Mair feels a rush, both glad and annoyed to see him. It’s a common blend of reactions to Arthur Couch. He’s brash and bold, always pushing at her the way she pushes at the forest. Like a promise, and one she wants to keep. But because of Rhun, Mair refuses to love him.
She walks down the hill slowly but not too quietly. As if he knows it will be her, Arthur doesn’t turn until she’s just beside his shoulder. They look into the forest, caught in darkness before the sun rises. The shadows wait, still and black. A cold wind gusts out, slinking through the trees without touching them, without moving branches or leaves. Only the shadows shiver, rippling and expanding, reaching.
Glints of light draw Mairwen’s eyes to the forest floor, to the shuffle of fallen leaves. Something moves beyond the thick black trunks, a weight of darkness. She steps toward it, fully into the shadow of the forest.
Arthur grabs her elbow. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks.
A breeze shakes the naked branches nearest them.We are so hungry, the breath of the forest whispers.
Arthur makes a noise like a groan trapped in his chest and drags Mairwen several paces back. “Would you make it worse?” he snaps. “By going inside after some flitting shadow?”
Mair’s chest aches with cold. She tries to fire herself up by saying, “Just because you’re afraid to step inside, not all of us are.”
His nostrils flare. “I am not afraid of the forest, but for my friend who’ll be sent into it.”
“Rhun won’t die,” she says, heart aching. Then she thinks of the saints who survive and leave, never returning to the valley because of all the horrible memories. So it’s said. And John Upjohn, the only to remain, who is frail and haunted. Mairwen can’t imagine Rhun so broken he begs the Grace witches to let him sleep at their hearth, shaking from nightmares. She has to imagine he’s stronger, better—the best. He can survive and thrive. She has to believe it, even knowing every mother and lover and friend must think the same of their saint. What else can she do? What else will she beallowedto do?
“I would run for him,” Arthur insists.
“For yourself,” she whispers back.
“For all of us.”
Mairwen shakes her head, knowing the lie. Arthur doesn’t care about saving the people of Three Graces, only proving to them that he can. Be the saint to erase the little girl who dogs him in his own memory worse than in the memory of the town.
“Don’t try to be what you’re not, Arthur,” she says, knowing he’ll take it badly.
Arthur digs his hands into his choppy pale hair, pulling hard. His elbows jut out at the lightening sky. But he says nothing. Mair clenches her teeth and turns away from him. She doesn’t understand Arthur’s anger, except that it always makes her angry too. Rhun says the two of them should be better friends.You’re both so pointy and strange and beautiful, my favorite people in the world. But she won’t forgive Arthur.
“Mairwen,” he hisses, and she hears him unsheathe one of his knives.
Turning, she follows Arthur’s gaze into the forest.
A deer picks its careful way over deadfall, sides heaving. Tiny antlers fork off its skull, catching the first hints of dawn light.
Blood drips from its mouth, from unnaturally sharp teeth cutting out at terrible angles through its face. Vines wrap its delicate legs, and when it takes one more careful step, Mair can see talons—not tiny hooves.
It raises its head and looks straight at her with eyes the purple of crystal.
She steps forward, awed and excited.
The creature bellows, a low bleat of fury and pain, and charges.
Arthur leaps between it and Mairwen with no hesitation, knife out. He dodges its teeth and jams his long knife straight into its neck, hilt deep. The creature screams and bucks, clawing at Arthur as he twists. He hits the grass and rolls, coming up with a kick to its rear legs.
Mairwen has nothing but her body. She punches at it, connecting with the downy cheek, and when it whips its head furiously, nearly catching her with an antler, she scurries back, tripping up the hill. Arthur cuts again and again at its flank with his second knife.
The creature stumbles and falls onto its knees, howling. Arthur grabs his first knife and saws it free. There’s sudden silence. It’s dead.
Trembling, Mair starts forward. She grasps at Arthur’s arm to help him to his feet. Together they stare down at the creature. Its antlers look more like winter branches, not bone, and its claws are black. Tiny purple violas bloom from its wounds and vines twist around its legs and torso—vines bursting from its own flesh, like ribs come to life to choke it.
Arthur wipes blood from his forehead. He’s hurt, but not badly. A shallow cut at his hairline, and Mairwen finds a slash in his jerkin that didn’t reach flesh. His right forearm is bright red with blood. Purple blood from the deer splatters across his belly and neck and the right side of his face.
“We have to get rid of this,” Arthur says.
“What, why?” Mair would prefer to study the body, to take its wooden antlers and investigate what its bones are made of. Nothing has come out of the forest before, that she knows. The birds never fly free, only scream in their tiny human voices. The scaly mice never scurry even an inch past the border, and no snakes emerge to find sun.
Arthur whispers the worst curse he can think of and shakes his head. “There was talk last night that John Upjohn did something wrong, that if the bargain is broken, it’s because of him.”
