Page 37 of Into the Heartless Wood
Memory.
Fear.
He says: “You slaughtered them all. Women and men. Children. You took every soul on that train, save mine.”
There is horror in his voice.
But
he does not
shrink from me.
“Why did you spare me? On the train. With Awela. In the oak.Why did you spare me?”
Anger radiates from him
like summer heat.
Something cracks deep inside of me.
I should not
have asked him to come.
I should not
wish for him to see me
as something
I
am
not.
I say: “I do not know.”
He rakes a hand through his hair.
He curses in the dark.
But
he does not leave me.
Below the hill the trees pulse and shiver. Listening. Listening.
He says: “The wood has taken everything from me. It stole my mother away. It broke my father. And were it not for your mercy, Awela and I would be dead. Why did you spare me? What do you want? Do you truly expect me to believe that you wish to be more than a monster? That youaresomething more?”
There is iron in his words.
There is longing, too.
I tell him: “I have not killed since that day.”
This is the truth that pulses inside of me.
