Page 31 of Into the Heartless Wood
in
the
oak.
He is safe.
But he is gone.
I want him to come back.
I do not know why
but I do.
I want him to look at me.
I want him to look into my eyes
and not
be
afraid.
I want him to see me
as something more
than
a
monster.
Chapter Nineteen
OWEN
THE DAY PASSES SLOWLY,ANDIAM IMPOSSIBLY RESTLESS.
I studiously avoid looking out the kitchen window as I start tonight’s cawl, chopping leeks and cabbage and potatoes and dumping them all into a pot to cook slowly over the stove. I don’t want to see the wood, beckoning me from across the wall. I don’t want to think about the tree siren. I don’t want to think about how when she released me from the oak, I looked up into her face and realized she was beautiful.
And what does that matter?I think.Monsters can be beautiful.
I force myself to remember the train wreck, all the death and horror she caused. But those images slide too soon away, and all I can see is her silver face in the light of dawn, violets trembling in her hair. All I can see is her protecting Awela from her sister, weaving a bower of branches around us, guarding us from the malice of the wood.
You have broken me. You have changed me.
Has she changed? Is that even possible?
She saved Awela. She savedme,again and again.
Now my mother and my sisters—despise me.
But none of this matters. It can’t. Becausemymother was lost to the wood, and whether or not this tree siren had anything to do with it, it’s part of what she is. It always will be. Awela and I are safe and whole, and for that I am grateful. That is the end of it.
I’m done with the wood. I have my memories and my answers. There’s nothing for me out there.
