I blew out a breath and set my hand on the gate latch. If I’d been smarter, I’d have come up with something to tell Father before I’d made it this far. Now all I had was the disappointing fact that I’d been traipsing through the forest against his wishes. Not that Father would buy any other story though.

Here went nothing.

I started up the path to the house.

The front door swung open before I even reached the threshold. “Where have you been Magdalena?” Father snapped, stepping out on to the step.

His hair was disheveled and he looked more tired that he usually was. He also wore a simple cloak around his shoulders and clutched a lantern in his hand. “Good evening Father. Were you going out tonight?” I asked, forcing a smile on to my face.

A deep frown cut across his face. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

I winced. “I didn’t mean to worry you… I just got distracted is all.”

“Distracted?” he scoffed. “I send you to drop off pigs and you disappeared for most of the day? Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

“I brought back the money from Fields.” I said sheepishly, fishing the coins out of my pockets. “Fields says that he doesn’t have all of it yet and that he’ll get the rest to you later.”

Father stared at me. Hard and for several minutes.

“Get inside Lena.”

Father stepped away from the door and pointed into to house. I slipped inside, not going far from the entrance. He wasn’t finished with me yet. The door closed with a resounding boom behind me. Father blew out the lantern as he walked past me. He cast a look over his shoulder at me that clearly meant for me to follow.

In the kitchen he pulled out the chair I usually sat in before sinking into his own. Not so much as a word was spoken.

Silence hung oppressively between us. Like a thin wire waiting to snap back at me at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t bring myself to look Father in the eye so instead I studied the grains of wood in the table and fiddled with the coins that Fields had given me in payment for the piglets.

Father finally got tired of me playing with them and took them out of my hand. “Where did you go after you left the Fields’s farm?”

I pressed my lips together, trying to think of a way to say the forest without incurring his anger.

Father’s patience wore thin before I had the chance. “Where. Were. You?”

“There’s a King’s Ranger in town. Did you know that?”

Tentatively, I glanced up to gauge Father’s reaction. His face remained impassive and unreadable however. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” he finally answered after an awkward pause.

I swallowed my nerves. “His name is Aust. He’s come to hunt the beast that Erickson found signs of on his property.”

“I’m still waiting for you to tell me why this bit of information matters and how it factors into why you disappeared after talking to Andrew.”

“Did you know I spoke to him yesterday?”

“This ranger or Andrew.”

“Aust… the ranger. I told him about the tracks that Erickson found. Andrew told me that Aust had come around to speak to him too and mentioned that he was heading towards Erickson’s to investigate.”

Father leaned back. His eyes going wide and then narrowing as my words and their meaning registered in his brain. “The forest. You were in the Edirk forest, weren’t you?”

I nodded.

Father’s chair scrapped across the floor, jarring me and making me sit bolt upright. Father stood and slammed both his hands down on the table. I pressed myself against the back of my chair. “After I specifically told you not to go near it?”

“It’s not like I haven’t been in it before?”

“Lena! There is a monster bigger than anything we’ve ever seen wandering around in those trees. I don’t know how I could’ve been anymore clear when I said to stay away from the forest!”

“If it makes you feel any better, Aust found me fairly quickly and made sure I got back alright.”

Father glowered at me. Apparently that didn’t make him feel any better.

“Not only on top of that, you were bothering that ranger while he was trying to do his job.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was bothering him…” I rubbed the back of my neck. At least Aust hadn’t said anything about me being a bother. Just that he didn’t want me ‘waltzing into a beast’s waiting gullet.’ I felt Father’s gaze on me like a hawk. Quickly, I continued. “I helped him out you know. I might have even made the difference between him finding the monster sooner rather than later.”

“You don’t think that one of the King’s trained rangers couldn’t have found a trail belonging to a massive beast by himself?” Father pointed out coldly.

“Well… I mean…”

A lump formed in my throat. I hadn’t thought about that but Father was thoroughly correct. Aust most likely didn’t need someone like me telling him where to look.

“That ranger has a job to do and you have no business shoving your nose into the middle of his task!”

I opened my mouth to say something but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“What would you have done if that beast came across you?”

“I don’t know…” I replied quietly.

“Precisely. You’d have been lying dead on the forest floor for some hunter to find, body mangled and broken. Leaving everyone, leaving me, to wonder in the meantime what in the gods’ creation had happened to you!”

A wince spread across my face. “I’m sorry Father…”

He didn’t give me a chance to finish my thought. “You’re a farmer. You belong in the fields where it’s safe.”

I sunk my head into my hands, teeth grit together so hard that my jaw ached. His eyes bored into me, hotter than the midday sun. Waiting.

Waiting for me to concede to his point. To admit he was right. To say ‘yes Father’ and be done with the conversation. Like a good girl. “I asked him… I asked Aust if he would consider training me,” I whispered.

The confession gave me courage. I looked up and met Father’s hard gaze. Except he wasn’t glaring at me anymore. Instead, his mouth hung open in shock. “You did what?”

Swallowing, I repeated, “I asked him— I asked him if he could train me. To be a ranger. Just a little bit while he’s in Woodhearst.”

“Unbelievable,” Father mumbled. He massaged his temples before shaking his head. “Why would you even begin to think that is an acceptable idea?”

“It didn’t seem that outlandish to me. I tracked the beast’s trail through the woods by myself. Maybe with a little practice I could become a ranger too.”

“You? A ranger?” Father asked. His voice dripped with confusion.

“I think… I think it could be exciting. Even with all the dangerous monster hunting. You’d get to travel around and help people and I don’t think anyone would look down on…”

“Magdalena,” Father cut me off sharply.

Abruptly I snapped my head up to look at him. I hadn’t realized that I’d been staring at the table again. Words died in my throat as Father walked around the side of the table. His eyes never left mine.

Father bent down to my level, placing one hand on the chair behind me and another in front of me on the table. A grim look etched on to his face. “Be serious daughter. Put that ridiculous thought out of your mind before it gets you into trouble you can’t get out of.”

“It’s not ridiculous!” I insisted.

Father’s face drew tight. I swallowed my words. “You’re a farmer Lena. Not a ranger.”

“But what if I wanted to be? I could be a ranger if I put my mind to it.”

Father pressed his eyes up as he rose. He schooled his face, wiping any trace of surprise or anger away. When he looked at me again all I saw was the usual exasperation. The low shadows in the kitchen made the dark circles beneath his eyes even more prominent. “You have no more business being a ranger than trying to go to that party at the mayoral manse a few days ago. The sooner you realize the path before you is the one you’re meant to walk the better.”

“I…”

“I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same. The weeding may be done in the fields for awhile but there are other chores that need to be attended to. I need you to hold down the responsibilities here tomorrow while I go and discuss how Fields is going to complete his payment for those two piglets.”

Gently, he placed a hand on my head and let it rest there for a few moments.

Then, without another word, he left the kitchen. Taking a candle with him and leaving me in an even darker room. I listened to him walk across the floor, go upstairs, move through the the second floor, and then close the door. Not a single sound permeated the room after that. The silence hung heavy around me like a thick wool blanket in the middle of summer. I sunk back against my seat and fixed my eyes on some nondescript flickering, dancing shadow.

“Who decides fate?” I asked the empty room. “Who gets to tell me what I can and can’t do? Or what I am or what I will be? Who’s allowed to decide what my worth is?”

My voice was just loud enough to carry across silence, cutting it. Piercing it.

I didn’t expect an answer. That would’ve been the truly ridiculous thing. I curled my hands around the edge of the table as I pulled myself to my feet. Something came over me. I gazed straight ahead into candle flame before me. “If I want to be a ranger, then I’ll be a ranger. No matter what anyone else says.”

For once, in my entire life, not a single person contradicted me.