Around Three Graces in a sunwise circle they dance as the sun falls farther and farther, then to the pasture hill. Behind them everyone else yells and cheers, sings and weeps and prays as Rhun the saint leads them around and around the fire made by Aderyn Grace and the women, through bloody smoke where this stallion’s organs burn. Mair and Rhun do not laugh or shriek with the rest.
The entire moon crawls free of the dark mountain horizon, and the saint stops.
The town pours around them into a massive crescent, a shield between them and Three Graces.
Together, Rhun and Mairwen face the forest.
It’s a black wall, silent and forbidding, edged in pale moonlight.
The Bone Tree thrusts up from the center like a silver salmon leaping into the air. The ghostly crown is stark and compelling, missing every single scarlet leaf. They’ve all fallen during the day.
Rhun tightens his grip on Mair’s hand, then releases it. With both strong hands, he lifts the skull crown off his head and sets it upon a staff rammed deep into the hill beside the bonfire. The skull settles there with a slow nod, one empty eye toward the forest, one toward the town.
Rhun Sayer the Elder walks to his son with a quiver and strung bow. He helps Rhun into them both, and his cousin Brac Sayer offers Rhun his axes, which he puts to his belt. Braith Bowen gives him a dagger for his boot.
That’s all. Mair expected Arthur to give Rhun something, but she sees him nowhere.
A worm of disappointment eases through her guts. Where is he? He belongs here. With them.
Rhun glances at Mair, smiles bravely, and nods like the horse skull nodded. She readies herself to step forward just as a murmur ripples through the arc of townsfolk.
A dark figure dashes below them, from the direction of town, around the curve of the pasture hill.
Arthur Couch stands halfway between the Devil’s Forest and the crest of the hill where the bonfire blazes, where the horse saint’s skull nods, where the people of Three Graces wait to offer their son to the sacrifice.
His spiky pale hair catches the last warm traces of daylight.
Mairwen’s heart beats hard enough to thrust out of her chest and her toes tingle in her boots. Somebody whispers, “What is he doing?”
Arthur turns to face up the hill. His bow and quiver poke over his shoulder, and the glint of long knives mark his hips. He wears a black hunting hood, an old leather coat, trousers, and boots. Arthur puts both his hands out and waves madly at them all.
A strangled cry breaks from Aderyn Grace and Rhun grunts wordlessly.
Mairwen thinks Arthur looks coiled and sharp, dangerous and ready to face down the devil. She flexes her hands into fists and steps forward. Though she can’t see his eyes clearly, she knows the moment Arthur fixes his attention on her. Her palms ache, and she feels hot, then cold, then terrified, becauseArthur doesn’t have the shirt. He can’t go in. He’s not anointed.
“But I’m the blessing in between,” she whispers. Her blood. Her heart.
Behind Mairwen, a knowing, panicked look flashes in her mother’s eyes. But Aderyn has never called her daughter’s name where the devil might hear it.
Haf Lewis is not yet so wise, and when Mairwen leaps forward, grabs one of Rhun’s axes, and takes off down the hill, Haf screams her best friend’s name.
Mairwen runs, thrusting hard against the skirt of her dress, gasping against the tightness of her bodice.
She pushes harder, boots thudding her heartbeat into the earth.
Her name becomes a cry behind her, a swarming prayer, as she careens downhill toward Arthur.
Their eyes meet for a flash, and she holds out her empty hand.
Arthur slaps his palm to hers, and together they run for the trees.
Haf Lewis has never been so afraid in her life.
Her best friend vanished into the forest only moments ago, and already a piece of her heart feels torn away.
Mairwen will survive, Haf tells herself. She’s a Grace witch and the daughter of a saint. The forest won’t take her. As long as Mair keeps running, keeps all her prickly pieces out like daggers, like a shield, she will survive until morning. She has to.
At the fore of the townspeople, Haf has a perfect view of the black wall of trees, of the shivering canopy lined with moonlight. She’s gone out of her way to never imagine what hides beneath all those shadows, what monsters might swarm the roots of the Bone Tree. Hard enough to live so near it and listen to Mairwen wonder. If Haf let her nightmares loose, she’d run so far away from this valley she’d never find her way home again.
