frightened Georgie into disappearing. He will return.

He does not return. Something else does, though. The thunder of those black wings comes again, from behind me, as if they circled back after whatever they did to Georgie.

I run.

I am going in the wrong direction, heading deeper into the forest. I do not care. I run as if my pursuer himself is at my heels.

The birds give chase. Those wings beat right behind me. At any moment, the birds will overtake me.

Yet they do not. When I dare look back, one flies at me, black talons extended. I yelp and spin to run, expecting to feel those talons slice into me, but at the last second, the bird seems to veer up, and then it is in front of me, flying in the direction I run. A large black bird.

Raven.

I recognize it now. This one has a white feather in its tail. It keeps flying in front while the others pursue. I try to run faster, to duck the bird, but it drops lower so that I nearly run into it. When I slow back to my usual run, it keeps flying.

Leading me.

No, that sounds as if it is helping, and it is not. I saw what they did to Georgie.

It feels as if they are herding me. The flock does not catch up, only seems to dip and soar and whirl behind me and this one stays in front, not letting me go any faster or slower than it commands.

I keep my breath steady. Do not panic.

As I scan the sides of the path, I finally see a spot where it divides, another track heading to the right. I veer onto it, and the ravens scream, the sound deafening. They fly at me, those wingbeats pounding. I cringe, waiting for the attack, even as I keep running.

The ravens fly around me, splitting into thin streams as they dart through the trees at impossible speeds. Then the streams combine in a wave that rushes back straight for me. Black beaks open in hoarse screeches, black eyes fixed on me. Then, for one heartbeat, I see a woman. A pale-skinned woman with black eyes and wild black curls and a raven’s wing cloak.

I blink, and she is gone. Because she was never there. A trick of the eye. Yet the ravens are there, and they are still coming.

I spin and run back the way I came, and the ravens encircle me. When I reach the main path, they form a wall to my left.

Herding me.

I want to scream. To fight through them and go left instead, but I do not dare. I will figure this out. I will escape. For now, I run the way they wish me to go.

The one with the white feather takes the lead, flying in front of me, keeping my speed in check. I test it again, speeding up, only to run into the bird. I back off. After a moment, I lurch forward, eyes slitted as I veer to one side to get around—

The raven veers too, and I smack into it. A talon scrapes my cheek. The bird’s croak sounds indignant, as if it got hurt.

I resume running, my heart pounding now. They’re definitely herding me somewhere. I should have listened to Georgie. Should have believed him when he thought something was wrong with the forest.

I need to get away from the ravens. Tamp down my fear and just run through the flock.

That is what I do, is it not?

Run, no matter what?

I think of Georgie. Of that scream I swear I heard, and then the ravens passed and he was gone, and there has been no sign of him since.

Can I push past them? These are not natural birds.

I wheeze a laugh at the thought. Truly? Not natural? Whatever made you think that? The fact they are herding you to some unknown destination in a spooky forest?

This time, I do not wait for a path to appear. I swerve right and barrel forward. The ravens scream with the sort of sound I do not think ravens should make. I keep running, twisting and turning to stay as deep in the thick forest as I can. Then I trip.

I think I have stumbled over some log or stick, but I keep falling, and I realize I raced right off the edge of an embankment. My limbs fly out. The ravens scream, and my boots kick, struggling to find ground.

My head finds it first, smacking hard into a rock. Then there is nothing.