Page 18 of Into the Heartless Wood
She gave me my heart. She could take it back again.
I fear her.
But
I
will
not
kill
him.
Chapter Thirteen
OWEN
IWAKE TO THE SCENT OF RICH EARTH AND WILDFLOWERS,MOSSpressed under my cheek. Awela is tucked tight against me. Sunlight seeps through the cracks in the bower the tree siren wove around us. The siren herself stands silent and still, her head turned away.
An overwhelming sensation of peace steals through me, so strong I nearly drift back to sleep, but then I remember my fear, and jerk to a sitting position. Awela whimpers in her sleep. I take her small hand in mine.
The tree siren looks at me. Her yellow eyes are brighter this morning, her pale eyelashes tinted ever so slightly green.
“You wake,” she says. “Come. I will lead you from the wood before it wakes as well, and knows that you have lingered too long.”
For a moment, she does nothing, just watches me. I realize the violets in her hair closed up sometime during the night, that they’re beginning to open again. I think they must be part of her.
She raises her hands, her silver-white skin patchy and curling off of her in places.
She touches the branches that are woven around us, and they begin to unwind, shrinking down layer by layer until they vanish altogether. Beads of perspiration show on her forehead. An indigo butterfly lands in her hair, drinking nectar from the violets.
Still Awela sleeps, her small fists bunched in my shirt. “Why doesn’t she wake?” I ask. I can’t quite tamp down my sudden fear that she will sleep forever.
The Gwydden’s daughter glances down at her. A breeze stirs through the wood, whispering past my ear and making the tree siren seem to shimmer.
“I did not want her to be afraid of my sister, so I caused her to sleep. When she wakes, she will think all of this nothing more than a strange dream. Come, now. The wood is watching.”
I realize she sentmeto sleep last night, too, but I am too bewildered to be angry.
She slips away, a white shadow among the trees. I pick up Awela and follow.
The siren makes no noise as she walks, and the forest seems to bend to make way for her. Awela grows heavy and my arms tremble with the effort of carrying her, but the siren does not stop, and I don’t dare ask her to.
On and on we go, farther than Awela could have possibly wandered yesterday, farther thanIremember walking. I don’t recognize this part of the forest—nothing looks familiar. The scent of loam is rich, deep, chased with a sweeter aroma of violets and honey.
Just when I am about to collapse from the strain of holding my sister, there’s a break in the trees, the glimpse of an observatory window, the scent of mint and basil growing in the garden.
The wall my father built, with no hint of the hole Awela squeezed through to mar its unyielding surface.
The tree siren stops at the very edge of the wall, and turns to look at me. The violets have wilted in her hair. She looks younger or sadder or both. I don’t know why.
“What are you called?” Her voice is the high vibrato of a hesitant violin.
“Owen Merrick.” I shift my grip on Awela. “What’s your name?”
Her eyes narrow. “I am my mother’s youngest monster. I do not have a name.”