Willa Hext's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The wall troubled Willa all through the night. Her ivy climbed thick and black around Treetomb now, but something gnawed at it. She found chewed shoots each morning, the bark peeled back, the sap dripping dry. She never saw the thing that did it. By the time a vine browned and died, it was too late to mend. If she could not see her enemy, her wall would rot from the inside. She knew who could see. The boy. She found Gideon at the treeline, where his father let him wander too far. The woodcutter stood back among the stumps, axe idle, watching the old woman close on his son. Fear held him still. He had learned already what her green fingers could do. Gideon did not run. He pointed past her shoulder and whispered a name to the empty air. His pale eyes fixed on things Willa could not find. "Come, lamb," she said. She took his muddy hand. "Show me what you see." She led him along the ivy. She watched his face, not the vines. When his breath caught, she stopped. He stared at a tangle of black leaves and pointed. His lips moved. "There?" Willa asked. She saw nothing. Only ivy. But the boy's finger did not waver. She reached into the leaves with her stained hand. Something warm pushed back. Fur. Teeth. A long jaw snapped shut on empty air where her wrist had been. Willa fell back in the dirt. The ivy thrashed on its own. Leaves tore loose and spun down. A thing she could not see was ripping her wall apart, right in front of her, and only the boy's finger marked it. She grabbed the woodcutter's axe from where she had buried its handle in the roots. She swung at the spot Gideon named. The blade bit something solid. A screech split the air. Blood she could not see spattered her apron warm. The ivy went still. Willa breathed hard. The boy lowered his hand. Then he lifted it again and pointed somewhere new, down the long black wall. He whispered another name. Then another. His finger moved from place to place, marking thing after thing she could never have found alone. Her wall was crawling with them. Willa wiped the blade on her apron. She looked at the small pale boy and smiled her black-toothed smile. Across the stumps, the woodcutter took one step toward his son and stopped. "He stays with me now," Willa called. "My eyes. My little hound." She closed her green fingers around Gideon's wrist. "Go home, woodcutter." The man did not move. He could not take the boy, and he could not leave him. Willa turned her back on him and led Gideon down the wall, to the next thing only he could see.