She couldn’t be angry with the brownies; they hadn’t known. This was simply what they did: tidying, mending, completing the tiny cap meant for a babe born in winter. They must’ve knitted by firelight, the hearth smoldering through the night, fueled by wood scraps from the forever empty cradle.

Mikaila Nalbantova is a speculative fiction writer with a focus on the epic, the folkloric, and the Classical. Her work has appeared on Apex Book Company and in Club Plum, Tension Literary, and others. You can find more of her work through linktr.ee/mikaila.nalbantova.