The Poison Season(7)

“All right, Mama,” Leelo said finally. “We’ll be back soon.” With a pit forming in her stomach, she donned her muddy boots and trudged back into the woods with her aunt and cousin.

Sage linked her arm through Leelo’s, and she could feel Sage’s—she didn’t want to say excitement, though that was what it felt like—buzzing inside of her. “I know you hate it, Lo. But it’s necessary. He can’t stay here. You must understand that by now.”

“I do,” Leelo said because it was easier than arguing with Sage. But surely Pieter didn’t have to die. She thought of him stumbling out of Isola’s cottage half-naked, how vulnerable humans were when it came to the violence of nature. A flash of memory—the way the roots of her family tree had so eagerly absorbed the blood sacrifice—made the wound on her hand pulse with pain. She had seen birds fly into trees and never fly out again, had even watched an entire deer disappear into a sinkhole once. She knew all too well what the Forest was capable of.

As they reached the water’s edge, Leelo saw that a crowd had gathered near the shore, spread out in a half-moon shape. Sage pushed her way through to the front, dragging Leelo along with her.

Pieter stood with his heels nearly touching the water, brandishing a stick as though it could protect him. He bared his teeth, reminding Leelo of a badger she’d once caught in a snare. She didn’t know if an incantu was given the same choice as an outsider, but it seemed Pieter had chosen for himself.

“Stay back!” he shouted, waving the stick at a woman who had come close to jeer at him. “I mean it.”

“Pieter, please!” Isola was screaming again, but her mother and two other islanders restrained her. “Stay with me!”

“Hush,” her mother said, trying to calm her daughter. “You know that’s impossible.”

Pieter glanced behind him. There were a few small ice floes left. The nearest was only a couple meters offshore, but there was no way to reach it without touching the water. Leelo scanned the crowd for Pieter’s parents and found them standing stoically near the end of the line of islanders. Aside from a few tears on his mother’s cheeks, you would never know their son was about to die. Why didn’t they do something? Leelo wondered. How could they just stand there and let this happen?

Suddenly, Pieter spun and hurtled through the shallows, somehow reaching the nearest ice floe. He stood there, his legs spread in a wide stance for balance, searching frantically for his next move. The islanders watched as he made a leap, landing half on the ice and half off.

“Look!” someone shouted. A group of outsiders had gathered on the far shore.

“Hurry, Pieter,” one of them called. “You can make it!”

Pieter was almost halfway across the lake, but the ice was even more sparse on the far side. There was no way he could reach it without swimming. The outsiders were hauling a boat through the mud toward the water, but they seemed hesitant to risk it. Leelo couldn’t blame them.

“Help!” Pieter screamed as the ice beneath him cracked. One moment he was standing, and the next he was gone with only a small splash and a strangled cry.

“Pieter!” For one moment, Isola burst free, but the others managed to grab her again before she reached the water. It was clear to Leelo she would have gone in if they hadn’t stopped her.

“This is awful,” Leelo sobbed, turning her head away, but Aunt Ketty was right beside her.

She grabbed Leelo’s jaw and forced her to look at the water. “You must bear witness to their foolishness,” she insisted. “See what happens when we don’t put the island above all else?”

Pieter resurfaced for a moment, but Leelo knew it was hopeless. Once the lake took hold of its victims, there was no turning back. As he disappeared again, the islanders spread out along the bank, linking arms with each other. Leelo found herself between her aunt and cousin, who had already closed their eyes and bowed their heads.

It was still winter, but every sacrifice deserved a song. This one didn’t lure creatures like the hunting song, or pacify them like the killing song. Her mother said it was for the lake, to ask it to be gentle with its victims. Though not truly a part of the Forest—the lake had been here before the Wandering Forest and would remain should it ever leave—it was nevertheless their protector. But there is nothing gentle about this death, Leelo thought as she remembered the swan. She only hoped it was swift.

The first note was so low that Leelo barely heard it. One by one, the others joined in, the mournful dirge echoing in her ears as her own lips formed the notes of the drowning song. As much as she hated the drownings, feared the poison of the lake and the hunger of the woods around her, she couldn’t stop her magic any more than she could stop the changing of the seasons. Once again, she felt that insistent press against her throat: the music and the magic, desperate to be free.

Across the lake, the villagers thrust their hands over their ears and fled like a herd of deer.

Leelo watched the spot where Pieter had disappeared, wondering if his bones would wash up on this shore or the other, if they ever made it out of the water at all. She wondered if his parents were singing, if they had known he’d returned, or if he’d kept the secret from everyone but Isola.

It seemed so unfair, to be first punished by being born without magic, and then again by being forced to leave. But the incantu weren’t safe on Endla. Because the islanders would sing again, and those without magic would no sooner be able to resist it than a moth could resist a flame.