Page 38 of Into the Heartless Wood
That wants to spill out.
I needed him to know this.
I did not know I did till now.
He looks at me, looks at me. “The stories say there are eight of you. That the Gwydden poured her evil and her malice into a ring of birch trees and created monsters. Tree sirens, to do her bidding, to devour anyone who dared step within the shadow of the wood. But that can’t be all. The Gwydden couldn’t have given you a soul. Evil cannot create life.”
“Can it not?”
Wind breathes over the hill. It brings the scent of iron.
There will be blood, tomorrow. More souls for my sisters to take for my mother.
More and more.
Until there are none left.
“My mother could only give her children what she herself possesses: a heart. I told you before. I do not have a soul.”
This shakes him.
I wish I were brave enough
to take his hand in mine
and not let go.
But my bark is rough.
It would cut him.
He says: “You reason and act and feel. You had mercy on Awela, on me. How can you not have a soul?”
There is a taste like ashes
in my mouth.
“I do not need a soul to kill. I do not need a soul to refrain from killing.”
“Then what is to keep you from killing again? What is to keep you from killingme?”
I stare at him.
I could never kill him, not now.
Not even if my mother compelled me.
I might shatter to pieces from rebelling against her
but that would be better
than watching the light
go out of his eyes.
I think
I shall drown
