Kidneys.
The heart.
They were covered in dirt after having been cast aside by Louise, and Greer wiped them clean as best she could. When she was pleased with the arrangement, she sat back, scanning the darker depths of pines.
She cleared her throat, feeling her voice waver even before she spoke. “With gratitude and thanks, I leave these tokens as an offering for thee.” Every hair on the back of Greer’s neck stood at attention, attuned and ready. “May they be of good use and bring you great pleasure.”
She held her breath, wondering if today she’d finally hear the Benevolence’s answer. She waited, watching for any sense of movement, any stirring however small.
But it wouldn’t be small, would it?
She glanced to the right.
The tracks were big, so, so big…
Then to the left.
Two toes, what has two toes?
The spruces’ trunks remained in place, unfaltering and still.
The tamaracks’ glow dimmed, and the surrounding woods grew darker.
Closer.
Was the dying light due to an approaching storm, a bank of clouds rolling down from the mountains high above? The falling night?
Was it the Benevolence?
Or, worse yet…the monsters they held back?
The woods waited, stubbornly refusing to offer up its secrets.
Greer kept her eyes fixed on the garish lumps staining the tree bark before her. She could be stubborn, too.
But as she knelt, waiting in a moment drawn too long, Greer felt it, the falling of the sun, the pull of Mistaken. The Stones tugged on her bones like a fisherman testing a catch on his line. Gentle for now, but persistent.
Greer had counted her footsteps today, as she always did when she slipped past the town’s boundary. Ten thousand paces, give or take.Nearly five miles. It would take her more than two hours to return. At least.
She had enough time before First Bellows.
Just barely.
She could wait a moment more.
Another minute. Surely, she could last another minute.
When the strain grew again, tugging at her with unchecked doggedness, Greer gave up and stood, certain that the moment she turned, the trees would come to life, stooping forward to snatch up her gifts.
Greer blew strands of dark hair from her eyes and rubbed her fingers together. They were smudged sticky from the offering. She’d wash them at the first creek she came across. Martha would never let her hear the end of it if she returned home looking like the butcher’s apprentice.
Now that Greer’s feet were pointed back toward Mistaken, her lungs released a breath of air, momentarily free of the incessant pressure drawing at her body. She gathered her supplies, but paused before she could roll up the map.
She’d been so proud of it before Louise’s hateful words had bitten in, poisoning its joy.
She studied the clean lines, the accurate scale, the series of checks marking each copse of Redcaps they’d come across.
It was good work, Greer knew that.
