The Whispering Trees (19 page)

A name rose from the murk of her memory.

Imogen. She's the one who has Taff
.

Barely able to see beyond her outstretched hand, Kara took two steps forward and nearly fell into the second pit.

She teetered on the edge for a moment, and only by throwing her weight backward did she escape a nasty fall. The hole was the same size and shape as the one that had held Kara. Two tentacles crept into the darkness.

“Taff!” Kara called, leaning over the edge.

The tentacles suspended a small shape in the air like a marionette. It wasn't Taff. Kara couldn't even tell if it had once been male or female; the skin of its hairless head had long ago shrunk and tightened around a sunken skull. Despite this, the tentacles were still moving, still
pulsing
, like a greedy child using its finger to wipe the last bit of jam from the bottom of a jar.

That's what would have happened to me if I didn't escape. That's what
will
happen to Taff if I don't find him
.

If she tried walking in this fog, however, Kara risked falling into another pit and breaking her leg. She would be no help to her brother then.

I need light
.

She reached out with her thoughts and made a mind-bridge. An insect with three pairs of glowing blue wings landed on the edge of her index finger. It cast a round circle of illumination, the fog itself seeming to part at its arrival.

“A boy,” Kara said
. “Brought here the same time as me. Do you know where he is?”

Yes. Heard boy fight. Use wooden stick
.

Kara smiled, her parched lips cracking. That was definitely Taff.

“Can you take me to him?”

Many-Arms have boy. Boy dreaming forever dream
.

Kara reached deeper into the insect's mind and saw that by “Many-Arms,” it meant the monster with all the tentacles.

Imogen.

You free boy?
the glow-wings asked.

“Yes.”

Bad. No free. Hurt boy
.

“I'm his sister. I would never hurt him.”

Disturb boy. During forever dream. Kill boy
.

“Oh,” Kara said, finally understanding. If she detached the tentacles from Taff while he was trapped in whatever world Imogen had created, it might kill him.

“There must be another way,” Kara said.

Yes. Kill Many-Arms. End forever dreams. Save us
.

Kara heard the eagerness in its thoughts. The glow-wings had no love for Imogen, and was eager for Kara to fight on its behalf.

“So if I kill this monster, Taff will be safe?”

Follow me
.

The glowing insect led her safely past dozens of holes, a pair of tentacles exiting each one. Kara saw dim shapes at the bottom of each pit but tried not to look too closely. If it was Taff, she didn't want to get distracted. If it wasn't Taff, she didn't want to see.

As she walked, Kara tried to shake off the memory of the past four years, false events that had played only in her mind. It was hard. Even now she felt the urge to return home and finish her nighttime chores, after which she could talk to Mother about a design for her Shadow Festival gown.
None of it was real
, Kara kept repeating to herself.
It was just a prison in my head
. And yet she could not stop remembering the cadence of Mother's laugh, the warmth of her embrace. Wounds that had finally scabbed
over were ripped open anew, as though her mother had died a second time. Kara had known darkness and violence and evil—but she had never known such cruelty.

I have to stop this creature so no one else suffers like that
.

But how?

Before Kara could even begin to ponder this question, the fog cleared and Imogen was before her.

The
wexari
was more withered than a body had any right to be, as though the witch had skipped dying altogether but never stopped aging. A ridged black spine protruded from her back, and from this issued a single tentacle that branched into hundreds more, holding her aloft like some sort of malignant octopus. Kara turned and saw these tentacles disappear into the fog, feeding tubes between the monster and those trapped in the pits.

Imogen opened her eyes, revealing blind white cataracts.

“Kara Westfall,” she said. “You escaped the world I created for you. Whatever for?”

“I'm here for my brother.”

“Ah,” Imogen said. “Little Taff. I had thought he might like to meet his mother, but this was not the lost thing in his heart of hearts, so I've given him his father back. His
real
father. They are currently fishing together—your brother's first ship ride.”

“Let him go.”

“Why? He's happy. He thinks he's having a lovely day with Daddy.”

“But he's not.”

“No,” said Imogen, and her upper lip curled back in a feral smile. “He's not.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because he misses his father so much—and that makes it
taste so good
.”

Kara recoiled in horror.

“You're
eating
his
feelings
?” she asked.

Imogen crossed her arms in a disturbingly childlike pout.

“So quick to judge, are we? Do you not eat dead flesh? Do you not eat horrible green things that spring forth from the
dirt
? Clearly anything can be devoured, Kara Westfall
. I myself have feasted on dreams and memories, and while these are certainly nourishing, nothing provides more sustenance than what might have been. Life
is
loss. The path not taken. The song unsung. The bittersweet nectar of true love left behind. Years ago a woman came to me whose only child had wandered off in the forest and never returned. She begged me to bring the child back to her.” Imogen closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “That was a banquet beyond compare.”

Kara had learned to accept many things in the Thickety, and a creature that fed on emotions was no stranger than notsuns or Forest Demons. But there was something that didn't make sense. “Once you've fed,” Kara asked, “why not just kill your victims? Why keep them trapped here in dream worlds?”

Imogen placed two hands over her stomach. Kara
thought she heard a low, liquid rumble.

“This would all be easier if I hungered for the simple emotions,” she said. “Joy, jealousy, anger—such surface feelings can be consumed with a single kiss. But true loss anchors deep. You humans always seem so
surprised
by your little tragedies; you have such a difficult time accepting that what's gone is gone. That makes loss hard to get at, like a fleshy nut inside an impenetrable shell. Peeling away all the other emotions doesn't work; it just kills the host and the flavor. But if I use the dreams to convince people that their lives have been made whole again, they slowly let go of that delectable feeling of loss, which rises to the top, where I can get at it.” Imogen moved a black-crusted tongue across her lips. “Like cream.”

“You're a monster! You imprison people and drain them dry.”

“I grant wishes. I give people what they want most.”

“It's not real,” Kara said.

“Isn't it? Did you know any differently, while you were
experiencing my gift to you? Don't you wish you could return there right now?”

“My mother is dead.”

“But it's not your mother you want, Kara. She's part of it, to be sure, but there's so much more you lost. And I gave it to you! I restored your whole
childhood
! I allowed you to be a girl again, free from magic, free from responsibility. How is this cruelty?”

“Your
kindness
would have killed me.”

“In time. But you will die in this world as well, no doubt sooner. Why not return to a kinder place? If you'd like, you can start from birth. Experience things fresh. I can even have your brother join you—your real brother, this time. Wouldn't that be nice?”

Kara remembered sitting around the fireplace with her family, the warmth of neighbors who did not believe she was a witch. She understood why some people might seek out such sweet oblivion. But she had not come this far to live a lie.

Kara stepped forward.

“You are going to return Taff to me and release all the people in these pits. Now.”

A gurgling sound came from Imogen's throat. At first Kara thought it was laughter, but it wasn't—she was coughing something up, like a cat with a fur ball.

A shiny key fell from her lips and dropped to a small pile of objects beneath her feet: coins and rings and lockets, like some sort of bizarre dragon's hoard from a storybook.

“My apologies,” Imogen said. “Occasionally some minor lost object, some bauble, gets passed along. Rather like a bone in one of those disgusting meals you people favor.” She dabbed daintily at her lips. “This conversation was mildly diverting, and I do thank you for that, but I believe it's time for you to return to your pit. There is so much loss in you, Kara Westfall. My stomach growls just thinking about it.”

A tentacle brushed against Kara's leg—not grabbing her, not yet. There was no reason to hurry; Imogen had all the time in the world. Kara reached out with her mind,
searching for a nearby creature that could help her. . . .

A dark consciousness shoved her back.

Kara staggered backward in surprise, nearly losing her footing.
What was that?
It was so close that at first she thought it was Imogen, but if so, the
wexari
seemed completely oblivious to their encounter.

No. Something else is here
.

Brushing away the second tentacle creeping up her leg, Kara built a mind-bridge from memories of loneliness and hunger. She offered it to the darkness and it shoved her again, harder this time.
It will never cross, not of its own accord
, Kara thought, so she used more memories (
I'm in my bed, waiting for Mother to read me a story, but then I remember that Mother will never read me a story again
) to seal the top of the mind-bridge and set it on its end. She reached out again, and when the dark consciousness tried to shove her this time it slipped into her mind instead, falling down the tunnel she had constructed like rain through a well.

Kara was only able to hold it for a few moments before
it squirmed away, but that was enough time to learn its secrets.

“It's not your fault,” she told Imogen. “You were once a
wexari
, but your power has been corrupted. They used you, didn't they? Your parents? That's why you came to the Thickety. To escape. You were searching for solitude. You found something else.”

Imogen's wizened mouth curled into a scowl.

“You are no longer amusing, Kara Westfall,” she said. Something whipped around Kara's ankle and she was suddenly upside down, only a few feet from Imogen's face. “You think you know me? You think you know suffering? You know nothing!” Blind eyes like saucers of spoiled milk searched her out. “It doesn't have to be what you want, you know. I can create a world where you watch your mother die, over and over again. Or maybe a world where Taff becomes a witch hunter and slides a dagger across your throat.” Imogen brought her closer, baring daggerlike teeth. “Then again . . . talking with you has
reminded me that at one point I truly did enjoy the taste of meat. Perhaps it is time to revisit lost pleasures.”

“‘Remember what it eats,'” Kara said.

“What? What was that?”

“I thought Mary was talking about you, but she was really talking about that creature attached to your back.” Kara could see it clearly now, black and spiny like polluted coral. Hundreds of tentacles narrowed to cilia as they needled its surface, delivering the sustenance of lost dreams.

The creature pulsated.
Swallowing
.

“You don't know anything,” Imogen said. “This creature is my slave. It helps me gather what I need.”

“It calls itself the Harthix. Did you know that?”

This gave Imogen pause. “You've spoken to it?”

Kara nodded. “It can bestow great power—or, at least, it can exaggerate power that already exists. But it cannot eat on its own. It needs a host. It transformed your magic into a way to gather food, like a farmer building a threshing machine. After all these years, you're still being used.”

“That's not true! I am
wexari
. I am its master!”

“I'm so sorry.”

The tentacle released Kara and she crashed to the ground, her fall broken by a pile of tattered old manuscripts.

“What are you doing?” Imogen shouted. “Attack her! Attack her!”

“I'm sorry,” Kara said, “because the Harthix lives for new tastes, new experiences, and I told it that while lost childhoods and lost loved ones must taste fine, imagine how grand it would be to feast on someone who has lost her
humanity
!”

The first tentacle slipped into Imogen's ear. Her blind eyes widened in horror, seeking Kara everywhere.

“Please,” Imogen said. “You're like me. A true witch. I sense it. Please help your sister. Please.”

“I can't do that,” Kara said. “I made a bargain with the Harthix. It promised to let everyone else go. In exchange, I assured it that you would provide enough nourishment for
centuries
.”

“No!” Imogen exclaimed as the tentacles began to drag her deeper into the fog. “No! Put me down! I am your master! I am your—”

The last thing Kara heard was Imogen's scream as she was pulled into the depths of an unknown abyss.

She checked six pits before she found Taff, standing with his back pressed against the wall so he remained hidden in the shadows. His eyes were wide and disoriented. She called his name and he slumped to the ground with relief.

“I thought I was all alone,” Taff said, pressing his face to his hands.

“Never,” Kara replied.

The Harthix's tentacles were nowhere to be seen, so Kara slid a long branch into the pit and Taff shimmied to the surface.