Page 87 of Apples Dipped in Gold

A terrible pain ripped through my chest, but as I watched, I noticed something strange. The fox’s fur was fluttering, as if caressed by the wind, and then suddenly, he transformed into a human man. He was naked and he had a swath of reddish hair. His eyes blinked open. He lay there for a moment and then reached for a nearby rock. Rising to his feet, he slammed it against Hans’s head.

My brother went rigid and fell down dead.

The fox, who was now a man, looked up at me.

“Hurry, Samara!”

It was then I looked to see that Jackal had begun to climb the mountain behind me. Panic shot through my limbs, and all of a sudden, I felt numb. I looked up, still unable to see the top of the Glass Mountains, but the fear of Jackal catching up to me spurred me on. It was fuel that did not last the higher I climbed.

My mouth grew dry, and my lips chapped. I found it hard to swallow, and each attempt to move higher made my entire body shake. Then I felt the brush of fingers against my foot. I looked down to see that Jackal had caught up with me.

It was the shock I needed.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed, scrambling higher.

“I gave you a place to sleep and food to eat,” Jackal said, his voice trembled with anger. “I gave you more than you deserved and it was still not enough.”

“I gave you everything!” I yelled. My breaths came in wild, wheezing gasps as I tried to climb, though everything in me wanted to stop. “I gave you soft beds and warm rooms, I gave you hot meals and cold beer. I washed your clothes and cut your hair. I kept house like mother did—”

“Do not speak of her!” Jackal yelled so loud, the mountains shook beneath me. “You may look like her and sound like her and move like her, but you are not her. You could never be!”

“Fuck you,” I said, and as I looked down at him, I spit in his face.

Jackal roared. “You forget your place, fairy fucker!”

“You’re wrong,” I said as he neared, pausing my ascent. He glared at me, his teeth bared. “I found my fucking place.”

His eyes, full of rage, widened with fear as I let myself drop, smashing my feet into his face. His screams echoed as he fell until his body slammed against the mountain slope. He landed with a final crack atop the pile of corpses at the bottom.

In the silence that followed, all I could hear was my ragged breathing, and then I opened my mouth and began to wail. I had never uttered such a sound, but it came from deep inside me, tearing at my lungs and my throat, and when I could no longer make it, I sobbed.

I don’t know how long I clung to the side of themountain, but I felt unable to move. My hands were sticky but also dried with blood, and the parts of my skin that touched the mountain were raw. I felt as though I was melting, fusing with the glass beneath me.

My thoughts turned to Lore and the fox and Rooster. I could no longer see the ground, as thick clouds had gathered below me. I wondered if they were alive. I prayed that they were, though I had never really believed in a God.

My eyes grew heavy with exhaustion.

“Samara!”

Lore’s voice echoed around me. It sounded so far away, I thought I had only imagined it. Perhaps I had started to slip into a dream or maybe even accepted death’s embrace, but then I heard it again.

“Samara, beloved, I am coming!”

Hope swelled in my chest.

He was alive! He was alive, and he was coming for me!

“Lore! Lore, I am here!” I called. “I am waiting!”

I could have cried with happiness, but I had no tears left. The feeling was short lived, however, as a massive shadow passed over me. I looked up to see a large, black raven circling overhead. I had forgotten Cardic’s caution, about the raven who guarded the wishing tree and his iron talons.

He gave a sharp cry and then sank his awful claws into my shoulders.

“Lore!”

My scream curdled even my blood as the raven carried me higher and higher, his claws digging deeper as he rose over the mountain’s peak. My terror gave way to wonder as I came to see the silver beam of moonlight flooding the valley below.

Where the light touched, everything was green, not glass, and at its center, I saw it.

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