Into the Heartless Wood
Page 27
“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
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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