Sacrificed to the Beast

“Now now, daughter,” comes my father’s voice from behind me. “You’re doing a real honorable thing here. You’ll be remembered as a hero.”

“I don’t want to be remembered. I want to be alive.”

“Selfish,” someone mutters in the crowd. “She couldn’t care less about those poor chickens and cows.”

Hot, frustrated tears push behind my eyelids and I dig my heels into the ground, trying to stop our progress toward my doom. “Please, father. Please don’t do this. There has to be another way. Have we even tried bringing him a nice steak or a six pack or—”

“Old Man Ackerman said it needed to be a sacrifice of flesh.” My father won’t meet my eyes. “A virgin.”

“Listen to me. Okay? Just listen.” I’m desperate now. A wheeler-dealer trying to make a bargain for her life. “Pornography wasn’t even invented when Ackerman’s grandfather sacrificed the first girl. Can’t we even try to slip him some dirty magazines or something? I know Piccadily is a little behind the times, but virgins just aren’t sacrificed in the twenty-first century. This is insanity.”

“Daughter…”

My sandaled feet slide through the wet earth, propelled forward by my own flesh and blood. I can’t believe this is happening. “Don’t you need my help on the farm, father?” I say in a pleading voice, tears moving in a pulsing river down my cheeks. “Who will help you?”

He seems to be hedging.

“What is it?”

“Well, if this is the last time I see you, I won’t end with a lie. You’re…not exactly a dab hand at farming, Diana,” he says on an exhale. “Come to think of it, you don’t really have any marketable skills to speak of.”

“I…what?”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he rushes to say.

“You think?” My jaw is unhinged. “Talk about adding insult to injury.”

From that point on, I’m numb. Just numb. Not only am I stuck in this bizarre nightmare where I am being donated to gain a beast’s favor—and are we even sure there’s a beast?—but no one has come to my defense. Not a single person. And I’ve interacted with these villagers every day of my life. I’ve babysat their children, baked them pies, attended their weddings.

Maybe it should give me comfort that they’re not thinking straight. That the possibility of losing their income and homes has made them desperate and in some cases, riddled with bitterness. It doesn’t help, though. I’ve been deemed disposable by the ones who should love me.

We come to a stop at a large tree that sits at the edge of a clearing. I watch in silence as one of the male villagers wraps a rope around the trunk, leaving the ends loose. Then my father guides me forward and connects it to the bindings on my wrists.

“What is this?” I murmur, dazedly. “The official sacrifice tree? You could at least throw up a string of lights or carve death tree into the trunk. Give it some flair.”

No one responds.

My father does seem like he wants to say something, but in the end he delivers a hard kiss to my cheek, before tearing himself away to follow the rest of the heartless, torch-wielding jerks back down to the village.

Standing in the darkness with my hands bound to the tree, I’m more alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. And that’s saying something, considering I’ve never really felt like one of the townspeople. My jokes are always a little too weird. I ask deeply personal questions when people just want to make small talk about the weather. Worst of all, animals don’t like me—which is the mark of a witch in a farm town. I’ve just never fit in.

I swipe my tears on my shoulder and try not to dwell on my circumstances. Or the fact that my father just abandoned me to a murderous monster.

Know what?

I’m getting loose of these stupid bonds. I’m going to free myself, hunker down for the night, and in the morning, I’m going out to embark on a fresh start. I’ll leave Piccadily behind and let them think I was devoured by the beast. He probably isn’t even real. It was probably a coyote that killed those cows—

A deep howl rents the air and shakes the earth beneath my feet.

“Oh fuuuuuck,” I whisper, my whole body beginning to shake. “Oh no.”

In the distance, standing on a crest, a black silhouette stands in front of the full moon. It’s him. It’s the beast. And he’s even taller and broader than I imagined. His hair is long and full, in disarray around his face, reminding me of a lion. The rest of him doesn’t seem human, either. His shirtless torso is thick and laden with muscle, not to mention his thighs. They’re flexing with sinew and…and…

Oh my God. Is that a loincloth?

He throws his head back again howls again.

I’m going to die. I’m going to die.