The Whispering Trees (13 page)

Kara wrapped her arm around Taff's shoulders.

“Please,” Kara said. “No more.”

But Mary was not finished. As she spoke, her upper lip lifted in a feral sneer.

“It was like boiling a chicken for broth. You know what happens then, right? The flavor gets sucked away and all
you're left with is a bunch of useless meat. Except I didn't just throw the meat away or feed it to my livestock. I sent what was left of those children home to their mommies and daddies. Even though their souls were gone and they were nothing but lifeless husks, I sent them home anyway because it
amused me
.”

She clasped Taff's face between her hands.

“Now tell me again, boy. Tell me that it was all the grimoire's fault.”

“Stop it!” Kara exclaimed, pushing Mary away. “You're scaring him!”

Mary grunted deep in her throat and crossed to her side of the encampment, dragging her bag of broken magic behind her.

Taff, drawing in huge mouthfuls of air, trembled.

“Come on,” said Kara, holding him tight. “You need to sleep.”

But Taff broke free of her embrace and shouted, “You're not like that anymore! I know you! The real you!
You helped us! You're good! The witch who did all those terrible things is gone forever!”

There was a long silence. And then, from deep within the shadows, came a hoarse response: “Are you so sure?”

T
he next morning Kara woke to find Mary, middle-aged with crow's-feet, peeling fuzz-covered tubers for breakfast.

“What are those?” Kara asked.

“Jibs,” Mary said. “They're like parsnips, except . . .”

She paused, as though pondering a way to explain the difference.

“Except what?” Kara asked.

“Except they're not. Your brother's a late riser today.”

“He had trouble falling asleep last night.”

“Because I frightened him?”

“Because you hurt his feelings. He likes you.”

Mary scratched the greenish fuzz from her hands and clasped them together on her lap. “Doesn't he know who I am?”

“Of course he does,” said Kara. “You're the woman who saved us from the branchwolves and taught his sister how to use her powers. You're the reason we're still alive.”

“But—”

“Who you
were
is not who you
are
.”

Mary scraped a jib clean with practiced swipes of her knife; the peel was still whole when it dropped to the earth. “I would give anything to undo my actions,” she said. “But that doesn't stop me from missing it, you know. The grimoire. It gnawed a place so deep inside me that even now I feel empty without it.” Using the knife, she traced the book's outline in the air. “It was red, the color of baked clay, with an elaborate pattern of gold filigree.
Red is my favorite color. I think the book knew that.”

Mary stared into space, as though frozen in time, remembering.

After a few moments Kara slid the knife from her hand. “Let me help,” she said, and began to peel the tubers. Kara had never enjoyed this kind of chore back in De'Noran, but now the monotonous action relaxed her.

“Imogen is but a few days away,” Mary finally said. She withdrew a second knife and sliced a peeled jib into the boiling stew. “You must keep practicing. Some of these beasts may be reluctant to help you, but that matters not. You are their master. You must bend them to your will.”

“No,” said Kara. “I'll ask for their help, but I would never force another living thing to . . .”

“Serve you?”

Kara nodded. “It feels wrong. Like something the grimoire would make me do.”

“They're just animals.”

“You wouldn't say that if you could talk to them the way I do.”

“You're right—and that allows me to maintain my perspective. You grew up on a farm, Kara. Did your father never slaughter a hog so your family could eat? So you could
survive
? This is no different. If you want to escape the Thickety you're going to have to make sacrifices.”

Kara thought about building a mind-bridge to gain an animal's trust and then forcing it to do something against its will. The idea sickened her.

“What if I can't do it?” Kara asked.

“Then Imogen will kill you and your brother,” Mary said. She dipped the ladle into the stew and took a sip. “It's as simple as that.”

The following day they came to a village.

A wooden fence bound tightly with vine encircled a large clearing. Within its confines lay a row of black houses topped with peaked roofs and chimneys of yellow-hued
brick. In the center of the houses—about thirty in all—sat a small play area with two seesaws and a scaffold from which dangled several rope swings.

There were no children to be found here, however—or adults.

“Where is everyone?” Kara asked.

“Gone,” Mary said, the sack slung over her shoulder tinkling like mad as she hurried toward the houses. “It's best not to dwell on the specifics. There are dozens of ghost villages like this scattered throughout the Thickety. At one point, many years ago, this place was like your De'Noran. They cut Fringe weeds down every day before they could grow into full-fledged trees, hoping to keep the Thickety away. But no one can keep that up forever. Sordyr always wins.”

“Why build a village here to begin with?” Taff asked.

Mary tried to open the door to the nearest house but it wouldn't budge. “Perhaps they were exiles and given little choice,” she said. “Perhaps, like the Children of the Fold,
they had lost their place in the World. We'll probably never know. But maybe we can all sleep in beds tonight.”

“You've never been here before?” Kara asked.

“The Thickety is deceptively huge,” Mary replied. “Sometimes I wonder if even
Sordyr
has seen all of it.”

“Look at the windows,” said Taff. “They're all boarded up.”

“I've seen that before in other ghost villages,” Mary said. “After the Thickety overtook this place, the villagers—the ones who were left, at least—did what they could to protect themselves. They had heard the stories. They knew that if they survived long enough, Sordyr would come and rescue them.”

“
Rescue
them?” Taff asked.

“In his fashion,” said Mary. “Sordyr would grant the survivors their lives, but in exchange they were forced to make a decision: either swear their undying fealty or be left to wander the Thickety on their own. You can imagine what most chose.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were brought to Kala Malta. It's a settlement on the edge of the Thickety.”

“Why does he need them?” Kara asked.

“I don't know,” Mary said, refusing to meet her eyes.

Kara could hear the lie as clearly as the words themselves, but before she could ask the old witch about it, something caught her interest.

“What's this?” Kara asked, approaching the next house. She ran her finger along a narrow, bone-white object nailed into the door. It was the length of her forearm and sharpened at one end.

“Niersook fang,” Mary said. “People who lived here thought they could carve an animal bone into a tooth and keep evil away.” She shook her head in disgust. “Superstitious nonsense.”

“Who's Niersook?” asked Kara.

“Not who
. What
.” Mary paused. “You really don't know?”

Kara shook her head.

Mary whistled. “I'll give you the short version. There was a
wexari
named Rygoth who had power over all the animals of the world.”

“Like Kara!” exclaimed Taff.

“In a way. But Rygoth—who was Sordyr's greatest enemy—could actually
make
animals. She created a beast named Niersook and gave it the power to take all of the Forest Demon's magic away. Only, Sordyr killed it first, and despite the fact that Niersook failed miserably people continue to honor it by carving bones into fangs, imagining they possess some sort of protective property.”

Mary scoffed at the thought, but Kara did not find it so strange; in De'Noran, many of her neighbors had hung Fenroot branches on their doors for the exact same reason.

The details may change, but all people want to feel safe
.

“What happened to Rygoth?” Kara asked.

“Sordyr killed her,” Mary said, “but not before she cast
the spell that imprisoned him on the island. If it wasn't for Rygoth, Sordyr would be out in the World right now—assuming there even
was
a World anymore, once he got done with it.”

“She's a hero,” Taff said.

Mary shrugged.

“If you believe in that sort of thing,” she said.

They crossed the narrow lane to the next house, identical to the others save a clay basket hanging from a wooden post. Kara thought the basket might have once held flowers—or at least what passed for flowers here—but now it was overgrown with sickly gray weeds that spilled over its edge like an Elder's hair. In the shadow of the basket was a patch of yellow grass. Crouching down she reached out her hand—

Don't touch it!

The voice came from the trees above her. The creature—Kara guessed some type of bird, judging from the songlike quality of the words—was too shy to show itself.

It just wanted to warn her.

Reaching out, Kara found the animal, felt its heart beating quickly in its chest. There was no need to build a mind-bridge. By approaching her first, the animal had already given its trust.

Why not?
Kara asked.

Darkeaters. Go, Witch Girl, before notsuns rise. Make darkeaters
.

Kara did not know what a darkeater or a notsun was, but there was no mistaking the fear in the unseen creature's voice. She rose to her feet, intending to warn the others, and took in the entire patch of grass for the first time.

“Oh no,” she said.

It was the perfect outline of a man.

“Taff!” she exclaimed. “Mary! You better come and see this!” She backed away and found herself stepping on another patch of grass, this one the approximate shape of a child. Kara scanned the village, ignoring the houses and
other signs of life that had usurped her attention, focusing solely on the ground.

There were human-shaped patches everywhere.

“What is it?” Mary asked.

Notsuns rising! Go! Now!

“We need to leave,” Kara said.

“And pass up the opportunity for a good night's rest? Why would we do that?”

Before Kara could reply, Taff shouted, “Look!”

A green vine was winding its way about the gargantuan tree that stood before them, slithering higher and higher before their eyes.

“There, too,” Taff said, pointing to the other side of the village, where a similar vine coiled about a different tree. “And there.”

No time, Witch Girl. Get inside
.

“We have to get inside one of these houses,” Kara said. “Now.”

Kara ran to the nearest door, rattling the latch fiercely.
When that didn't work she threw herself shoulder-first against the wood. It didn't budge.

Kara glanced up at the nearest vine. At its tip a bulb swelled until it was as large as a sledgeworm, then unfolded. Bright-yellow petals stretched out from an orange stigma.

“The same thing's happening to all of them,” Taff said, looking around. “They're pretty.”

“That's what worries me,” said Mary. “There's no place for beauty here.”

“The seesaw!” Taff exclaimed. “I think we can use it as a battering ram and break into one of the—”

Too late
. Kara heard the voice in her head.

The stigma of the giant flower above them began to glow, the orange sharpening to a fiery red and sending waves of searing heat in their direction. Kara, beads of perspiration already trickling down her neck, was certain the whole flower would burst into flame. It didn't. Instead a pool of crimson light flowed from the stigma—and the
stigmas of the other flowers as well—bathing the entire village in its strange glow.

Notsun
, Kara thought.

Taff turned his hand from side to side and watched the light reflect off his skin.

“It doesn't seem to be hurting us,” he said. “Maybe it's just trying to keep us warm.”

Kara gave him a look of disbelief.

“No,” Taff said. “I don't really believe that either.”

HUNGRY
.

This new voice reverberated faintly, as though calling to her from the dark end of a tunnel.
HUNGRY
, it repeated. There was no emotion to the word, no need. It was just a cold statement of fact, and Kara knew that the owner of the voice—whatever it was—would kill them quickly and without remorse.
HUNGRY
. She clasped her hands to her ears, wanting the voice out of her head, but of course that didn't help—she wasn't using her ears to hear it.