Page 21 of Into the Heartless Wood

to

forget.

My mother reaches out for me.

Her power pulses in the earth, in the trees.

She commands me to return to her.

I do not obey.

I cannot.

She will see the truth in me.

She will hang an orb around my neck

and force me to fill it with his soul.

And

I

will

not

kill

him.

But I cannot forget him, as he has forgotten me.

He is so helpless.

So frail.

Yet he would have given his soul

to save the child.

His sister.

I do not understand.

I want to understand.

In the evenings I come to the edge of the wood.

I peer over the wall at his house.

I watch.

Until the lights in his windows are put out.

Until stars shimmer in the wide sky.

Until the memory of his voice pours through me.

---