Page 70 of A Land So Wide
“Where are you?” she demanded.
“Here,” it answered, sounding as if it was off to the west. “Here.” The voice came from the east. “I’m right here,” it whispered, sounding as if it were only steps behind her, its lips nearly brushing the fine, downy hair of her ear. Greer could feel its breath across her skin but would not give it the satisfaction of turning to look. She understood it would not be there.
“Are you ever going to show yourself?” she dared to ask. “Or do you just mean to creep around, whispering your little asides till I drop over from exhaustion?”
“Be careful what you wish for, little Starling,” it hissed, and Greer recalled her dreams and the creature who’d backed her up against the Warding Stones, making her watch as the town of Mistaken was torn apart. She remembered the slashes scored deeply into the skull of that unknown girl.
“I’m not scared of you,” she lied.
“Oh, little Starling,” it sang, arcing over the sky, swooping past her on wings unseen. “You should be. You will be.”
“Where’s Ellis?” she demanded. “Is he safe?”
Its laughter was dark with amusement. “Are you?”
Greer let out a cry of frustration, and though it lacked the scream’s power, it was enough to startle the nearby birds. They exploded from the tree, and Greer wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
They were starlings, their small bodies sleek and dark as they sliced through the air like bullets, flying circles around her.
Instinctively, she covered her head and ducked low. She could hear each of the starlings’ heartbeats, fast and panicked. The murmuration seemed to expand, then shrink around her, whizzing by, as images were quickly formed, then lost. Despite the sheer multitude of bodies flying through so small a space, they never ran into one another, they never struck Greer.
She dared to raise her head, squinting through the chaos, and wondered if she could climb down from the perch. Surely, the birds wouldn’t follow her into the depths of the forest. They needed room to fly en masse, they needed space and open air and—
Greer frowned, spotting something on the ground below her.
It was still, mostly hidden in the shadows of the trees, but then took a concerned step forward, standing upright on two legs.
It was a person.
She blinked in disbelief even as her heart hopped high in her throat. “Ellis!” she exclaimed, trying to be heard over the rustle of a thousand starlings. “Ellis, I’m up here!”
Heedless of the birds, Greer hurried to climb down the rock, but with all the lichen and ice and snow, she slipped, skidding over the edge. She fell into the starlings, and for one moment, she had the strange notion that they would save her, that she was one of them, and that they would come together and spirit her away to safer ground. Her feet would land as softly as an autumn leaf, and she would race to Ellis while the flock of starlings cheered for her, for them, for their new life of freedom and love and—
The ground raced up to meet her, faster than she could have imagined.
24
Greer woke sometimelater to the impossible sounds of a crackling fire.
Bits of wood sparked and popped, and she could feel the embers flush her cheeks, her chest, her body, all the way down to her fingertips and toes.
She kept her eyes shut, certain it was a dream, certain she’d seriously injured herself in that stupid, thoughtless fall, and that she was actually lying in a snowbank, delirious with blood loss and exposure to the cold.
Men at the mill told stories of getting turned around in the woods, of wandering with shoes wet after fording a creek, and of the phantom tendrils of heat that would wrap around their limbs, causing them to remove more clothing no matter how cold it was, no matter how strange it seemed. Then they’d pull off their shoes, revealing toes shriveled and blackened into stumps—if there were even toes left behind at all. The onlookers would shriek with dismay and glee before solemnly promising to never wander too far into the woods, to keep to Mistaken’s knowns, to always respect the power and uncertainty of nature.
Greer had never made such promises. She knew herself too well, knew she would forever be drawn into the wilds, knew her curiositycould never be sated. It would take far more than the cautionary tale of a missing toe to keep her from roaming.
But now here she was, far from home and so grievously injured she’d conjured up an imaginary bonfire to trick her mind into accepting what was happening to the rest of her body.
She wondered how long it would take to die, if she was close now.
It must be soon,Greer reasoned.The great unknowable end.
It was a surprisingly comfortable way to die, ensconced in a cozy world of fanciful heat. There was no pain, no fear.
“Are you awake?” asked a voice, tearing into Greer’s reverie, and the fear came then, dousing her with an icy shock so surprising she sat up, eyes flashing open.
There was a blaze after all, a very well-made one, much bigger than her campfire from the night before.
