Chapter 38
Atree within a tree within a tree. The most unusual forest I’d ever seen, folded into itself.
Its interior was carved into spiraling chambers and hollowed trunks that stacked upward and downward in impossible layers.
Wildflowers clung to the inner bark, some bright and vibrant, others dry and brittle, as if they’d bloomed too long ago and never been allowed to fall.
Cobwebs hung between branches. Mushrooms grew everywhere.
These rings were carved on the surface of the branches and trunks, paler than the rest of the bark. The sight of them disturbed me, but I had no idea why. Almost like I’d seen it before.
It was just rings, one after the other, about five inches wide each, yet I could have sworn there was something missing. Something…off about them.
“What in the Everstill happened here?” someone whispered.
I couldn’t focus long enough to recognize the voice, but the damage they were talking about was unmistakable.
Much of the wood was eaten away, and though some leaves and flowers still had color, they were dead.
They’d died a long time ago, but whatever magic ruled things here hadn’t let them wither as they should have.
That wasn’t all. Whole sections of the tree had collapsed inward. Lanterns hung on branches, the fires pale, though alive. The Tree wasn’t dead exactly, but it felt…hollow. Exhausted. Like something inside it was missing.
“Probably us,” Seth said.
I moved deeper down the pathways, analyzing the flowers and the branches, the plastic-looking leaves.
“Why would we do this to a tree?” asked Anika.
“Who knows? Historically speaking, the second trial is always the hardest,” Erith said.
“And the longest,” said Russ. “Still, we couldn’t have done all this to this tree.” He was right behind me.
“Be careful, guys,” Helen said. “Watch your every step. This wood is rotten to the core in some places. It will give.”
She was right. The ground beneath our feet wasn’t solid wood or stone like at that doorway.
Here, it was a mess of twisted roots and knotted vines, thick as wrists in some places and wire-thin in others.
They were all fused together so tightly, but every now and again I felt it when I stepped onto a specific root.
I felt how weak it was, how easily it would give if I stood on it too long.
Every step felt uncertain, the wood flexing and creaking as if the tree was constantly deciding whether to let us fall or not.
So unnerving.
“We’re supposed to be going down, though. Aren’t we?” asked Mimi. “Maybe we should just dig our way to the ground and be done with it.”
“I don’t think that’s how you unwin this trial,” March said. “And if this tree doesn’t hold us, we’ll be long dead before we hit the ground.”
He was right, too.
“So, how then? Because I don’t recall the speaker giving any real advice—do you?” Seth asked.
Nobody answered because nobody had. The only advice we were given was to move downward and get to the ground to unwin the trial.
“What about…there?”
We all stopped, looked at where Erith was pointing, far to our left.
We all stopped at the same time.
It was another doorway, except this one was dark.
Not just for lack of light, no—the color of the leaves and the branches twisting to make it look like some sort of a tunnel had faded to near black.
It almost looked like a portal of some kind, and whatever was on the other side of it had sucked the life out of the plants completely.
A monster’s mouth, indeed, one that was patient until it didn’t have to be anymore.
One that would swallow us up if we dared to go close.
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to get as far away from that place as possible—and I wasn’t the only one.
“Yeah, I’m not going in there,” Russ said first.
“Nope. Would rather dig. I’m not getting anywhere near that tunnel,” said Mimi.
“Let’s find another way. Let’s just…get down,” March said, and even he shuddered when he looked at that darkness beyond—and he was always the most composed among us.
“This way. Let’s stick to this way. We’re bound to find a way down eventually,” Seth said, pointing ahead, and we agreed. We didn’t really have much of a choice, did we?
Ahead we went.
It was so strange to be there, to measure every step against the floor before taking it, to try to see everything, to try to figure out where it all came from, where it went.
Those rings on the bark here and there still took my attention.
I went close to inspect one of them, and I had this overwhelming urge to just touch it, but I didn’t dare.
I just let my fingertips hover close to the surface for a moment, then moved away.
The flowers, too. Some were so bright but some so faded, they made me want to either pluck them and put them out of their misery or find water somewhere to pour on them. I did neither.
We kept moving for a while, and it seemed to me that this forest—or this tree went on forever in either direction. But then the branches began to dip lower with each step, and eventually, we saw the trunk of the actual Tree of Life that connected everything together.
It was bigger than I could have imagined, the trunk as wide as a house, the bark rough and dry in some places. The rings here glowed faintly with silver light. Not all, but a few.
“This is massive,” someone whispered from behind me, and we were spreading out the closer we got to it, to see if we could find something to give us direction.
“Look—look at those flowers!”
“Look at these mushrooms. I wonder if they’re poisonous. D’you think we could eat them?”
“Guys, why are some of these rings glowing?”
“Why are most not glowing?”
“I don’t know—it feels like they all should.” Mimi said this, and I realized that’s exactly what I was thinking as well. All those faded rings on branches were supposed to be glowing, and they didn’t.
“QUIET!”
The hiss came from nowhere and from everywhere all at once.
My heart about beat right out of my ribcage. We stopped once again, eyes wide open, looking at one another.
“Who…who said that?” asked Helen, and the rest of us continued to exchange looks.
I hadn’t said anything, not even accidentally, and by the looks of it, neither had the other Hands, but we’d all heard it. We’d all heard that word. That voice.
“Who’s there?” March called, taking another step closer to the massive trunk, hands fisted at his sides, eyes searching…
A second ticked by.
“Quiet, I say. You will wake them if you’re not quiet. They’ve been so hungry…”
All our eyes went to a branch some three feet away to my right, where the voice came from. Where a bunch of mushrooms, and a bunch of flowers seemed to have sprouted together in a space no wider than a few inches.
The flowers with colorful petals and green stems, looking healthier than most of the others around them.
The flowers that had eyes and mouths on their flowerheads.
“Keep your mouths shut,” said a flower.
A flower.
I blinked. Breathed. Allowed myself several seconds to make sure what I was seeing was right.
A flower with yellow petals and an orange flowerhead was speaking. It was her voice, and the slightly shorter flower with blue petals to her side was watching us, too. They had eyes. Small, black, beady eyes, and slits for mouths. They had voices.
“My mother will never-ever-reven believe this,” Levana whispered as she slowly went closer to the flowers, her hand outstretched to touch them.
“No touching!” said Blue.
“We bite!” said Yellow.
I looked at the others one last time, just to make sure I was still here, that I hadn’t fallen asleep or something, that I wasn’t dreaming.
“Talking flowers,” Seth whispered as he went closer, too, to see better.
We all did—how could we not?
“Don’t make us blush,” said one or the other.
“We will close.”
“We’re quite shy, in fact.”
“How are you real?” asked Anika, and she made to touch Blue, but the flower snapped her little mouth as if she was going to bite her and moved to the side fast—unreal.
Anika giggled. “Time’s Teacups—she’s so cute!”
“How can you speak? Are you…alive?” Mimi asked next, and we were all standing around them now, leaned over, watching, unable to really believe our own eyes.
They were flowers. I could see them perfectly fine. Flowers with stems and petals—and eyes and mouths and teeth, too. They waved their leaves around like arms, and it was the most curious thing.
“Of course we’re alive.” The Yellow flower rolled her eyes, just like a person would. “We’re part of the Tree of Years, silly.”
“What’s left of it, anyhour,” said Blue.
“And nothing’s going to remain if you keep shouting like that—they will wake up!”
“Who?” March asked as he looked at the flowers skeptically. “Who’ll wake up?”
“Them!” Blue and Yellow said at the same time, and they looked about like they were suddenly afraid. “They’re here somewhere, and they’re hungry. So keep your voices down.”
“Who are they, and where are they?” Anika fell to her knees in front of them. “Just tell us. We don’t see anybody else here.”
“Hush, hush!” Blue said, panicked. “Just keep quiet!”
“But who?” asked Mimi. “Just tell us—who?!”
“Them!” Yellow said. “They’re always hungry—them!”
Something snapped behind us, and we all jumped. All my instincts were on high alert, and I was about to start either fighting or running as fast as my legs could carry me.
But there was nobody there.
We looked, searched the layers of the tree, and we didn’t find anything else moving except for us.
“Holy Hour—they’re gone!”
Once again, we all turned to find Anika pointing at the flowers. Their eyes and their mouths that had been there on their flowerheads were gone. Disappeared. And the leaves on their stems didn’t move anymore the way they just did—like they were arms.
Curiouser and curiouser.