Page 55 of Into the Heartless Wood

But when dawn touches the sky

with rosy fingers,

I sing a gap between the branches,

a tunnel of safety

all the way to his wall.

I

let

him

go.

Chapter Twenty-Five

OWEN

THE JOB AT THE TELEGRAPH STATION TAKES MORE BRAIN POWERthan I anticipated. I’m made to memorize a code comprised of long and short clicks and to learn how to translate it into actual words—that’s for the telegraphs comingin.The ones going out are the reverse. I’m no stranger to detailed work, but the demanding monotony of my new duties mixed with the scarce hours of sleep I get every night has me longing to chase a muddy Awela through the garden and wash dishes while she sleeps.

The telegraph office is a narrow, windowless building near the inn, jammed with two small wooden desks—imported from Saeth or elsewhere, I imagine—and two sets of telegraph equipment. There’s always one other operator working at the same time as me. I’m surprised to find that Mairwen Griffith works the evening shift, and comes in just before I leave every day.

“Owen Merrick!” she exclaims the first time she sees me. “I thought for sure you’d been eaten by the wood. You never come to the village anymore.”

I don’t know what to say to this. Her dark eyes and shiny hair have my insides sliding all over themselves, and I can’t help but notice her daring outfit of trousers and high-collared blouse. Rumor has it she wears them when she rides her newfangled bicycle.

“Not eaten,” I tell her in a stroke of brilliance.

She raises a laughing eyebrow at me and settles into her desk.

I finish my shift in an awkward puddle of sweat, but the instant I step from the telegraph office, I forget all about her.

Because there’s only a handful of hours dividing me from Seren.

I have it down to a science now. Dinner with Father and Awela. Putting Awela to bed. Charting the stars. Waiting in my room until midnight, sneaking through my window with whatever I’ve put aside to show Seren tucked into my satchel or strapped to my back—I was wary, after losing the telescope, but I’m much more careful now. Crawling past the garden, climbing over the wall to where Seren waits in her tunnel of branches. Walking with her to our hill, where her trees shelter us from the wrath of the wood, from the watching eyes of her mother and sisters. Showing her the things I brought her, happy with her joy. Forgetting and forgetting and forgetting that she was ever a monster. That she ever could be.

One night I bring her fresh strawberries from the garden. “To eat,” I explain, pulling the top off one of the berries and popping it into my mouth. I wonder belatedly if it’s indecent to offer a girl who is at least half tree part of a plant to eat.

But she mimics me, chewing slowly. “It is very sweet.” She smiles, and grabs another one.

After that, I try to bring her strawberries every night.

I bring star charts and books. The astrolabe from the observatory. A pair of my mother’s shoes I find stuffed in the back of a closet. She doesn’t even try the shoes, just shudders and hands them back to me. “How would I feel the earth?” she demands, as if I really should have thought about that before offering her something so offensive.

But the charts and books and trinkets fascinate her. She wants to learn to read. I teach her the alphabet and leave her newspapers and a few books. Within a week she can read simple sentences; in another week, complex ones.

Every day before dawn I sneak back into the house to sleep a few hours before dragging myself up in time to go to the telegraph office. The schedule is grueling and unsustainable, but I can’t give up my nights with Seren. I’m terrified every one will be my last—that the Gwydden will tear a hole in Seren’s guarding trees and devour us both, that my father will catch me sneaking over the wall. But I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Seren raised her screen of trees around her hill and I played my mother’s cello. Not even Mairwen Griffith can distract me anymore. She makes a point to talk to me every afternoon when she arrives for her shift, her dark hair pinned up in a bun, or sometimes loose and curly about her shoulders. She comes in on her day off and asks me to have dinner with her at the inn. Once, I would have leapt at the chance, wishing I’d been brave enough to ask her myself. But now I give her request hardly a thought before I politely decline and walk home.

Because Seren is waiting.

I’ve almost begun to think that it will always be this way, that I will spend every night for the rest of my life amidst trees and stars.

Tonight I lug Mother’s phonograph out of the garden shed, where I hid it before Father got home. I heft it carefully over the wall, then through the tunnel of branches and up the hill. I’m breathing hard by the time I lay it down in the grass, unlatch the top of the case and remove it. Sweat runs into my eyes and prickles between my shoulder blades. Seren watches as she always does, expectant and curious.

---