Page 3 of Into the Heartless Wood
“We don’t bother her.” I shrug, attempting nonchalance. “She doesn’t bother us. But I don’t need to count the money. I trust His Majesty.”
Awela rubs her eyes and I stand, hefting her up against my shoulder. The king’s man stands too, awkwardly bundling the star charts and stuffing them into his oilcloth satchel. The satchel is deep, but a good third of the charts still poke out the top. He studies me for a moment, as if debating whether or not to say something. “Do you know why he does it? His Majesty, I mean. Why he pays your father for these charts every month?”
I shrug. This man really must be new. None of the other servants the king has sent to us ever questioned him in such a way. “If my father knows, he’s never told me. But I’m sureyouknow the importance of—”
“Secrecy.” The man scowls at me. “I’m not a simpleton. Just wondered if you knew. That’s all.”
Personally, I like to imagine King Elynion as a bit of a scientist, that he keeps his hobby to himself to avoid appearing superstitious. If the people of Tarian knew their king consulted the stars on a monthly basis—whatever his real reason—they would distrust him. He’s their hero, their champion against the Gwydden and her wood. If they thought he was seeking his future in the stars, they might whisper of magic; they might begin to think he was no different than the witch and her monstrous daughters. There is a thin line, after all, between magic and science.
The king’s man hesitates at the door, pulling two lumps of wax from his pocket but not putting them back in his ears yet. He clearly doesn’t relish the thought of going outside, even if the alternative means staying in here with me and Awela.
“Just seems like a waste of coin,” he says. “It could be going to the railroad.”
Awela lays her head against my neck, yawning. The tree sirens’ song is slipping through the cracks in the stones and into the house now. I might be stuck with the king’s man for a while—I don’t know that he can resist the pull, even through the wax. “What’s wrong with the railroad? It’s been running smoothly for a year now.”
The king’s man grimaces. “It was until the wood grew up around the tracks.”
“It didwhat?” I stare, shocked.
“Just west of your village, the train to Saeth runs almost entirely through the wood. Been that way since the winter.”
“Since thewinter?” I’m repeating things stupidly, but I don’t care. Horror grips me. Along with the telegraph lines, the railroad is one of King Elynion’s crowning achievements, making travel swift and safe across Tarian, strengthening ties with our neighboring country and trade partner, Saeth. When he built it, the wood wasmilesaway, the tracks running over long stretches of grassy plain. And now … “How is that possible?”
“The wood witch grows stronger, year by year. I’m surprised she hasn’t tumbled down that wall of yours.” He glances out the window. “But it’s worse than you know. The tracks in the forest are being torn up. The metal is twisted, the railroad ties ripped from the ground and set to stand upright like the trees they once were and hung with garlands of flowers. No matter they were neverhertrees;we brought all the lumber in from Saeth—His Majesty plays by the rules. It happens at random, delaying whole shipments. We have to repair sections of track nearly every week now. There will be trouble with Saeth if we can’t sort it out.”
He’s right. Tarian imports wood and coal from Saeth. We would be in bad trouble without it. Besides the slow, perilous sea routes, there’s no other way togetto Saeth, unless one was foolish enough to go through the wood on foot—horses won’t go near her trees.
Awela shifts on my shoulder, her small hands fisting my shirt. Outside, the rain drives on and on, and the tree sirens’ song fades into nothing. “You’ve been in the wood, then,” I say, not missing his use of “we.”
He shudders and nods. “I worked on the railroad six months, and I’m often sent out to guard the repair crew.”
My pulse throbs in my neck. “Have you ever seen them? The–the witch’s daughters?”
His hands twitch, the star chart casings in the oilcloth satchel rattling against each other. “Once. It was two months ago, the first time we were sent to repair a section of the track in the newly grown wood. We stuffed our ears with wax against their songs. We armed ourselves with knives and guns. But when they came, it wasn’t enough. There were three of them, and their devilish music was loud even through the wax. They were fast as snakes, with glowing eyes and bony hands, and they bound our bodies with living branches that twisted and squeezed, winding into our flesh.”
I stare at the king’s man in utter horror.
“It was our captain who saved most of us, with a bundle of kerosene-soaked rags and a packet of gunpowder. Scared the devils off long enough for us to escape. But our captain died anyway. He’d lost too much blood.”
I eye the king’s man with new respect.
He shakes his head, as if to shake the memory away. He seems to realize the music has faded from the wood. “Good day, then.” He stuffs the wax into his ears and steps outside, shutting the door behind him. I’m not sorry to see him go. I tuck Awela into her little bed on the first floor, then climb up to the second floor, passing my and my father’s bedrooms before taking the narrow stair to the observatory. Assuming the storm passes, it won’t be dark enough to use the telescope for some hours yet, but I like the quiet peace of this room. When the dome is open, the glass ceiling is a window to the sky; when it’s shut, there’s only a small window to the left of the cast-iron stove operated with a crank. I turn it and stare into the Gwydden’s Wood, my eyes straining to see past the rain and into the heart of the forest. No one touches the Gwydden’s trees—they are sacred to her. The stories say she thinks of them as her children, that she evenmadechildren from them: her eight daughters, the tree sirens, whose eerie song twists up again through the window.
There was a time when the wood was significantly smaller than it is now, but it grows year by year. More rapidly, according to the king’s man’s report, than I realized. I wonder if by the time Awela is as old as I am it will have swallowed all the world the way it swallowed my mother.
For a moment more I stare into the trees, listening to the song of the Gwydden’s daughters. The music rakes through me with jagged claws, and I find myself leaning out of the observatory, stretching my hands to the trees. Awareness slams through me. I jerk my head back inside and crank the window shut again.
Chapter Two
OWEN
IT MAY BE SPRING,BUT THE CHILL OF WINTER LINGERS WHEN THEevenings come, so I shovel coal into the downstairs stove before I start cooking supper.
I’m a fair cook, which is not generally thought dignified for a boy, but I enjoy it: the rhythm of chopping vegetables, the satisfaction of stirring flour and butter and sugar together to make Awela’s favorite little cakes. I’m proud I’ve kept all three of us alive since the day Mother was lost to the wood, even though it meant leaving school a year early.
Tonight I stir cawl in a pot bubbling on the kitchen stove, and mix tea-soaked dried currants into my bara brith dough. I shape the dough into loaves and leave them to rise overnight—they’ll go straight into the oven in the morning. Awela wakes up from her nap and comes darting out into the kitchen, wrapping herself around my legs and giggling as I walk with her attached to me.
“Wen, Wen!” she cries, pleased.
