Page 41 of Into the Heartless Wood
And I know, despite everything Father said to me, despite the awful, foolish recklessness of it, I’m going to keep that promise.
When the house has fallen wholly quiet, and I’m sure Father is asleep, I sling the strap of my portable telescope over my back and shimmy out the window. I nearly fall and break my neck, but something keeps me clinging to the ivy on the rough stones. I leap down safely by the kitchen window, and creep past the garden, along the length of the wall to a spot that (I hope) is not as visible from the house as my usual one.
I clamber over.
Seren is waiting for me in the same place she was last night. She turns as I thump to the ground, and the sight of her floods my whole body with heat.
She moves toward me like a silver ghost. “I did not think you were coming.”
“I promised.” I don’t tell her that I’ve just jeopardized my relationship with my father, that if he has his way I won’t even be here this time next week. I don’t tell her I’m the greatest of fools.
She smiles.
We walk together up to last night’s little hill, and I find that my lingering fear of her has somehow entirely gone. The simple fact of her existence fascinates me. Intoxicates me. As nothing has in all the world except the stars. The wind whispers over the leaves that trail down the length of her silver-white form. Her beauty takes my breath away.
She sinks to the ground and I kneel beside her, shrugging off the telescope strap. She glances at it, then at me.
My cheeks blaze. “You said you wanted to know more about my world. About me. I thought I’d show you the stars.”
Seren’s silver-green brows slant down, scornful. “I’ve seen the stars.”
“Not like this.” I find a flat spot in the grass and set up the telescope, adjusting the mirrors, focusing the lens. Seren watches me without a word.
The wind is warm tonight. It smells of sun-baked earth and that sharp, tangy scent that hangs in the air before a thunderstorm. Clouds dot the sky away to the east, but above us the stars shine clear.
“Here,” I say when the telescope is ready. “Come and look.”
She scoots close to me, her woven-leaf dress trailing across the ground. Her arm brushes mine. It’s smooth, except for the places where her skin curls backward like peeling bark.
She peers through the eyepiece of the telescope, and for some moments is wholly silent, wholly still. I try not to see the clouds massing quickly over the tree line, try not to feel the keen bite of disappointment at the thought of rain driving us from the hill I have unintentionally begun to think of as ours.
At last she sits back from the telescope. She seems almost toglow.“The stars are very beautiful,” she says, awe in her voice.
I grin. “You see? You do have a soul. A monster wouldn’t care about the stars.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Her face closes, and she turns away from me. Above us, the clouds blot out the sky; the air is heavy with the scent of rain.
Below the hill, the trees stir and whisper. Leaves rattle. Branches creak.
Seren flings her head up. “Owen, you must go.”
“What? Why?”
“The wood knows you’re here, and someone is coming. Maybe my sisters. Maybe my mother.” She jerks to her feet and grabs my hand, pulling me up with her. “You must go. At once.”
“But the telescope—”
She yanks me down the hill and I stumble after her, the rough part of her hand scraping painfully against mine. The clouds break just as she tugs me under the trees. The rain scarcely touches us here, but I can barely see her in the shadows, in the dark. We run together, back to the wall.
At the border of the wood, the rain sheets down, drenching me in an instant, turning Seren’s skin a darker shade of silver. She lets go of my hand. For an instant, she stares at me in the rainy dark. “Come again tomorrow. I will make sure it is safe. Goodbye, Owen.”
Behind her, the wood is teeming, howling. She turns to face it. Disappears into the trees.
“Goodbye, Seren,” I say after her.
I clamber back over the wall, creep around the garden and up through my window. I strip off my wet clothes and hide them under the bed, so Father won’t see.
In the morning, I take Awela with me into the village to see about a job in the telegraph office.
