Into the Heartless Wood by Joanna Ruth Meyer

Author:Joanna Ruth Meyer [Meyer, Joanna Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2020-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Six

SEREN

CANGEN SAYS GRAVELY: “WE DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO SPIN you a soul. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Then what can I do?” My voice cracks, breaks. “How can I forsake the monster I was created to be?”

“We can change your form.” The sunlight gilds the rowan berries in Criafol’s crown a liquid gold. “We can make you appear human. Essentially, you would be human, in all aspects but one. But your choices, your actions—those are up to you, as they have always been.”

Hope grips me once more.

Fierce.

Bright.

Pren says: “Temporarily. We can temporarily make you appear human. Our mother’s magic is stronger. We cannot thwart it forever.”

I kneel before them,

bowing my head to the earth.

Dirt

scratches

my cheek.

I whisper: “Then make me human for as long as you can.”

“Do not bow before us, little sister.” Pren touches my face, lifts it to his. His expression is steeped in sorrow.

I say: “Please. I cannot bear to be the thing she made me a moment longer. Even if it is only for a little while. I want to know what it is like to be something else. Someone else.”

All three of my brothers sigh, but they do not rebuke me.

Cangen takes my hand.

He lifts me to my feet again.

“It will hurt, dear one. The changing.”

I think of my mother,

piercing my arms with her claws,

stripping the skin from my back.

I think of Owen’s mother,

dead in the mud

because of me. “I do not care about the pain.”

Cangen says: “Then come with us and be, for a little while, reborn.”

Cangen walks with me. His rough hand encircles mine. Pren and Criafol flank us.

We return to the pool where Cangen first found me,

the waterfall crashing from the rocks above our heads,

sunlight refracting through the water.

Patches of rainbows glint,

dance.

I kneel on the edge of the pool,

my face

to the wood,

my back

to the waterfall.

Pren asks me, solemn: “Are you certain?”

I think of dancing with Owen under the stars

to the music of his magical device.

Of the hatred in his eyes

when his mother turned to ash.

Of

his

blade

at

my

throat.

You are only a monster because you choose to be.

This is me.

Choosing.

I say: “I am certain.”

I bow my head.

My brothers begin to sing.

Their voices twine together in an intricate counterpoint,

around and between and through,

swelling louder and louder

until their song seems to envelop the wood.

The ground beneath me

shakes.

The waterfall behind me

roars.

Their music sinks into me,

slips under my skin,

through muscle and bone,

down to my heart.

It is slippery and silver,

sharp and cold.

Pain sears through me.

My skin cracks and

falls

from

my

flesh.

My bones bend and

bend and

bend

until they snap

in a blaze of agony.

I am enveloped in fire,

in a million stinging wasps,

in the flash of white-hot lightning.

I am falling,

drowning,

broken.

I am devoured

bit by bit,

torn apart

by ravenous teeth.

But through it all

I see

Owen on our hill.

I taste

strawberries and cream.

I feel

his mouth warm and soft on mine.

I slide sideways onto the earth, and suddenly I can breathe again.

The sky wheels wide and blue above me.

The pool laps quietly beside.

A voice says: “Easy. You must take it easy, at first.”

Hands grasp my arms, help me sit up.

I focus on three craggy faces, one hung heavy with a mossy beard.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.