“Pet, what are you doing?” He whips around and steadies me. He must sense the irritation coming off of me in fumes because he looks slightly affronted. His large brows furrow down over his stupid flummoxed face. “Come here, pet. Stand right here.”
I march where he wants me and cross my arms. He cocks his head with another puzzled expression before turning to the large knotted tree in front of us. It’s not vastly larger than the neighboring trees but it seems to stand out among them. “She moves, so we might have to try a few locations. Ready?”
I raise my brows, wondering what exactly it is I should be ready for. He turns to face the tree, speaking a short phrase that’s completely unintelligible to me. My mouth falls open as a face emerges from amidst the gnarled bark. A wide nose and wide eyes crowned by a tangle of leaves appear on the tree as if they’ve been carved there. The face blinks, and I swear I can hear the creaking of wood against wood.
The eyes come to rest on me with a countenance of mild interest, and I shuffle on my feet, looking away and back again, wondering what the etiquette of this situation requires. Should I…call out a greeting? I scratch at my nose. I’m not entirely sure if this tree is sentient or not.
I’m still trying to decide that, when a groaning sound garners my attention. It seems to be coming from the ground below my feet. The soil is shifting. I’m certain of it. I throw a startled look at Sitri. “This might feel strange, but don’t be frightened.”
I soon realize the reason the soil is shifting is because the tangle of roots half buried beneath the ground is rising, displacing the soil around them. A tendril near me roots up and slowly snakes around my ankles and then my legs. The roots tug, and I sink into the soil.
I suck in a gasp, trying to free myself, but the binds are firm. A startled cry slips from my lips, and the daemon pangs faster and harder with my quickening breaths as the roots slither further up my body. I’m pulled deeper into the soil, and the daemon lashes out of me, tearing chunks from the roots around my legs.
More roots slide up to replace them, binding even tighter with the daemon blasting out of me. “It’s okay!” Sitri reassures me. That’s the last thing I hear before we’re both sucked under the earth. Everything goes black as night, and my cries become muffled under the soil. My limbs flail, and the daemon sends jolt after jolt at the compacted and loosening dirt around me.
It’s like being in the Pits all over again, stuck in the ground, clawing at the soil. I’m going to die, buried beneath the earth like I always thought I would. Suddenly, I’m catapulted upward. I break through the surface, gasping in strangled breaths. I land on my side, spitting dirt out of my mouth as the daemon crashes over me in thick waves.
Sitri lands upright beside me. A strange wailing siren fills the air as I scramble to my feet and turn on him, breathing ragged.
“What. The. Fuck!”
“Calm down,” Sitri coaxes.
The daemon folds me in half and expels with my anger. Sitri attempts to dodge it, but he’s too slow, and the daemon pelts him in the left shoulder, sending him hurtling. I stumble back, clapping a hand over my mouth. He rolls a couple of times, catches himself on his palms, and shoots back to his feet with a grunt.
“Gods,” he groans, massaging his left shoulder. “How did you manage to get me in the exact same spot as last time?”
“Sorry!” I gasp out, taking several more paces back.
“Calm. Down.” Sitri demands, holding up his palms in surrender.
I brace my hands against my knees as I gulp in air and urge the daemon to settle. “I’m…trying…why didn’t you block me?”
“I don’t want to be tracked here.” He takes a few careful steps forward, watching me warily. “I told you not to be frightened.”
“You forgot to mention the fucking earth was going to swallow me!”
“Apologies,” he murmurs as he approaches, eyes tentative as if anticipating another blow.
I straighten and survey our surroundings. There are no signs we emerged from the ground below our feet and the strange sound had cut off as quickly as it came on. The tree is different here, but the same face is carved into the bark. Sitri utters something else that sounds like mangled gibberish to my ears, and the face sinks back into the weathered bark. This Wood is different. The trees are spaced further apart, more spindly, a deeper shade of brown, and the leaves are more vibrant. “What is that?”
“The Green Man. Planted by the Horned God around the Ouroboros. Only his descendants are able to utilize it. Or those given the Mark of the goddess,” he says, nodding his head in my direction.
“Is that why you gave it to me?”
“One of the reasons.” He spins. “Thankfully, she’s here, and we won’t have to do that again.” He waves a hand at something behind me.
Not something. Someone.
Not twenty yards in front of us, settled on stilts that propel it among the treetops, is a house. At least, I think it’s a house, though the strangest-looking house I've ever laid eyes on. It appears to be haphazardly arranged with an array of materials, wooden planks, red bricks, and patterned thatching, all of it weathered and worn.
The roofs come up in three pointed peaks at varying levels. Smoke curdles out of the multiple chimneys. When I narrow my focus on the beams holding this hovel off the ground, I realize they’re in the shape of wiry bird’s legs, the large black claws spearing the ground.
A planked porch wraps the front of the house, covered in shrubbery and plants, vines twirling the rail, threatening to overtake the house completely. Teetering, spindly stairs jut down to the ground. A woman’s there leaning against the wooden rail staring at us. From this distance, I can only make out the wild disarray of her silver hair.
She watches us silently for a moment, turns on her heel, and slips inside. The door slams shut behind her with a loud clack.
That didn’t seem exactly welcoming.
