Willa Hext's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Night came, and the shapes came with it. Willa stood on her sagging porch and watched the treeline. Gideon had warned her the creatures would attack the house. She could not see them. She could only see the boy flinch as he held his lantern high. His breath came fast. "They're close now," he whispered. "All of them." Willa grabbed his hand. The cold flooded her. Suddenly she saw them. Dozens of thin black figures stepped from the trees. Their eyes were pale and empty. They moved toward the house with slow, patient steps. She swung her axe at the nearest one. It slid aside like smoke. The blade hit the fence and split a rotten board. "They won't let you cut them," Gideon said. "Not tonight." They climbed the porch. One touched the wall, and the wood blackened under its hand. Another breathed on a window. The glass cracked and fell. Willa backed into her doorway. She still gripped the boy's wrist, her last weapon, her stolen eyes. But seeing them did not help her now. There were too many. Then a figure came last from the trees. It stood taller than the house. Smoke curled from its shoulders. A violet light burned in its chest. The smaller shapes went still and bowed their heads as it passed. Willa knew without words that this one led them. It fixed its glowing eyes on her hand clamped around Gideon's wrist. "Let the boy go," it said. The voice came from everywhere at once. Willa did not let go. "He's mine. I bought him fair." Far off, a dog barked. Willa turned her head. Lantern light bobbed between the trees. The woodcutter came running, axe in one hand, his dog surging ahead. He had never stopped searching for his son. The animal had led him straight to the house. "Gideon!" he shouted. "Gideon, I'm here!" The boy's head snapped toward his father's voice. For one breath, Willa felt his grip loosen. She clutched harder. That was her mistake. The tall shadow raised one long arm and pointed at her, the way Gideon always pointed at empty air. The smaller figures turned as one. They did not need the boy's permission to be seen now. Willa saw every pale eye swing to her. She let go of Gideon at last and swung her axe wild. It passed through nothing. Cold hands closed on her arms, her throat, her hair. They pulled her off the porch and down into the grass. "Run to your father," the tall one told Gideon. The boy ran. The dog met him halfway and circled him, barking. The woodcutter dropped his axe and caught his son in both arms. Willa fought. She bit and kicked and cursed. Her green-stained fingers tore at shapes that would not tear. The shadows dragged her toward the trees, toward her ivy wall, the one she had fed with marked children for years. Her black-toothed grin was gone. She screamed the boy's name, then her own threats, then nothing. The dark closed over her mouth. The tall shadow watched until she was gone. Then it looked at the father and the boy. It did not move toward them. It turned and walked back into the trees, and the smaller figures faded after it. The lantern in the grass still burned, its glass heart glowing gold. Gideon picked it up. Erik Thornwood lifted his son onto his shoulders. The dog pressed close against his leg. "We're going home," he said. "We're not coming back." Gideon looked once at the dark line of the forest. The shapes did not follow. For the first time, no watcher stood behind him. He held the lantern tight and did not point at anything at all. By morning the ivy wall had turned brown. No one tended it now. The thorned hedge Willa had grown to trap the children she marked began to wither from its roots. The vines loosened their grip on the trees. Somewhere deep in Treetomb, under the ruined wall she had built with stolen young, the forest took back what she had taken. The children she marked would find the edge of the woods open at last. And the old woman who had promised that no child would ever escape became the only one who never did.