Page 62 of Into the Heartless Wood
than it was.
I look up into a new sky,
into stars that trace the shape
of my mother’s power.
I understand
how very small I am.
How unimportant.
How weak.
My mother created me in a moment.
In another, she could destroy me.
“Seren?”
I turn and he is here,
in the light of new stars.
He carries a lantern,
and there is something in his eyes
that was not there before.
He says, “What does it mean? The stars—they’vechanged.”
I want
to touch him,
to feel his heart beat beneath my fingers.
I want
him to look at me
like he thinks I am worthy
of something beyond being
splintered to pieces
and fed to the fire.
I say: “My mother has come into the fullness of her power. She is ready now.”
“Ready for what?”
Around our hill,
the trees I made to shield us
