“It was him they wanted all along. That’s why they didn’t take you in the beginning. They must see him as a threat to their survival.”
“It seems he’s often seen in that light,” she said grimly.
Petyr shook his head. “How can this be, Shallah? I waver between belief and absolute incredulity. His voice … that child’s voice. Let me say it aloud: he destroyed that oak with his voice alone, didn’t he?” He regarded Shallah, awaiting her answer.
She swallowed. “He did indeed,” she said.
“Such power in a voice,” Petyr said, awed. “It’s difficult to grasp. I fear we must be in much greater danger than we realized.”
The mention of danger reminded Shallah that she’d her own revelation to disclose. She wearied to think of it. He might really think I’ve gone round the bend this time, she thought. This could be the end.
The idea upset her more than she’d expected.
What’s the matter with me? she asked herself. Am I so reliant on him already?
But that wasn’t it at all.
Though Shallah knew she ought to be concentrating on the matter at hand, she found herself distracted. She’d never sat so close to Petyr before. She could feel his thigh pressing against hers. Surprisingly, she found she had to fight the urge to lean into him, to put her head on his shoulder, to hold and be held. She’d spoken to him of her father, of herself, however briefly, and his understanding had filled her heart. But there was more to it than that. A bright light she’d thought extinguished had flared within her. She felt a flush of heat rising up her neck. She fiddled with the cloth of her skirts, twisting the material about her fingers. Having never felt any such feelings before, she’d not the slightest idea what to do with them. And what a time to be feeling such things!
“This explains the white powder on the night of the battle,” Petyr went on, oblivious to her struggle. “He destroyed those oaks as well. I heard him cry out, I remember it now. I didn’t think to connect the two.”
Shallah allowed the discussion to draw her back in. “How could you have, Petyr?” she replied. She was relieved that she didn’t stutter or collapse into a fit of giggles like a lovesick maiden. I’m imagining things, she thought to herself. It’s only Petyr! Still, as he spoke, and as serious as his words were, she couldn’t help wishing he would give her some sign that he was imagining the same things as she.
Petyr was lost in his own thoughts. Suddenly he looked up. “The oak was reaching for me just as Liam cried out,” he said reflectively. “I suppose if it had caught me, I would have died as the buck did.”
“Not necessarily,” Shallah reasoned. “The buck wasn’t just held, but bound to the oak, locked to its trunk.” she shuddered. “The poor thing. What a horrid way to die; first stabbed through, then frozen.” Her thoughts turned to the buck’s dying moments. A shiver ran up her spine as she recalled the way her fingers had burned as she'd touched its face. Her cheeks, flushed just a moment before, turned pale. She closed her eyes.
“Petyr,” Shallah said, as she reached once again for the pipe, as though its sturdiness make her feel more solid, more sure, “there’s something I have to tell you …”
“This changes everything,” he said, his mind racing. “We have a real chance of escaping now that we know their aims.”
“I should have told you long ago. I don’t know why I held back. I thought it all a dream …”
“We know how to fight them, how to destroy them. Don’t you see what that means? We hold all the power now.” He paused, as though unwilling to believe it. “We are free!”
“Petyr,” Shallah said softly and something in her tone alerted him. His exuberance was snuffed out like a flame by a sudden gust of wind.
“What is it?” Petyr asked, noticing the paleness of Shallah’s cheek. He turned to face her, wanting to put his arm around her shoulders but hesitant, recalling her sudden anger hours before. I never know where I stand with her, he mused to himself. Sometimes she seems as glad of my presence as I am of hers, and at other times she seems to disdain me. If only she would give me some sign.
“I’ve been holding something back,” Shallah said, folding her hands in her lap, “knowledge I should have shared with you but didn’t out of fear of its truth. Now I see that was foolish. Maybe you would have had some insight. Maybe all of this could have been avoided.” Her voice faltered and caught. Petyr sat riveted.
“We met a woman on the path,” she went on, “it must be a week ago by now. It’s she who told me of the forest’s imminent demise. But it was all so dreamlike. She said so many remarkable things, impossible things …”
She paused again, looking anxious.
“Please, go on,” Petyr said. Pushing his doubts aside he reached forward and took Shallah’s hands in his, pressing them gently between his palms. The gesture seemed to move her greatly. She found the strength to continue.
“This woman spoke of three prophecies,” she said. “The first told of a boy led by a blind guide who would save all the people of the forest. It was Liam, Petyr. The prophecy spoke of Liam.”
Petyr stared at her. “Prophecies?” he said uncertainly. “I don’t –”
She rushed on. “There’s more. Two more prophecies exist, but the old woman couldn’t reveal them to me. She said only a member of the races to which the prophecies belong could speak them, and they would have to give the knowledge willingly. Just now … just now I received the second one.”
“When?” Petyr asked, still not quite grasping what she meant.
“When I touched the buck. It spoke to me.”
“The buck?” The animal he’d watched bleed to death? It had spoken? “The buck was dead,” he said.
“It must have had some spark of life left,” she conjectured.
“But how could it have spoken to you? We’d have heard. How can a deer speak to a person?”
“It spoke in my mind’s eye. Its thoughts appeared to me.”
Petyr looked out into the dark. “And what did it tell you?” he asked finally.
“It told me that Liam would be the weapon that destroys us all,” Shallah said, her face taut with fright. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she did not cry.
“So this … prophecy,” he said the word with difficulty, “it tells of a boy who will be used by the deer to attack the life of the forest?”
“No,” Shallah said with a hopeless shake of her head. “The prophecy was for the dark trees of the north. I imagine this refers to the oaks. When the buck was forced into its enemy’s death, it must have taken some of its thoughts as well.”
“And in turn it gave you the oaks’ prophecy.”
“That’s why they desire Liam so. They want to use him against us.”
“But he harms only them, not us. How could he be some great weapon? He’s only a boy!”
“So I said to myself,” she said. “So I keep saying.”
They fell into an uneasy silence. The pipe had fallen to the ground at their feet, and Petyr watched as a thin line of smoke rose from it, swirling gently. He’d heard tell of prophecies before, his mother had been a great believer in them. She’d once told him that he would do great things. Only eight years old at the time, he’d boasted of the prediction to Leland for a week or so, then forgotten it altogether.
“If it is a real prophecy,” he said after a time, “nothing we do can stop its coming about. You mustn’t accuse yourself, Shallah.”
She only nodded.
“But it doesn’t make sense. How can the child be both our saviour and our destroyer? One prophecy has to be faulty.”
“No,” Shallah replied, “all were received equally, on the same day, by one woman. How can a prophecy be faulty?”
Petyr nearly laughed. “What do I know of prophecies?” he said. “They can’t both come true, you have to agree to that.”
“Yes,” she assented. “I can’t explain it.”
Petyr looked over at Liam, sleeping soundly, his tiny form dwarfed by
the massive trunks around him.
“Who is this child?” he asked quietly. “Where did he come from, and how did he get such power? How do we know he isn’t leading us to our doom?”
Shallah frowned, loosening her fingers from Petyr’s grasp. “You don’t think him murderous?” she asked tentatively.
“I … no.” Petyr quickly saw the lunacy of the idea, but not before Shallah sensed his momentary indecision. She got to her feet, folding her arms over her chest.
“Petyr, I’m appalled at you!” she scolded, though her voice betrayed more dismay than disgust. “Is this what’s truly in your heart? Are you more concerned for yourself than the well-being of this child? He’s only four years old, Petyr. He hasn’t the slightest violent tendency in him. You saw how horrified he was when the buck died. If these events do come to pass, just think what they’ll do to him. He’ll be torn apart!”
Shallah turned away, her emotions overwhelming her. She was furious with Petyr, though she knew she was more angry with herself for having feelings for someone she knew so little of, than by his disloyal thoughts. Even as she raged at him she felt a longing to feel his hand in hers again, which infuriated her most of all.
“I begin to wonder how well we know each other,” she said, still facing away. “How long will it be before you turn away from us?”
A sound came upon them before Petyr could reply. It seemed to come out of the earth itself. In a moment Shallah realized the source and scrambled over to the patch of earth where Liam lay, Petyr close on her heels.
The boy’s face was screwed up and he’d balled his hands in fists. He was moaning and whining in turns, breathing hard as though he were being chased. Though he uttered no words, his cries pierced through the quiet. Petyr attempted to soothe him but Shallah knew the uselessness of that tact and pulled the boy into a sitting position, awakening him instantly.
Liam blinked fearfully at Petyr and Shallah, lighting the clearing. They waited for a sign of approaching danger. When none came, they let out a breath in unison.
“Did you work it out as well?” Shallah asked Petyr.
“Yes,” he said distractedly, still peering about them. “His scream may mean death to them, but any other sound – a word, a laugh, a cry – might work differently. They must have some way of finding him, and since they can’t see … I figured it had to be some sound he makes. For all we know, the slightest sigh might rouse them. Maybe their hearing is attuned only to him.”
“I think so too,” Shallah agreed. She gathered Liam in her arms and stroked his hair. His forehead was slick with sweat. “What foul dreams did they put into your mind?” she asked “How can we protect you from your fate?”
Petyr watched Shallah whispering softly to Liam. He saw how her words soothed him, for his body relaxed as the light played over her face. It seemed to Petyr that her tone alone relieved the child, for even he felt warmed by it. The icy shame he’d felt as she’d berated him fell away and he assured himself that he would put things right. He would explain that it was only out of fear for her safety that he’d said those terrible things. He would tell her that when he thought of her in danger … it was like revisiting the pain of Marion’s death. He couldn’t bear to lose another person he cared for, and he found he cared for Shallah more and more.
Shallah smiled at Liam. “Shall I sing you a lullaby?” she asked him. Then she looked directly at Petyr, almost as though she could see him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“He sang that night,” she said. “The night I fought with the owl. He was humming to me, singing us to sleep.”
“Singing?” Petyr said, looking at Liam curiously as the boy rested his head on Shallah’s shoulder.
“Not with words,” she said. “He hums tunes of a type I’ve never heard; haunting tunes.”
“He summons them with his song,” Petyr said.
Shallah nodded and rocked the boy in her arms. The ravages of the day were catching up with her. As Petyr watched, she rocked more and more slowly. Liam, as terrified as he’d been, had already slipped back into sleep.
Petyr gently lifted the child out of Shallah’s arms as her eyelids began to droop. He held the blanket out for her and she took it unconsciously, not realizing that it left Petyr without a cover of his own.
“We haven’t eaten,” Shallah said as she lay back.
“We’ll eat tomorrow,” Petyr said. “Sleep now.”
“And you? Will you sleep?”
“I will keep watch.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, Petyr,” she said sleepily. “I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t doubt you.”
“Rest now,” Petyr said soothingly, cradling Liam in his arms.
“You believe me, don’t you?” Shallah asked faintly, already dozing. “You believe in the prophecies?”
“I believe in you,” Petyr replied. Shallah didn’t respond. She’d drifted off.
Liam became a weight in Petyr’s arms, but he felt no strain. He held the child to him with his good arm, and in the dark the boy’s downy hair was his daughters’ hair, his small hand was his daughters’ hands, his sweet child’s breath was his daughters’ breath. As the musky scent of tobacco hung in the air – the smell of his hearth, the smell of his home – Petyr leaned over the sleeping boy and wept.
When he was done, he wiped his face with Liam’s blanket and whispered to the trees, “I would never have left them behind.”
“I know,” Shallah said.
Then all was silence.
Shallah dreamed many dreams that night. Gone were the sun-speckled afternoons and the laughter of children. Once again she dreamed of being pursued, as she had the night before the journey began.
With Liam in her arms she fled through the woods. Every turn she took brought her down the same path, passed the same trunks again and again. As she ran her mind would cloud, her steps slowing as she struggled to remember why she’d been running. She would settle into a leisurely stroll, bouncing Liam on her hip, only to be reminded of their peril by a snatch at her cloak or an icy hand around her neck. And she would flee.
She ran a thousand miles that night as the dream played over and over, each time her panic driving her to fly faster, run harder, each time the clutching hand a horrible surprise.
Forgetfulness infected the dream. Now she was walking the roads of Trallee without Liam. She couldn’t recall the way home. She encountered friends on the road, but couldn’t place their voices.
A boy appeared before her on the road. She could see him, although she’d been blind to all else. She could see him as though she’d been seeing him all along.
“Don’t you remember me?” he asked.
Shallah shook her head, for indeed she’d forgotten him as well. His voice was familiar but she couldn’t place a name.
“I’m sorry,” she said with embarrassment, “I don’t.” As she spoke, the earth fell away beneath her and she lost her footing. She felt herself sinking.
“Don’t you know my name?” the boy asked as she fell suddenly deeper, engulfed now up to her knees.
“Help me,” she said. “Pull me out.” With each passing second she sank deeper – to her thighs, to her hips, to her waist. The boy didn’t make a move.
“What’s my name?” the boy asked, ignoring her distress.
Shallah struggled to pull herself loose, reaching for branches that were always just out of reach. She sank deeper still, the earth rising to cover her heart. “Won’t you help me?” she cried “Give me your hand!”
The boy stared at her, his face expressionless.
She clawed at the ground. The sound of snapping jaws filled her ears. The earth began to collect around her shoulders, around her neck.
“Why won’t you help me?” she asked the boy in desperation. “What have I done?”
“Have you forgotten that too?” the boy said.
Shallah heard the swishing of a tail. She looked around frantically. She heard a snarl and the ground s
hook as the wolves bore down on her.
“You brought this on yourself,” the boy said. Then he looked beyond her, to the approaching hoard, and his face lost all colour. His mouth hung open in horror as howls filled the air. He reached a hand out to Shallah, but too late.
The animals leapt upon her.
Chapter Nineteen
Shallah awoke to screams that were not her own.
Her dream faded quickly, lasting just long enough to remind her of all she’d forgotten. She hardly heard the howling wind that blew her hair over her face.
I have to tell Petyr, she thought to herself.
Another gust assaulted her as she sat up. Again she heard the strangled cry, only this time she recognized the voice. Launching herself to her feet, she nearly collided with Petyr who wordlessly took her hand and rushed her to Liam’s side.
“It’s been this way all night,” Petyr said. Liam, though still asleep, was thrashing his arms and legs, the blanket twisted around his body. He let out another cry.
It took a surprising amount of strength to settle him. Shallah and Petyr knelt on either side of him, holding him down, until at long last he fell still. He turned on his side and put his thumb in his mouth as his companions released him warily, unsure if this sudden calm would last.
When he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Petyr sat back and heaved a great sigh. Shallah kissed Liam on the wrist, for he’d so curled himself that she couldn’t find his cheek.
“How many fits did he have during the night?” she asked, wiping at the sweat curling in the boy’s hair.
“Difficult to say,” Petyr replied. “I woke him several times but it seemed to do no good. He was just as upset awake as asleep. He kept grabbing at me and then pushing me away as though he thought I might harm him. Best to let him rest now.”
“You should have woken me,” she said as Petyr fixed the blanket around Liam. A tiny frown remained on his face, marring his sweet features. “Did you get no rest at all?”
Petyr sat down heavily at Shallah’s side and handed her a piece of stale bread he’d fished out of the satchel.
Home Page 15