me invisible, it’d also render me blind.
As soon as it lifts, I leave the glade—staying here I feel too much like a lame rabbit cowering in an undefended burrow.
As I walk my spirits start to lift. I have purpose, aim. Though I try not to think too much on the object or outcome. If I could evade my mission, I would. If I could escape, I would. If I could run home to hide in my bed, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Though I know that Leo is right. Still, I wouldn’t be doing this if I had a choice. But I don’t, so I go on.
As I walk deeper into the woods I begin to watch, scanning my surroundings more closely, stepping more carefully, avoiding the thwack of branches, the snap of twigs. I try to move through the fog so I’ll leave no mark on the air. I flex my fingers, summoning my strength, readying myself.
I can do this, I think. I’ve killed before, I can kill again. And this man—this soldier—deserves it. He’s a killer, a killer of my sisters. At the crack of a twig, I freeze. I’m still for several minutes before I dare to move, slowly, on.
I hear Leo’s voice. Remember—you’re the hunter. Not the hunted.
And that’s all it takes to make the shift. I’m stillness and stealth now, silencing my mind, thinking of nothing except seeking my target.
I see him beside a willow tree, biting his thumbnail as if he’s considering a choice, as if he’s not sure what he’ll do next. I know I have only a second or two before he sees—or senses—me.
You are predator or prey. You will kill or be killed.
I focus on the vines of ivy wrapping around the willow tree and snaking along the ground at his feet. I focus on my fingers. I focus on how I made the ivy twist around Leo’s neck like a boa constrictor. I pretend that’s all I’m doing now.
Slowly, the veins of the ivy leaves begin to swell and pulse, as if flowing with my own blood. With two twitches of my index fingers, the plants on the ground pull free from the soil, slithering up the soldier’s feet, encircling his ankles, tethering him to the earth. He’s so startled that he nearly falls, but he steadies himself in time.
When he sees me, when our eyes meet, I see that he’s so uncommonly beautiful that I’m startled in turn. He looks at me with such longing, such sorrow. My hands drop to my sides. Without my command, the vines of ivy fall slack and begin to unwind. Suddenly, the soldier lunges for me—there’s delight in his eyes now, desire.
I fall back, hitting stone instead of moss, scrambling up as he pulls me down again. I kick out at him, but he’s strong, far stronger than I, locking me against his chest with a single arm. I squirm in his grip, but the more I wrestle the harder he squeezes, and I feel my lungs tightening, my strength seeping into the air with each diminishing breath. My head is so heavy my neck bends with the weight of it. My eyes close. Everything, once white, is dark.
Inside me a light flickers: a trace of love, a flame about to go out. I think of Leo, of Teddy and Liyana. I draw on that final light, pulling on its heat, its power. I curl my fingers into flimsy fists; I call on the ivy beneath my feet. But I don’t have strength enough. Then the light snuffs out and all is black.
In the darkness I am drifting, sinking into the ground and floating into the sky. My soul is returning to the earth, my spirit to the sky.
Then the darkness is scarred by a flash of red, like a spurt of arterial blood. When it vanishes, I see neither black nor red but nothing at all.
Breath returns like an electric shock, surging through my chest, reigniting my heart. My eyes snap open to see the soldier: writhing on the ground as ivy sheathes him in tight-leafed bandages, spreading so fast that, in a moment, he’s mummified—only one terrified, startlingly blue eye blinking out at me—and then he is swallowed up into the soil. Gone.
Bea
Don’t you dare. No daughter of mine is dying like this.
Bea hears her father’s voice on the horizon, a faint echo through a dense fog. She ignores him. The echo sharpens, his words scratching the air, searing her