Linny Marsh's Arc

Chapter 20 of 22

Inside the ring, they tied Linny to one of the slender trees. The vine at her wrists climbed up her arms and pinned her shoulders back against the bark. The braided branches above her closed tighter, and the small hanging lights dimmed to the color of old bruises. The mushrooms at her feet pulsed once, then again, matching a beat she could feel in her teeth. The tall one knelt in front of her. It did not touch her. It pressed one long finger against the tree beside her ear. "Show us," it said. The tree remembered heat. She felt it through her back first, then through her bound wrists. Not fire. Summer. A summer she had never lived. Her mother was there, humming a tune Linny did not know. Lena was small and laughing. Her father stood upright and well. The grove was in the picture too, wide open, and all she had to do was point. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted iron. "No." The tall one moved its finger. The summer went out. Cold came in its place, deeper than the woods outside. Her feet went numb. Her hands stopped feeling like hands. The mushrooms pulsed faster. She heard a sound she recognized as her own voice, from far off, saying please. "Show us," it said again. She thought of the barefoot girl. She thought of the warm stone, and the note that said GO HOME. She thought of what the tall one would do inside that place if she gave it a direction. She did not answer. The cold climbed to her chest. Her breath came in short pulls. The braided branches leaned lower. One of the others put her painted hat on the moss at her feet, upside down, like a bowl waiting to be filled. She understood what she was losing. Not the grove. She could keep the grove. She was losing the part of herself that believed she would ever see it again. That part went quiet first. Then the part that believed she would see Lena. Then her father. Then the shape of her own front door. When there was almost nothing left, she found she still had the word. She used it. "No." The tall one straightened. It looked at her a long time. It said something to the others in a language that had no edges. One of them picked up her knife from the moss and turned it in the light. Another gathered her brushes. The cold pushed higher. Her chin dropped. The lights above her went out one by one, like someone walking away with a lamp. The last thing she saw was the ring itself, the trees leaning in, the mushrooms bright at the roots, a perfect wreath closing over her head. Then she did not see anything.