Draft 2 – Updated 15 March 2026 (C016/D002)
Ivy woke up with a start, her heart pounding. Raven calls landed differently here. In the orphanage at Three Mills, outdoor sounds were muffled by glass windows and stone walls. Here in the grove they were raw, close, fresh, and unfiltered.
As her mind made the bumpy transition from dream to reality Ivy was briefly terrified. In a tree thick with angry ravens, she faced a horned creature with unblinking yellow eyes. Then a crack of fire snapped her to the safety of the rock shelter. She opened her eyes to see Autumn’s back sitting before the fire. The savoury smell of soup filled the morning air.
One by one, Ivy shook each of the sleeping girls awake. Kitty went straight to Autumn’s side, a position she had maintained continuously since her cough was cured that night in Butcher’s Barn.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Autumn cooed. “Didja sleep well?”
Kitty nodded, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, squeezing into the elf’s lap to snuggle.
“Ivy, honey,” Autumn called. “Would you mind getting me some beans from the root cellar? It’s almost time to add them to the soup.”
Her back to Autumn, Ivy’s stomach dropped. Her breath caught and her lips squeezed together.
“I’ll go, Autumn,” Chara offered brightly.
“Thank you,” Ivy mouthed.
But as Chara rose to leave, she froze. Her eyes grew wide. Ivy caught her friend’s reaction and her head whipped around, searching.
Autumn was seated at the fire, stirring the soup. Clothes clean. Hair freshly washed. Tied up in ginger braids. But the ginger beard and moustache—the two things that most distinguished their chaperone’s identity—those were completely absent.
Ivy’s mouth went dry. She reached for Chara’s hand. They moved slowly around the fire, clutching each other for support. They traced a wide circle searching the stranger’s face. Who is this? It can’t be Autumn. Can it?
“I took a bath,” the figure smiled warmly, speaking with Autumn’s voice. “Do I look a little cleaner?”
Chara nodded. Ivy didn’t know how to respond. Cleaner was not enough to describe what she saw.
“Don’t be frightened,” Autumn cooed. “It’s just a little hair.”
“You’re . . . not . . . Autumn,” Ivy said softly, not entirely sure that was true. “No offense . . . but you . . . look like a girl.”
“I supposed I do,” the stranger beamed. “But so do you, honey. I don’t think that’s anything to be offended about. Now, Chara, if you don’t mind, I’m nearly ready for the beans. Would you please?”
Chara nodded, glanced reassuringly at Ivy, then let go of her hand to run quickly to the root cellar.
Kitty, who had snuggled her way into Autumn’s lap without fully opening her eyes, twisted her head up and back to see Autumn’s clean face. She then reached up with her small hand to touch the bare skin.
“Hey,” she said, “where did your beard go?”
Ivy had spent her entire life in an orphanage with other children. The only contact she had ever had with men was with the clergyman and some of the outside staff the boys went to train with. She knew that some men had beards and some didn’t, but it had never occurred to her that a man might have a beard one day and not have one the next. And she had never seen a man turn into a woman overnight.
“I got rid of it, Kitty,” Autumn explained, as the other children now crowded around the opposite side of the fire trying to see what everybody was talking about.
“You can’t be Autumn,” stated the boy who once told Kitty she couldn’t be named Kitty. “Autumn is a boy. You’re a girl.”
“Maybe I’m both,” Autumn challenged him sweetly.
“Boys are boys and girls are girls,” he said emphatically.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Autumn explained. “I have met animals that are boys sometimes and girls other times. I’ve encountered monsters that are boys and girls at the same time . . . ”
“Whoa,” responded several of the boys, instantly changing the subject.
“You’ve seen monsters?”
“Wheredju see them?”
“Were they in a cave?”
“Were they big?”
“Were they scary?”
“What did they look like?”
“All right. All right,” Autumn responded. “We can talk about monsters after breakfast if you like, but right now I have to finish the soup. Groomer, take everybody up to the tarn to wash up. The rest of you go with him.”
The rest of the group charged on up the hill leaving Autumn and Ivy behind. Ivy shrunk toward the back of the rock shelter. She did not want to go up to the tarn. She prayed Autumn would not send her.
“Master . . . um . . . sir . . . ma’am . . . Autumn,” she stammered. “May I use some water from the barrel to wash up?”
“That’s a great idea,” Autumn replied. “If you don’t mind, I’ll get you to stay here and stir the soup while I tend to the beans,” he added as Chara dropped off the legumes and ran off up the hill to join the rest of the kids.
“Of course,” Ivy said, feeling the weight of fear lift a little. “I like to stir things while they cook.”
After washing up, Ivy took control of the stirring stick. Autumn washed the beans before trimming them directly into the pot. The raven who had awakened Ivy was still upset about something. A few of his friends had joined him behind a screen of trees. The noise made her uneasy but stirring soup at the fire in the shelter made her feel safe.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Of course, honey,” Autumn replied.
Ivy was hesitant. She didn’t want to cause offence. “Are you a boy or a girl now?”
“Well,” Autumn gave the question some thought. “I am not a human. So I don’t really know how boy-girl stuff works with humans . . . ”
“You’re an . . . elf?”
“Of a kind,” Autumn allowed. “I’m an elf el’a drin.”
Ivy barely understood what an elf was. Nevermind a kind of elf. “I don’t know what that is,” she confessed.
“It means I’m an elf, but also more than an elf.”
Ivy didn’t know how to respond.
“The ancestors who made me gave me something more than they give other elves,” Autumn explained. “I am me, but I’m also someone else. Another elf. Someone who lived a very long time ago.”
Ivy’s brows pinched together. “So are you a boy and a girl?”
“I am el’a drin.”
“But when we first met you, you were a boy,” Ivy asserted.
“When you first met me, I had a beard,” Autumn corrected her. “The only thing that’s changed since I met you is that I have removed my beard—which I do every year on the anniversary of my ensoulment.”
Ivy stirred silently, watching the grains of rice swirl in the pot.
“Is that your birthday?”
Autumn considered the question. “I suppose it is. Close enough that it doesn’t matter, at least.” Then he asked: “When is your birthday, honey?”
Ivy shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s in the spring. But I don’t know the date.”
Autumn’s brow wrinkled. Then he was quiet.
They were both quiet for a while. Ivy was happy with that because it gave her a chance to think things through.
“OK,” she asked at length, “so what should we call you now?”
“You can call me Autumn, honey,” the elf replied. “I don’t have a beard anymore, but I’m still Autumn.”
“No.” Ivy struggled to find the words. “When we are talking about you . . . like . . . do we say he is cutting the beans or she is cutting the beans?”
“Most people say one or the other,” Autumn replied. “Some say both. I don’t cotton to either, particularly.”
Ivy’s brows twitched inward. It has to be one or the other. “What do other people call you?”
Autumn considered the question. “Hunter and Scout say she because I looked like more like a girl when they met me. Elora used to call me he because I had a beard when I met her.”
Ivy drew in a slightly deeper breath and pressed her lips together. Perhaps being direct would help. “What should I call you?” she asked.
“How about this?” Autumn’s tone was patient. “You call me whatever makes you feel comfortable for now. And if I decide I want you to call me something else, I will tell you.”
Ivy didn’t mind that answer. But it meant she had to make a decision. She swirled the rice and the vegetables around in the pale brown broth while reflecting on which option she would choose and then asked: “Will your beard grow back?”
Autumn nodded. “A year from now, I will look pretty much the same as I did yesterday. Except this time I’m going to go with mutton chops.” Autumn touched his cheek when he said that.
Ivy smiled and nodded politely because Autumn was so enthusiastic, but she had no idea what mutton chops had to do with beards.
“I saw a very handsome man in Three Mills last week. He had mutton chops. I think they looked—”
“Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.” A small bird interrupted Autumn’s train of thought.
“She’s frightened,” Ivy said idly, pondering the image of a man with a raw lamb’s rib on his chin, wondering how to arrange it so that two might fit on the same face. The idea made her smile. She looked up to see Autumn regarding her with a mix of surprise and curiosity.
“Why is she frightened?” Autumn asked, referring to the chickadee.
The question caught Ivy off guard. She stopped stirring and looked at the little bird.
“Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee,” it repeated urgently, before flitting away and disappearing into the forest.
Ivy was suddenly conscious of the presence of the trees near the shelter. She could smell their needles, feel them rocking as the wind swirled around their tops high above. A squirrel exploded in a long trill, its voice penetrating cover, reaching deep into the grove. Ravens and magpies squabbled over something not far away.
“Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee,” the small bird called again, this time hidden from view.
Autumn was looking at her. Waiting for an answer.
“Oh,” Ivy blushed. “I don’t know. She just seemed afraid.”
“Howdju know she was a she?” Autumn asked.
Ivy’s mouth opened. She looked back at the branch where the little bird had lit. “I . . . don’t know,” she admitted. “I didn’t . . . I don’t know. I just said . . . ”
Autumn smiled. He picked up a cloth and used it to lift the soup pot. He set it aside to cool and then took Ivy by the hand, leading her out of the shelter.
“No,” Ivy stopped, pulling back at the threshold.
Autumn released her hand.
“What’s the matter, honey?” he asked. His manner was so gentle that Ivy felt silly.
“I don’t want to go,” she said. “There’s . . . it’s . . . dangerous.”
Autumn smiled and cocked his head. “Do you trust me, sweetie?” His eyebrows lifted.
Ivy took a deep breath through her nose, thinking about it. Then reached her hand out and allowed him to lead her into the trees.
As they moved through the grove the sounds of distress grew louder. A group of a dozen birds—ravens and magpies—were making a wild racket. Chickadees flitted between branches on undulating paths calling their names frantically. Squirrels chattered and barked like rodent alarms. With each step forward Ivy gripped Autumn’s fingers tighter. With each step forward she felt the danger draw near.
They stopped then. Ivy could see the black birds, dark shapes moving through the gloomy density of the brush. Higher up than she could reach. Just on the other side of the tree before them.
Autumn reached up, took hold of a branch, and slowly lowered it. Ivy leaned back slightly to let the soft tips of the bough brush past her nose, then placed a hand on it to lower the branch to chest height. She could see them now. They were hopping around from branch to branch. Yack. Yack. Yack. Caw. Caw. Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee.
They were upset. She could feel it. There was danger here. She could feel that, too. She held her breath. She squeezed Autumn’s hand. The pressure of a sob built in her chest. Her eyes began to cloud. Then it moved. Its head spun around. Horns projecting up over round yellow eyes. It looked at her. Her legs twitched and her knees flexed, prepared to run.
“An owl,” she blurted softly, recognizing the creature from descriptions she had heard. The tension drained from her body in a rush. Relief flooded in to replace it. Breath returned to her lungs.
They watched it together—the darkwinged predator and the birds tormenting it—until the sound of children behind them grew and their names were being called. As footsteps plodded on the forest floor toward them, the horned creature gave Ivy a final glance, leaned forward, then fell into a glide, disappearing into the shadows. The corvids followed in hot pursuit taking their noise deeper into the woods.
Ivy released the branch, allowing it to spring up past her face. Silky webs stuck to her fingers and trailed to the bouncing bough. “Oh,” she said, wiping her hands together and then brushing her palms on her thighs. She was so focused on the owl, she had not noticed the spider web.
“There are many dangers in the forest, honey,” Autumn explained. “But not all are dangers to you.”
“But . . . ” Ivy remembered her lessons. “There are demons.”
“This is what they taught you?” Autumn’s face grew concerned and sad as he listened to her stories.
They disguise themselves as trees, Ivy told him. They grab runaways. They eat their bodies and take their souls to the Devil’s Beard. The souls become haunts that feed on human flesh. They can never leave the Beard, she told him. They will never join their real families in heaven.
The others backed her up. Their stories were not identical. Different orphanages stressed different things, but all of the children believed that forests were full of demons. Slaves were safest indoors, where their masters could best protect them.
Autumn did not deny the presence of evil in the world. That existed everywhere. The forest was no exception. Groves were protected from evil. Creatures born of evil could not find a grove’s entrance. That included demons . . . and haunts . . . if they were real. But true evil was rare and that which was most dangerous to children, was rarely truly evil.
*****
“I took them there to keep them safe,” Autumn said to Scout that night as they met to ferry supplies. “But there are things I can’t protect them from.”
“So teach them,” Scout shrugged. “Like Hunter taught me. Like Elora taught you.”
“But what do I teach them?” Autumn wondered. “Where do I start?”
“What did Elora teach you?”