Page 51 of Into the Heartless Wood
I stop
before they blot out the sky.
I make
our ceiling
stars.
I open my eyes
and draw my arms from the earth.
My mother’s trees were angry.
So I grew my own.
I did not know
I was strong enough.
All this while, Owen has crouched beside me, silent.
Now I look to him. His eyes are round with wonder.
He says: “Magic.”
I say: “Growth. My trees will shelter us for as long as we wish.”
He studies me
in silvery light.
His throat bobs as he swallows.
“They are beautiful. Impossible. Like you are.”
In the wood, my sister killed them all.
I
watched
and
did
nothing.
He calls me beautiful and
I cannot meet his eyes.
I say: “What have you brought?”
He sets the box in the grass and opens it.
He eases something out,
