Mairwen puts her hand on Baeddan’s chest, stroking the skin between ragged wounds, and says gently, “We ran, we faced the devil, and we rescued him who has been trapped in the forest for a decade.”
Questions from everyone compete for their attention and the world tilts under Arthur’s feet. He wonders if Mairwen remembers it, or is covering. Lying as a Grace witch is apparently born to do. He glances at Rhun to check the grayness of his cheeks and faint flutter of his lashes. Rhun releases him and steps forward.
Mairwen tries to speak again, asking for calm, attempting to take control of the situation, and beside her Baeddan lifts a hand to shade his eyes from the sun. He opens his mouth and says to his mother, “I’m so hungry,” like a child’s sad plea.
“Oh, baby,” Alis Sayer says, falling forward against her transformed son. Tears stain her face, and soon Baeddan’s blood, too, and the village presses closer. Some are laughing now, and calling up praise to God, pushing between Arthur and Rhun and Mairwen and Baeddan.
“Stop.”
The order thrills through the villagers, from the certain voice of Sy Vaughn.
Quiet falls.
“This began,” Vaughn says, arms still and outspread so his black cloak falls smooth as glass, “with illness and an unconventional Slaughter Moon. Before we celebrate, before we press too hard on these young people, we must assess the bargain.”
Rhun slides a dark look at Arthur, then immediately walks up the pasture hill. His stride is less sure than usual, but he doesn’t appear to be near fainting. Arthur looks to Mair, who meets his gaze with a stare of her own, and the two of them nod slowly together. Mairwen curls her fingers around Baeddan’s wrist, and though he clearly wishes to stay with his mother, he does not venture a protest before going at Mair’s side to join Arthur in following Rhun.
Three Graces follows behind.
As he climbs the hill, thighs straining, injured ribs aflame, Arthur begins to feel better. The pain diffuses like an old, angry bruise. It’s working. The magic of the bargain. Whatever they did is working.
black, empty eye sockets stare out from the skulls, bound with snaking vines to the massive trunk, and shoulder blades, rib cages, all the bones forming the armor of the Bone Tree and
The sun is a burning disk in the east, warming the breeze; the smell of autumn ashes and bonfire and horse dung is as familiar as his own voice. Rhun is alive ahead of him, and the knowledge of it pulses in the binding on Arthur’s wrist:alive, alive, alivelike a heartbeat. He senses Mairwen just behind and beside him, too, just as alive, just as connected. Their feet find a natural rhythm, and all three who ran into the forest walk across the hills of Three Graces at the same pace, tuned for the same song.
Baeddan Sayer clicks his sharp teeth in time with their stride.
Arthur is not afraid of anything, not even whatever it is he’s forgotten. He survived. He’s strong, and this morning he’ll be whatever he makes himself.
Rhun leads them in a straightways path, not like the snaking dance twelve hours ago, but direct to the barley field, half razed and harvested. He arrows through the tall bearded grasses, ignoring how seeds shake loose. The sound is a rushing roar as Arthur and Mair go after, as all the town comes behind, boots and skirts transforming the barley into an angry sea.
Reaching the place where he stopped his work three days ago, Rhun bends with a muffled groan of pain. Arthur startles forward but stops himself, knowing better than to help Rhun right now. But he stands behind Rhun with his knee near his shoulder, so if Rhun chooses, he can lean in. He doesn’t.
“Check on Rhos and her baby too, and that sick horse,” Rhun says, rough and tired. “But the blight is gone.” He stands with a handful of healthy barley, casting eyes out over the gathered crowd. “The blight is gone,” he says again.
Sy Vaughn peers curiously at Rhun, and Arthur barely holds back a defensive sneer. Aderyn Grace says the ritual words: “So the Slaughter Moon has set, and seven more years are ours.”
“Amen,” Mairwen tells her mother, and the villagers repeat it fervently. Baeddan Sayer tries the word too, dragging it out into an awkward curse instead. Mair puts her fingers over his lips.
Rhun says, “It’s not right.”
“What do you mean, Rhun Sayer?” asks Vaughn. The people of Three Graces press close.
Mairwen answers, “It might not last, again. Because there’s no...” She winces and shakes her head as if she can’t remember. “Baeddan is here, and that means he didn’t die, but nor did he, exactly, survive. But his bargain held seven full years. He was this, and trapped in the forest, but we still don’t know why the Slaughter Moon happened fast now, after John Upjohn and—and—”
“We need rest,” Arthur says. He meets Lord Vaughn’s mismatched eyes and then looks around at everybody.
“Let’s get these young men food and rest, and our young witch, too,” Vaughn says, spreading a smile.
It’s the usual way for the day after the run to go: The saint, if he survives, is taken home for rest and food, and when he’s recovered the town will welcome him with a less desperate feast in the square. A thing to quietly honor him, an opportunity to give him gifts or ask for additional blessings. Last time, with John Upjohn, it had been more than a week before the saint agreed to do it, and then he only sat on a stool, rigid and silent, while the people ate around him and gave their gifts to his mother or Mairwen for safekeeping.
Arthur wonders what John Upjohn remembers about the devil.
“What happened inside the forest?” asks Per Argall.
“Tonight,” Arthur says, wanting time first with only Mairwen and Rhun. He wants to know if they remember more than he does, or less.
Mair glances his way as the morning sun glints off the hair and thorns circling her wrist, and the small bone woven against the soft underside, right above her pulse. A similar delicate bone touches Arthur’s own fluttering pulse, and one tied desperately to Rhun’s as well. Where did these bones come from? He frowns.
