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I held up my hands in surrender. “Right. Sorry. Didn’t mean to step in your forest.”
“Greenwood, Sweet Iron. You are in the Greenwood.”
How foolish of me. “Right. Look, I need to get going, need to move on to the light, or figure out how I wake up.”
The woman paused, then a mischievous sort of smirk split over her thin lips as she lifted one of her mushrooms to her ear. “Yes, I agree. She ought to take the marsh path. Seems like a fated thing to do.”
Great. Naturally, my spirit guide in the Afterlife would talk to mushrooms.
“Go there, Sweet Iron.” The woman rose from her log and used her talking fungus to point toward a rather ominous path through a narrow alley of trees. “The wood is telling these old bones that’s where you’ll find your answers. You’re arriving at a most opportune time, you see.”
“Oh, really? And why is that?”
“The Havestia trade is here, of course.”
Ah. That explained everything.
“Well, seeing how it’s the only path out of here, I think your mushroom might be right,” I grumbled.
She chuckled again. “Seek out the glass star. There, you will find your way home.”
“What do you mean by a glass star?”
The old woman ignored me and rummaged through a few of the woven baskets until she emerged with a silver wristband—sturdy, with two wolf heads facing inward toward each other. One wolf had chips of vibrant blue stone as eyes, the other clear crystal.
She handed the band to me with a sly sort of grin.
“What is this for?”
“Must have an offering for the star,” she said. “I think this might be the perfect piece.”
Odd, odd woman. “Um, thank you.”
Once the wristband was curled in my fist, the woman patted my arm and whispered, “Follow that heart, Sweet Iron.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
The woman hesitated, her smile faltering. “I’m not certain. Do tell me if you find the answer.”
I shook out my hands as though waving away the prickle on my skin. “So, just this way then?”
The woman nodded and waved me away before muttering once more to her mushroom.
I stepped onto the narrow path through the trees. Dark willows with drapes of dark moss and vines lined the corridor, blotting out the stormy skies. Along the edges of the path were soupy pots of ponds topped in waxy lilies.
Croaks and groans from creatures unseen quickened my step.
The path widened to a dirt road and my heart stopped. There, no more than thirty feet away, was a fading swirl of white burning against a thick tree. The same sort of fiery cyclone I saw before I was tossed into the forests of Hell.
And it was closing.
When I charged forward, I rolled off one of my stilettos, snapping the slender heel off inmud.
“Dammit.” I hopped on one foot to remove the worthless shoe, removed the other, and sprinted barefoot toward the light. “No!”
My voice cracked in a wail when the spiral kept constricting. Fifteen feet, ten. I outstretched my arm, desperate to reach for it. Tears bled from the corners of my eyes. One long lunge from the narrow flicker, I jumped. My shoulder slammed into bark, slicing against jagged splinters of wood. I slumped down, tears falling on the tangle of roots below. The light was gone.
A thought, dangerous and horrifying, slid through my mind. What if this wasn’t the Afterlife? When people drifted toward the light, they were meant to find peace. Not be tossed around and dropped into a cold, misty forest.
