The bell rang three times, announcing the break between morning classes and afternoon classes. Most children went home, choosing to eat their lunch there. The remaining children stayed behind, gulped down their packed lunches, and hurried outside to run around and play.
Jacket only half-buttoned, Giles ran outside, and in no time had his hands on a long branch that he swished around in the air, finding glee in the vicious sounds it made cutting through the air.
A couple of younger boys were busy building a snowman, struggling to lift the second snowball atop the larger bottom one. As soon as Giles noticed them, cruelty lit behind his eyes.
He marched over, shoulders set with determination, and with three kicks, destroyed the base of the snowman, scattering the snow around him.
“Stop it, Giles!” cried one of the younger boys as he shielded himself from the flying snow.
Giles turned his eyes to his new target. Without warning, he gave the boy a shove, sending him flying backwards into the snow. He landed so hard that for a few moments he couldn’t draw breath. But Giles didn’t relent.
As the younger boy rolled over to his hands and knees, his jacket, too large for his small frame, encumbering his movements, Giles stepped up behind him. He landed a painful blow with the branch on the behind of the younger boy.
“Squeal, little piggy,” Giles jeered as the boy cried out.
“I’m telling teacher!” declared the other boy and ran off towards the school.
Giles went to run after him, but halted. The boy was already too far away to catch up to him. The only thing he could do now was to keep out of sight.
“Don’t snitch,” he hissed to the younger boy who was wiping tears with a snow-covered glove. Giles gave him one last push forgood measure and ran in the other direction to find a place to hide out behind the church until classes resumed.
Branch still swishing through the air, he kicked the snow as he walked. For a few moments, he stopped, peering into the woods where the fog was flowing between trees like a lazy river. Perhaps he thought of his lost brothers, perhaps he spared them no thought at all.
Then, the caw of a raven.
Giles turned, his eyes coming to rest on the bird. The raven was on the ground, holding its wing at an odd angle, and called out again. It hopped and wobbled rather pathetically, to the joy of Giles.
He made his way over to the bird, careful not to spook it, but the glint in his eyes spoke for itself. There was no kindness, no mercy there.
The raven flapped its wings, made a futile attempt to fly away, but landed ungracefully merely a few feet away. It had not managed to flee into the woods where it might have found safety on a higher branch.
Giles launched at it, attempting to pin the raven to the ground with his branch, but the bird was too nimble, the branch too brittle from the cold. With a snap, it broke. The raven cawed in distress, dragging its wing behind it as it ducked into the shrubs that marked the beginnings of the forest. The raven, apparently now stuck in the thicket, thrashed in a panic.
Giles halted.
Some words of warning must have echoed in his mind as he peered into the milky fog, too wary to follow the bird. Smarter than his brothers had been. He sighed, shoulders falling in resignation, and turned to leave.
He did not see the hand that darted out of the mist. Wrapped around Giles’ scrawny arm and snatched him into the woods he refused to enter voluntarily.
Corabeth was surprised at how light he was, how easily he flew behind her to where Rooke was waiting to catch the boy.
With a single snap, it was over.
Before Giles even knew what was happening, Rooke broke his neck and caught his body before it hit the ground. He was almost gentle as he knelt and held the boy in his arms.
A raven flew up into the trees above them and cawed.
There was no sense of satisfaction when Corabeth looked down at Giles’ body, just the feeling of injustice. At the way the people around this young boy had failed him. She had no doubt he would have grown to be the product of his upbringing, no different from Ely or Turner or their father.
“Bring him with us,” Corabeth said despite the lump in her throat. “We’ll need him.”
Rooke turned and silently carried the boy’s body into the mist.
Twenty-eight
Corabeth
In the village, there was a single house where the lights stayed on the entire night. Where a mother and father sat, now childless, although they did not know it yet. Some part of them must have suspected, though. All around them, the people were outraged in a way they had never been for Corabeth or her mother.
