Page 76 of Into the Heartless Wood
I want to encircle him in branches,
protect him forever
from the wood and my mother
and the truth
of what I am.
I say: “For strawberries. For books and music and dancing. For not fearing me, if only for a little while.”
“I do not fear you now.” He cups my face in his hands.
I tremble
at his touch. “You should never have stopped being afraid.”
I step back from him and
it
is
agony.
I say: “Remember. You cannot save her.”
I leave him by the oak
and go to find my sister.
She waits for me, not far away.
Amusement tilts her mouth up. “You have told the boy farewell, then. Shall we to your death?”
“You need not be so gleeful.”
“I only wish the rest of our sisters were here, to see you brought low.”
“Do not breathe a word of the boy. You promised.”
She laughs. “I did not, but I shall hold my tongue until it pleases me not to.”
We pace together
into the heart of our mother’s domain,
through corridors of ash trees.
Branches arch far over our heads,
an ever-shifting canopy
that blots out the sky.
Bones litter the ground, offerings from the earth to its powerful queen.
The scent of blood grows
