Chapter 4
KEEP A WISH ALIVE IN YOUR HEART, JUST IN CASE IT EVER COMES TRUE.
That night, you tuck yourself against the trunk of the willow tree.
Its branches whisper across the grass all night.
The creek burbles and foams, but no owls hoot.
No wolves howl. No fallen twigs snap under hoof or paw.
You feel… protected. Shielded. Like the willow is watching out for you, keeping the world at bay until you’re ready to enter it again.
You think you remember feeling this way a long time ago, so long ago you’re not certain whether it’s a memory or a dream.
Long before your stepmother saw your empty belly as a burden.
Long before your father saw abandoning you as the answer.
There was someone—might have been someone—must have been someone—who wanted to take care of you.
With nothing but the sound of the sloshing water and your strong, steady heartbeat, some dark, faded sense of being loved by someone blankets you, warms you.
You wish, more than anything, that someone, anyone, anywhere in this whole entire world, wanted to take care of you.
And though you swore to yourself you’d stay awake all night in case you had to run again, that you wouldn’t sleep, that’s what you do: you fall asleep.
You fall asleep, lulled by the sense that someone did once want to take care of you.
You fall asleep with a wish in your heart to know what that feels like again.
Unbeknownst to you, you fall asleep beneath a Mothering Tree. You’re not her child, but you’re a child.
A child with a wish.
A child whose wish she can grant.
In the morning, when you emerge from her branches, a swan waits on the creekbank.