Page 174 of Into the Heartless Wood
I smile through my tears. Seren helped us, one last time. “Come on, Awela,” I tell my baby sister. I kiss her cheek. “Let’s go home.”
I visit the hill where I buried Seren’s heart every day for a year.
Sometimes Awela comes with me, but more often I go alone. I play my mother’s cello for her. I play the phonograph—a new one, that I sent for from Saeth. I sing to her. Sometimes, I peer up at the stars and tell her about the constellation that burns in the sky in place of the one her mother put there: Astronomers have named it Gleddyf, Sword, but I know better. I know it’s a tree. Her tree.
I always feel at peace when I’m with Seren on the hill, though my grief is never far. There is a void inside of me where she was meant to dwell. I tell her that, too.
I buried my father in a patch of earth beyond the garden, with the pieces of my mother’s smashed phonograph. I know they’re together now. I know they’re at peace. They, too, are gaps in my heart that will never be filled.
On the first anniversary of the night I laid Seren’s heart to rest, I find a green shoot pushing its way out of the earth. It grows rapidly, taller every day. It becomes a tender plant. Then a sapling, fierce and strong. It’s white and silver, like she used to be. The tree unfolds shining leaves, and a patch of violets grows at its base.
After six months, the birch tree is as tall as me. Now every night I sit beneath it, mesmerized by the dappled moonlight filtering through its leaves.
On the second anniversary of the night I buried Seren’s heart, her tree stands strong against the stars, a memorial in white and silver. But it isn’t enough. It isn’t her. It never will be. I feel somehow as if I’ve lost her all over again, or if I’ve realized at the last that she is truly, wholly gone. Grief is an ocean, and I am drowning in it. I weep beneath her tree.
The wind whispers through the leaves, grazing past my cheek. My tears dry. I comfort myself with the memory of her. With the quiet night and the sweet scent of violets.
EPILOGUE
IDREAM
of wind in my leaves,
of roots drinking deep of the earth,
of sunlight warm on bark,
of rain soothing and sweet.
I dream
of a voice
speaking to me in the moonlight,
of a boy
pressed up against my trunk.
Sometimes, there is music.
Sometimes, there is weeping.
I think perhaps the boy was precious to me, once.
I think perhaps I knew his name.
He touches me with soft fingers.
He sleeps beneath my boughs.
Perhaps he dreams.
Perhaps
of
me.
