“Aye, they’re singing,” she said quietly, pulling me closer and lifting a porcelain finger. “But today, they’re singing a war song.”
My eyes darted around as her finger tracked something in the distance. A hoarse screech cut through the chickadees’ twitter as several of the tiny birds darted after a large form—a hawk.
“They’re chasing him away,” I said quietly.
We watched more birds join the mob that pursued the hawk. I felt my mother nod next to me as I kept my gaze on their dizzying circles.
“Yes,” she said. “And others will come to their aid as they get louder. Bluebirds, even the little wren. They’ll band together to protect against the threat.”
My head tilted as a flurry of different colored feathers popped into the air to join the chase, and Mum released her arm and began to hum.
I heaved a sigh as I brought my gaze down to the starstay flowers she wove. She wordlessly placed a small handful in my lap, and I picked two up and began to weave the pattern she’d taught me.
We sat there in the noisy silence of the forest for several minutes, our fingers moving in unison as the thin, mossy stems twisted and curled over each other, connecting a long line of bright, yellow petals.
My mother gently pulled the head of a small blossom through a loop and lifted the little circlet of flowers before her.
“A starstay crown for my star princess.” She grinned as she placed the small tiara of flowers on my curly brown hair.
“Why are they called starstays?” I asked as I examined the wide bloom resting on my palm.
“Perhaps they’re meant to remind us the stars stay out there, even in the light of day.”
“They do?” I asked, squinting beyond the treetops and reeling as my eyes slid too close to the sun.
“Of course they do.” Mum laughed. “How else would our stories get written?”
“The gods write our stories,” I replied, rubbing my eyes. “That’s what Dad says.”
Mum let out a snort and swatted something invisible in the air. “The gods don’t write our stories in the stars, Evony. We do.”
She wrapped her arms around me once more and squeezed me to her chest before pressing her lips to the top of my head. My hands gripped her forearms, and I watched my little fingers squeeze back.
“Morwyn!” my father called from a distance. “We’re back with fish!”
My mother’s grip around me tightened gently as she took a deep inhale of my hair, and I giggled. Mums were weird.
“We’re coming!” she called back before loosening her grip.
She stood and reached for me. Her red eyebrow cocked as I pinched my nose and bent my knees, readying myself for a leap. She hunched down, arms out as I launched myself off the dead tree and into her safe arms.
She spun me through the air, circling once, before coming to a sudden stop. My laugh caught in my throat as my gaze landed on her face.
The crinkles in the corners of her eyes disappeared along with her smile as she stared past my shoulder to the small clearing in the woods. Her brows narrowed, and I followed her gaze.
A hazy gray mist floated in through the trees, and my mother’s grip tightened on me. The mist gathered slowly, swirling over itself, and sparkling like silver as it floated into the sunshine.
Evony… it hissed, and I froze.
“Get out,” my mother spat.
It circled in the sunshine and began crawling toward the damp undergrowth of the forest. It paused, as if watching us, and my mother spun away from the clearing and sprinted back to our stone cottage… to safety…
Terror choked me as I tried to heave a breath, and I emptied the contents of my stomach on the smooth wooden floor of Cantor Manor. My nightshirt clung to me as I wretched and sweat poured from my temples. My heart banged in my chest as I forced my breathing to slow. A dream… Just a dream… It was a memory… But was it? I grappled with the glimpsing vision as it began to slip through my fingers.
A twisting, painful ache awakened as my mother’s beautiful face flashed once again behind my eyes, and the paralyzing devastation of her death hit me as if it had just happened. I stared at my pile of vomit and hiccupped once before my face fell into my hands, and I sobbed.
CHAPTER NINE
