The Farmer's Wife #023

Anya drifted through the air above the forest. All was dark; she could only faintly make out the trees below. She had no control over her drifting; she could only watch as she was buffeted here and there by frigid winds.

She knew what was coming. If the shadow thought to inspire fear by making her wait, she would not let it succeed. She waited, as calmly as she could.

Before long, the darkness came. It coiled up out of the forest into a great, writhing mass that tangled around her limbs and pulled her painfully to a halt. It wrapped around her face so that she could barely breathe, and two eyes blinked open not a handsbreadth away from her.

It was terrifying, but she did not let her fear show.

My little leafling comes to me again, whispered the voice, from the corners of her mind.

"What do you want this time? I have done everything you have asked."

Not well enough. Her hand wrenched and spasmed with pain, and she gasped. The Purgator suspects. If you betray our cause before it is done...

An image of Eugen's dessicated corpse forced itself on her mind before she could summon the will to resist. "Okay! Okay..." she sobbed. "I will not give you away..."

Good.

"How... How do you know what he thinks?"

The foolish man opened his mind to my forest as he tried to find me. Once opened, a door can be passed through both ways...

"Your... Your forest?" The image of the empty child rose up in her mind. "What did you do to that boy?"

Even if you possessed the knowledge you would require to recognise it, you have not the wit to comprehend it nor the wisdom to divine its significance.

"He was just a child!"

He was a resource. A pawn. Provisions.

"You had no right-..."

Hnnnnnnnnnh. Right? Silly little leaf. I had the power. That is all that matters.

She stayed silent.

I can see your thoughts, leafling, though you try to stop me. You think yourself better than me, thinking of right rather than power. But look at our... arrangement. He is hardly more than a boy, and yet you do as I instruct you with hardly a thought. I have given you the power to save your son. That power is all that matters.

She said nothing, but the guilt burned in her like a white-hot brand.

Continue your work, and you may yet see your son again.

Suddenly, the shadows that surrounded her tore themselves away, and without their support she fell screaming towards the treetops below.