The Brides Came Down the Mountain

They came just after sundown. The youngest bride, still reveling in the physicality of her new existence, came on foot, running and skipping and jumping down the rocky slopes from the castle at the mountain’s peak, now tumbling as she misjudged the placement of a rock or the length of her leap, now bounding back up to her feet, her laughter ringing out ahead of her like a warning bell so that the people in the village below shuddered behind their shuttered windows and barred doors to hear her. The elder two brides, smiling with indulgence at their younger comrade’s exuberance, came through the air.