After the fire, the villagers stopped mocking Lucia.
But they didn't stop watching her.
They whispered louder now, and from farther away—crossing themselves when she passed, muttering prayers, pulling children behind them. Some said she was possessed. Others said she'd seduced the devil himself with her silence.
Lucia said nothing. She never did.
But in her eyes, something shifted: no longer the blank stillness of a girl surviving—but the careful study of a predator waiting.
---
She learned to wear obedience like a cloak.
She lowered her head when men walked by.
She picked herbs by the well as if she hadn't bled there.
She fetched bread from the market as if they hadn't bruised her.
She walked with her hands folded, her steps soft, her face still.
The villagers believed she had submitted. That she'd been tamed by fear.
They were wrong.
Lucia was watching them. Memorizing every cruel laugh, every finger that had ever bruised her skin, every eye that had looked and done nothing.
She was counting.
Not days.
Names.
---
One evening, the chieftain's wife, Ada, called her into the chapel kitchen. "You'll scrub the floors, girl," she said. "Pay your mother's debt."
Lucia bowed her head and obeyed.
As she scrubbed, Ada spoke loudly to another woman in the next room.
"Demon girl, born of sin. She should be grateful we let her live. Grateful we let her stay."
They laughed.
Lucia dipped her cloth into the water, her fingers wrinkled and raw.
The water turned dark.
Thick.
When Ada entered to inspect her work, she stepped straight into the black puddle that wasn't there before—and slipped.
Her head cracked against the table's edge. She slumped unconscious to the floor.
Lucia stood, watching her. Calm. Silent.
And walked away.
---
Later that night, as Mira stitched cloth by candlelight, she looked at her daughter for a long time.
"You frighten them now," she said softly.
Lucia looked up.
Mira added, almost in a whisper, "You frighten me, too."
Lucia stared. Then reached out and touched her mother's cheek gently—like she was reassuring a child.
She pressed her lips to Mira's forehead.
And in that gesture, something was both mourned… and promised.
---
In the shadows outside, the crow waited.
And in the distance, deep in the woods, the mists were moving.
Calling.