Page 6 of Into the Heartless Wood
I stammer something nonsensical in reply and step outside and onto the train platform, upbraiding myself for being such a coward.
But there wouldn’t have been time to properly speak with her anyway, because she’s right—the train rattles up that moment and I climb aboard, handing over my ticket to the dark-skinned steward in the blue and gray cap. I slide into a seat by the window.
The car is at the very end of the train right before the caboose, and it’s mostly empty, the only other passenger a pale-skinned old man in a tailed coat reading a newspaper. The headline says something about King Elynion drafting soldiers into his army. The old man’s top hat sits in the vacant seat beside him, and I realize I’ve forgotten my own in my hurry to make the train. I’m not in the habit of wearing it—it’s still stuffed in the coat closet somewhere. At least I put on my one and only suit, although it’s rather too small for me now—I’ll have to ask Father about getting a new one. Mostly I just wear Father’s castoff shirts and trousers—I haven’t been to school in a year, and Awela doesn’t care how I’m dressed.
I settle deeper into my seat and take a book out of my satchel. The train lurches into motion, the village and farms passing in a blur. It’s not long before we plunge into the wood, the leafy green swallowing us whole; I push away my uneasiness, try to lose myself in the book.
The old man across from me momentarily lays down his newspaper to pull his window shut.
I wonder how many passengers are riding in the cars ahead of us. I wonder if the engineer has wax stuffed into his ears. I try to comfort myself with the thought that perhaps the noise of the train is loud enough to block out the song of the Gwydden’s daughters.
Yet I can’t help but feel we’re hurtling into danger.
Hours pass. I eat my lunch: another piece of bara brith, with a fat slice of ham and hot tea from my thermos. The train clatters on, the motion of the wheels on the rails dragging my eyelids down.
A horrificSCREEEEEECHof metal jolts me awake. The train car wrenches sideways and I’m thrown hard into the seat across the aisle, inches from the old passenger who lies limp against the shut window. His neck is bent at an odd angle, and there’s a smear of red on his temple. I stare at him, my thoughts dull and slow with shock. This is a nightmare, and in another moment I will wake up.
But I don’t.
The train car shudders as it settles on its side, causing me to slide into the old passenger’s body. He is stiff and cold, and a scream tears from my throat as I frantically, desperately, pull myself back into the aisle. I am shaky with horror, with the dawning awareness that gnaws at my mind.
The train windows are over my head now. Branches press against the glass. They scratch and they scrape, like they’re trying to get in, and I know, Iknow, even before the music twists suddenly through glass and metal and puts its claws in me.
A tree siren derailed the train, and she’s going to kill us all.
The music calls me, commands me. The barbs dig deep andpull.Something inside my head thrashes, screams, fights.
But my body obeys the siren’s call.
I pull myself across the seats, toward the door that leads to the next car. It’s sideways now, bent and jammed from the crash. The tree siren’s song clamors in my head, yanking me like a beast on a chain. I don’t want to leave the train. I want to hide from her. I want to tuck myself into a shadowy corner and pray she passes me by. The music doesn’t let me. I put my shoulder into the door, throw myself against it again and again. I’m dimly aware of the pain in my arm, of the wound in my side from being thrown against the seat. The music writhes in every part of me. It’s splitting me apart. I do not want to go to her. And yet—Ido.
There is terror and desire. A distant horror, a further distant pain. I must get through the door. I must, I must.
The door gives. I push through, hissing as a piece of jagged metal slices into my leg. The music pulls me, pulls me. I haul myself from the train, and tumble out into the wood.
Chapter Four
OWEN
DIRT GRINDS UNDER MY PALMS. THE CUT IN MY LEG DRIPSblood on the ground.
I gulp for air, my limbs strangely heavy. Screams echo in the wood ahead of me, a jarring counterpoint to the music that twists into my soul. The train has been torn off its tracks, the cars scattered on the ground like discarded toys. They stretch on into the wood, out of my sight line. Other passengers crawl from the cars ahead of me, some with broken arms or legs, many with wounds from the impact of the crash. All of them lie on the forest floor, limbs dragging across the tracks. All of them wait, as I do.
The music overwhelms me, pins me like a bug to the earth between the railroad cars. I can’t move my arms, my legs. Her song commands me to stay, to wait. My mind is screaming for me torun.My body doesn’t listen. I can’t move, can’t think. I can hardly breathe. She will come. She will devour me. And I will let her do it.
Horror is a yawning gulf inside of me.
I will never see Father or Awela again.
From the front sections of the train comes the same sound again and again, the pop and crack of something breaking. I realize that it’s bodies, that it’s bones.
Overhead, wind ripples through the trees. Branches groan and leaves whisper. Through it all her song swells and swells. It will swallow the world. It will swallow me.
I don’t even have the will to clap my hands over my ears, to shut out the all-consuming sound of it.
I just lie here, and wait for her to come.
I shake, shake.