The honey had worked.
A meow drew my attention to where Bug was bolting toward us through the grass. The sight took me so by surprise that I didn’t even have time to retract my hand before she bumped her forehead against my knuckles.
Too late, I snatched my hand away.
But the snuggly fur ball didn’t seem fazed. She didn’t seize up in sudden rictus, and her heart beat fast as she leapt onto my lap.
The monster swirled around my spine, as stunned as I was.
“How…?” The words had hardly left my tongue before Bug dug her claws into my leg. “Ouch! No claws, please!”
Eva laughed in disbelief. “You can touch her!”
I blinked.I can touch her.
An idea formed, and I palmed the grass below me.
At first, the tendrils woke and swirled up over my fingers. I passed Bug to Eva and closed my eyes, reaching for the monster in my depths. I’d never tried to use the death-touch of my own accord, but I had to know something. Slowly, it rose to thesurface. As one, the blades of grass shriveled back into crisp yellow weeds.
I took a breath. When I let it go, the monster pulled back, working with me. The glow in my ribs pulsed like a tiny sun, and the grass grew back.
The spirit of the wood shifted, her leaves rippling over her torso in an illusion of hair as she held out the honeycomb again. Her breath filled the whole glade with the sound of rushing wind.For Jack,she said, the words sounding unsteady for the first time.
I accepted the proffered gift, a strange ache in my chest. It took me a moment to register it as gratitude. It wasn’t an emotion I was used to feeling when it came to the woman who’d raised me. I’d loved her forever and hated her nearly as long for not loving me back.
Or not loving meright.
But as I stared at the spirit of the wood, the curl of her shoulders surprisingly human, something in me softened.
I didn’t want to bear the weight of our bad days anymore. I didn’t know if I could forgive her yet, but for the first time in a long time, I knew I wanted to someday. There was a good person wrapped in all her mistakes. Just like me.
The monster swirled in my depths, calm and content for the first time in months as I resolved to try to let it all go, start anew, and plant a fresh beginning.
Remember your promise,said the spirit of the wood as she began to unravel, the cracking of branches and rustle of leaves an almost violent unmaking.Tell the bees.
“I will.” I stared, squeezing Eva’s hand, until the spirit was goneand the groan of the woods gave way to a new sound. I frowned, trying to place the distant thrum.
“What is that?” Eva asked, following my gaze.
My heart leapt in my chest.
There, beyond where the treetops met a saffron sky, a helicopter was pointed our way.
Chapter 39
Arthur
Eva flapped her arms like a bird.
“We’re over here!” she called out, her voice still hoarse as she scooped Bug up from the grass and stumbled to the center of the meadow. Her limp was gone, the cuts in her skin and her blisters wiped away by magic, but still I saw the drain. Blood loss, I guessed. We weren’t out of the woods yet.
“Over here!” I echoed.
The moment I lifted my arms over my head, I knew something was wrong.
At first, the pain was just a pinch, like the kind of cramp I got when running. I winced. Little Lotties burst to life, doubling the meadow’s vivid blue hues as the helicopter drew nearer, its blades abuzz in a deafening roar.
In seconds, the discomfort worsened and I was breathless.
