Spirit by Shauna Granger

forever with the Wild Hunt,
leaving only when invoked to carry out the wrath of another.” I felt my stomach
churn as he spoke. I noticed he was very careful not to explain to me how I
could become a captive if I wasn’t actually hunted and caught.
    “All
right,” I said, “I’ll remember that. Go on.”
    “There
are only two ways to leave the Outlands. The first,” he said, lifting that same
finger, “is you must travel to the very edge of this world. If you can find the
end of the Outlands, then the gates between worlds will open for you, and you
can leave.” I tried to wrap my head around the idea of a world having an end
and found fathoming it difficult. I shook my head to force myself to
concentrate and not wander off in daydreams.
    “The
second,” Gwyn continued, lifting a second finger, “is you must be summoned.”
    “Summoned?”
I repeated, shaking my head in confusion.
    “Yes,
someone from that world may very well summon you to them. If you are not a
captive, they can draw you out.”
    “And
if I am captive?”
    “They
can only summon you as part of our host, to bring the Wild Hunt.”
    “To
kill someone?”
    “We
do not kill.” Gwyn finally dropped his hand to his side.
    “What
do you do then?”
    “We
hunt them,” he said simply.
    I
thought about what it felt like to have something chasing me with teeth and
claws, spears and arrows. To always have that creeping feeling in the small of
your back, to never truly rest, sure that they were just behind you, forever. “So,
if you don’t kill them, what happens when you catch them?”
    “This,”
he said, gesturing toward the encampment.
    “So
if you’re invoked to bring justice to a…” I struggled to remember what my
grandmother told me about why the Slaugh was called. Finally, the words came to
me. “To an oathbreaker or a kinslayer, you don’t kill them? You hunt them and
then kidnap them?”
    “To
ride forever.”
    “Like
a spirit not at rest,” I said, more to myself than to him, but he answered me
anyway.
    “Aye.”
    “Is
that why time here doesn’t move?” I tilted my head up to look for the moon,
finding it in the same exact spot once again. “So that it’s like a never ending
night, no respite, no change? It just goes on and on?”
    “That’s
as good a reason as any,” Gwyn said. He had lifted his eyes to the sky as well,
staring at the tiny moon.
    “You
don’t know?”
    “There
are many unknowns in these many worlds, more than time allows us to ponder,” he
said, cryptic as ever. Before I could press him further, he turned on his heel
and walked away, disappearing into the shadows so I could not follow.
     
    ***
     
    Wandering
through the camp, I started to feel the bone-deep weariness of staying awake
for too many hours after too much exertion. Now that I could feel my body again,
and the aches and pains that went with it, all I wanted to do was lie down and
sleep for a few hours. But I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know any of
these creatures, and none of them had extended a hand to me yet besides Gwyn
and he didn’t seem disposed to actually helping me. If I was honest with
myself, I was actually afraid to close my eyes around these creatures since my
grandmother’s fables echoed in my mind.
    One
last fire burned in the center of the encampment, and gathered around it were
two dozen beings. They seemed to be watching something, cheering and laughing
at intervals, reminding me of people watching a game on television. I crept
forward, trying to peer between bodies to see what they saw. An overlarge
cauldron roasted on the fire, and everyone seemed to be staring into it,
watching the contents.
    “Um,
excuse me,” I said to a faerie that looked like a satyr. “What’s going on?”
    “The
Hunt,” he replied, never taking his eyes from the pot.
    “The
Hunt?” I repeated, but he didn’t answer me again, so I lifted up on my toes to
look over the shoulders of those around the cauldron. Inside was a