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Widowmaker
She was seventeen the first winter he muscled open the doors, wind at his back and chestnut curls crusted in white. She caught him around the counter with her hands held up.
“Sorry, mister, but we’re closed—”
“Let the man grab a stool, Galadriel,” her father was already reaching for the whiskey, “Will you be wanting anything to eat, boy?”
Not a boy, she thought, as the stranger lifted a handsome face to the kerosene lamplight. His cheeks were blotchy from the cold, whiskers dusted in the same snow that clung to his oiled leather coat. Amber green eyes clashed with hers for a breath. He turned to Finarfin and nodded.
Galadriel hovered at the far end of the bar as he ate. Outside, the storm snuffed out the last of winter’s sunset. Shadows circled in the corners of the shop, creeping up on the weary logger, but he seemed unbothered by their faceless malevolence. Galadriel blushed when he caught her staring and busied herself with rubbing down the already-dry countertop.
He didn’t linger. Meal paid and ale drained, the logger tucked his threadbare scarf into his collar and set back into the night.
****
The State of Maine hadn’t been a state but more than 30 years when Galadriel was born. Youngest and only daughter to Finarfin and Eärwen Noldor, Galadriel’s world was a trading outpost west of the Penobscot river. Her parents settled in what was once Massachusetts territory after the War of 1812 and opened Noldor General, the only country store north of Old Town. For decades they sold flour, sugar, ammo, lamps, rope, pipe tobacco, salted meat, fruit preserves, poker cards, coffee, needle and thread, pickles, and soap. Galadriel grew up playing dollhouse with packing crates and learned to read and count from inventory ledgers. Her views were the register behind the counter and the tree line that loomed on the horizon – dense, dark, and fathomless.
Timber was the backbone of Maine’s fledgling economy. Though some cooperatives had found footing in the area, most loggers were seasonal migrants who haunted the winters like ghosts. It had always seemed cruel to Galadriel that the hardest work should be done in the bitterest months, but felled trees were easier to transport over snow. By the end of February, hundreds of logs lined the banks of the Penobscot and its frozen tributaries, ready for the spring thaw and the first log drives.
“They get you when you’re young. Start you off as a whistlepunk. That’s what they call the boys who run messages back to the landing. But you spend enough time on site and they start to show you things. Maybe one day you learn to put a choker on the log, hook it up to the other lines for hauling out of the forest. Next thing you know you’re part of a rigging crew—”
“Are you part of a rigging crew?”
“I’m a faller.”
Halbrand licked beer foam from his whiskers, pink tongue soft against the hard lines of his mouth. That was his name. Halbrand.
He came in on another storm, one year later, but this time Galadriel stood alone at the counter. Her father and the boys had gone to Old Town for a supply run and her mother was already in bed.
“Are you closed?”
“Yes,” She breathed, but when Galadriel nodded at the stool, the logger took a seat. “Can I get you something to eat? Drink?”
Galadriel set the glass she’d been drying on the stack beneath the liquor shelf. She could feel Halbrand watching her. He’d been watching her since he pushed through the doors.
“Your hair’s longer.”
Galadriel frowned. “Pardon?”
The logger set his scarf on the counter. The lamplight cast his face in a muddy gold that softened the crow’s feet fanning from his eyes.
“It’s longer,” he pointed at her braid, then his own collarbone, “Was about here last time I saw you.”
“What’s a faller?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Halbrand’s mug hit the counter, “I’m the one who cuts the tree.”
It was late, far too late for a girl of 18 and a man of much more to be conversing over a pint in the circle of a single kerosene lamp. But the storm had taken a hazardous turn and so had Galadriel’s propriety. She leaned against the counter, shivering when his stare heated.
“Sounds dangerous.”
“No more than any other trade,” Halbrand turned back to his bread and stew, “Tried my hand in mining, but I prefer sawdust to coal dust.”
“What about spring and summer, when the snow’s dried up?”
“I’m a boom cat,” He smiled at the way her nose wrinkled, clarifying, “I work on the rivers during the log drives. You know, help move ‘em down stream, keep things from backing up.”
“Oh! You’re the guy with the – ” Galadriel mimicked the fellows she’d seen skipping along the rafts of floating logs, poking at them with long poles. Halbrand chuckled, and the sound made something lazy and decadent unfurl in her belly.
“Yeah, that guy. That pole’s called a peavey, by the way.”
It was fascinating to listen to Halbrand talk about logging. He’d mastered an entirely unique language living behind plain words, but it went beyond the mechanical. There was a certain lyricism to the way he spoke of spar trees and high riggers, hooktenders and springboards. When he described the quiet of a dense wood after the first heavy snow – “it’s white for miles, and the snow swallows the sound of your own breathing” – Galadriel felt something akin to the reverence with which Finrod recited Whitman.
“Widowmakers?”
“That’s what we call them loose branches that hide towards the top of the canopy. They’ve broken off a long time ago – maybe a storm, or rot. A faller gets in there, starts shaking the base with the first cuts, and suddenly there’s a hunk of wood dropping down on him from fifty feet above.”
“That’s terrible,” and then, because she couldn’t help it, “Have you ever known someone killed by a widowmaker?”
“Every timberman knows someone killed on the job,” Halbrand scratched at his beard with a mirthless chuckle, “Though ain’t many of us have wives to widow.”
They were close. Even with a fresh log in the stove, it was cold enough to see their breaths, but the way they mixed in the space between them left Galadriel oddly flushed. Halbrand spun his empty mug atop the counter. The scabs on his knuckles made her acutely aware of all the places on her body she was soft and unmarked.
“We have a room above the woodshed…”
They didn’t speak as she pulled musty quilts from an old chest at the foot of an even mustier cot. Halbrand stood with his scarf in his hands like a beggar, but there was something quietly commanding in his gaze. He managed to turn a gentle nod into a declaration of approval when she waved at the bed and squeaked, “Do you like it?”
“I don’t have much on me. We don’t get paid until the end of this week—”
“Halbrand,” Galadriel blushed; his name felt strange on her tongue, “This is hardly a proper boarding room, but I couldn’t ask you to go out in that storm when we both know well that the closest lodge is some 20 miles from here.”
Another nod, this one a shade bashful. Halbrand caught her by the wrist just before she reached the door.
“Thank you, Ms. Noldor.”
“It’s nothing,” and then, in a breathless tremble, “And please. Call me Galadriel.”
****
That night, tucked in the attic bedroom she shared with her brothers, Galadriel put her hand between her legs the way she’d learned by accident and never told anyone about.
****
The third winter was brutal. The snow didn’t fall; it smothered. By the time Christmas came, Galadriel couldn’t remember a moment in her life she had been warm. Finrod left early January for Massachusetts to join the crew of a whaling ship, while Angrod started working in Bangor for a lumber shipping company. The cold made Finarfin’s arthritis flare and left her mother with a hacking cough, so Galadriel took charge of the store’s stock and management. It brought her into Old Town on business, something she’d only ever done in her father’s shadow or peeking from behind the folds of Eärwen’s skirts. It felt odd for grown men to address her as “ma’am” when they loaded product into the wagon, even stranger when they asked for her signature on the receipt. But it was good to be capable. To be regarded as more than a child.
Halbrand didn’t come back until early February, when the snow was at its highest and Galadriel was at her limit. A part of her knew he was coming the night that familiar shadow passed over the foggy front window. He pushed into the store, and she was already pouring them both a glass of whiskey.
“Evening, Galadriel.”
He looked older. It wasn’t anything in his appearance – Halbrand was still grizzled, still handsome, still staring with those fox eyes. But the winter had whittled away at his pride, pulling down his shoulders and leaving him gaunt in spirit.
“You’ve seen better days, faller.”
She didn’t mean to be rude, but Halbrand smiled before Galadriel could feel shame. He pulled off his scarf, the same as always, and laid it on the counter just as he’d done before.
“It’s been a lonely winter.”
They were rueful words, unsure if they’d been spoken in sarcasm or sadness, but there was more behind them. The melancholy plucked at a fevered cord running from her throat to the very heart of her, and Galadriel gritted her teeth against a sudden and inexplicable flare of anger. She passed Halbrand his whiskey glass.
“Have you been traveling far for work?”
“No farther than usual.”
“So you’ve stayed in Old Town?”
“Back in December for a bit, but these past few weeks I’ve been at a logging camp about two miles north of here.”
“And you’ve only now come to see me?”
Halbrand lifted his glass but did not drink. His lip skimmed the crystal, eyes open yet unreadable over the rim. “Was I supposed to?”
Galadriel didn’t know what upset her more: his question or the answer, because both were preposterous. Of course he wasn’t supposed to visit her, this man she had shared two nights and one conversation with, and yet. Galadriel’s eyes hadn’t stopped wandering to the door since the first snowfall, waiting.
“Galadriel,” Halbrand rumbled when she didn’t respond, “Was I supposed to come see you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” She reached for the dishrag under the counter, “Can I get you something to—”
Halbrand snatched the rag from her twitching grasp, ignoring her quiet gasp when he took her hand in his. It was large, the largest hand she’d ever seen, calloused and warm and swallowing her so completely. She tried to pull away, and his grip tightened.
Galadriel wasn’t much for hunting, but she’d been on a few trips over the years with her father and brothers. She’d come to recognize a universal moment of suspended terror that seized every prey just before an attack. A slack look on a frozen face, when all of life’s potential was reduced to either escape or being caught. It lasted an instant, though that instant had the uncanny power of stretching interminably – a breath that kept filling, an impossible pressure. Until something snapped.
Galadriel tried to pull back again, and Halbrand shoved to his feet. He hauled her forward, meeting her across the counter. There was a hand on her neck, fingers spearing the curls at her nape, and then he was kissing her, the first man to do so in her life, he was—
Not kissing. Kissing was what her parents did when they shared a private joke. Kissing was that soft thing she’d seen young couples indulge on the heels of their wedding in the chapel. Kissing was the brush of nervous lips behind the schoolhouse, a thing as terrible as it was exciting, a thing given for love.
Halbrand wasn’t kissing Galadriel, because he was not giving anything. The mouth on hers was all take.
“Open.”
“Wha—”
Her shock was his advantage; a thick tongue snaked down her throat, nearly gagging Galadriel with the abruptness of it. She whimpered, neck pinched as Halbrand pulled at her hair, utterly overwhelmed. It was a curious feeling, far more unpleasant than she’d fantasized, but behind the bewilderment sat a darker need. A forcefulness, hot and heady. An instinct to push back and revel in the fight.
Halbrand pulled her forward, and Galadriel yipped at the crush of her hip bones against the countertop. The sound broke through the fog, and the second his grip loosened, Galadriel wiggled free. It was useless; Halbrand rounded the counter in two steps, snatching her by the waist when she tried to run.
“Shh,” he cooed, wrapping her in his arms despite her struggle, “You’ll wake your folks, baby girl.”
Galadriel shuddered, stubble scraping her cheek where he nuzzled, arms pinned and hands fisting the lapels of his filthy leather coat. He smelled of whiskey and wood smoke. The lips at her neck branded her skin and left her shaking.
This time, when he kissed her, Galadriel let her own tongue poke at the seam of his lips, hesitant. Halbrand groaned, a sound so deep and rich and male it caught her by the womb and made it quiver. He pulled back, just to better arrange her between his chest and the counter, but the break in pressure set her scrambling at his neck, all but climbing him in her haste to bind their mouths once more.
“Greedy,” Halbrand fisted her hips and lower, making Galadriel keen into his mouth, “How long have you been waiting for this?”
Too long, too long, too—
“Since you came in.”
“Came in when.”
“The first, the f-uhhh…”
There was a hand under her skirts, rough and warm, and it was creeping up her thigh. Galadriel had spent weeks with her own fingers tracing the same path, but this touch was different. Scraping and pressing and leaving marks she knew would never fade.
“That’s right,” sharp teeth closed around her bottom lip and tugged, “I saw it. The way you looked at me. Did you see the way I looked at you?”
“Uh huh,” she jerked when his forefinger teased at the crease of skin between her hip and thigh.
“How did I look at you, darlin’?”
“Like…” He tickled over bone and flesh, dipping where she wept.
“Tell me.”
“Like that!” Galadriel bucked at the first pass through her folds, rough tip catching on that swollen nub that throbbed whenever she put her own fingers to it. Halbrand cooed, a sound caught between approval and mocking, and did it again.
“Like what? Focus, sweetie.”
“Y-you – oh. You l-looked at me like you…like you were – hunting me.”
He kissed her as his finger picked up pace, adding another, driving lower until she could feel him pressing insistently at her entrance. Galadriel tried to pull away, not quite sure what she was running from, because she was certain if he stopped touching her she would die. But Halbrand merely tightened the arm wrapped around her waist, fixing her to his chest as he started to slowly slip inside.
“W-what are you doing?” The words came out soft and teary.
“You ever done this before?”
She shook her head, face crumpling as his fingers kept pushing.
“You’re so small,” he mumbled, more to himself, “I need to get you ready.”
“Ready?”
“Oh,” Halbrand’s eyes flashed as he pressed a fierce kiss to her forehead, “Oh baby.”
There were other things, more rumbling words whispered into her hair, but Galadriel didn’t hear them. A tempest was swelling inside of her, churning and spiraling outward until every fiber of her being felt radiant with it. She cried out, and Halbrand’s other hand came up to cover her mouth. Untethered, Galadriel wrapped her arms around his chest in a piteous effort to hold on through the wave that had begun to crest.
He watched her as it happened, and if she could speak Galadriel would have said this is how you looked at me. Even in the dim light his gaze burned, too keen and all-devouring, taking in every detail. It was like being consumed before he’d ever properly sunk his teeth; a glimpse at the fate that was quick to follow. He would take her down with a single bite to the jugular before dragging her into the shadows, limbless and his.
Halbrand pulled his fingers out, and something sticky and wet rushed to fill the void. Galadriel put up no resistance as he gathered her like a rag doll and leaned her on his hip. Her feet dragged and tangled as he pulled them towards the back door that led to the woodshed.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t stop touching, either. It was slower in the cover of darkness, where everything smelled of pine and cold and sweat. Galadriel closed her eyes as Halbrand unbuttoned the back of her dress and imagined they were in the woods he spoke of like poetry. He was a faller. He would cut her to pieces before the night was through.
“You kept the bed made,” he whispered, pushing her towards the cot. The backs of her knees hit the rough wool covers.
He tried to be gentle. Some part of her knew that. When she jerked at the first push inside – an inch, not even, but the pressure left her gasping – Halbrand slid down her body and put his mouth on her. It was shockingly soft, but the pleasure felt sharper somehow, if only for the absence of touch in places that were aching long before that night. Even when he put his fingers into it, there was a tenderness high up that spasmed around nothing, and it left her weeping into the lumpy pillow. But Halbrand smiled at her tears, reading signs Galadriel hadn’t known she was giving.
“Now, sweetheart. Let’s try this again.”
It was still hard – literally, so hard, so hard and long and thick. But the release he’d spun from her body with hands and tongue broke the last bands of resistance holding her together. Galadriel mewled, boneless, as Halbrand steadily worked himself until he was firmly seated inside of her. For a moment they just lay there, both struggling for breath. And then he began to move.
“Look at me. Galadriel, look at me.”
He brushed at the tears spilling from the corners of her eyes, kissing the tracks they left behind. She moaned, pain melting at the edges when he stroked inside, and tried to meet his gaze.
“You are perfect,” He rasped, and then, “I’m sorry it took so long.”
****
He took her twice that night. The first time he spent inside, Halbrand cleaned Galadriel with a handkerchief plucked from his coat pocket, the only unsoiled piece of cloth he owned. But the second time, when he woke her up just before dawn with a quiet “hips up, love,” Halbrand stared at the rivulets running down her thighs for a moment before gathering them on his fingertips and feeding them back inside.
“Why’d you do that?” She mumbled, sleepy and sated. She buried into his chest the moment he settled back down beside her.
“Sleep, darlin’,” He shushed her instead. She was already half-dreaming when he muttered, “I’m going to make you my wife.”
****
Winter broke in late March, and the first log drives brought the entire forest rushing down the Penobscot. Galadriel was stocking the pantry when she heard the news.
“Terrible tragedy,” Marva tutted, “Saddock said they lost all five boys in the jam.”
“Poor souls,” Eärwen sighed at the same time Galadriel asked, “What happened?”
“Log jam. They sent out boom cats to break it up, but one of ‘em must have poked the wrong log. The whole jam broke in a rush, took all the men under,” Marva turned back to Eärwen, oblivious to Galadriel’s terror, “Think I can get a tin of snuff, too?”
****
She started to show in June, and by July there was no hiding the truth. Her brothers were furious, Finrod most of all – “Who is he? Does he know? How could you let this happen, Gal, you’ve always been such a smart girl” – but her parents took the news surprisingly well.
“I’m sorry, papa,” she cried one night at the counter, hands on her belly and shoulders shaking, but her father just sucked his teeth.
“I always wanted to be a grandaddy, and since your brothers keep dragging their feet—”
Galadriel laughed, snotty and pitiful, and Finarfin smiled.
****
Celebrían came with the winter. She was the spitting image of her mother, down to the apple cheeks and golden curls. But her eyes were amber green and foxlike.
****
A year passed. Then two. By the third, Galadriel could get through a late-night storm without looking at the shop door.
People talked, of course. When Galadriel drove the wagon into Old Town for supplies, whispers followed her and Celebrían into the shops and warehouses along their route. Most were dirty gossips. Some took a sympathetic approach. A baker, Celeborn, saw nothing wrong in courting the affections of a single mother and her bastard daughter, but Galadriel wasn’t interested. Eärwen pulled her aside after his second visit – a bread delivery, but it was far from harmless – and whispered, “Might it be good for the girl to have a father?”
“She has papa, and the boys,” Galadriel chided softly, “If there’s one thing we’re not short of around here, it’s men.”
“But what about you, dear?”
“What about me?” She snapped, but Galadriel stormed off before Eärwen could answer.
****
She mourned him in silence when no one was looking. There were nights she lay in bed, Celebrían pressed to her side with a thumb in her mouth, and let the tears of countless stifled moments stream unencumbered. Other times, she woke with the sun and slipped into the kitchen under the guise of making coffee just so she could steal a minute of heartbreak in the daylight.
I’m going to make you my wife.
But all he’d done was make her a widow.
****
Days before Celebrían’s fifth birthday, a terrible storm front blanketed the entire coast in white. Roads were unnavigable by horse, but the occasional frozen foot traveler came through for food and supplies. Celebrían greeted them all at the door; she’d come into a precocious age and was starved for conversation. Galadriel grew tired of apologizing for her incessant questions, but most patrons found the girl charming. Even if she never did quit talking.
“Are you a fisherman?”
“I’m a lumberman.”
“Oh. What’s a lumberman?”
“We cut trees.”
Timber had seen a boom in the past two years as larger companies started to break into the dense hinterland of northwestern Maine, but commercial logging still employed a number of smaller crews. Galadriel tried and failed not to sort through the dirty faces that stepped into the store, but time had a way of soothing her disappointment. Now, when she saw matted curls and oiled leather coats, the pang was little more than a nuisance.
“Really? Aren’t you afraid they’ll fall on you?”
“Sometimes. What’s your name?”
“Celebrían.”
“Pretty name.”
“I know. What’s yours?”
Galadriel tucked two logs under her arms, gritting her teeth against a gust of frosted wind. They would have to keep the stoves burning all night with the way the temperature was dropping, never mind the snow that would need shoveling in the morning. Her father’s knees would be too stiff for the work, and the boys were down in Old Town. It would be a sleepless night followed by a long day, and then there was Celebrían—
She heard her daughter first, that high melody like a spring wind chime, grounded by the bass of a rumbling male voice. Galadriel rounded the corner, already apologizing, “Sorry, sir, but we’re closed for the night…”
“Mama! This is—”
“Galadriel.”
She dropped the logs.