Page 27 of Into the Heartless Wood
At least, I think I have.
In the light of day, when I’m cooking or gardening or minding Awela, I don’t remember. In the dark of night, when I’m peering into the telescope and charting the stars with my father, I don’t remember either.
But in the space between waking and dreaming, between dark and dawn, I smell violets, and the memories flood back.
A silver face. A bower of branches, woven with magic. The brush of cool fingers across my forehead. A resonant voice, sometimes deep like a cello, sometimes high like a violin. The spark of fireflies.
Even in daylight, when I think of the train wreck, of the passengers being slaughtered in the wood, the memory feels strange. Like it’s not complete.
Three weeks have passed since Awela wandered into the forest; summer has turned the trees a deeper green, and I’m forever trying to chase the rabbits—the only creatures who don’t seem to care that we live on the border of the wood—from the garden.
I make griddlecakes for breakfast, the batter stark white against the cast-iron pan. Awela is busy eating the strawberries we picked yesterday, dipping them in fresh cream.
“Vi-wets,” she says, repeating it in her singsong voice. “Vi-wets, vi-wets, vi-wets.”
“Be patient, little one,” I tell her, my own impatience with her sharpening.
“Vi-wets!” she insists, pointing.
I look up from the griddlecakes. A sprig of purple flowers rests on the open windowsill.
I start. Is that a shadow, moving in the trees?
“Don’t touch the stove, Awela!” I shout, and bolt from the house, the door banging noisily behind me.
I jerk to a stop at my father’s wall, breathing hard. “Who’s there? Who’sthere?”
There’s no answer, just the wind in the trees, branches scraping the stone. I stand still, listening, peering across the wall and into the wood.
The smell of burning griddlecakes wafting from the kitchen window shakes me from my reverie. I race back to the house, hoping nothing’s on fire.
Later, when Awela is napping and I’m sipping tea on the back stoop, I examine the violets, running the petals through my fingers, letting their scent wrap around me.
I shut my eyes and force myself to concentrate, to think past the needle of silver pain in my head.
I remember the grip of rough fingers, choking the life out of me. A song, coiling out of the wood. A strange hand on my wrist. A silver face in the starlight. Fireflies. A dreamless sleep.
Do you fear the dark? Or only the monster who lurks here?
I open my eyes.
I’ve crushed the flowers in my hand. Their scent has seeped into my skin. I think perhaps as long as I smell violets, I will remember her. The tree siren. The Gwydden’s daughter.
She was here. Why?
I leave my half-drunk tea on the stoop and pace up to my father’s wall, the wood stirring just beyond. For a moment, two, I pause, deliberating. The memories are slippery around the edges, hard to hold onto. Already they slide away. I don’t want them to. I want to know why I can’t remember, why she left me violets on the windowsill.
I scramble up the wall and drop heavily on the other side.
I don’t dare stray very far, not with Awela sleeping alone in the house, but I walk a little farther than perhaps I should. All the while I strain my eyes for violets, stubbornly fighting to remember why.
I find a single purple flower, crumpled amongst fallen leaves. Triumph sears through me.
“Are you there?” I call. “Gwydden’s daughter, are you there?”
There is no answer, but it feels as if the wood holds its breath, waiting for me to say more. The pain in my head sharpens as the memories fight to leave me.
“Who are you? Why did you leave me the violets?”
