The Whispering Trees (14 page)

“There's something here,” Kara said. She pointed behind the flowers, where the dark forest remained untouched by the strange light. “We have to get out of this village fast. I think we'll be safe once we get past—”

Behind Mary, faint wisps of smoke rose into the air.

One of the grass patches had caught fire. The flames, small enough that Kara could have stamped them out with the heel of her boot, blazed out quickly.

Left behind was the charred shape of a man, which stretched its arms into the air and rose from the ground.

HUNGRY
, Kara heard it say.

She felt herself moving, Taff grasping her hand and pulling her away as grass patches all around them burst into flames that quickly extinguished into flat, shadowy shapes rising from the ground.

HUNGRY. HUNGRY. HUNGRY
.

“This way,” Taff said.

He guided her to a house much larger than the others in the village
. Perhaps this is where their version of a fen'de
lived
, Kara thought
. Taff didn't even bother trying the front door, which was no doubt nailed shut. Instead, he unlatched the small wooden gate built into the side of the front steps and ducked beneath the floorboards of the porch.

“Come on!” he whispered, pulling Kara behind him. “Hurry!”

Kara was too tall to simply duck her head so she had to crawl into the space; her left knee, which had still not fully healed from their mad dash across the Draye'varg, throbbed with pain. Mary followed close behind, closing the gate behind them.

“There's nowhere to hide if they find us,” Kara whispered to Taff. “Are you sure this is such a good idea?”

“Absolutely not,” he replied, “but it's a lot better than wandering about in the open with those things. At least we're out of sight.”

“Do you think they saw us go under here?” asked Kara.

Mary shook her head. “Look at the way they're moving.
Sluggish. Disoriented. Like they've just woken up from a long slumber. They're still regaining their senses.”

“If that's the case,” Taff said, “then maybe we should just put our heads down and run until we're out of—”

“No,” replied Mary. “If there was an opportunity for that, we've missed it.”

Through the gaps of the checkerboard skirting, Kara watched the black shapes roam the village. She tried to block out the rising voices (
HUNGRY, HUNGRY, HUNGRY
) in her head.

“I hear them,” Kara said, “just like I would other creatures.”

“Can you control them?” Mary asked.

Kara shook her head. “Their voices are like echoes of something that was once alive.”

“Darkeaters,” Mary said. “I thought—even here—that they were little more than a campfire tale.”

“They're just monsters,” Taff said, straining to sound brave. “We've defeated monsters before.”

Mary sighed. “You haven't seen, have you?”

“Seen what?”

She placed a hand tenderly on Taff's forearm, and regarded him—for just a moment—with the protective expression of a mother.

“Look at their shadows,” she whispered. “Both of you.”

One of the darkeaters—tall and gangly, with arms nearly to its knees—had made its way to the front yard of the house. Kara leaned forward as far as she dared. At first she could not see its shadow—the angle was all wrong—but then the red light shifted and the darkeater turned to face it, as though to bask in its glow.

Taff whimpered softly next to her.

“No,” he muttered, “no . . .”

The darkeater's shadow was not a shadow at all. It was a man in his late forties with a closely cropped beard and hazel eyes; he was perfectly flat, as though not a man at all but a slice of mirror bearing his reflection. As the darkeater moved, the man shadowed its
movements, his face vacant and expressionless.

“That's what happened to the villagers,” Mary said, “and that's what's going to happen to us if we can't think of a way out of here.”

T
hey stayed beneath the house until nightfall, though there was really no night and day anymore, only the harsh red glow emanating from the flowers. Taff, who refused to look at the darkeaters again after seeing that first human shadow, had fallen asleep, his head resting on Mary's legs, his feet hooked across Kara.

“He looks so young when he sleeps,” Kara said. “Sometimes I forget that he's only seven. No child should have to go through something like this.”

Mary glanced in her direction, a small smile creeping over her lips.

“What?” Kara asked.

“Nothing.”

Taff was still asleep and snoring soundly when an animal entered the village. It could have been mistaken for a fawn, were it not for twin sets of bulbous eyes that sat on opposite sides of its head.

The darkeaters hadn't noticed its arrival. Yet.

“What's it doing here?” Kara asked.

“I have no idea,” Mary said. “Most animals know enough to stay away. There must be something wrong with it.”

The animal, Mary told her, was called a paarn, and as it came closer Kara could see that it was indeed ill: it tottered when it walked, and its fur had fallen out on one side, leaving patches of flaky skin. Even from far away she could hear its wheezing breath.

Go!
Kara tried to tell the paarn.
It's not safe here!

But although Kara was able to find the animal's thoughts, they were too scattered and confused to allow her to build a mind-bridge between them. The paarn was
ill in its brain as well as its body.

“They found it,” Mary said, pointing to the first darkeater rising behind the animal. Kara caught a glimpse of its “shadow”—an unsmiling girl with pigtails and a splotch of freckles around her nose.

In its last moments the paarn regained some of its lost senses and tried to run, but it was far too late. Kara waited for the darkeater to attack, for the inevitable rending of flesh as the shadowy shape fastened its jaws on the unfortunate creature. That never happened. Instead, the darkeater stood still while the pigtailed girl reached out her hands and snatched at the paarn's shadow, grabbing handfuls of blackness and shoving it into her flat mouth. The paarn bleated—a high-pitched, strident noise—bringing the attention of other darkeaters eager to join the feast.

“What?” Taff mumbled, half opening his eyes, but Mary rocked him back and forth and whispered, “It's okay, go back to sleep, go back to sleep . . .” and Taff drifted off again.

The pain focused the paarn's thoughts enough for Kara to build a bridge between them, and once the connection was made she sent the poor creature peaceful images—drinking from a puddle of rain at dusk, sleeping in a bed of leaves—in order to distract it from what was happening and provide some measure of peace. At the end, Kara felt the animal there with her, prancing through a meadow of freshly fallen snow before night fell forever.

She felt tears roll down her cheeks but refused to wipe them off. Not yet. Not until she saw what they had done.

The body of the paarn had evaporated, piece by piece, as its shadow was devoured. Motes of faintly glowing dust rose into the air, splitting off into equal sections and shooting across the village. Kara followed one cloud of motes as they were inhaled by the glowing stigma of the nearest flower. The petals trembled with satisfaction.

It was then, as she watched the sad remnants of an innocent life vanish forever, that Kara decided simply escaping this village with their lives would no longer be enough.

“I'm going to stop them,” Kara said.

Leaning on one elbow, Mary regarded her with a curious expression.

“It was just a paarn, Kara. Animals die all the time. It's part of life in the Thickety.”

“Yes,” said Kara, struggling to keep her voice low in spite of her rising anger. “Animals get eaten by other animals. Predator, prey. I understand the natural workings of the world, and I would never presume to interfere.” She pointed a trembling finger at the still-quivering flower in the distance. “But that is not natural. That reeks of Sordyr. And I intend to stop it.”

Kara saw a flicker of something pass through Mary's face—something that might have been pride—before it returned to its typical stoic expression.

“Very well. But you don't need my help for that,
wexari
. You have an entire forest at your command.”

Kara could hear them—
so easily now, as simple as reaching out my hand—
faint whispers in the trees but also along
the outskirts of the village. The creatures were biding their time until the flowers sank beneath the earth once more and safety returned.

“They won't come,” Kara said. “They're terrified of the darkeaters.”

“They are nothing but beasts. You are their master.
Make
them come.”

“I can't do that.”

“Can't? Or won't?”

Kara wasn't sure. When she had used the grimoire she supposed it was possible—even likely—that the animals she conjured had come against their will. But she had never used her newfound powers as a
wexari
to try to force an animal to do her bidding. How would it even work?
If I had to
, she thought,
I could build the bridge strong enough to trap them
. Kara allowed her mind to drift to the canopy and felt the hundreds of flying creatures sailing through the night, the innumerable creepy-crawly things wending their way from tree to
tree. Their minds were so simple, so weak.
Why hesitate when I have such weapons at my disposal?
she wondered. The voices of the animals rose in intensity, as though they wanted her to know how eager they were to be commanded.
I can use these beasts to destroy the darkeaters and the notsuns without even leaving the safety of this hiding place. What could be simpler?

And yet Kara couldn't stop thinking about all the creatures that might die in the process of carrying out her plan.
Does it matter? Aren't human lives more important than the lives of animals? I must save Taff and Mary first if I have the power to do so!
The trees continued to whisper, beckoning her.
USE US. BE THE WITCH YOU WERE MEANT TO BE
. She remembered Mary's words:
If you want to escape the Thickety you're going to have to make sacrifices
. Yes. Sacrifices. And better those monsters than Mary or Taff—it was the right thing to do.

But then why did even considering such a plan turn her stomach?

“These creatures are tools,” said Mary Kettle, “nothing more.”

“I've heard grimoires described the same way,” Kara said. “How did that work out for us?”

“This is different. A grimoire makes the user do terrible things. But here you would simply be . . . asking for help.”

“Maybe the first time,” said Kara, “maybe even the second. But eventually I think it would get too easy, and then it would be no different than using a grimoire at all. A living thing that allows me into its mind is granting me a gift, and to abuse that for my own benefit is . . . I think that might be the very nature of evil.”

A darkeater passed their way then, so close that Kara could nearly touch its shadow—a rotund man whose beard was half-shaven, as though he had been transformed during his morning routine. Kara gently turned Taff on his side to diminish the sound of his snoring.

“If they were going to find us,” whispered Mary after
the darkeater had wobbled away, “they would have done so by now. Besides, we should be safe here.” She gestured to the wooden boards just above their head. “Blocks the light. Since we don't cast any shadows, they have nothing to feed on.”

“So we're just going to stay here forever?” Kara asked.

“Let's see what the morning brings. I'm going to follow your brother's example and get some rest. Think on what I've said—you have the power to stop this.”

“I told you, I—”

Mary placed a weathered finger to Kara's lips. “Just think on it,” she said. Mary lay down next to Taff and pulled a blanket over her head. “Perhaps they'll simply leave on their own,” she muttered. “Stranger things have happened.”

Although her eyes were heavy, Kara couldn't sleep. She studied the darkeaters.
Are they searching for us?
If so, they were doing an exceedingly poor job; despite their sinuous form they were graceless creatures, lumbering
about the village like moondrink-driven men on a festival night. Kara turned her attention to the nearest flower, the light from its stigma unwavering.
It was the notsuns that sensed we were here and woke up the darkeaters, and it's probably the notsuns that know we never left. The darkeaters are just servants used to gather food
.

So why haven't they found us yet?

Kara thought the answer to that question might be important, but her eyelids refused to remain open, and within a few moments she fell asleep.

Kara awoke to a blinding redness behind her eyelids, as though she had slept while looking directly at the sun. She slitted her eyes open and saw that their once dark hiding spot beneath the house was now flooded with red light.