Into the Heartless Wood

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Into the Heartless Wood Page 27

by Joanna Ruth Meyer


  “Why are you crying?” I whisper, and marvel that I command the gift of speech. Have I spoken before? I am not sure.

  He jerks his head up. All of him goes still.

  “Why are you crying?” I repeat, tilting my head to one side.

  “Seren?” His voice is incredulous, his face wide with shock. He radiates a profound, impossible joy. “Or … or is it Bedwyn?”

  I blink at him. “I think I am called Seren.”

  His eyes glint with sudden moisture. “You don’t remember?”

  “What am I to remember?”

  He sucks in a sharp breath, his body sagging. “Do you know who I am?”

  I squint at him. He has a handsome face, but I am sure I’ve never seen it before. I shake my head. “What are you called?”

  “Owen,” he says heavily. “Owen Merrick.”

  “Why are you crying, Owen Merrick?”

  I watch him consider his answer. I wonder why it is hard to find. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Have I been lost? I have been … I have been dreaming for a long time, I think.”

  “Three years, Seren,” he whispers. “It’s been three years since I buried your heart.” He runs his fingers through his hair, glancing up at the birch tree that almost seems to bend over us, listening. “It took one year until your tree sprouted, another year for it to grow. And yet another year for you to come back to me. Perhaps … perhaps it will take one more, for you to remember.”

  Something pulses within me, and I place one hand on my chest. “My heart,” I say in wonder. “It’s beating.”

  His smile is laced with grief. “I gave up my soul, as you gave up your heart. It seems both have been returned to us.”

  There is something else, too. Filling up the deepest part of me, a place I think was once hollow. It’s bright and strong. More than that, it’s mine.

  I drink in the depth of the summer night, and I am glad I have stopped dreaming. I am glad to be awake. I turn back to the boy. “Will you tell me, Owen Merrick, all the things I cannot remember?” I stretch out my hand to him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he takes it. His hand is warm and large overtop of mine.

  “I will tell you,” he says. “I will tell you how the Gwydden’s youngest daughter forsook the monster her mother made her. I will tell you of the boy who lost his heart to her, and how together they kept all the world from crumbling to nothing more than leaves and stars.”

  I smile into the sky, and scoot closer to him, our backs pressed up against the silver birch tree. I close my eyes, and listen to his story.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOKS ARE STRANGE THINGS, AND THE GROWING OF THEM IS BY no means a solitary endeavor.

  The concept of this book was seeded in Prescott, Arizona, in a cabin among the pines. I was busy writing Beyond the Shadowed Earth when the idea of a tree siren popped into my head. I don’t know quite where it came from (where do ideas actually originate? I haven’t the foggiest), but I jotted it down in the idea file on my phone to save for later. Another key piece of this book came from a conversation I had with my husband about the concept of a gender-swapped “Beauty and the Beast.” We agreed it would take a special kind of boy to fall in love with a monster (*waves at Owen*).

  So first of all, thanks to the Prescott woods (am I allowed to thank trees? It seems fitting for this book, anyway), and to my husband for always being willing to talk about interesting things.

  A huge thank you to my agent, Sarah Davies, for loving the concept of this book and always championing me and my work.

  To my editor, Lauren Knowles, for her brilliant insights and frequent brainstorming calls, and for referring to the ending as “emotionally compromising.”

  To the entire team at Page Street—I can’t believe this is our fourth book together! Thanks for always taking care of my words and making them look so very beautiful.

  Thank you to Hannah Whitten and Charlie Holmberg for reading early drafts—other eyeballs than mine are invaluable, and both your sets were greatly appreciated. Thanks to Hannah and Anna Bright for brainstorming with me about the king’s silence spell. (I know it’s horrifying; you can blame them.) Thanks to Jen Fulmer, stalwart CP extraordinaire, for her insightful notes and all-caps comments. Thank you to my whole wonderful writer pod for our never-ending group chat filled with commiserations, celebrations, and every sort of thing in between: Hannah Whitten, Steph Messa, Anna Bright, Jen Fulmer, and Laura Weymouth.

  Thanks to writerly friends far and near for always being willing to chat with me: Amy Trueblood and the entire AZ YA/MG Writers’ Group, Addie Thorley, Naomi Hughes, Meredith Tate, and so many others. Thanks to Hanna Howard for being my forever kindred spirit, and for our continual text thread full of all-caps comments, flagrant emoji overuse, and oceans of exclamation points.

  Thanks a billion to Ashleigh Hourihan, my dear friend and bookish cheerleader—I’m so glad you won that giveaway of my very first ARC. Thanks to all the Bookstagrammers for their beautiful photos of my book babies—I’ll never get tired of ogling them.

  Thanks so much to my BFF, Jenny Downer, for a thousand and one cups of tea, and even more conversations.

  Thanks to my amazing family for always being proud of me. Love you all.

  An enormous thank you to my husband, Aaron (yes, I’m thanking him twice! He deserves it) for bearing with me throughout the creation of yet another book, and for wrangling our bear cub—I mean toddler—so I could write. Aren’t you glad you’re stuck with me? Love you.

  Arthur, you were younger than Awela when I started writing this book, and you’ll be nearly twice her age by the time it comes out. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve immortalized part of your toddlerhood in fiction. You exhaust me—I love you to bits.

  And to my readers: Every single email, comment, tweet, and message about my books means the absolute world to me. Thank you so much for reading and loving my words. Twelve-year-old me is in awe, and to be honest, present me is, too. Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOANNA RUTH MEYER IS THE AUTHOR OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED Echo North, as well as the companion novel duology Beneath the Haunting Sea and Beyond the Shadowed Earth. She writes stories about fierce teens finding their place in the world, fighting to change their fate, save the ones they love, or carve out a path to redemption.

  Joanna lives with her dear husband and son, a rascally feline, and an enormous grand piano named Prince Imrahil in Mesa, Arizona. As often as she can, she escapes the desert heat and heads north to the mountains, where the woods are always waiting.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue: Monster

  Part One: Leaves

  Chapter One: Owen

  Chapter Two: Owen

  Chapter Three: Owen

  Chapter Four: Owen

  Chapter Five: Monster

  Chapter Six: Owen

  Chapter Seven: Owen

  Chapter Eight: Monster

  Chapter Nine: Owen

  Chapter Ten: Monster

  Chapter Eleven: Owen

  Chapter Twelve: Monster

  Chapter Thirteen: Owen

  Chapter Fourteen: Monster

  Chapter Fifteen: Monster

  Chapter Sixteen: Owen

  Chapter Seventeen: Owen

  Chapter Eighteen: Monster

  Chapter Nineteen: Owen

  Chapter Twenty: Seren

  Chapter Twenty-One: Owen

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Seren

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Owen

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Seren

  Chapter Twenty-Five: O
wen

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Seren

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Owen

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Seren

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Owen

  Chapter Thirty: Seren

  Chapter Thirty-One: Owen

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Seren

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Owen

  Part Two: Stars

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Seren

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Owen

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Seren

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Owen

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Seren

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Owen

  Chapter Forty: Seren

  Chapter Forty-One: Owen

  Chapter Forty-Two: Seren

  Chapter Forty-Three: Owen

  Chapter Forty-Four: Seren

  Chapter Forty-Five: Owen

  Chapter Forty-Six: Seren

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Owen

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Seren

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Owen

  Chapter Fifty: Seren

  Chapter Fifty-One: Owen

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Seren

  Chapter Fifty-Three: Owen

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Seren

  Chapter Fifty-Five: Owen

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Seren

  Chapter Fifty-Seven: Owen

  Chapter Fifty-Eight: Seren

  Chapter Fifty-Nine: Owen

  Chapter Sixty: Seren

  Chapter Sixty-One: Owen

  Chapter Sixty-Two: Seren

  Chapter Sixty-Three: Owen

  Chapter Sixty-Four: Owen

  Chapter Sixty-Five: Owen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2021 Joanna Ruth Meyer

  First published in 2021 by

  Page Street Publishing Co.

  27 Congress Street, Suite 105

  Salem, MA 01970

  www.pagestreetpublishing.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  eISBN 978-1-64567-171-8

  Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension. 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936366

  Cover and book design by Laura Benton for Page Street Publishing Co.

  Cover images: Illustration of trees © Shutterstock / Nikiparonak; illustration of violet © Shutterstock / Aluna1; vector of woman © Shutterstock / logozilla; illustration of heart © Shutterstock / Bernardo Ramonfaur

  Author image by Gary D. Smith

 

 

 


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