Green cocked his head at the wolf’s assessment. Thoughts were different here. Too loud. Skulls were made of glass and minds were words floating in the air. No secrets.
And I lived your memories, not-man. The Crow King owes you an explanation.
“The what?”
The Crow King and his trade without your acceptance of the bargain. When you fell and the king ate your death without your leave to do so.
“I…don’t know what you’re saying. You saw when I fell in front of the bus? I don’t know what you mean by…a trade.”
The pain of the memory flew toward Green, a physical thing in the place where thought was substance. It flew on black wings.
He slapped it from the air and it vanished in a rain of ash and feathers.
The wolf studied Green.
You do not know your own memory?
Pain sparkled in the emptiness between them, growing where the flying agony fell, and the wolf traced its searing lines down to its roots.
“That memory…hurts. And I can’t understand it. That bird…the crow…just screamed at me.”
Perhaps you cannot understand it alone. Come.
“What? No. I can’t.”
But with the mountain guardian’s help, he could.
Green walked down a dark corridor. The wolf padded along beside him.
Here, an archway of verdant honeysuckle.
Seven-year-old Green mixed a potion of mulberries and creek water in a sun-faded blue bucket meant for molding sandcastle parapets.
They walked.
Here, an open door.
Jess tossed aside her keys hard enough to mark the drywall.
“Just don’t ask about my day anymore, okay? I hate this. I hate this job,” she said.
“Maybe it’s time to look for something else,” Green said.
“You were a fucking literature major. One of us needs to have a real career.”
They walked.
Sunlight filtered in through lace curtains.
Mr. Reynard looked up from his work gluing tiny gears to a mat with shaking fingers, adding wheels to a clockwork locomotive. He smiled at Green.
They walked.
The corridor fell away and Green was on a busy city sidewalk.
He watched himself walking toward the intersection.
“Hold on, I can’t do this again.”
