Page 25 of Into the Heartless Wood
the
orb.
I do not take it.
Claws, under my chin.
Forcing me to look up at her.
“If you do not obey me, I will strip away every other part of you. I will leave you for the beasts to devour in the dark.”
She does not know about the boy.
She does not know.
He is safe.
Safe.
Pain pulses through me.
But there is also
relief.
I take the orb.
I hang it around my neck.
I go north.
Every step is pain.
I press cool moss against the raw place.
I bathe in an icy stream.
It hardly cools the fire.
The wood is wide. I go very far from the boy’s house.
I miss one night of watching him.
I miss two.
Now there is the clang of hammers. The grunts of men.
Lines of iron, crossed with wood. A track to replace the one I wrenched apart.
I hide in the trees.
I watch them.
My mother’s command trembles through me:
Slay them.
Send their souls to the heartless tree.
