They weren’t little girls anymore, fighting over hair ribbons or secrets.
They were grown—Greer twenty-seven and Louise twenty-two—and these stakes were higher, these words were crueler.
Still, Greer waited, certain her wishes would come true.
But as seconds turned to minutes, Greer’s hope began to wither.
Giving up, she glanced to the line of flags shifting in the listless breeze.
“She didn’t mean that,” Greer called loudly, ready to catch the attention of whoever, whatever might be listening. She sighed. “I’m sure she didn’t mean any of that.”
As if in response, the forest fell silent, the quietest it had been all afternoon.
Greer scooped up the scattered organs before ducking under the branches of the Redcaps and stepping past the flags to search for the right altar. She could tell the exact moment she’d crossed over, slipping into an untouched world, alien and new and unmarked on any of her maps.
She was the first person of Mistaken to stand upon this ground, so far from home, so far from the Stones’ hold. She took in a deep breath, basking in the sensation. But even as the wonder coursed through her, as heady as a shot of Fenneck O’Connell’s best whiskey, she noticed footprints pressed deep into the spongy moss all about her.
Greer blinked, certain the impressions were a trick of the heavy afternoon sun.
They remained.
She stooped down, inspecting them with her artist’s eye.
They’d been made by feet bare and too big.
Too irregularly shaped.
Her mouth dried as she counted just two toes per print.
Greer knew the woods around Mistaken as well as her own cabin. Her mother, Ailie Mackenzie, had taught her every kind of tree that grew there and every type of animal who roamed its depths. But she could not think of a single one that boasted only two toes.
This was it.
This was a sign.
Louise was wrong. The Benevolence was real, as were the dreadful Bright-Eyeds they protected Mistaken from.
Unable to show her friend this irrefutable proof, Greer wanted to howl in frustration.
From somewhere deep in the woods, a branch cracked, and her heart seized as she suddenly realized she was alone in the woods with whatever had made such enormous two-toed tracks.
“The tokens,” she whispered in a rush. “Find an altar, set the tokens, and go home. The Benevolence will be grateful. The Benevolence will bless your endeavor.” The words fell from her in rote succession, instinctive turns of phrase Martha had spent years drilling into her.
Greer stopped at the first fallen tree she came across, a long length of birch, its papery bark curling back to reveal spiky clusters of comb-tooth mushrooms. Their white branches were as jagged as vertebrae.
She knelt and placed her fingers along the tree, pausing for a moment of genuflection before beginning her task.
Though Martha had given her the words and ways that would be most pleasing to the Benevolence, it was Ailie who had taught Greer to offer reverence for the land and all the marvels it held. Much of Greer’s childhood had been spent exploring the wilds with Ailie. During each journey, they would find somewhere to pause for a moment of reflection. They’d kneel down, skirts pooling together, and the wind would carry away their whispers, tangling them so tightly they sounded as if they’d come from the same person.
Martha’s practices inclined more toward pageantry: laying out the viscera just so, making sure her entreaties held the appropriate note of awestruck fervor, keeping everything rigid and orderly, familiar and routine.
But Ailie had been infused with a profound sense of wonder, urged to see more, learn more, experiencemore. She’d believed the only way to show true appreciation was to take what was given, to wander as far as the Warding Stones would allow, basking in the world’s messy glory, reveling within it, and allowing the wild pounding of her blood to be its own sort of prayer.
Greer’s faith was a blend of both women’s teachings. She could almost feel their hands on hers now, telling her to stop and feel the textured warmth of the tree bark, guiding her as she arranged a tableau of offerings, ghoulish and macabre.
A string of intestines.
A liver.
