Page 25 of Sweet Silver Bells
He watched the woman turn her head away. Her dark hair was long, draped over her nude body like a fur cloak. Her skin was tinged with purples and blues. He could see the goosebumps that covered her, the cuts, small crevices of deep red that werenot yet scabbed over, proof enough that she was real, existing outside of his imagination.
She was so small, so frail, that Hunter knew that he needed to get her fed, clothed, and warm.
“I can save you,” he whispered, holding onto the belief he’d come there with.
But you couldn’t save Sarah.
“Let me save you.” He held out his hand to her. She turned and looked down at it, his outstretched palm, fingers reaching, pleading. “I can’t just leave you here.”
She cocked her head, face blank at first, but then she flashed a smile.
“I haven’t left this forest in over one hundred years.”
That was a delusion, wasn’t it? It had to be.
Something in his gut, though, told him it was not. He chose to ignore it; he had to.
What do you say now?
“Why did you come here in the first place?” The conversation was good. She wasn’t accepting his hand, but she wasn’t running.
“A boy.” She sneered at him, like he was the boy, like he had done this to her. Hunter took a step back. He wasn’t sure why, but for the first time, he got the sense that she was more than a lost soul in the woods. This woman was perhaps not a woman; perhaps a monster hid under that skin-cloak. An eerie prickle climbed up the back of his neck; the silence around them was too profound, as if they were in a vacuum, where no one could walk up to them, and no one could find them.
“A boy called me a witch in front of my family, at our Christmas ball. I ran, I ran, and I sang, and the greenery rose up to defend me. People screamed, some cried, and if I ever saw that boy again, I would kill him in an instant.”
Hunter was stunned.
Say anything.
“If this happened in 1914, then that boy is already dead now.”
Good. That seemed good.
She studied his face, unmoving, standing with her legs wide, her arms wrapped around her waist. The severity in her eyes softened.
“How dreary,” she said. “Disappointing, really. I only leave my tree looking for him, singing at the edge of the forest, trying to lure him back to me. But then I heard you sing . . . ”
“Does that mean that you’ll come with me then?” Hunter asked. “Or will you go back to your tree forever?”
She was crazy, delusional, just like he thought he was.
You're just as crazy as her, but at least you have clothes on.
She didn’t answer. She just stared, her gaze unapologetic, unfaltering. Hunter wondered if she would run, like a frightened squirrel, if he moved, if he made a sound. There was no fear there, though. The way that she looked at him was the way a predator lazily let its prey walk by because it had already eaten that day.
“Every time I leave my tree, my body ages,” she whispered after some time. “My breasts are larger, my hips are more spread. I have urges.”
Hunter's eyes immediately fell to his feet, his stomach jumping.
“What?”
He was confused. Why would she say that here?
“How old were you when you came into the forest?” he asked.
“Fourteen.”
"How old are you now?"
