The Forest's Son (16 page)

It's the last thing she wants to do, but at the same time, she doesn't want one of these strange, naked women touching her, regardless of how they felt about what has happened. She feels something pressed up against the side of her face, then his arms under her as he lifts her.

As much pain as she’s in, she feels safe in his arms. Her hand searches for his shirt to hold onto, but comes up against nothing but naked flesh. Realizing he must be using his shirt to staunch the blood from whatever wound she has, she presses her closed fist against his chest and lets the darkness overtake her again.

36: Crowning

Bożena watches him with the human girl: gentle, yet firm. He’s afraid for her, but refuses to let it show in how he talks to her.

Bożena can feel the waves of his terror as they wash over the rest of the women, however. Those who are better at healing split into two groups: One scurries ahead to ready the hut for the human girl's arrival, and the other surrounds him, chattering to him about how he should hold her, reassuring him that the human will live, checking the other wounds on the girl's arms and legs.

Bożena wonders why the human is immune to him. All the sisters feel every one of his emotions as they spill out of him like water boiling over a pot, but the girl is calmed by his presence, so much so that she curls up in his arms and slides easily into unconsciousness.

Among the sisters, there’s no longer any fear of the one creature they’d been taught since birth to fear the most. Not one of them is still afraid of him, judging by how easily they move around him. All because of his care for one small human girl with odd colors in her hair and jewelry in her face?

A few of the sisters linger, waiting for directions from her, she knows. A decision must be made about life-end rites for Zuzanna as well as Grażyna, and something must be done or said about the others she'd permitted him to end.

Bożena finds she’s still unable to utter his name, even in her mind.

Part of her knows she should follow the group on its way to the hut, yet she can't bring herself to leave her sister's body here, unattended.

“Bożena?
”
Janina asks. “What shall we do with —?”

Bożena hesitates for only a moment before answering.

“When the human has been taken care of, please ask the other sisters what they wish to do. We should decide together.”

“And you? What do you wish to do?”

Janina is never able to leave well enough alone. Bożena knows Janina wants to have some idea of which way to try to sway the rest of the sisters. Losing five in a day, plus their lost sister, is more than the tribe can bear. Any additional acrimony will only do more harm.

“I will remain here by the side of my sister, Grażyna, keeping watch, until the decision is made.”

Janina nods and hurries out of the hut, but Bożena is confident the message is clear. Grażyna was as much a sister to her, if not more, than the four who are now vanished in death. By remaining with the body as she would for any other of the tribe, Bożena is stating a claim on her sister as
Dziwozona
.

If all goes as expected, her body will be returned to
Matka
here in the sacred ground.

She bows her head and begins her chants, offering her sister's soulless body for reclamation by the mother of them all. Focusing on her words, she blocks all thoughts of him from her mind. She can’t focus on him now. There will be time for that later, after she has attended to her sister.

37: Ascending

The women try to bar him from the hut, but their efforts are half-hearted, at best. They may not fear him as the demon they've all been taught he is, but there’s still some amount of fear in their reactions to him. They aren't entirely sure what his powers are, and they’re aware he reduced four of their sisters to nothing but ash.

As he promised her, he stays by Donovan's side as the women work on her wounds, keeping his hand in contact with her skin at all times, even if he has to shift positions to make it easier for the sisters to do their work. Every stitch they place makes his stomach roll, and he wants nothing more than to switch places with her. He suffers more watching her in pain than he would if the wounds were his own, even with her unconscious.

The sisters are careful as they move around him, but he watches how they touch Donovan. They’re so gentle and caring; they treat her as they would one of their own. Even as one sister is carefully stitching Donovan’s cleaned facial wound closed, another is gently washing the blood from her hands and face, and a third is washing more blood out of her hair. Still more are cleaning and stitching the cuts Zuzanna had made on Donovan’s arms and legs.

Jakub has ceased noticing the sisters' nudity, but they in their turn are conscious of Donovan's modesty, and one sister brings a soft fleece blanket to cover her. Another brings some of Donovan’s clothes, which they must have gone back to the hotel room to obtain.

The sisters smile at him when they dress her, encouraging him to switch hands when they pull a t-shirt on her, then a hooded sweatshirt. He tries to return their smiles, but Donovan hasn't woken, and there was so much blood on the floor of the hut. He has no idea how much of it was hers. Then there were the cuts from the forest; he's worried, and the sisters have no method of blood transfusion here, nor are they human.

His mother is gone. He can't lose Donovan as well.

Another sister enters the hut and approaches him. Like most of the others, she has long hair, black like his mother’s, but he recognizes her startling blue eyes and struggles for a moment trying to remember her name.

“Janina,
”
she says. “You will learn, in time.”

He nods, but he isn't sure whether he's acknowledging her name or thanking her with the gesture.

“We all feel your worry, but the human will survive, if for no other reason than because she could not bear to make you sad. The emotions she feels for you — they are stronger than anything we have ever experienced.”

Jakub has to look away at her words; he’s overcome hearing something so intensely personal discussed out loud. He has known, and felt, Donovan's love for him, but to hear someone else's experience of it feels like a violation.

“We do not mean to offend,
”
Janina continues, “only to reassure you. We would like to make you both more comfortable. I think she can be moved now?”

She turns to the sisters who’ve been working on Donovan and waits for confirmation. At their nods she gestures to Jakub.

“I'm sure you will feel more comfortable carrying her yourself, so if you would follow me?”

She waits patiently for him to lift Donovan with the sisters assisting him, helping to arrange her arms and legs so none of her wounds are brushing against him. Once she's arranged to their satisfaction, Janina begins to move through the settlement, and leads him to the largest of the huts.

“Bożena will want you to be comfortable, so I give you her own place until she returns, and then we can see about something more permanent. She may wish you to remain here, but we shall see.”

“Where is she?
”
he asks once he has Donovan settled.

“She sits with our sister, your mother. I would stay with you now, but I need to discuss with the other sisters; Bożena would like her to have rites as one of us, but we must all agree. If that — if you agree as well?”

His breath catches, and it takes him a moment to answer her. His mother wanted so badly to belong somewhere. If only she could have been accepted and still lived.

“I — I would like that very much.
Dziękuję bardzo
.”

Janina leaves him alone in the hut with Donovan. He keeps himself from breaking down again until he’s sure Janina is out of hearing range, then he puts his face in his hands and weeps.

38: Stranger

Donovan should be getting used to waking up in strange places, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Even with her eyes fully open and her wits somewhat about her, she has no idea where she is, but at least she isn't alone; Jakub is in bed next to her looking much worse for the wear. His breathing is uneven, and she wonders if he's actually been crying.

Crying.

Oh god.

It comes back to her in a rush: the hotel room, the
Dziwozony,
the forest, the hut.

Grace.

Grace is gone.

Bile rises, and she swallows it back. She can't afford the luxury of her own grief right now; she's in a strange country in a hut in the middle of the forest and she and Jakub are alone with these women.

Gingerly, she rolls to her side and strokes his hair. He doesn't wake, but takes one deep shuddering breath and seems to melt into her touch. His body relaxes just the slightest bit, and she wonders if he's been as worried about her as she’s been about him.

There isn't much time for thinking, though, because one of the women walks into the hut unannounced. Donovan pulls herself into a sitting position in the bed with her back to Jakub. Her muscles protest the movement, but she won't let them hurt him or separate them again.

Donovan’s eyes flash as she searches the hut for anything she can grab quickly to use as a weapon, but there's nothing she can reach before this giant would block her path.

The woman raises her hands, showing Donovan they are empty.

“I mean you no harm, human. I came only to speak to the male, but I see he is asleep.”

“Leave him alone.”

“I mean him no harm either. The sisters have decided, and I am on my way to Bożena, but I thought he might want to kno
w
—”

“Know what?
”
Jakub asks. His voice rasps behind her, and Donovan wants to shove him back down, to make him go back to sleep, to let him escape reality a little while longer, and shove this giant woman with her white-blonde hair out of the hut to let him.

“Grażyna will be returned to
Matka
. As a sister should be. All are in agreement. The sisters and I are going there now. We would bring you, but I think you will want to stay with your human.”

Donovan stiffens. He should be there for his mother's funeral, if that's what this is. She's a bit angry they would bar her just because she's human, but at the same time, she knows how much this means to Jakub, and how much it would have meant to Grace. Worrying about how they think of humans and what will ultimately become of her here is the least of her worries in the face of Jakub's grief.

“I'm fine here,
”
she says. “You should go. You should be there for this.”

She can't quite bring herself to face him. She's doesn’t want him to see that she’s afraid here, and will be more so if she’s alone.

He says nothing, but Janina executes a small sort of bow and leaves the hut. Donovan feels his weight shift and assumes he’s leaving the bed to follow the woman to his mother's funeral. Instead, he moves closer to Donovan.

“Hey,
”
he says. “I'm not going to leave you alone in some hut in the middle of the forest. I've already said my goodbyes to my mother. This is for her sisters.”

She still can't look at him. It's her fault his mother is dead. Her fault he has to sit here with her like she's some giant child who needs watching over. If she’d only fought them in the hotel — alerted the staff somehow — screamed when she was outside, maybe. If they'd killed her in the forest instead of leaving her to be saved, maybe Grace would be alive.

“I know what you're thinking,
”
he says. “You're wrong though. My mother knew she would die here from the moment she left when I was born. She said so often, and she had no fear. And now she’ll be returned to the earth as if she never left here. That would have made her happy. So please don't blame yourself. If anyone should bear any blame here, that should be me.”

She protests, but he interrupts her.

“I brought you both here. I insisted I didn't want to hide anymore. I told her we needed to split up. I told you to run and hide. All of these were my decisions, and all of them led to her death, and nearly to yours.

“Look at you, Dee. You live, but you’ll always bear the marks of my poor decisions. Every time you look down at yourself, or look in the mirror, you'll be reminded of what a pompous ass I was. I thought I was a god, and yet I wasn’t able to save you or my mother.”

“But you did save me.”

“Really? How much pain are you in right now?”

He brushes her cheek, inches from the stitches, and she hisses.

“Like I said.”

“You’re being ridiculous. If it wasn't for you, I'd have been left in the forest to be eaten alive by whatever came along. Or did you forget they had tied me to a tree and cut me? That they'd left me there, bleeding, for wild animals to find?

“Please, don't do this. No one’s at fault. Your mother herself said these things were set in motion the moment she grabbed you and ran. All we can do from here is move forward. No one’s to blame other than a stupid, ancient lesson that had them believing you were evil. We know you aren't. And now they do, too.

“The only question now is what happens next. Are you going to stay here? With them? Will they keep killing males? You have a lot of decisions to make, and I think you'll make better ones after you've had more rest."

She pushes him back onto the bed as she wanted to when Janina first came into the hut, and he doesn't fight her. He does, however, hold out his arms, and wait for her to find a comfortable position to rest against him without causing herself pain. She's asleep long before he’s able to so much as close his eyes.

39: Invitation

Bożena waits until Janina appears. She knows her sister would have stopped to see Jakub on the way to the edge of the clearing to at least inform him that they would be accepting his mother as their sister again in death — even if they hadn't in life.

Bożena has carried Grażyna's body here on her own, allowing no other to touch her, continuing the chants the entire time. Once she left the hut, the others took up the words along with her, all the voices in unison sounding more like a song than a chant.

Their sister will return to the earth, the mother from which they all came, and she will continue the same cycle of life that provides for them all.

Bożena tries not to think of the betrayal of her other sisters. Zuzanna's body is still in the woods, and along with their desire to see Grażyna returned, the sisters were just as unanimous in their decision about Zuzanna and the sisters Jakub had obliterated: no peaceful and respectful return to
Matka
.

Those who'd been dispatched by Jakub were the lucky ones; Zuzanna had been left for the animals, much as she'd intended to leave the human girl.

How had the tribe gotten so far away from itself in these years since Grażyna had fled? How had this huge division arisen without her noticing?

She follows the ritual like an automaton, continuing the chant, following the other sisters, doing everything she’s supposed to be doing. And when Grażyna has been returned to the earth and the sisters begin to disperse and head back to their huts, she isn't sure where she should go.

The human and Grażyna's son are in her hut, at her insistence. There are huts that belonged to the sisters who are no longer with them, but those will need to be cleansed before they can be occupied. She knows any sister will welcome her with open arms, and she supposes she will sleep in Janina's hut tonight, but she’s compelled to return to her own hut, at least temporarily.

She has to see them for herself: the human and the son Grażyna felt was worth her own life to save. So many changes will have to come out of the events of today, and she needs to understand what happened. The best place to start learning will be at the source.

She enters her hut to find them both asleep in her bed, wrapped in each other's arms. She can tell simply by looking at them that they have not yet mated; that part of him yearns for her even in his sleep. There’s a tension in his body she can tell means he is not now, nor has he been, sated.

The girl, however, is completely relaxed, aside from the expected tension of her body from the pain. While Bożena assumes she would often find the same sexual tension apparent in the girl as well, right now, Donovan, the girl with the boy’s name, has been through too much for the day and feels safe where she is. While his body can still think of sex even when she’s injured, her body can think only of healing and safety. Bożena takes a small amount of comfort to know that in this, he is still what they would expect of a male child.