Page 74 of Into the Heartless Wood
She scoffs. “It has a name, does it? You think it as worthy a creature as me, as you? If I sing to it, it will come gladly; it willbegme to devour it. It has no more value than aworm.”
“He is a living soul. He has the highest worth.”
Displeasure sparks between her eyes. “Your game has gone on long enough. Kill him now, or I will, and drag you both before our mother.”
“When our mother has defeated the Eater, her wood will cover all the world. There will be no more humans. No more souls to take. Let me have this one. Let me do with it what I will. What harm is there for him to speak with his mother, before all his kind are devoured?”
She spits at me. “There is something wrong with your heart. There is sentiment in you. There is weakness.”
Rain falls, cold through the trees. Owen’s hand is warm in mine. His strength gives me strength.
I say: “Our mother will be angry with me for being away so long. For not coming when she called. She will punish me. She will be cruel. Perhaps that is prize enough for you to let him go.”
I feel Owen’s eyes on my face.
He does not like
that this is the price for him to see his mother.
He does not know
that I brought him here willing to pay it.
My sister says: “I will come with you, if only to see our mother rip you apart. I will laugh. And then I will come and devour him anyway.”
It is all I can hope for.
I say: “Let me show him the way. Then we will go to our mother together.”
She smirks at me in the falling rain. “Go. I will be waiting.”
She melts into the wood.
Once more, Owen and I are alone.
I cannot meet his eyes
as we walk
through dripping trees.
His unrest pulses through me
as surely as his heartbeat.
He says: “Will your mother kill you? For helping me?”
I say: “She does not know about you. You are not the cause of her anger.”
“What, then?”
“It is because I have taken no new souls for her in many weeks. It is because I did not come to her when she called.”
He pulls me to a stop and
at last
I look at him.
