The Forest's Son by Cyndy Aleo Read Free Book Online Page B

her, and to allow them to stay here far longer than they ever should have. If all things were different —
    Ah, but if all things were different, he would be a girl, or he would not be alive, or Grace would never have been one of the sisters, and he and Donovan would have met and fallen in love and gone to prom and done all the things Grace sees regular people do. By now they may have even tired of each other and moved on to new partners and new feelings.
    Instead, he is upstairs, most likely lying on his bed staring at the ceiling and trying to decide whether to come downstairs and ask her questions or to wait for the memories to return once more. Meanwhile, the girl has gone home to determine whether she wants to know the answers to the questions she's been asking herself for years. So much thinking. But their decisions will change everything. Nothing can go back to the way it was.
    And Grace is in the kitchen staring at copper-bottom pots hanging from wrought-iron racks, and lovely bottles of vinegars infused with her herbs, and there is an aesthetically pleasing computer humming at her tiny desk in the corner where she tracks her business dealings and wonders how she got to a point where she is surrounded by all these things instead of her sisters, and what will happen when this all comes crashing down around her.
    ~
    Bożena creeps out of Tadeusz’s flat in the early hours before dawn, when even the birds have yet to begin chirping their morning greetings. She takes money from his wallet for a cab which will leave her a mile or so from the forest. The cab ride will be her one chance to clear her mind of the events of the past few hours, so her sisters won't sense her transgressions.
    It's times like these she wonders if Edyta is right, if Grażyna's sin has tainted them all. Mostly, she wonders if Grażyna isn't the smartest one of them all: break free, throw off all the laws and conventions of the Dziwozony and have a different sort of life. Some nights it's harder for her to sneak away from Tadeusz's bed, the temptation is so strong to stay and be there when he wakes. What would it be like to play human? To be a wife? Has Grażyna done that? Settled down with her son and a man somewhere? How does she hide what she is if she has? How has she hidden what she is even if she hasn't taken a man? Eventually, humans must notice she doesn't age anywhere near as quickly as they do.
    Bożena sighs. This isn't helping to clear her mind. It’s adding too many complications, and she already has enough of them. Hiding the clothing and clearing her mind are enough for now. And while Tadeusz is sweet and tempting, she isn't sure he's enough to risk everything for. It's been nearly 200 years, and Edyta still asks almost every day when they can hunt down Grażyna and her child. Trying to stay here, or even in Kraków, with a Polish man? Suicide.
    Still, as she sheds the human clothing and hides it again in the tree, she allows herself just a few more moments of dreaming before she clears any thoughts from her mind that don’t concern the tribe. Living with Tadeusz, even waking with him a few mornings a week, cooking for him, having a human job, having any kind of baby that came to her without having to worry about killing the male children: all dreams. Human lives sound so much simpler, even in their complications. Maybe Grażyna has had a whole tribe of children on her own by now. Maybe there are even more males out there besides the one she fled with.
    She stuffs all her wondering into a tiny space in her mind and closes it off. She fills her mind with worrying about the tribe, about those who may be carrying children, about Edyta's vengeful thoughts about Grażyna, about the gathering they need to do in order to put stores back before winter. Waking to sky blue eyes gazing at her never even flits through her thoughts.
     
    10: Filling
     
    Vance is exactly where his mother pictured him, on his back, on top of the gold-and-white