Page 157 of Into the Heartless Wood
I raise my own hands,
feel the power trembling inside of them.
Tears pour down my face; they mingle with the rain.
Lightning crackles just above my head, illuminating the ground, the mud flying up from the horses’ hooves.
More of my mother’s wood has come behind us.
The trees plunge their roots into the ground and rip them up again.
Marching. To her.
This is what she was waiting for.
Reinforcements.
She makes it look as if I am commanding them.
As if I am the one
compelling them to drag the soldiers from their horses,
to skewer them with sharp fingers and cause
blood to bubble up out of their mouths.
That is what Owen must think.
He is dragged from his horse with the rest of them, but the trees do not kill him.
They drop him at my feet.
He raises his head,
looks
into
my
eyes.
His horror is visceral.
His sense of betrayal
acrid as blood.
For he sees
that I am
at the last
what he always knew I was:
a
