The girl held out her hand to Sally. Behind her, deep in the woods, branches snapped, leaves crunching as though something large and heavy was sloughing its way toward her. She did not look, but the children did, their eyes moving in eerie silent unison to stare at something behind her shoulder.
The girl closed her hand into a fist, and then opened it urgently. Swallowing hard, Sally grabbed her tiny wrist—suffering a rapid pulse of heat between their skin—and allowed herself to be drawn close, down on her knees.
The girl reached out with her other hand, and hovered her palm over Sally’s chest. Warmth seeped against her skin, into her bones and lungs. She became aware of the necklace she wore, and began to pull it out. The girl shook her head.
Better if you never had the desire to find this place, came the soft voice, drifting on the wind. She would not have heard your heart.
“Who are you?” Sally whispered. “What are you?”
The child glanced to the left and right, at the watching, waiting children. I am something different from them. I was born as I am, but they were made. Forced into the forms you see. They were human and dead, but the trees rose through them, around them, and trapped their souls in this tangled palace, from which they can never leave.
“The queen,” Sally said.
She sleeps, and yet she dreams, and though the crown that shackles her mind weakens her dreams, her power is still great through the green vein of the Tangleroot. You have entered her palace, you redheaded daughter, and you will escape only through her will.
Sally leaned back on her heels, feeling very small and afraid. “Why are you telling me this?”
The child made an odd motion over her chest; as though sketching a sign. Because you have lain in my roots from babe to woman, and it is my fault the queen heard your desire. I could not hide your heart from her mind, though I tried. As I try even now, though I cannot disobey her for long.
Sally’s breath caught. “You are no tree.”
But I am the soul of one, replied the little girl, and tugged Sally to her feet. Beware. She will try to take you, and what you love. And we will have no choice but to aid her.
“No,” Sally said, stricken. “How can this be? I came here for help.”
There is no help in the Tangleroot. Do not trust her bargains. All she wants is to be free.
And the child forced Sally to run.
She lost track of how long they traveled, but it was swift as a bird’s flight, and silent as death. The girl led her down narrow corridors where the walls were trees and vines, and the air was so dark, so cold, she felt as though she was running on air, that beneath her was the mouth of a void from this world to another, and that if she fell, if the child let go, she might fall forever.
Beyond them, in the tangle of the forest, she glimpsed clearings shaped like rooms, replete with mushrooms large as chairs, and steaming pools of water within which immense scaled bodies swam. She glimpsed other runners, down other corridors, ghosting silver and slender, limbs bent at impossible angles that startled her with fear. Voices would cry out, some in pain or pleasure, and then fade to an owl’s hoot. And once, when a wolf howled, its voice transformed into slow, sly laughter, accompanied by the whine of a violin; clever music that women danced to, glimpsed beyond a wall of vines: breasts bare with nipples red as berries, faces sharp and furred like foxes, and eyes golden as a hawk.
Sally saw all these things, and more; but none seemed to see her. It was as though all the strange creatures within the Tangleroot abided in separate worlds, lost in the maze that was the queen’s dreaming palace. It was haunting, and terrifying. Sally was afraid of becoming one of those lost living dreams, sequestered and imprisoned in a room made of vines and roots, and ancient trees.
But the little girl never faltered, though she looked back once at Sally with sadness.
Finally, they slowed. Ever so delicately, Sally was pulled through a wall of trees so twisted they seemed to writhe in pain. Even touching them made her skin crawl, and she imagined their leaves weeping with soft, delicate sobs. And then Sally and the girl broke free, and stood upon the edge of a lake.
It felt like dawn. A dim silver light filled the air, though none had trickled into the forest. She had thought it was night until now—and perhaps it was still, on the other side of the Tangleroot.
No birds sang, no sounds of life. The water was frozen and the air was so cold that Sally could see each breath, and her face turned numb. When she looked up, examining the rocky shore, she thought that the trees still carried leaves, black and glossy, but then those leaves moved—watching her with glittering eyes—and she realized that the branches were full of ravens. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, sitting still.
It made her feel small and naked. Fear had been her constant companion for the last several days—but now a deeper, colder terror settled in her stomach. Not of death or pain, but something worse that she could not name, worse even than those rooms in the forest filled with strange beings. It had not seemed such a bad thing before, to enter a place and come back changed—but she had been a fool. Sally felt as though she sat on the edge of a blade, teetering toward sanity or madness. One wrong slip inside her heart would be the end of her.
The little girl pointed at the ice. Sally looked into her silver eyes, uncertain.
Only through her, whispered words on the wind, though the child’s mouth did not move. She has you now.
Sally gazed out at the frozen lake, which shone with a spectral glow. Far away, though, the mists parted—and Sally glimpsed a long dark shape on the ice.
She found herself stepping onto the ice. The little girl did not follow, nor did the ravens move. She walked, sliding and awkward, terror fluttering in her throat until her heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst. And yet she could not stop. Not until she reached the coffin. Which, when she arrived, was not a coffin at all, but a cusp of stone jutting from the water, dark with age and carved to resemble the bud of a frozen flower. It seemed to Sally that the stone might have been part of a tower—the last part—reaching through the ice like a broken gasp.
Sally peered inside. Found a woman nestled within. She knew her face from dreams: pale, glowing, with a beauty so unearthly it was both breathtaking and terrifying. There was nothing soft about that face, not even in sleep; as though time had refined it to express nothing but truth: inhumanly cruel, arrogant, and cold.
She wore a crown of horns upon her head, though they seemed closer to branches than antlers, thick with lush moss covered in a frost that enveloped much of her body; painting her dark brow and hair silver, and her red dress white, except for glimpses of crimson. The crown seemed very tight upon her head, and there was a small heart-shaped groove at the front of it, set in wood.
The lock for a key.
Sally could hardly breathe. She started to look behind at the shore to see if the little girl was still there, but a whispering hiss drew her attention back to the sleeping queen. Her eyes were closed, her mouth shut, but Sally heard another hiss, and realized it was inside her head.
I know your face, whispered the sleeping queen. I know your eyes.
Sally stared at that still, pale face, startled and terrified. “No. I have never been here.”
I know your blood. I know your scent. You bear the red hair of the witches who imprisoned me. So, we are very close, you and I. I know what you are.
A chill beyond ice swept over Sally. “Is that why you brought me here?”