Flame of Beltane

A short story by Philip Webb Gregg

This story contains: her and him, historical fiction, friends to lovers, outdoors, firsts, cunnilingus

Erin held the bowstring taught, her lean muscles straining as a thin trickle of sweat moved down the arch of her neck. 

For a moment, she worried the roe deer would smell her, despite the wood ash and clay that she’d carefully daubed on every inch of her exposed skin. But no, the deer was calm. Erin recentered her aim, her movements quick and silent as winter sunlight. She was so close she could see the animal’s delicate eyelashes as it nibbled on the icy grass. 

All she had to do was let go.

Erin’s arm ached, and a spasm of fatigue passed through her. It’d been weeks since the Clan had made a proper kill. Days since she’d had a proper meal. This deer was a gift from the Spirits. All she had to do was open her palm and let the arrow fly. 

She couldn’t do it.

A moment later the deer glanced up and darted away. 

“Curse the Spirits!” As soon as the words left her mouth, Erin wished she could bite them back. 

To ask forgiveness, Erin knelt in the shadow of an oak and touched her clay-covered forehead to the bark. 

“Spirits of the earth and sky, forgive my foolish tongue.” 

Her voice sounded strange and unwelcome in the icy silence of the trees. Erin shuddered at the wrongness of it. No birdsong from the bare canopy. No rabbits rustling in the bushes. Not even the buzz of insects in the still air. The entire forest seemed unwilling to wake from its winter’s slumber. There should have been thick buds on the branches and flowers thrusting up through the earth. And yet there was nothing. Just cold-cold-cold. 

But even the endless winter wouldn’t be so bad if only Erin could hunt again. 

Filled with frustration, she pressed herself a little harder into the tree. Pain burst in her forehead as the gnarled bark bit her skin, but she didn’t care. She knew that if any creature of the forest could help her, then surely it must be the oak—with its unfathomable power and tireless age. “Oh great grandfather oak, bring me courage. Bring me ruthlessness. Bring the gift of death back to my bow.”

She stayed kneeling in the silence for a long time. 

Six moons. 

That’s how long had passed since Erin had been able to take the life of a single creature. Though she was still young, she had been one of the best hunters in the forest. But no longer, it seemed. She was little better than a burden on the Clan. And while the summer had been rich, the too-long winter had hollowed out their supplies. 

Still, she refused to forage, or to mate, or care for the weak and the elders. Those roles were beneath her. She was a hunter, in bone and marrow. But a hunter who could not hunt was no use to anyone. And if she didn’t find her killing instinct soon, she would be cast out to fend for herself in the deep forest. She would be Clanless, and she would surely starve. 

Suddenly she heard a grunt, and a squeal from the woods. 

The unmistakable sound of a kill.

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