by Faith Hunter
“Won’t you feel lonely, with no one to see you go?”
“Everyone goes to death alone, Evelyn.”
Evelyn bowed her head with a mirthless laugh. “Of course.” She spun, and when the crow glanced at her, I dashed into the shadow a pillar cast. After a minute, she asked, “Ichabod?”
They couldn’t see me hiding, and the crow said, “He’s gone.”
Evelyn turned, gazing up at the house. “Good. I don’t want him to see me, either.” She lowered her gaze, looked towards the entrance for so long I thought she had spotted me, but then asked, “What did he atone for?”
“I don’t know,” said the crow. “He did something that caused the wolf to resist you, something that bound her soul here, and theirs together. It left them half-eaten; you took their lives, but left their bodies walking. Every creature yearns to find where they belong, but she was too distracted by the grief of her last moments to find her way here, and he could not be free until she was.”
Evelyn wrapped her arms around herself and looked at her feet. When she raised her head back towards me, even from a distance, I saw her tears.
“Did you truly not notice your companions were spectres?” the crow went on.
She brushed her face and hardened her expression before turning. “Don’t be snide. Your eye was always sharper than mine. It was the one thing I couldn’t take from you.”
“Mm. I will go as well, now everyone is accounted for.”
My heart sunk when she replied, “I think that’s for the best. No creature should have to walk this earth anymore.”
“But you will. If you went through that door, nothing would happen. Death herself can’t die.”
She sighed. “I feared as much, but my feet are tired. I think I’ve earned some rest.”
“I see,” the crow said, sweeping a look at the house and the plains. “For what it’s worth, I forgive you.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Evelyn.”
“Goodbye, Tristan. Bring my love to mother and father.”
The crow hobbled away from her. When his claw touched the threshold, I witnessed him shed his feathers and turn into an old, withered man. As he stepped inside, he grew younger, handsomer, until he faded into the darkness.
Evelyn had sat down to inspect a blade of grass she’d plucked. “Please, don’t,” I whimpered to myself when her lips parted. She did not hear me; the bead of milk rolled off the leaf to touch the tip of her tongue. She began to hum softly, plucked another and drank its milk. A dull iron cloud took away the lustre of her eyes.
Head hanging, I approached the door. Evelyn’s only lie was one of kindness, and it made her prior honesty regarding her vileness hurt all the more. She had taken what was most precious from me, but it was not my life. I had lost both my friends.
As the shadows sheltered me, I began to feel lighter, at peace with all the deeds I had come to feel shame for when I learned kindness from Huntress and Blue Girl. I wondered if Huntress’ forgiveness was for unwittingly tricking her into coming here, or if she knew I had killed her cubs. It wasn’t an act of evil, only self-preservation. I was hungry, and thought to kill them young so they wouldn’t grow to hunt me.
At the precipice between this world and the next, I stopped to listen to Evelyn’s humming. I heard no beauty in her voice anymore. It had turned into breathy, discordant notes, and ceased altogether when I walked into Charnel House, where dead things went to die.
HOW DEATH CAME BY HIS SOUL
Amanda Kespohl
He was tall, pale, and lean, like the willow trees that gave him shade. His somber dark eyes suggested that he was likewise made for weeping. His shape pretended to be human, but the spiders gave him away. They skittered in and out of his sleeves, running along his pale fingers like the strands in a web. The holes in his moth-eaten silver robes offered glimpses of the bare bones of his rib cage, and beneath that, a pulsing red glow.
The only eyes that saw him arrive in the forest were the kind that saw nothing else. Flat and empty, they offered him only his reflection from above slack mouths filled with protruding purple tongues. He walked to the bodies, hanging from the apple tree like rotten fruit, and touched them, one by one. As his fingers rested upon bare, dirty feet, the spiders scuttled up to dance across their flesh, trailing threads like cracks in a frozen pond. Around and around they wound, in a dance of a thousand tiny feet, until a spectral wind inflated the silken silver strands. Like gauzy bubbles, the bits of webbing drifted away, bearing glowing, translucent treasure, and left the dangling vessels the emptier for it.
“Where will they go now?” a voice inquired.
The spiders went about their business, but their master balked, unused to being interrupted. No mortal eyes could see him, not unless they belonged to the dead or dying. He lifted his face toward the forest canopy and eyes the color of magnolia leaves looked back at him. Not mortal eyes, and dripping with curiosity like dew.
“Where will what go, nymph?” the Prince of Ash and Bone asked. The weariness in his voice was the kind that had no cure. No matter what may come and go in this world, death is a constant. There were only moments of respite to be had before he was called again.
Slim, nut brown hands pushed aside the foliage. She shimmied down the trunk, landing lightly on a root. “The souls, I mean. Where do the souls go, when you pack them off like that?”
“The only way to find out is to follow them.” The Prince raised an elegant eyebrow. “Do you wish to follow them, nymph?”
“Oh, no, my tree has many years before it returns to the soil.” She squatted, wrapping her arms around her knees and propping her chin on her kneecaps. “That is, unless some human’s ax cleaves my trunk. Then I suppose I’ll find out a lot sooner than I’d like. Does Death come for ones like me?”
“Not usually. Spirits like you know your own way back to eternity. You’re much closer to it than humans.”
“Oh. So you won’t be back again? At least, not unless soldiers catch more bandits and hang them in my branches?”
“No, nymph. I won’t.”
Her lips pursed. “You keep calling me that.”
“Is that not what you are?”
“I’m a dryad. The least you could do is call me by my proper name.”
“Then you should call me by mine.”
“So few here dare to speak of you at all. I wouldn’t know what to call you.”
“I am the Prince of Ash and Bone.”
“Blech.” Her face puckered. “Terrible mouthful, that. Give me something easier.”
“What would you call me?”
Unfurling like a flower, she offered, “There was a shepherd who used to doze beneath my tree, ducking honest labor. Funny little fellow by the name of Cassius. I like that name.”
“Then to you, I will be Cassius,” the Prince said. Spectral lines thrummed, summoning him back to work. He ignored them, choosing to follow his namesake’s example. “And what do I call you?”
“Oh, those who know I exist call me the Dryad of the Apple Tree.”
“Terrible mouthful,” the Prince said. “Give me something easier.”
The dryad grinned, rocking onto the balls of her feet. “If we’re exchanging names, then I’ve already given one. It’s your turn.”
He studied her, taking in the curling dark hair that twisted around her willowy body like vines, and her pert, heart-shaped face. “Idonae. I name you Idonae.”
“And where did you come by that name?” There was a teasing note in her voice, but the song was friendly.
“It belonged to a princess who once waited in a tower for her true love. She doesn’t need it anymore.”
“Oh.” She sank down to sit on the root, looking sad. “He didn’t come?”
“He died along the way, so she followed him, instead.” Hesitating, wondering if he had said something wrong, the Prince added, “She was the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, so you reminded me of …” His words stopped, dispelled
by the sudden wanting in her eyes. He cleared his throat. “In any case, that is the name I would give you.”
“I accept it.” Idonae toyed with a strand of her hair. “So, you were saying that you won’t be coming back?”
“It may be,” the Prince said, “that I misspoke.”
* * *
The following spring poured through the forest in a shower of pollen and petals. Nodding like ringing bells, blossoms hung heavy in branches and crowded together in sun-kissed grasses. All around their stems, little creatures chattered and scolded, while above them, the birds sang love songs to one another.
In the shade of her apple tree, Idonae sat with long legs crossed at the ankle, weaving stems together with deft fingers. Her tongue stuck out from between her lips as she concentrated. Dark head pillowed in her lap, Cassius watched the birds flutter from tree to tree above them. There was a time when they had scattered upon his arrival. Little by little, they had become accustomed to him. It made him feel strangely grateful. It was unusual for creatures with any sensitivity to his presence not to fear him.
“I wish I could give them something,” he murmured.
“Give who something?” Idonae asked, worrying at a troublesome stem.
“The birds. I’d give them seed, if I could. So few have offered me such sweet song.”
“Give them my seeds.”
“Your seeds?”
“From my apples. My apples have the sweetest seeds.”
“I have no doubt. But if I pick your apples, won’t you miss them?”
“I’ll grow new ones.” She glanced down at him. “Besides, I like to see my fruit nourish life. Be it a new tree or a little bird, it makes me happy. It’s what I was meant for, my tree and I.”
“Unfortunately, I was not meant for the same.”
She tweaked the tip of his long, thin nose. “Of course you were. Go pick apples, silly. This will only take a moment longer.” She returned to her work.
The Prince rose to his feet, drifting around the apple tree with his odd, gawky elegance. Plucking down a ripe piece of fruit, he let his fingers seep into its flesh. Beneath his touch, the fruit withered away until it was no more than a thick, pulpy liquid, which dripped down between his fingers to feed the earth. All that remained in his palm were bits of core and a few brown seeds. He reached up and took another apple.
By and by, the seeds he had collected nearly overflowed his cupped palm. Deeming his offering to be sufficient, he walked over to stand before a tree where birdsong wove in and out of the branches like bright ribbons. The birds hushed at his approach. Awkwardly, he held his hand out toward them.
After a while, he said, “They won’t take the seeds from me.”
“And no wonder, after seeing what you did to those apples.” The soft pat pat pat of footsteps crept up behind him. Her hand took his, guided it down to the earth, and coaxed him to spill the seeds into the grass. “One step at a time, love. There’s no rushing the affection of wild creatures.”
“So I’ve noticed,” he murmured.
She retreated back to sit in the cradling roots of her tree. “Don’t be ridiculous. I loved you from the moment I saw how delicately you handled your spiders.”
He returned to her side, letting his head sink back onto her thigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sparrow land in the grass to investigate the pile. “You are a strange sort of nymph.”
“I wouldn’t know.” She shrugged, her eyes on her work. “I’m the only one I’ve ever known. There’s only one in each forest, you know.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely?” More birds flew down to the ground, following that first sparrow’s brave example. They hopped closer, stealing seeds from the pile and flying away to eat them in safety.
“No. I have the birds, the deer, the wolves, the cranky black bear that lives down the hill, the ants that crawl up my trunk, and the gnats that hang in the air when it’s thick enough to drink. I am connected to a great web, and all the life in it hums in my veins.”
“As am I. But when I feel the lines thrumming, it’s not to protect what I love. It is a call to take a life, like a spider creeping toward a moth struggling in its web.”
“It’s what you were made for. You can’t help that anymore than a spider can help eating bugs. Besides, you do protect what you love. You protect me.”
“How so?”
“There is a rumor that Death himself favors this apple tree. No man in the world would dare to harm it now.”
“Oh?” His dark eyes slid back to study her face. “How do they know that?”
“Not all birds find Death’s company so unsettling.” She nodded to the break in the forest canopy. The flash of blue-black wings caught the light as they circled.
“Ah, yes. Where I go, the crows do tend to follow.” Sometimes spying, he added to himself, darkly.
“That they do. Even mortals know that much. So your presence keeps me safe, and I can go on keeping my forest safe. How could my birds not love you for that?” She fussed with a final stem, and then gave a cry of triumph. “Ah-ha! I’ve done it.” She proudly displayed the product of her labors. “A proper crown for a proper prince.”
At her prodding, he sat up and allowed her to settle a wreath of red, yellow, and white flowers around his brow. “I’m sure I’ve never looked more regal.”
“I certainly think so.” She adjusted the crown, then crawled into the circle of his arms and pressed her warm lips against his sallow cheek. His eyes closed.
The spectral lines thrummed, calling for the Prince of Ash and Bone. But he was Cassius now, and could not answer. So he turned his face from the endless work that lay before him and toward the sweet nymph in his arms.
* * *
After that spring, he was a long time gone from the apple tree, much longer than he meant to be. The summoning threads were always so much heavier for his inattention. Five summers hung heavy on the vine, softened into fall, and shriveled into winter, only to be reborn as something sweeter in the spring. By the time his weary feet padded through the grass to her tree again, the spring blossoms marked five years of his absence.
She said no word of rebuke, nor remarked upon the passage of time. Instead, she greeted him with eyes as bright as new leaves, and brought him to rest against her tree. They talked until the sun began to flicker like a guttering candle and he told her of all the places he had been since they parted. As night poured like wine between the boughs, turning the forest black and silver, they walked together, arm-in-arm, serenaded by a hum of crickets.
“It’s useful, that heart of yours,” she remarked.
“Oh?”
“Yes, the light it gives is much handier than any torch.”
“And you dislike torches?”
“Well, fire makes me nervous.”
“Naturally.” He looked at her, and the shadows hung on her profile like a widow’s veil. “I would frighten all the flames away, if I could.”
She patted his hand. “It’s enough that you frighten the mortals. It makes them careful of how they tend their campfires here. As long as you keep visiting, I’ll live as long as any dryad can.”
“Then I shall.”
* * *
The next decade, plague wrapped greedy fingers around the world and squeezed it in much the same way that Death had once squeezed an apple. Wading through mass graves, scattering spiders like a farmer might scatter seed, the Prince of Ash and Bone wondered how the dryad fared. He thought of her smile, of the light in her leaf-green eyes, and his heart gave a sick, wet thump. Part of him wanted to walk away, to turn his back on the dying and return to her quiet green haven. To leave the place where no one saw him, and let the world rot away without his help. But there were so many souls trapped in pain and misery. They called to him, caught in the web, struggling to break free. He could not leave them to suffer. He didn’t think that she would want him to, even for her.
Soon, he promised himself. I will go to her soon.
He kept his promise, in a manner of speaking. “Soon,” to an immortal, is sometime before the world crumbles into dust. As one who did not fear death, the prince was likewise unmindful of his accomplice, Time. So it was twelve years from the last time their fingers parted that he found his way to the shadows beneath the dryad’s apple tree.
She was quieter than she’d been when he saw her last, and wan. Her dark hair looked brittle, and she moved as if her body pained her. Speaking to be heard above the harsh, wet lurching of his heartbeat, Cassius asked, “What has happened?”
“My tree was sick. It’s better now. I’m getting stronger every day.” She pulled him down beside her, leaning gratefully against his shoulder. “I’ve missed you.”
He put his arm around her, smoothing her wilted tresses. “I shouldn’t have left you so long. I should have been back sooner.”
She shook her head against his shoulder, her eyes closed. “No. No, you have things you must do. I only wish sometimes that I could go with you. I’ll never see any of the world beyond my forest. I cannot leave my tree.”
“I’d gladly take you if I could. I might take some pleasure in the world, myself, if you walked through it with me.”
She tipped her head back and opened her eyes to look at him. “It’s enough for now that you’re here. I saved seeds for you. So that you can feed the birds.”
He smiled and took the little packet from her hand. “That was kind, but I didn’t bring anything for you.” He thought a moment, then lifted his fingers to her hair. Small gray spiders trickled across his hands to scatter in her hair like furred jewels. Weaving and dancing, they worked their way from her head down to her shoulders, trailing a silver veil behind them. Fine and delicate, it cascaded down over her dark hair like gossamer lace. Idonae turned her head to and fro to admire it, and it shimmered like starlight.
