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Page 16 of Into the Heartless Wood

“Take your chance with my sister, then!” she snarls.

The music seethes on the wind; it pulls at me, jerking me to my feet. I take a shaky step toward it against my will. I fight the pull, but it’s not enough. I take another step. “Please don’t hurt Awela.” A sob rips out of me as the music forces me forward. “Don’t take her to your mother. Please let her go. She’s just a child. She doesn’t deserve to die in the dark. Please.” My body takes another unwilling step. “Please.”

Oh God.I’m going to die in the wood after all. My death wasn’t avoided. Only delayed.

The music reels me in, a fish on a line. The trees sway ahead of me, laughing and dancing, applauding my end.

I’m never going to see Father and Awela again. I can’t even tell them goodbye.

Rough fingers grab my hand, yank me away from the looming trees and the beguiling music. The tree siren leans her face down to mine. “Be still.”

She drags me over to the place where Awela lies. I wrap my arm around my sister, pull her tight against me. I’m shaking and crying. “Awela. Awela.” I kiss her cheek.

My sister sleeps on.

“Close your ears.”

That is all the warning the tree siren gives me before she opens her mouth, and starts to sing.

Chapter Ten

MONSTER

THE BOY STINKS OF FEAR AND SALT.

He shakes like a rabbit in the snow.

His soul is a tremulous thing,

yet it burns so very bright.

I sing and sing,

music to combat my sisters’.

They will hear it.

They will think that the prey they ensnared with their song

has fallen to me.

They will not hunt him in the dark.

They will not feed his soul into their own orbs.

He will be safe.

Yet he whimpers and shakes.

How fragile he is.

How easy it would be,

to break his body to pieces.

Chapter Eleven

OWEN