Page 33 of Into the Heartless Wood
“I can’t,” I repeat. “I shouldn’t have come tonight. Goodbye, tree siren.”
But for a moment, I don’t go. For a moment, I linger.
She tilts her head to the side, brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes as the wind tugs a petal free, sends it spinning to the ground. “Seren,” she says. “My name is Seren.”
Chapter Twenty
SEREN
IASKED HIM TO STAY.
He
did
not
stay.
I told him my name. The name I chose, the name he offered me.
But he gave no answer.
He went away into the dark.
He says he will not come back.
I want him to come back.
Why?
He should not. The trees are watching. They will bring tales to my mother. Perhaps they already have.
He would be in terrible danger.
But there is something growing
deep inside of me.
Something
that calls out to him.
I am different,
than I was.
I do not want my mother’s song,
my mother’s souls.
I want—
I do not know.
But I want something more
than the death that she offers me.
