Eden Riverwallow's Arc

Chapter 10 of 18

Eden woke before dawn to the sound of something screaming in the trees. Not a person. A rabbit, maybe, or a fox. The scream cut short. She sat up on the floor by the hearth. The silver cup still waited on the table, empty. Kane slept on. Willow was already at the window, one transparent hand raised toward the glass. "Something's wrong out there," Willow said. "The woods went bad in the night." Eden pulled on her boots and stepped onto the porch. The air smelled like iron and wet leaves. The moss line at the yard's edge had darkened to near black. Past it, the trees stood too still. She saw a dead squirrel on the path, then another. Then a crow, its wings folded wrong. Small bodies laid out like a warning. "He did this," Eden said. "He came back to the door I closed and this is what came out of him." "You can't cross that," Willow said. "Not with him angry. Not without something between you." Eden knew she could not sit and wait. If Maleficit stayed like this the woods would keep dying, and she would never reach the man who once stopped to watch a bird. She went back inside. She took the triangular vial from the shelf, the one that held his blood and holy water. She put it in her pocket. She took the silver raven cup off the table and tucked it under her arm. "You're bringing both," Willow said. "He needs to know I'm not coming to fight him. But I'm not coming empty either." She crossed the moss line. Ten steps in, she saw it. A ram the size of a horse stood between two trunks. Its coat was black. Its horns curled gold. Its eyes burned green. It had a fresh kill under one hoof, some small thing already stiff. It lowered its head at her. Eden did not run. She set the raven cup on a flat stone between them. Then she uncorked the vial and poured a single drop of the red mixture into the cup. The drop hissed against the silver. "Tell him I'm here," she said to the ram. "Tell him the cup is for him. Tell him I want to know what he sang in the woods behind my grandmother's house." The ram stared. Its green eyes dimmed a shade. It stepped back once, then turned and walked deeper into the trees, leaving the kill behind. The air lifted. The iron smell thinned. Somewhere far off, a bird called and was answered. Eden picked up the cup. The drop inside had not spilled. She walked back across the moss line with it held level in both hands. She had not summoned him. She had sent word. For the first time, she had asked him about himself, and something in the woods had agreed to carry the question.