Cian rolled his eyes. “Didn’t take him long.”
Alys went to the other children then. First Ren. He was shy with her, not like he’d been before. She remembered the last time she’d seen him—in her witch’s bridle, bells clanging. No wonder he pulled away. She reached out to touch his silken cap of hair and he submitted for a moment but looked at the ground. Then she turned to the others, counting heads. While she did so, she touched the linen in her trouser pocket, embroidered with all their names, now wet with marsh water.
The afternoon was bluing to evening, and the Lakers lit their fires. Food was prepared while makeshift tents and shelters were raised for the new arrivals. They all sat, talked, and ate. They even smiled. As the sun set and night fell, there was no Gate to guard, no sheep to tend. Alys felt the vigilance in all of them rise.
“Is it safe here?” Madog said. He looked around him. “You’ve no fences, no shelters?”
Pawl raised his cup. “Lad, there’s nowhere safe. I’d think you’d know that by now. We hear tell of the soul eaters preying on the mountain folk. Like what happened to our Cian’s parents. And there have been travelers who don’t return to the Lakes from their trips to the villages. And then we’re left to wonder what became of them.” Pawl shook his head, took a sip. “But seems to us the soul eaters don’t like a crowd. They aim for easier pickings. Like wolves, they are.”
“What about Defaid, then?” Madog said. “Not such easy pickings.”
“No.” Pawl shook his head. “I grant you that. But if you think about it, well, them Defaiders made themselves like rabbits in a hole. Only one way out, and once the fire started they were trapped. Here, we’re not trapped. And we keep our eyes open.”
Alys raised an eyebrow at this, but she said nothing. In all the nights she’d awakened in the trees and made her way back to her tent, she’d yet to meet another wakeful, watchful eye. If Angelica, Benedicta, and Delwyn had wanted to attack the Lakes, they surely could have. Like Madog, Alys wondered why they didn’t. She thought of the hole. She couldn’t let herself become lulled by the return of the Gwenith children. She would still have to go. She must. It was the only way to keep all of them safe.
Conversation turned to the night the Gate burned down. “I was in one of the towers,” Madog said. “And I swear to you, I saw nothing, and I heard nothing. It wasn’t until I smelled smoke that I knew anything was amiss. Then I blew my whistle. And all the other children on the Gate blew theirs.”
“Did the fire move so fast, then?” Pawl said. “Hard to imagine that Gate could come down like that.”
“The fire was fast, yes, and it burned in more than one place. But that’s not what brought it down.” He shook his head. “We children of Gwenith always thought of our whistles as cries for help. But see, I’d forgotten what Defaiders do when they hear a whistle. They hide.”
Cian said, “Do you mean that while all of you were whistling and trying to put out the fire, the Defaiders locked their doors and climbed into their cellars?”
“That’s exactly what happened,” Madog said. “And there just weren’t enough of us to fight the blaze. Finally the oaf of a Defaider on guard duty that night managed to beat loud enough on the High Elder’s door to convince him that we needed every pair of hands in the village to put out the fire.” Madog took a long pause. “But by then the fire was too far gone. We could keep pouring all the water we wanted but we might as well have been trying to douse it with a thimble. So we just let it burn itself out.”
Beti coughed, looked uncomfortable. “The Defaid boy, the rider who told us what happened . . .”
“Alec,” Alys said.
“Ay, him,” Beti said. “He said something about soul eaters luring folks off into the fforest.”
“Ay,” Madog said. “The soul eaters came then. They started the fire, I reckon. And once the Gate was down, the singing started. I’d heard tell of it before, of course. But if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, I don’t think I could ever have believed how terrible singing and whispering could be. It was like something was crawling inside of you, picking apart your heart and your brains, looking for something.”
“Did you see them?” Alys said.
“Ay, we did,” Enid said. Two women, and a . . . a boy.”
“It was Delwyn, Alys,” Madog said. “I know it sounds impossible. He left us so long ago. But it was him, I’d know his white-blond hair anywhere.”
“And he wasn’t changed,” Enid said. “He was still a child, even though he should be as old as you.”
“He followed us, even after we left Defaid,” Madog said. “Creeping after us in the woods at night, calling to us.”
Enid patted his arm. “Madog saved us,” she said. “When he saw the Gate was lost, he sent Elidir to gather up the children in the pastures, and then we all just . . . left.” Enid smiled at that thought.
Alys did, too. After all those years of feeling there was no way out, no end to that life, for them to just leave. To walk away. “Did the Elders try to stop you?”
“They couldn’t,” Madog said. “The High Elder threatened me with banishment.” He laughed. “Can you believe that? Gate burning down around his ears and he’s preaching at me. I said, Begging your pardon, Brother Ffagan, but banishment from what?”
Alys clapped a hand over her mouth. “You didn’t say that!”
“I surely did,” Madog said, then looked briefly proud of himself, before his face fell again. “I should have done it so long ago, led all you children away from there. I could have done it.” He looked at Enid. “She begged me to. But I was too afraid. I thought, Defaid wasn’t the best home, but it was a home. And we were fed and sheltered. But that was no life, and I’m ashamed of myself. I will never, not ever, forgive myself for keeping us there so long.”
Alys took Madog’s hand then, and he startled. She’d never touched him before. “You did all you could. We all did.”
“What kind of life was I giving Ren, though? The babies won’t remember. But Ren, bless him. To think of all those nights I watched my boy drag himself up onto the Gate and out to the pastures. All alone and so tired. I’d tell him stories about seeing the ocean, when I should have been taking him there. Not talking about it. Not just promising.”
Enid had been sitting next to Madog all the while he talked, one of the twins in her lap. She’d looked more peaceful than Alys had ever seen her. Younger, too. Almost like the sleepy girl who answered the door back in Gwenith, back when it all started.
Now, though, Enid startled. She looked around her as if suddenly waking from a trance. She gripped Madog’s arm, fingers digging in. “Where is Ren?” Then everyone began looking around and murmuring, but there was no Ren. And then murmurs turned to shouts and panic, and Enid looked at Alys with wide, terrified eyes. “Where’s our boy?”
THIRTY-THREE
While a few stayed behind with the younger children, everyone else spread out with torches searching the marshes and lakes for Ren. Cian led the search—no one knew the danger spots better than he did, especially in the dark. Madog’s first thought was that Ren might have been hopelessly drawn to the water, thanks to all those stories he’d told the boy about the blue ribbon of water all around Byd. Ren couldn’t wait to glimpse water spread as far as he could see, and farther.
Maybe it was as simple as that, Alys thought. Maybe Ren had just wanted to see the water. In that case, they could hope that he was content with looking from a distance, and not touching. Not tempted to put his little feet in, to feel the mud ooze between his toes. That was what Enid feared, and why Madog held onto her now—so she wouldn’t go running off into the muck and mud herself.
Alys tarried behind the others, her stomach sick with certainty that the greatest danger to Ren lay not in the water, but in the fforest. She stepped back and back from the rest, watching their torches swarm forward into the marshes, and then she doubled back, calling to Ren all the way, begging him to come out, to show himself if he was there.
>
She thought of little Delwyn following the children all the way from Defaid. Had he waited for this moment to lure Ren into the woods? Did he want a playmate, or worse? Delwyn wasn’t a child anymore—he wasn’t even human. He didn’t want to play, did he? He was hungry. That’s why he’d called to her that night. Not for love, but for nourishment of a different, monstrous kind.
Or were Angelica and Benedicta out there? Were they singing to Ren even now? Angelica had called to Ren before, asked him to come to her. Alys walked faster, not needing to think about her direction, because she caught a scent in her nose that she knew to be Ren. He smelled like fresh milk and clean soil under fingernails. “Ren!” She called to him. “Ren! It’s me, Alys. Please come out.” She heard begging in her own voice and she felt a selfish desperation to find him—not for his own sake, but for hers. And not simply because she loved him like a brother, but because she couldn’t bear more sorrow.
Then she saw a flash of white among the trees, and at first she feared it was Delwyn. But no, this was a white shirt attached to a dark cap of hair, and not floating, but crouching. Hiding. Relief bloomed in her belly.
“Ren. It’s me. It’s Alys. You’ve scared everyone half to death. Come to me now.” She held out her hand. She saw him look at her hand, and his round child eyes narrowed. Alys sniffed the air again. His milk smell had curdled. Soured. Turned to suspicion. He was afraid of her.
Afraid of her. That was why he’d run into the woods—to get away from her.
Alys’s relief turned to anger. Resentment. This boy, whom she had held in her arms while he slept, feared her. She’d loved him, thinking they were family, thinking that they could be family. And now he looked at her no differently than the other children of Defaid had. Like a monster. Like the monster that she was.
How dare he?
Anger burned to bitter ash and she stepped toward him, and he shrank from her, clung to the tree behind him, searched for someplace to run or to climb. Alys found herself searching, too, amused that he would think that he could get away from her.
If she’d wanted to get him, she could, couldn’t she?
This is what she thought—not with horror, but with a flash of satisfaction that made her feel bigger than herself, that lifted her off the ground. He was the contemptible creature, not Alys. How did he come to judge her? The girl who had sacrificed for him? Who’d risked punishment and worse? If even Ren thought Alys evil, well then why shouldn’t she be?
The earth was somewhere below Alys, but it was of no concern to her. She wasn’t touching it.
Ren slapped his hands to his eyes, unable to look at her, and he cried out for his parents. The scent in the air, rising off him in waves, was nauseating terror mixed with that of a boy who had lost control of his bladder.
His cry was a blanket of shame thrown over Alys, its weight collapsing her down, shrinking her in upon herself. She clutched leaves and dirt with her hands, willing herself to be here, now, flesh and not shadow. She looked up at Ren. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Ren, run. Back that way. To your parents. Run.”
Alys buried her face in her hands then, and she wept. She knew only by the sound of small feet through rustling leaves that Ren had made his escape.
Alys wandered back to camp sometime later—hours it might have been. She didn’t know. All was still and everyone had retreated to bed except for one person who sat before a campfire, waiting. He stood when he saw her. “Alys,” Cian said. And that was all he said before pulling her to him and kissing her. “You’re so cold. Sit.” He guided her to the log he’d been sitting on just a foot from the fire. Then he sat down beside her and wrapped a blanket around their shoulders. She shuddered, and he pulled her closer. She strained to feel the warmth of him. But the cold seemed to have settled into her heart.
“I frightened Ren in the fforest. I think it’s happening, Cian. I’m becoming one of them.”
Cian shook his head. “No, Alys. You only think you’re bad. You would never hurt Ren. That’s not who you are. You must know that about yourself. He was alone and frightened, but not of you.”
“You weren’t there, Cian. You didn’t see the way he looked at me. And he wasn’t wrong. I felt like a monster. And like I could do monstrous things. Like I wanted to do monstrous things.” Cian pulled her close and kissed her hair. She submitted for a moment, but then placed her hands on his chest and gently pushed him away. “You must listen to me now. Ever since I was a child there have been three creatures who have shadowed me. Angelica, Benedicta, and The Beast. Every day of my life I’ve wondered when I will see them. Why I see them at all. What they want from me. And what I want from them. Every day they’ve made me wonder who and what I am. And I will never be at peace until I know.”
“How will you know?” Cian said. “Can’t you just believe you’re good? Can’t you just believe me when I tell you?”
Alys looked at Cian’s face and knew that if he could make everything right for her, he would. She’d never been so sure of anyone’s love as she was of Cian’s. He wanted her to be happy, and he wanted her to be happy with him. But she couldn’t be. And she felt that loss in her chest. “No. I want to. But I can’t.”
“I don’t understand, Alys. You’re finally here. The other children are here now. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard. Maybe you can let things be easy.”
Alys took his hand. “There’s something I have to do, Cian. Last night, The Beast came to me in a dream. Years ago It told me about a hole on that mountain—a massive hole that Angelica and Benedicta were creating. That hole has grown, Cian. It will destroy all of us if I don’t fill it. The Beast has told me so, and I believe It. I’ve felt it. So whether I stay here or not, there is no happiness for any of us until I close that hole.”
“But why you, Alys?”
Alys shrugged. “Because I’m like Angelica and Benedicta. That’s what The Beast told me.”
“How will you close it? How will you stop them without dying yourself?”
“I don’t know. I hope The Beast will tell me.”
“You don’t have to go alone,” Cian said. “And I don’t know why you’d want to. I know the mountain, and you don’t. I can help you.”
She didn’t answer him, but instead rested her head on his shoulder and stared into the flames until her eyes burned. He offered more versions of the same argument at least ten times in the next few hours. He wanted to help her on her journey up the mountain. Help her figure out how to close the hole and save herself. Each time she said the same thing in response: Only she could save herself. She knew this. And she knew just as well that if this darkness inside her grew, she couldn’t be trusted not to hurt those she loved—even Cian. That was why Cian must stay behind.
“Cian,” Alys said finally, using his own words against him. “You trust me, don’t you? That’s what you keep telling me, that you trust me. That you love me.”
“Ay, of course I do, Alys.”
“If you trust me, and you love me, then you must believe me. I must go alone. If you don’t let me go now, then I’ll only slip away when you’re not looking.” She thought of Delwyn, how he’d vanished—and what he’d become. She grasped Cian’s hand. “It’s because I love you that I must go. That I must fix this shadow inside of me. So that I can come back to you.”
Finally Cian relented. She gave him no choice. In the hour before dawn, he helped Alys gather what she’d need for her journey. He held her hand in his own as he walked her to the head of a trail that he said would take her the quickest way up the mountain. When they reached it, Alys turned to him and said it was time for her to leave him. She had her pack with some food, a skin of water, also a blanket, and an oiled canvas that she could shelter under.
Cian leaned against a tree, looking at her. He crossed his arms. “I’m going to wait right here for you, Alys.”
She crossed her arms as well. “Oh? Are you, now? For days? Weeks? How long?”
“Forever if necessary.” He was smiling
, just a little.
“You’ve no food,” she said.
“The longer you’re gone, the less I’ll need food. I’ll grow into this tree right here.” He pressed his head back into it. “And I’ll become tree, and tree will become me. When you come back you’ll see just the outline of my face and body in the bark. And then you can live here at the foot of this tree, and sleep under my branches.” He reached out and grasped her by her folded arms, drawing her toward him. “And when you dream, we’ll be together.” And he kissed her.
Oddly, the moment she had made up her mind to do this—to leave Cian and the others and to follow The Beast and confront whatever lay ahead for her—Alys had begun to feel solid again. No longer shadow and ash. Now she closed her eyes and memorized the feel of Cian’s lips, the scratch of his cheeks, his salt and water scent. Then she pulled away, turned, and forced herself not to look back.
She’d hoped to climb all that day and then into the night, as long as it took to get to The Beast, but that was folly. Alys’s mind was alert with anticipation but her body was failing her. When darkness fell thick and fast, the moon suggested the outlines of things, but didn’t reveal the rocks that sent Alys tumbling to her hands more than once.
So she made camp. She hadn’t felt hungry, she seemed to have forgotten all about food, but now the shakiness in her limbs told her that she needed to eat. She chewed a few pieces of dried fruit and a bit of oatcake. Then she retched it all out. She tried not to think about what it meant that she could no longer tolerate real food in her belly. She must sleep, she thought. She rigged the oiled canvas into a makeshift tent, then curled up in a blanket underneath.
She woke with a start, perched in a tree.
Alyssssssssssss
Alys looked around her through the darkness. It felt natural to be crouched on this branch, to sense air and space around her, the absence of a bed underneath her.
Alyssssssssssss
The Beast Is an Animal Page 22
