Bones of Faerie Read Online Free PDF

face scarlet as he struggled for air. I strained toward him, but the tree behind me wouldn't let go. Bark cut through wool, biting my skin and sending fire down my back. I tried to wriggle out of my sweater, but branches snapped down from above, pinning my arms. My feet were stuck, too. I looked down and saw bark flowing like warm taffyover my boots and toward my knees. Moaning started up around us from the trees or the wind or possibly both.
    Bark flowed up my thighs. I screamed as I fought the wood, calling for help—not caring that calling was useless, not caring how much my fear showed. Matthew mouthed words I couldn't hear. Pain shot through my ankles and calves. Any moment bones would snap. The torch fell from Matthew's hand and guttered out. In the sudden dimness bark rose past my waist and toward my throat, strangling my screams to whispers. From amid the trees a shadow moved toward me: a fox-sized patch of inky blackness, not tethered to any tree, darker than the moonlit night.
    I heard a shout muffled through the wood around my ears. Someone ran forward, past the shadow, and placed hands against the flowing bark. “Leave be,” a woman's voice said firmly. “Let blood and bone go. Seek soil, seek water, seek earth.”
    Bark flowed away like a receding flood. I fell forward, gasping for breath. The woman knelt beside Matthew and put her hands to the roots that held him. As she spoke those roots whipped back, flailed in the air, and withdrew into the soil. Matthew sat up, coughing violently. The coppery tang of blood mixed with the sweetsmell of the mulberries. Even by moonlight, I saw the concern on the woman's pale features.
    The shadow was gone.
    I crawled to them. Matthew opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut his eyes and slumped forward instead. His breathing was ragged and slow; his hair fell limp over his face. His clothes were torn, covered with dirt or blood or maybe both. Dark bruises stood out against his neck. His pack was gone, leaving behind just a few scraps of nylon in the dirt.
    “Can you stand?” the woman asked me, her eyes still on Matthew, her voice the same voice that had told the trees to let go. She was younger than Mom, older than me. Her long hair was pulled back in a braid.
    I nodded and forced myself to my feet, back aching, ankles throbbing.
    “Good,” the woman said. “Once a tree has tasted blood it won't forget the taste for long. We must leave this place, and I cannot carry you both.”
    I reached for Matthew's hand, drew back. “Will Matthew …” I couldn't speak the thought aloud.
    “I don't know,” the woman said. “I'm not a healer. We must get back to my town, where my brother can look at him.” She reached for Matthew and, with morestrength than I expected, lifted him over her shoulder. Matthew hung there, limp as a sack of grain.
    “You never should have followed me,” I whispered.
    The woman started walking. I followed, ignoring pain, determined not to slow her down. The way ahead of us was clear, even though a moment earlier the trees had been so thick. Tallow appeared from somewhere in the forest and trotted along beside us as if nothing had happened.
    Night sounds started: chirring crickets, a hooting owl, a wail like a baby's cry. I glanced up, knowing we'd have no chance against an owl's talons now.
    Clouds thickened over the moon and the owl fell silent. The woman seemed to have no trouble seeing in the dark. We came to a wider path and moved more quickly over the packed dirt. Pain knifed through my knee as well, and I fought not to limp.
    “What possessed you to walk the woods at night?” our rescuer asked. I heard no accusation in her voice, only curiosity. She sounded so ordinary now, yet somehow she'd made the trees let us go.
    “How …”
    The woman shifted Matthew's weight on her shoulder. “Trees have always listened to me, since I was achild. Who knows how such things happen? Come, faster if you can. You were lucky. I don't normally