Chapter Twenty-Nine
On the Other Side
Oliver could feel they were getting closer to the glade at the center of the Dysterwood before he saw it. The boards sank further into the muck, and the cloying scent of rot had only gotten stronger. As they rounded a bend, he finally saw the massive oak towering over the center of the swamp. In the stormy, evening light, it loomed even larger than it had the first time. Oliver drew in a tight breath. Soon, he would see his mother again. He still didn’t know if he could free her, but he had to try. He just had to deal with Daphne first. Her gaze swept over the paths ahead as if looking for something or someone.
“Why are you doing this?” Oliver asked when she jammed the gun into his back again. “You have everything you could possibly want.”
“Because your selfish father thought he was too good for our family and this town and ruined everything. This ring and the ability to speak to the Lady should have passed to me after our father died, not you. I am the next oldest. I was the most loyal child. This should be Lucien’s inheritance, not yours. I have given up everything for this family. And what have you done to deserve this sort of power? What have you sacrificed?”
Oliver’s heart pounded in his throat at the lurch of her hand. She pressed her weapon hard against his skin, and for a heart-stopping second, he thought she might pull the trigger. The creatures under the water stirred at his feet in warning, though he didn’t know if that was to attack her or to feast on his corpse. He didn’t want to find out.
Looking over his shoulder at his aunt, Oliver said flatly, “You can shout and wave your gun around all you want, but if you kill me, no one will listen to you. My mother made sure of it.”
“Your mother? What does Joanna have to do with this?”
“She was the one who made a new bargain. She made certain the ability to speak to the Lady would die with me.”
Daphne paused as if the revelation made no sense. Taking the opening, Oliver stepped toward the tree while reaching for the tether. Bring Felipe to me. Between one step and the next, the Dysterwood folded in on itself, and Oliver stood at the end of the path with the oak towering behind him. Last time, there had only been one path leading to the tree, but running perpendicular to his path, treads floated into place. Felipe was coming. Oliver’s ribs loosened for the first time since he entered the Dysterwood. They were so close.
Daphne pushed past him to stare at the massive oak, still keeping the gun trained on him. Her eyes ran over its twisted limbs, laden like a willow with glowing hyphae, to the bunches of mushrooms sprouting down its trunk. It might have been beautiful if Oliver couldn’t sense the legion of dead that lurked at their feet, but all he could see was the woman trapped in the tree bark. She still stood in the same place with the carved ivory handle sticking out of her ribs and one gnarled hand clutching the wound, but her eyes were locked onto him and frightfully alive. Following her gaze, Oliver caught the glow of golden eyes in the dark and the ripple from Felipe’s steps. The grin that rose to his lips fell away as Lucien and Will appeared through the fog.
** *
The moment Felipe entered the glade, his eyes immediately went to Oliver. His partner stood tall before the giant oak even with his hands bound by roots and a gun leveled at his heart. Daphne Stills looked remarkably well-preserved for being in her sixties, but like Elizabeth Bathory, blood and money seemed to do that. A swell of panic flew from Oliver’s end of the tether as Lucien waded through the bog toward his mother. When she dropped her gun a fraction, Felipe nearly took his shot, but she was a Jarngren in the Dysterwood. He couldn’t risk that he or Oliver would be punished for slaying her.
“Mother, stop!” Lucien cried. “This isn’t the way—”
“This is the only way,” she said, her voice a low growl. “Did you bring Willard?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good, bring him to me. It’s time you learned what must be done, Lucien.”
Stepping into the center of the glade, Daphne tried to call to the Lady again. Lucien and Will exchanged a nervous look, but there was no change in the aether. When it was obvious nothing was going to happen, she rounded on Oliver. As she stalked closer, Oliver backed away until he was nearly flush against the tree.
“I followed you here through that godforsaken forest like you told me to, and it still isn’t working. Tell me why it won’t work.”
“Because you don’t have the right ring, madam,” Felipe called, stepping from the shadows with Will at his side.
Her gaze swept from the gun in his hand to the carnelian and gold ring on his right hand. A venomous look crossed her features as she ripped the ring from her finger and thrust the gun under Oliver’s chin. “No matter. You will call the Lady for me, then, or he dies.”
Oliver’s pulse pounded in Felipe’s ears. “Do it, Felipe.”
Like we planned , hung silently between them, but this was nothing like the plan. A serial killer with a gun and nothing to lose had not been in any of Gwen’s contingencies. The glade had gone silent apart from a loud crack in the bark behind Oliver. Felipe held Oliver’s storm-tossed gaze and nodded.
“We would like to make a bargain with the Lady,” they said in unison.
The temperature dropped and the wind picked up as if a storm had rolled into the glade. In the space of a heartbeat, a woman appeared between them. Felipe’s brain struggled to keep up with what he saw. The Lady was simultaneously old, young, monstrous, beautiful, tall enough to block the sky, a statuesque queen no bigger than him. The shifts were so fast he thought he had imagined them until she settled into the form of a blonde woman. Her face was unmarred by time, but her age showed through the gravity in her expression. Around her neck sat a dragon-headed torc, but Felipe couldn’t look at the rest of her clothes. If he looked too closely at her hems, he saw monsters, hunted animals, and death dancing through the embroidery. The Lady’s pale gaze slid over Daphne with a sneer before landing on Oliver and Felipe.
“The child of the little thief has returned,” the Lady said to Oliver, her voice cutting like a knife. “I knew you would come back to bargain with me.”
Stepping in front of Oliver, Daphne hungrily gazed up at the god. “It is I who wants to bargain with you.”
“Why should I bargain with the likes of you?” The Lady curled her lip. “You are nothing to me.”
“Nothing? I am nothing? You ungrateful bitch. I worshipped you. I sacrificed everything to you. I gave you my whole family. I gave you my second born. I have lost everything because of you.”
Lucien reached for his mother’s arm, but she swatted it away. A cold laugh escaped the Lady’s lips as she tilted her head and regarded Daphne like a petulant child.
“You never worshipped me. A sacrifice must be made with the intent to give something to your god to repay them for all they have done and will do for you. You killed them for iron. That is a trade, not a sacrifice.” A cold smile curled her lips. “You hold no reverence for me, and I have none for you. I traded with you out of courtesy, but make no mistake, you worship trade, not me. And I will not bargain with you.”
Daphne’s breast heaved as she bared her teeth at the Lady and pulled the trigger. The gunshot rang like canon fire in the silent woods. Oliver flattened against the tree as Will trembled and Lucien instinctively backed away from his mother. The Dysterwood held its breath, waiting for the Lady to move. A hole opened in her bodice, pouring out starlight and shadow. Before Daphne could get off a second shot, the aether shuddered, and the Lady stretched, her body and face dissolving into shadow and flames of foxfire until she towered over them. When she spoke, her voice cracked and frizzled like ice.
“Did you think you could kill a god as you killed your kin? Perhaps you should join them.”
Oliver’s grey eyes went wide as the water around the paths stirred. Fear and foreboding pounded in his breast when the first pale hand broke from the water. Jarngren after Jarngren rose from the bog. Water streamed down their faces and ran in rivulets from their muck-stained clothes. The breath caught in Felipe’s chest at the children who stood among the legion of adults with their throats slit. When Daphne opened her mouth in a scream, the dead moved as one.
“Mother, no!” Lucien cried, lunging to help her. Felipe grabbed him, pain surging through his arm and stomach as Lucien fought him. Before he could break from his hold, Will threw himself in front of his cousin. He covered Lucien’s face and whispered soothing nothings even as Daphne’s screams turned to wet gurgles. By the time she fell silent and the dead retreated, Lucien had sunk to the rotted boards with his head in his hands, and Will looked as if he had glimpsed hell.
** *
Oliver’s hands shook as Felipe cut the roots from his arms. Daphne Stills was gone. His brain refused to acknowledge what he saw, but deep down, he knew she deserved it. She killed so many people, and for what? It wasn’t even for the factory or the workers. She had done it for her. As he rubbed his wrists, Oliver watched the Lady coalesce back into something approximately human, apart from the trail of shadow bleeding onto her dress. Oliver drew in a steadying breath. They still had one more bargain to make. Glancing at his mother, Oliver did a doubletake. Where her gnarled hand had once been clutching the wound, it now held the hilt of the ivory dagger.
As if sensing his thoughts, the Lady turned toward him. “Do you know why I agreed to your mother’s bargain?”
“No, ma’am.”
A sharp smile played on her lips. “When I agreed to become the Lady of the Dysterwood, I thought your ancestors would build a town that would worship me. Instead, they kept me to themselves. They stifled me. A god needs worship and sacrifice to have any real power. Your mother’s desperation allowed me to spread my roots. She gave me powers I could never have on my own all in exchange for your protection in my woods. Her magic flows through me and I through her. Humanity yearns for immortality, and she comes as close as any.” As the Lady stepped closer, she stretched until she towered over Oliver and Felipe. “Aldorhaven has started to understand my power, but you— you will tell everyone of the Lady of the Dysterwood. You will tell them I have dominion over the living and the dead. You have seen it with your own eyes. You will submit to me again, ringbearer. You will tell them that if they worship me and give me my due, I will give them everything they could ever need.”
Felipe gave Oliver a sidelong look and clasped his hand. A cult— the Lady of the Dysterwood wanted a cult. That might work in their favor. When the Lady returned to her normal size, Oliver fought to speak.
“I was hoping I could ask you for something. It’s much smaller than anything my mother or ancestors asked of you. ”
She narrowed her eyes. “A family trait it seems. Go on.”
“I have never met any of my parents, and I would like to meet my mother. I would like her freed from the tree,” he clarified.
“And what do you think you can offer me?”
Oliver resisted the urge to quail under the Lady’s stare. “In exchange, I would like to formally dissolve any covenants you made with my family. No more iron or wood, and no constraints the Jarngrens put on you. I get to meet my mother, and you get the freedom to spread your roots.”
Will made a strangled noise behind Lucien. Trust me , Oliver silently pleaded as the Lady gave him a curious onceover.
“You know you can’t have her back. She can never be a parent to you.”
“I know. I said I would like to meet her, not possess her.”
“You have half an hour. Then, she’s back in the tree.”
“In exchange for dissolving all the covenants my family made.”
The Lady’s eyes gleamed at the prospect. “You have a deal.”
Oliver held his breath as the oak shifted. Bark smoothed and lightened into pale flesh as Joanna Jarngren peeled away from the trunk inch by inch. She staggered into the bog on shaking legs, taking a step for the first time in nearly forty years, but the resolve in her eyes hardened as she tightened her grip on the dagger. When the Lady bent to pluck Felipe’s ring from the muck, his mother stalked towards her. Can you kill a god? Only if you have become a god yourself. The dagger gleamed in her hand as she raised it high above her head and plunged it down. Felipe grabbed Oliver’s hand and hauled him around the far side of the tree. He was no longer protected in the Dysterwood, and they had to get out of the Lady’s sight.
Oliver jerked and covered his ears at the primal screams that ripped from the Lady’s throat. Felipe’s arms bracketed him as the Dysterwood trembled. Water lapped against their trousers, and the boards clacked into each other as the sky wavered between night and day. Oliver wrapped his arms around Felipe as a wave of energy blew through the Dysterwood. The hyphae exploded from the tree, raining down on them, and the ground beneath their feet rocked as the tree groaned and listed backwards. They stumbled back into the icy water. It flooded through Oliver’s clothes and dragged him down, but before he could sink, roots hauled him up. He grabbed Felipe’s hand as Will coaxed them back to the path on a bed of peat and roots. Oliver braced himself, waiting for the Lady to smite them when Will helped him to his feet, but she was gone. Where she had once stood there was only an ivory knife and a smoldering pile of pine tar and shadow. Relief washed over Oliver as he crushed Felipe to his chest. His partner was cold and wet and holding his injured arm stiffly, but he was safe. Guilt welled in Oliver’s breast as he scanned the glade and found Lucien staring numbly at the water.
“He’ll be okay eventually,” Felipe offered, squeezing his shoulder. “Do you want to meet your mother?”
He wasn’t sure he could. His mother had bartered her life to save his and had accidentally become something more. She was a god-killer or a god now, in her own way, and being his mother paled in comparison to all of that. After thirty-seven years, he wasn’t even sure she would remember him or care about him beyond that he freed her from the Lady’s hold. No, she had loved him once, dearly, and he wanted to say goodbye and ask her for a favor.
“Come with me?”
“Always,” Felipe replied softly as he took Oliver’s hand.
His mother, or what was left of her, stood at the roots of the fallen tree, still as a statue. Gone was the avenging angel, and in her place stood a young woman in a plain blue dress with wide, owl-like eyes. Compared to the Lady, she looked small and insignificant, yet he could feel the magic rolling off her. Where the Lady’s had smelled of pine tar, hers was softer and more floral. Following her gaze, Oliver found a pile of bones tangled in the tree’s upended roots.
“Mom?”
When she turned to face him, the breath rushed from his lungs. She looked like the woman in the photographs, but it was strange to see her standing before him frozen at twenty-five. She was younger than he was, yet her eyes seemed impossibly old as they roamed over his face and down his body until she reached where his hand joined Felipe’s.
“You returned to your love? I wasn’t sure it would work,” she said softly.
Her voice was huskier than he expected it to be, and he wondered if one day she would become inhuman like the Lady. The only constant in life was change. Her eyes ran over his face and clothes. With a hesitant hand, she reached up and rubbed a lock of his hair between her fingers. A small, fragile smile crossed her lips as she stepped back.
“I recognized you, though I don’t know how. The magic, maybe. I can feel it flowing through me and you even now. Yours feels familiar. What did my mother name you?”
“Oliver.”
She turned the name over in her mouth. “And you’re happy?”
“I am.” Tears burned the back of his eyes as he struggled to ask a question he already knew the answer to. “Are you gone? Really gone?”
“If you mean, can I leave the Dysterwood? No, I can’t. I’m dead out there and alive in the woods, in a way.”
When she nodded toward the bones, Oliver asked, “Would you like us to bury you? Then, you could be at peace.”
“No, I think I would like to be alive again for a while.”
“Are you the new Lady of the Dysterwood?” Will asked cautiously as he stepped closer.
Joanna’s face brightened with a silent laugh. “No, I don’t aspire to godhood. I killed her to free everyone. I do not wish to take her place.”
“Then, what will you do?”
“There’s often a woman in fairytales who lives in a house at the center of the woods who feeds lost children, walks them home, and is never seen again.” She eyed the fallen tree hopefully. “I think that is who I might be.”
Felipe’s hand tightened in Oliver’s. If she was willing to take that role, then they wouldn’t have to destroy the Dysterwood somehow. He wasn’t sure they could or if it would cause a vacuum or something equally bad. This was a far better alternative as long as she could relinquish the Dysterwood’s hold on the town.
“Can you pull the woods back?” Oliver asked. “The Lady cut the town off from the rest of the world.”
His mother thought for a long moment and nodded. Her face went unnaturally still as her eyes widened enough that Oliver could see stars reflecting in their depths. The trees swayed in a gentle breeze, and with it, he swore he could smell the flowers from the meadow.
“It will take time to pull it back fully, but the road will be open soon. You are free to leave.” The guilt must have shown on Oliver’s face because she stepped forward and lightly held his arms. “You can always come back and visit if you want. I’m not going anywhere, and the way will always be open to you.”
Tears burned Oliver’s eyes as Felipe wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Thank you, Mrs. Jarngren. It was a pleasure to meet you. We should get back. Our friend is waiting for us.”
Oliver nodded, but he couldn’t bear to walk away and leave her standing in the glade alone. He promised himself he would come back again before they left and introduce her to Gwen.
“Is the Dysterwood open to me? I would like to stay,” Will said softly to Joanna, “if you’ll have me.”
“You too?” Lucien cried from behind them. “You’re leaving me too?”
Will deflated with a sigh and said to Lucien, as much as to them, “I helped make this mess, and I want to stay and fix it. I know where the bodies are buried. I read all the family history, so I know what the Dysterwood was like before things went wrong. Between Aunt Daphne and the Lady, the Dysterwood is a shadow of what it once was, and someone needs to put things to rights.”
“So that has to be you?”
When Lucien looked like he might sink to the mud again, Will slowly put his hands on his cousin’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be, but I want it to be me. I don’t plan to stay forever, but I need to be away. I can’t answer more questions. I can’t have them ask where Aunt Daphne is, Lucien. You know what will happen. You know who will be blamed for her disappearance.”
“What will I do without you and Mother?” he asked miserably.
Lucien gave him a piteous look. “You will fix things in Aldorhaven with the Paranormal Society’s help while I fix the Dysterwood. We both need to put things to rights. That is, if I’m permitted to stay.”
“The Dysterwood will be open to anyone who needs it,” Joanna said gesturing to the glade, “though it may take me a few days to make a proper home.”
“I can rough it.”
Oliver and Felipe stood near the tree as Will and Lucien said their goodbyes. As Felipe left to warn Lucien they would be leaving soon, Oliver frowned thoughtfully. He wasn’t certain how he felt about Will staying behind or his mother becoming something not quite human, or being younger than him, but they deserved to finally live. A prickle of magic tingled against his neck a second before a finger tapped against his shoulder. When Oliver turned, he found his mother holding the amber ring. A small smile curled her lips as her gaze trailed from his heart to Felipe’s.
“I think you’ll be needing this.”