The woman squirmed on the ground, curled around her stomach as if protecting a wound. Maureen tilted her head to the other side and drew her foot back again, aiming. "Release those hatchlings, or die! Now!"
The woman fought for breath. "Your word. Your word . . . that I can . . . leave . . . the forest."
"If the dragons live, you live. If they die, you die. Release them!"
"Your . . . word."
Maureen barked a harsh laugh. "You lie as easily as you breathe, and just as often. You want my word of honor? Okay, love, you've got it. If you release those dragons and they are alive, you have my word that the forest will let you live. It doesn't want to, but it will."
The woman slumped limp on the grass, mumbled a few words, and shook her head as if that movement took all the strength she had left. "They're free. Still asleep, but alive and free. If they die before I leave the forest, it isn't any fault of mine."
Brian looked skeptical. He knelt, that heavy knife of his ready in one hand, and touched his other to the woman's forehead. He squinted, concentrating, the moment stretching into a minute or more, and then nodded.
"They're free. She doesn't hold anything now, dragons or trees or fields or people."
Jo tested the thread of binding that she'd followed. It sat limp in her hand, dissolving even as she tested it.
{I go.}
And the dragon slipped between the trees, a black streak glittering in the scattered shafts of sun. Jo blinked and it was gone. How could something that large move that silently and fast? Newfound friend or not, it sent shivers down her spine.
Something odd in the scene . . . she'd spotted David, zeroed in on him, and the rest had vanished from her thoughts. Jo gasped as her brain finally analyzed the impossible thing her eyes had been telling her all along. The fox now lay curled around a newborn baby, protecting it and suckling it, giving the magic of the wildwood as milk.
But the fox was the spirit of Maureen's forest . . . Maureen's baby? Had time slipped a cog again? Jo had become an aunt while her back was turned? Nine months lost at right angles to her life?
Maureen seemed to read her thoughts, or at least the sudden focus of her eyes. "It's Fiona's, Fiona's and Brian's. She wanted a weapon, not a baby. She was going to kill it for the Power in its blood. She'll never touch this child again, or have another."
Well, that explained the rage and the kick. The woman . . . Fiona, Sean's twin . . . stirred and glared up at Maureen. Jo winced at the hatred on that face, and suddenly realized that the woman was naked from the waist down, lying in blood and mess. She'd just given birth. No wonder the baby seemed so small and . . . well, ugly. Wrinkled, purple, scrawny, head still squashed out of shape -- a face only a mother could love.
Fiona spat at Maureen's feet. "Let it suck your Power, then. Ask your dragon poet about the curse of children. That thing will weaken you for years."
Maureen shook her head. "And that's a problem? You haven't learned anything. Power scares me. I've got too fucking much of it for safety."
This was a Maureen that Jo had never seen before, calm, self-confident, strong. And sober, even though the sister Jo knew would have had to be stone drunk to stand there like she owned the world and feared no part of it.
Something had changed, Jo was certain. Maureen must have exorcised a major demon. They needed to have a sisterly giggle-fest and late night whisper, like she remembered when they were girls sharing a bedroom.
Have to find out what Brian had been up to, as well. He sported a black eye and bandages on his arm, blood soaked his side, and he seemed to be favoring one leg. He was still standing, but knight-errantry looked like a rough trade. As far as she was concerned, David should stick to poetry.
Maureen turned back to the woman on the grass. "Okay. Play-time's over. Grab your pants and move your sorry ass. You've got your life. I never promised freedom. I place the forest as a guard on you, an endless maze like your own hedge. You'll find food, and drink, and a dry place to sleep if your dreams let you, but you'll never leave. The trees will kill you if you try. I gave you my word, not theirs, and they are doing me a favor. They don't fucking like you. Don't push it."
Fiona crawled over to a pile of cloth, dragged it to the stream, and rinsed it and wrung the water out before pulling it on. She staggered to her feet, moaning and clutching at her stomach.
Jo's sister frowned and shook her head. "Cut the crap. We know you're stronger than that. These days, even human mothers get kicked out of the hospital the same day they give birth. Walk! The forest will show you where it wants you to go, and Shadow's going to be following you. I think he's hungry."
{One still questions whether this is fit to eat.}
A huge black cat, Jo thought it was a jaguar or something similar, formed out of the shadow of a tree. It stood and stretched lazily before strolling across the clearing.
The dark witch straightened up, glared at each of the others in turn, and gritted her teeth as if she was biting back a curse only because she lacked the Power to make it stick. She turned and walked away, limping
