Chapter 23

Agnes began to chant before Edmund understood she had truly started. Her voice was low, almost conversational at first, barely louder than the sputtering from the hearth. Still, each word carried weight, its resonance passing through him rather than over him.

The forest reacted with a sharp answering jolt, like something startled. Or preparing.

Edmund gripped the arms of the chair and pushed himself back, using the seat as a shield, as ineffectual as it might be. He felt the landlord and Will behind him, silent and rigid, but they were distant now, as if Agnes’s voice had drawn a veil between him and the rest of the room. They were present and absent simultaneously, and he wondered if they’d hear him if he spoke.

Agnes moved behind him, her fingertips brushing the crown of his head as she traced a slow circle.

“The Binding starts at the roots,” she told him. “We unpick the smallest threads first. The ones it uses to soften you.”

Edmund wanted to recoil from her touch, feeling tainted by it, but he resisted the urge. It wasn’t his own.

“So, this is… gentle?”

Agnes laughed humourlessly.

“As gentle as pulling thorns from the mind.”

He nodded, preparing himself – or preparing to prepare. How did one do so for something like this? He swallowed, inhaled deeply, steeled himself…

Then the pain began.

It wasn’t sharp or immediate. It rolled in like a fever, rising from somewhere deep in his chest and spreading outwards in slow, twisting lines to infect his whole body.

Agnes’s hands pressed to either side of his skull.

“Let it surface,” she said. “Don’t push it down. Let the memory come.”

Memory.

The forest surged at the word. It was hungry.

And, suddenly, he wasn’t in the Elders’ House anymore.

He was standing in a hospital corridor.

The ceiling lights were harsh, bright enough to sear disease away. Plastic chairs huddled in a small waiting area, holding their own wellbeing focus group. The smell of disinfectant was intoxicating. His breath fogged slightly. It should not have been cold, but there was a definite chill.

A voice echoed. He recognised it as his own, pleading, repeating a name he could no longer bear to hold in his thoughts.

Please wake up. Please. Please.

Edmund squeezed his eyes shut, but the image intensified.

Agnes’s voice wove through the memory, steady and unwavering. It held him. Guided him.

“Do not answer it. Whatever you hear. Whatever you feel. It’s an echo, not truth.”

But the forest coiled tight with longing, and he felt it slither into his own, increasing its volume.

A door opened somewhere along the corridor. Footsteps, too clear on the tiled floor, approached.

The shape of a small figure emerged.

No. No, not here. Not now.

The forest twisted, thrilled.

“Edmund…”

The voice was soft. Familiar. It was a voice he’d heard in dreams and nightmares, and in the waking spaces between. A voice wrapped around every moment of his being, succour and ache.

He felt himself leaning forwards.

Agnes’s hands against his skull pressed harder.

“Do not answer.”

“He’s calling me,” Edmund said, his weakening resolve obvious.

“No,” Agnes said firmly. “That’s the forest wearing your loss like a mask.”

The figure stepped closer. A small hand reached out.

The forest was hot. Wanting. Its anticipation was palpable.

Edmund’s fingers twitched toward it.

Agnes’s nails dug sharply into his scalp.

“Look at me.“

He couldn’t. The corridor blurred. Bent. Folded like paper being shaped into something horrific.

The figure lifted its face.

Its eyes were wrong. Hollow rings of tree-bark darkness instead of… his.

Edmund’s breath tore free in a sob.

“Stop. Please.“

Agnes spoke louder now, the chant rising in pitch and force. The words snapped and thrummed like taut wire. The forest recoiled with every phrase.

Then something deep within him cracked.

The memory corroded corridor shattered like a dropped mirror, its shards dissolving into shadow. The lights scattered. The chairs evaporated. The figure was the last to fade.

Edmund fell forward, gasping. Sweat soaked him and his heart hammered painfully.

The forest had dimmed. It wasn’t gone, but it was diminished.

Agnes moved back, breathing hard. She composed herself quickly, however.

“First thread is cut,” she said, calmly.

“That was one?” Edmund choked. “Just one?”

“There will be more.” Agnes nodded grimly.

Malcolm stepped forward, the barrier following the memory.

“Can he take anymore today?”

Agnes considered Edmund carefully. She pursed her lips and tapped them with her fingertip.

“No,” she said. “Not without risking collapse. His mind needs space to settle.”

Edmund straightened slowly. His chest ached where the forest had withdrawn. He rubbed the area with the heel of his palm, feeling the void.

“Did it weaken the Binding?”

“Yes,” Agnes said. “But only slightly. The forest will feel what we’ve done. It will push harder now.”

Edmund nodded. He’d expected the answer. Will muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse.

“What do we do next?” Edmund asked.

“You rest. Eat. Regain what strength you can. Tonight, we attempt the second thread.”

“Tonight?” Edmund’s voice cracked. “It comes at night!”

“That’s why,” Agnes said quietly. “The Binding is strongest in darkness. If we don’t work then, it will outpace us. This was just the start.”

Edmund felt a sharp internal response. He winced.

“It heard that.”

“Of course it did. It hears everything you hear. It’s a part of you.”

Malcolm stood beside Edmund, resting a steady hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll stay with you. Through all of it. Don’t worry.”

Edmund nodded weakly. Don’t worry. Of course. It was simple. But he couldn’t shake what lingered within him. A sensation like roots shifting just beneath the skin.

Listening.

Waiting.

Preparing for nightfall.