Her hands went up to the doors, ready to throw them open, but there they stayed. She felt the grooves of the old wood, running a finger along one divot—half a memory wondered if this were the mark made by an ax some sixty, eighty? years ago. Where were the axmen of her youth? The strongmen who’d break in and try to kill her? Those were the days. No, now only fools and castaways wandered into her woods, and most of them were eaten by the revenants of her past victims, or else they were taken by the trees.
The Vampiress
Tale Told 