Into the Heartless Wood

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  “What is the heartless tree?” I ask her, to distract myself from the teeming wood, the crash and rattle of a thousand branches.

  “My mother’s first creation. Before she knew how to make hearts, she gave the heartless tree life. It has no will of its own, but it is very strong. It is where she keeps the souls. The souls feed the tree and the tree feeds the wood and the wood feeds my mother. It is how she harnesses her power. How she focuses it.”

  “Perhaps I should take an axe to the heartless tree.”

  Seren shudders. “That would kill us all, I think. All but her.”

  We walk on through the night, and Seren never lets go of my hand. Just before dawn she orders me to sleep, and I am too weary to refuse. Once more she causes a bower of branches to enclose me, and I fall into swift, dark dreams.

  When I wake, we continue on. I worry about my father, waiting for me to come home. To fulfill my promise. I hope he knows I still mean to. But if he were here, if he knew I was going after my mother, he would understand. If he knew, he would come with me.

  The wood is different in the daylight, shifting shades of green and brown, of wildflowers in unexpected places, of spiders spinning webs in hidden shadows. It still teems with power, but it is beautiful, too. Perhaps the beauty makes it more dangerous, because there are long moments when I begin to feel safe.

  Seren is as much a part of the wood as I am not, moving soundlessly through the trees, melding into them. Birds flit about her shoulders, bees drink from the violets in her hair. Deer bow to her, and a fox rubs against her legs like a cat.

  I am bumbling and awkward next to her, every step seeming to disturb the peace of the forest. Yet the trees let me pass, as if Seren has asked them to do her a favor. Branches don’t reach out to grab me, roots don’t writhe beneath my feet. With her, I am safe.

  But as we walk, even though she is always beside me, her hand tight about mine, it feels as if she is slipping further out of my reach with every step we take. Our nights on the hill are gone. I know that. And whatever awaits us at the heartless tree, whatever has truly happened to my mother, that will be an ending, too. I don’t see how Seren and I can have anything more than this. We have been caught in a dream, and we’re about to wake up. I am losing her. It breaks me, piece by piece.

  And yet—

  How can I lose her? She was never mine.

  How can I love a thing that has no soul?

  How can I love her at all? When did I attach such a weighty, impossible word to the Gwydden’s youngest daughter?

  But what else could it be?

  Dancing on the hill, four minutes at a time. Starlight and telescopes and strawberries.

  Her hands pressed against my ears, blocking out the deadly music of her monstrous sisters. Her silver lips touching mine. She tasted of rain and grass and earth. Of heat and ice and wind. No matter how I try, I cannot push the memory of that kiss from my mind.

  We walk all day. A few times, Seren presses nuts and berries into my hands, and waits for me to eat them before leading me on. In the slanting light of the afternoon, we come upon a ring of birch trees, stark white against the browns of the oaks and ash around us. Seren’s steps slow, and she turns to walk among the birches.

  I follow.

  She stops in the center of the birch ring, and kneels on the forest floor. I realize, without her telling me, that this is the place she was born. I brush my fingers along the birches, their silver-white bark like her skin, and yet unlike, too. They are not alive. They have no hearts.

  Seren lifts her face to mine, and I am gutted to see the tears shining on her cheeks. “I am not a tree,” she says. “I am not a woman. What am I?”

  I kneel beside her, wrap my arms around her shoulders, feel her heartbeat against mine. There is nothing I can tell her, no answer I can give, because I don’t know the answer. I don’t even know if there is one. But I can hold her while she cries. I can stroke her hair and wish that I could make her happy. I can believe, deep down, that she does have a soul, no matter how much she denies it. Because how can she not?

  You only want her to have a soul so she won’t be a monster, says a voice in my mind. You don’t want to love a monster.

  She is warm and solid in my arms; her tears fall damp on my shirt. I almost tell her that I’ve changed my mind; she doesn’t have to face the horror of her mother for me.

  But I can’t do that. I can’t resign my own mother to whatever torment she suffers as the Gwydden’s slave.

  So I don’t say anything. I wait until Seren grows calm again, until she pulls away from me and wipes the tears from her eyes.

  “Come,” she says, rising to her feet. “My mother’s court is close.” She swallows, all at once tremulous. Uncertain. “You remember what I told you before.”

  “That we can’t save her. I know.”

  The ring of birches where she was born whispers and weaves around us, but there is no wind that I can feel. Her gaze knifes through me. “Do you believe that, Owen Merrick?”

  I don’t believe it—how can I? But. “I believe you.” It will have to be enough.

  Chapter Thirty

  SEREN

  HE DOES NOT BELIEVE ME.

  I can see it

  in the way he holds himself,

  in the set of his shoulders,

  in his unwavering stride.

  He means to save his mother.

  Even

  if

  it

  kills

  him.

  Last night, I should have taken his memories.

  Now I have not the courage.

  I could lead him to stray forever in the wood.

  I could tell him my mother has shut me out of her court.

  In time, he would forget about his mother.

  In a hundred years,

  perhaps

  he would grow

  like me

  and perhaps

  I would grow

  like him

  until we are both

  not quite human,

  not quite tree,

  not

  quite

  monster.

  But I gave him my word.

  I will not break my promise.

  There is blood on the wind.

  Can he smell it?

  Has he ever felt it

  sticky on his hands?

  The wood hisses around us.

  The Soul Eater’s men lay more iron

  and the trees are angry.

  I say: “Keep close.”

  He steps near me.

  We walk shoulder to shoulder,

  my hand around his.

  Grief claws up my throat.

  I am not his kind.

  I am a tree,

  a monster.

  He is human.

  I want to kiss him again

  but

  I dare not.

  I would give

  anything

  to shed

  this monstrous form,

  to have a soul

  planted inside of me,

  that would put down roots and grow.

  The wind smells of lightning, of rain.

  It spits leaves into our faces.

  The scent of blood grows stronger.

  My sister steps into our path,

  blood-dark rose petals dripping from her hair.

  Owen’s pulse throbs in his wrist.

  His fear is a wild thing.

  His courage is stronger.

  My sister says: “So this is why you hid him from us. You bring him to our mother as a prize. Or is it an offering, to atone for your sins?”

  I hiss at her. “He is neither prize nor offering. His mother is the slave of the heartless tree. I have brought him to see her.”

  My sister stares. This is not the thing she expected me to say.

  I command her: “Let us pass. Leave him be.”

  She throws back her head as she laughs. “Is he your pet then?”

  She
steps toward us.

  She grazes her fingers down Owen’s cheek.

  He flinches

  as her claws

  draw blood.

  I yank him away from her.

  She says: “Are you angry, little sister?”

  I say: “Let us pass!”

  “Or what? You will devour me?”

  “I will make you wish I did.”

  She laughs again, a screech of crows. “Little fool. Our mother knows you are coming. She waits for you.”

  “Then come with me to greet her. Help me draw her away from the heartless tree, so Owen may bid his own mother farewell.”

  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 will beg me to devour it. It has no more value than a worm.”

  “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.

  His face is

  creased with worry,

  drenched with rain.

  He says again: “Will she kill you?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps. Does that change your mind?”

  He blinks water from his eyes. “I have to see my mother. But I don’t want it to mean your death.”

  “Death will come for me, whether you see your mother or not.”

  His jaw clenches. “I will kill the Gwydden if she touches you.”

  Pain splinters through my heart.

  He would not say such things to me

  if he knew

  what I have done.

  I tug him through the trees,

  close to the heart of the wood.

  We stop at a weathered oak.

  I say: “The heartless tree is just beyond, on the bank of the river. You will find your mother there. Say your farewells and then—”

  Almost, the pain is too great to bear.

  When these moments are past,

  he will

  revile me.

  When these moments are past,

  I will be again

  a monster.

  “When you have said your farewells, run into the wood. As fast as you can. I will find you, if I am able, but if not—if not, I will ask the wood to guide you, to protect you all the way back to your wall.”

  I can only hope

  the wood

  will obey me.

  I breathe him in. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Longing and fear and grief pour out of him.

  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

  stronger,

  wilder.

  I am glad.

  It means my mother is not at the heartless tree.

  It means she is here, waiting for us.

  My mother

  is the thing

  that smells of blood.

  She stands

  stiff and straight at the end of the ash tree corridor

  under a darkly writhing sky.

  Lightning crackles beyond her,

  gilding her with power.

  A body lies lifeless at her feet, the husk of a boy younger than Owen.

  His face is frozen in agony.

  Hers is luminous.

  Fury wells inside of me.

  I stare at the boy’s face

  and picture Owen there,

  broken at her feet.

  Our mother watches us approach.

  Her eyes are narrowed to slits.

  Her antlers branch out from either side of her head, tipped in fresh blood.

  The

  boy’s

  blood.

  It drips crimson onto the ground.

  Beneath her feet the earth whispers and writhes.

  Above and all around, the trees bow to her.

  They are awake and angry,

  ready to do her bidding.

  My sister and I stop three paces before her.

  My sister bows.

  I kneel, pressing my forehead into the ground,

  a breath away

  from the boy’s ruined body.

  Claws dig into my neck, force my head up.

  “I have called you for a full life of the moon, and now you come?”

  “Forgive me, mother.”

  She hisses and rakes her claws down my shoulder, tearing off the strip of newly healed bark.

  My sister is as good as her word.

  She laughs.

  My mother flings me to the earth and wheels on her. “And why are you here, daughter?”

/>   “To see my youngest sister made to mind.”

  My mother bares her teeth.

  My sister flinches, but holds her ground. “She has learned her lesson, you see. She comes to you on her knees, ready for a new orb.”

  Pain sears through me

  as my mother rips another patch of bark

  from my back.

  She pulls the violets from my hair

  one

  by

  one

  and flings them to the grass.

  She grinds them under her heel.

  I curl in on myself, dew pouring from my eyes.

  I think of music on the hill.

  Of dancing with Owen.

  Of looking at stars through a telescope that lies ruined somewhere in the wood.

  I try not to think of him going to the heartless tree.

  Of him trying to save his mother.

  Of his soul, bright and shining,

  left to wink out

  with all the others.

  My mother’s breath is icy in my ear. “I should take your heart from your body, since you are of so little use to me.”

  I shake.

  I find I cannot bear dying,

  now that my death is so near.

  My sister says: “She can yet be your soldier. You will need her in the coming war.”

  I listen to the beat of my heart,

  to the pulse of the earth.

  I wonder why my sister cares to save me.

  Perhaps she will have nothing to laugh at

  when I am gone.

  Rain lashes down. Hail stings like ants.

  My mother drags me up by my hair. “Your sister asks me to be merciful. Do you also wish for my mercy?”

  I tremble in her grip,

  my back screaming in pain. I whisper: “Yes.”

  Her smile

  is a cruel twist

  of her mouth. “Do you know what I will do to you, if you defy me again?”

  She drags her claws down my face.

  She slices deep enough

  to make sap spill out. “I will rip you to pieces, and make a bonfire of your bones.”

  I can only nod.

  The pain is too great for anything more.

  “Now, daughter. There is a human somewhere near. Prove your loyalty to me. Kill him, and bring me his soul.”

  She draws an amber orb from within her robes.

  She hangs it around my neck. “Go.”

  I stumble back from her, nearly falling.

  She says to my sister: “Other daughter, go with her. Make sure she obeys.”