Mairwen gnashes her teeth. Her mother winds their hands together and murmurs, “You have a story for me, little bird. There’s blood on your sleeve and a wail in your eyes.”
“Not for here,” she replies, leaning her arm into her mother’s.The devil is an old god of the forest, her mother would whisper when she told the story only to Mairwen. That was the first line of the Grace witches’ private version.He was bold and powerful, beautiful and dangerous, but he loved the first Grace witch, and it was from that love the bargain blossomed. This valley is made on love, little bird. Find love. Seek it, always. That is where our power resides.
“Morning, Mair,” Haf whispers, coming up behind. Mair squeezes her mother’s hand, then lets go and turns to her friend.
Haf’s height barely surpasses Mairwen’s shoulder, but the braided crown of her hair gives her a few more inches. Haf is nearly a year older than Mairwen, and engaged to Ifan Pugh, but most pin her the more youthful of the two girls because of her easy smile and tendency to forget what she’s doing. But she never forgets things she’s said or promised. She loves Mairwen for being brave, and because Haf understands that Mair’s distraction and hunger for other things have nothing to do with any insufficiency of Haf’s. That simple self-assurance made Mair fall in love with her right back. It was Mair who brokered the engagement with Ifan Pugh, eight years their elder, because he’d been too nervous to approach Haf. That alone turned Mair in his favor, for who but the truly besotted would be more afraid of Haf than of her?
Mairwen puts her arm around her friend’s waist, weaving them even closer.
“Will it be Rhun?” Haf asks very quietly. Mair looks toward the boys lined up to whisper their names to the horse. There he is with Arthur, leaning against his shoulder like a comrade, like a boy with no care in the world despite the early Moon, despite the monster this morning, while Arthur seethes silently, jaw working. Beside him are Per Argall and the Parry cousins, and Bevan Heir: all boys between fifteen and twenty, offering themselves up to the town. But everyone knows who will be sent into the forest.
“He’s the best,” Mair whispers. Without even a goodbye word, she whirls away from Haf and strides south toward home.
She kicks at tall grass as she goes, taking satisfaction from the tiny golden seeds that scatter explosively. There must be a reason this happened, there must be a cause, and surely—surely—that cause is not John Upjohn. If something went wrong with his run, why did the bargain last these three years at all, and not simply collapse upon itself immediately after?
Mair grits her teeth and lines up her questions for Aderyn Grace.
Do you know what’s wrong? Mustn’t you, because you’re the Grace witch?
Why can’t I go inside, really? What is the magic in my heart or in my bones? I’m half saint!
Why did a monster try to escape?
How can I save Rhun Sayer?
Hardly noticing as she crosses the stone wall, barely checking her speed as she careens down the hill toward the Grace house, Mairwen seethes and sighs through her teeth, hating this uncertainty. Even Arthur knows what his role is today: apply to be the saint, with all the other potential runners. Haf knows, and all the villagers know: Ready the valley for a bonfire celebration tonight, with a feast and dancing and the ritual throwing of charms into the fire. Women and girls will bake and sweep. Men and young boys move tables and benches, spit a pig, carry heavy casks of beer.
Only Mairwen doesn’t know. She’s not the Grace witch yet, but more than just a girl.
The forest calls her. The Bone Tree calls her.
Why isn’t she allowed to answer? Why isn’t she allowed torun?
I would run for him, Arthur had said. Well, so would Mairwen. And she’d be sneakier and determined.
How could it possibly matter to the magic to sacrifice a boy instead of a girl?
But maybe the devil cares.
Mairwen slams through the short wooden gate into her mother’s yard, and stops when she hears a startled grunt to her left.
It’s John Upjohn, crouched inside their fence, half hidden beside the gooseberry bushes. He’s twenty-one and lean, with watery green eyes and thin blond hair he keeps braided in a tail. The impression of being no more than a ghost is so familiar to Mair it’s hard for her to believe the people who remember him lively and bold, before his run.
His left arm is tucked into a pocket specially sewn to the side of his coat to easily hold the stump of his wrist.
“Mairwen,” he says, attempting normalcy.
“Oh, John!” She flings herself down beside him, but not touching him—she always waits for him to make contact. “Are you well? You weren’t at the pasture with your mother.”
John tilts his head, which is the nearest he comes to expressing unease. “Is there blood on the Bone Tree?”
“Yes.” Mair does her best to keep her voice even, not let him hear her fury and confusion.
His wince is mighty, but lacking surprise.
“Will you tell me, finally, what happened to you in the forest?” she asks.
“I did not do this, Mairwen Grace,” he answers with more ferocity than she’s ever heard.
