Page 16 of The Girl in the Forest

“Why do you stay?”

“I’m a nymph. There aren’t many of us left on the outside, and it’s safer in the wrinkles now. We’re too vulnerable to those creatures—that’s why Aine is fracky over that book. She thinks if you had the chance to read it, you’d find the answer we need to fight back. She’s protective, Noa. Not evil. In case that’s what had you worried.”

As the nymph filled our glasses, I listened to the sloshing waterfall of crushed ice and lemonade, searching for a memory. But when Effa slid a glass toward me, all I asked was, “Do you have a meadow here?”

“A small one.”

“Is that why you dress like flowers?”

“No.” Her laugh trilled. “I’d die of boredom if I didn’t dream up different things to wear. That’s why I was so happy to meet you.”

It seemed right, confiding in a meadow nymph, although that might have been the magic, anticipating my need for a confidant. A sister.

I still said, “Running seems to be what I do best. Leaving behind the things I don’t want to face.”

“I can understand that.” Her red-black curls bobbed like funny little corkscrew stems. “But whenever you run, you leave nothing behind. All you do is blind yourself to what’s dragging in the dust.”

My gaze drifted toward the framed photographs hanging on the walls. My camera sat on a table. Above was the empty rack for my bow—everything was flawless, exactly as I remembered. I could almost believe this was reality, and if I imagined myself as happy, the magic would make it so.

Just for fun, and to see if I was right, I inserted an odd detail into the Azul house memory, and a framed photo of Grayson appeared on a side table near the lamp. A photo that never existed in real life.

We were hugging, and he was smiling with so much joy, his lips barely brushing my forehead. And I was…

A shudder passed through me, both dread and sorrow. I could wish for what hadn’t been. I could change the outcomes to what I wanted. But not all of them.

There were unspoken limitations to the magic’s illusion. I was alone in this Azul house. No wolves. No one I’d once loved. There’d never been that look on Grayson’s face. I’d never felt his lips on my skin like that, or known what it was like to be cherished by a man.

Was that the question being asked? Which way I wanted to turn—left, or right?

To live in reality, or illusion?

“Can I ever leave, Effa?”

“Your mother left. But she didn’t stay long. And she had you to worry about.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Would you ever leave?”

“No, but I have no one outside waiting for me.”

“I’m not sure I do, either.”

Other than the chitinous, corrupted nymphs—did Aine know I’d killed them? Was that why I was here? As some punishment where I went fracky with the sameness? Forgot what was real and walked around with a bird in my hair?

And what of the hairy, yellow-tusked pigs I’d left dying in the open meadows? Had I summoned them? Or had someone else sent them to me? Before the rite held for the dead, I’d been dreaming of the monsters.

I hadn’t dreamed since coming here—but that brief thought was enough to summon the nightmares, and I woke that night, sweat-drenched and screaming as pigs raced through the bedroom doorway, then disappeared like puffballs in the wind.

After that, I couldn’t sleep in a cloud-soft bed, and I dragged a blanket from the closet, walked through the silent house, down the hall to the door that led to Grayson’s cave. Mushrooms glowed like a night light, keeping the monsters away, and when I curled on the sand, wrapped in my blanket cocoon, I stared at the fire guttering in embers that never burned to ash.

In the silence, the loneliness, I waited, hoping for the sound of his breathing. His voice. I heard nothing, other than the popping sparks leaping from the fire.

When water in the green-enameled pot began to boil, steam rose like curls of ribbon in the air, but without the scent of Grayson’s spicy tea. And when I missed him, the magic summoned his reeking shirt. But the shirt held no reek, no warmth, and I realized that while I wished for the memories, only the tastes and scents existing in this wrinkle were real.

What I remembered, or imagined, would remain tasteless. Scentless.

The beautiful lure, Noa. Forgetting what you left behind.

But I continued to sleep in the cave, and when I missed Hattie and Oscar. Levi or Laura. Leo. When the thrill on the Night of the Beacons became too hard to recall—I would wish. And the magic would wipe the mushrooms away and project images on the cave walls. Faces of those I loved. People hugging, laughing, sharing tea. The beacon lights, flickering from hilltops, flaming with the stars.

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