The last will be worst, that’s all that I’ll say.
The last will feel pain that won’t go away.
So sooner is better, if only a bit.
The last one will suffer until I see fit.
So die, die, die, die, each one of you die!
Now, now, now, now, each one of you now!
So run, run, run, run, as fast as you can.
You won’t get away, that’s all that I’ll say.
Your doom is all part of my plan!
Where are you going, my sweet little girls?
Where do you think you can flee?
Why are you running and where will you go?
You’ll never, no never, flee me!
The faster you run, the more it will hurt!
The pain will run faster than you!
The pain, oh the pain, oh the pain, pain, pain, pain!
Only your pain will seem true!
We ran in a straight line, our jaws clenched tight, but there was no sign of the entrance or even the path we had followed in. At last, however, when we had run a long way in utter silence, we caught sight of a glimmer of light beyond the trees: the end of the forest!
We’d done it!
We ran on, steering toward the light. At the thought that we were seeing the sun again after all this time, the tears I had been holding back came pouring out. Gradually the light began to grow. The entrance was near now! But then Hejdanatt, who had run a bit ahead, fell to the ground, and the sound of her fall turned into a single line of song.
Away, away, away, away, you must stop running away!
She looked even more terrified than before, but she pulled herself to her feet and followed me as I dashed on ahead. It was all we could do to avoid the roots and dead branches on the ground, and the branches striking us in the face, but we ran on.
The entrance was near now, and we could see the countryside beyond. We suddenly realized that we had found the path again, and that a little way ahead it was lit by the sun, lined with green grass!
Just a little farther now!
But at that moment I remembered the odd thing that had happened when I was here before, how I’d thought I was barely inside when in fact, by the time my friends had found me, I was somehow deep in the forest. It wasn’t just sound that was beyond our control among these strange trees—space itself seemed to be manipulated by someone or something else. So, I suddenly found myself wondering, was that really the entrance, really the sun shining brightly just a little way ahead?
I stopped and reached out to take hold of Hejdanatt as she raced by me. But I missed her hand and she ran past, dashing for the light. As she ran, each footstep was singing.
Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!
Perhaps because this song was ringing in her ears, she didn’t seem to notice that I was no longer running. I took one more step to follow her, but that too became a song.
How clever of you to see!
So I’d been right! As I watched, Hejdanatt reached the edge of the forest. I tried calling to her, but her name died in my throat. Hejdanatt! But the cry never left my lips. Hejdanatt!
She took a single step out into the sun, her skin glowing in the brilliant light. She ran a few steps farther over the bright green grass. Then she turned to look back, her face radiant with joy. It certainly seemed as though she had managed to escape the forest.
But then that momentary look of delight faded, and I knew my worst fears were justified. The sunlight flooding down on her was extinguished in an instant, and the field of green vanished. The shadows closed in around her, and what should have been the bright world beyond became the dark depths of the forest itself. In reality, she had never left at all—this horrible forest had simply allowed her to think she had, for the briefest of moments. Her head spun this way and that as she fought to understand what was happening, and then she looked back at me.
The look of horror on that face made my hair stand on end. Her hand, which had been clutched to her mouth, fell limp at her side, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her lips parted and I caught a glimpse of her tongue lolled at the back of her throat. Blood dripping from her nostrils traced lines down her cheeks. Her eyes got terribly wide and her hands reached up to close around her throat. And then she began to repeat her own name over and over. “Hejdanatt, Hejdanatt, Hejdanatt, Hejdanatt.”
Even after she floated up among the branches, she continued to say it. “Hejdanatt, Hejdanatt…” But when her arms and legs had been torn away, her torso ripped in two, her neck spun violently and her head twisted off, she at last fell silent.
The head sailed away to the center of the forest, and the rest of her, having fallen to the ground, reformed itself—two arms, two legs, hips, and torso—to follow. But I was quicker; I fell upon the pieces and held them fast.
I’d realized I wouldn’t be able to get out of the forest. It had let us hope we could escape, only to draw us back in. There was no reason to think it would ever let me out. So I gave up. I would go to look for Olle instead; I owed that much to my dear brother.
But where to find him? It seemed logical that he would be where the bodies of the others had gone, where the severed pieces had gathered to rejoin the flying heads and torsos.
I jumped on Hejdanatt’s
