Page 104 of Shifting Hearts

EPILOGUE

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I stood in the middle of the house Dagan had created for me, plucking fur from the feather filled sofa.

Built didn’t quite cut what he did, weaving his trees into an arched building that resembled a rustic church in the darkest place in his forest, right in the center, away from everything and everyone, and looking nothing like the roof of the houses I was brought up in.

For that I was grateful.

Dagan added some personal touches, twisting his patterns into the walls, making exposed architraves of thick trunks and branches, adding green corners where I could sleep beneath his thick branches.

Wolf’s additions were more practical. Tallow candles, thick, down stuff pillows, the silks and laces he seemed to prefer to wear and dress me in like a forest nymph lined branches to one side.

I didn’t mind, truly cared for by both of them in their own, strange ways.

The way they seemed to have watched and given to me endlessly, knowing who and what I was, where I came from despite their abhorrence of what my family was.

What I didn’t understand about it. And that it wasn’t over, just yet.

My mind seemed to have separated from what I thought I understood, but didn’t.

And for their protection, their care that I’d never had, their acceptance…

I loved them both back, always touching Dagan’s trunks—wood jokes abounded constantly—and letting Wolf fuss about me, knowing that both the cottages on either side of the woods stood empty of their prior inhabitants.

It didn’t take Wolf long to collect on his bounties, and I didn't ask him about them.

Not…just yet. One day I might but for now, it was too early.

Slowly, Dagan loosened his branches, opening the canopy to small strips of sunlight that greened his blackened sticks.

Beneath our feet the soil warmed, and creatures returned to the woods, coming so far as to nest in the rafters of my house in the heart of the forest. Squirrels took up residence in my green corner, and I enjoyed their company as much as I did my wandering Wolf and the trees that watched me constantly.

The day after Gran’s place, Wolf brought me my first housewarming decoration, hanging the full length skin above the small glow Dagan set in an arched fireplace.

No embers burned, no fire lit that could threaten his trees.

He called it heartwood and its warmth provided a sense of peace in the house. That was where Wolf left his offering.

Hung on the wall beside the heartwood was perfectly skinned pale wolf fur. Its snout was bound, and its dead eyes blinded by a strip of red cloth Wolf took from my cloak. A promise that the children who we hoped would one day come back to the forest would never fear to tread these paths again.

In the meantime, I fell in love with a hunter and a predator, though I wasn't always certain which was which.

And in the darkwood, it didn’t seem to matter.