The Edge of Strange Hollow by Gabrielle Byrne (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

asleep again in their strange little blobs. As her blood dripped onto the page, they scattered, then gathered into words.

Stay away from the Grimwood, child.

Stay away from the fog.

Stay away from the thorn trees, child.

Stay away from the bog.

Tooth for tooth.

Blood or bone.

Promises are made of stone.

Know your place, and

Watch the weather.

Wood and home must rise together.

Poppy ran her fingers over the last line. “All magic has a cost,” she recalled under her breath. Mack and Nula settled in close to her. “I’ve been thinking about this,” Poppy said under her breath. “We already know the maledictions are the cost for humans’ long lives, right?”

Nula nodded. “That was Prudence Barebone’s bargain to keep the peace. And to get something out of it for herself as well,” she added.

Mack brushed his hair out of his face. “And the maledictions grow in the soil of the thorn trees—so the Holly Oak knows they’re the cost, but couldn’t say anything to anyone who didn’t already know. That was Prudence too.”

“But this…” Poppy traced the last line of the rhyme again. “‘Wood and home must rise together.’ To keep the promise intact, we both have to keep the peace. The woods can’t attack the Hollows, and the Hollows—”

Mack’s eyes widened. “The fires! It’s him, isn’t it—the governor? It’s been humans all along! And that’s why there have been more maledictions in Strange Hollow lately!”

“That’s what I think too. Mack, do you remember that strange smell in the square?” The image of the crate, filled with bottles of amber liquid flashed in her mind. “It was just before you grew…”

“I remember—”

“Well, I don’t,” Nula grumped. “So, explain.”

Poppy forced herself to slow down. “The governor said he wants to purify the wood. He said … something about how the time has come, and there’s a battle to be fought.” She paused. “They have these bottles … I think they’re setting them on fire and throwing them into the wood.”

“Like that day the trees exploded around us,” Nula recalled.

“Right. And then the thorn trees grew around us. I think it’s been humans setting the fires in the wood all along. I think—I think the governor wants to burn the Grimwood down. That’s his plan. That’s what he wants the town to do.”

Nula’s ears lay flat, disappearing into her cropped hair. “How can he do that? Why?”

“Easy,” Mack said, his eyes flashing. “He wants to get rid of the forest, and everything in it.”

Nula paled, her tail whisking forward. She clutched it in her hands, brushing her chin with the tuft. “But the rhyme says rise together … so what’s that mean, then?”

“Rise together,” Mack muttered. “We rise together—you know, help each other out…”

Poppy gave a slow nod. “But then, it stands to reason that if we rise together…”

Nula’s tail whipped the air. “Everything has to balance. If we rise together, then we fall together.”

Mack grimaced. “If the Grimwood attacks the Hollows, then the wood falls too … but if humans attack the wood…”

Poppy gave him a dark look. “Go on.”

“Then the Grimwood can openly attack the Hollows. Tooth for tooth. Blood or bone.”

Nula lay down on the other side of Poppy and let out a long breath. “I bet the Faery Queen would love that.”

“Other things too,” Poppy agreed.

“I hope that governor guy is willing to listen,” Mack grumbled as he stretched out on the other side of Poppy.

Poppy’s throat was dry. “I hope he believes us.” She lay down next to her friends and tried to push the worry out of her head, but it only filled up with all the things she missed. She missed the warmth of Dog’s body lying next to her—missed Eta watching her until she fell asleep, and even Brutus’s bad breath. She missed the sounds of her parents puttering in their lab late at night, their voices drifting up her tower stairs. She even missed, a little bit, the longing she had before she went into the wood—because it meant she had known exactly what she wanted.

She wasn’t sure how, but Nula and Mack both dozed off. She watched the stars come out instead of sleeping. Faint music drifted up the hill from Strange Hollow. Poppy tried to listen, but she could barely hear the strange melody over the tumult of her thoughts and the rushing of her blood. It took every ounce of her self-control not to race toward Strange Hollow and search.

Bad things were coming. The governor had a plan to burn the Grimwood, and the Holly Oak would never let it happen. Not without a fight. She needed to get to her parents—find them, and get them out of the Hollow. Instead, she was stuck here, waiting for the children to come. Waiting a little is worth it, she reminded herself. More people searching will save time.

She recognized the melody then. It was the townsfolk’s warding song, weaving itself through the air, rising and falling in the warm breeze. It trembled in the air like rainfall.

Nula’s feet twitched in her sleep as though she was running, but her face was peaceful. Mack wore a scowl, but soon let out a snore that made Poppy giggle.

She gave up on even trying to sleep and sat up to watch the pale twilight moon as it slowly rose above the horizon. Her thoughts drifted, and it seemed like only moments before a small silhouette was climbing the hillside in the moonlight. Other shadows followed, clustered close for warmth or confidence.

Mags stopped her march at Poppy’s feet. Her brother—Peter, was it?—stood by her side, and at her back was a group of six or seven other children. One girl at the back looked just a year or two younger than Poppy. Poppy yanked her ponytail tight. Mags wore a pale blue dress with a delicate floral pattern that belied the absolute power she clearly wielded over the other children. Her brother, dressed in tidy gray with his arms crossed, looked for all the world like a guard ready to keep back the adoring masses. Poppy’s