“It’s all right, Georgie, you don’t have to do it,” Mémère said.
“Grandmother, let him be,” Rose said. “Please.”
George sighed. This just wasn’t the way to do it. “Get over to Declan,” he whispered.
The crow picked herself up and spread her wings. She took to the air, flew a few feet, and landed on Declan’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” George said.
“It’s good,” Declan said. “Try it again.”
George nodded. It took him a good ten minutes to figure out what he needed to do. He had to concentrate very closely on the path before the crow to get her to walk. If he let up, she would fly over to Declan. When the crow had finally done her little walk, George let out a happy sigh.
“Tired?” Declan asked.
“No.”
“New game, then.” Declan opened his hand and showed him a small reddish rock. He tossed the rock into the dirt. “Can she bring it back?”
The crow swooped, grasped the rock, flew back, and dropped it into Declan’s palm. George smiled.
Declan raised his eyebrows. “This is supposed to be harder than walking the bird.”
“It’s easier for me.” All he had to do was to concentrate on the rock and then on Declan.
“He used to make the birds steal cherries for us,” Jack said.
Declan bent back and hurled the rock into the bushes. The crow took off from his shoulder and followed the path of the rock, perching on a branch. George frowned. He couldn’t see the rock from where he sat.
“You can’t find it?” Declan asked.
“I have to look through her eyes to find it,” George said quietly.
“And you don’t like doing that,” Declan said.
George shook his head.
“Because you forget you’re not a bird when you do it? And it’s hard to remember how to get back?”
George startled. “How did you know that?”
“My aunt is a necromancer. What I’m asking you to do is called necromantic possession. There is a trick to it. If I promise you that I can help you get back to your body, will you try it?”
“Rose!” Mémère jumped off the log.
“George, you don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to,” Rose said. “It’s your choice. Nobody will be angry if you don’t.”
George thought about it. He’d done it only once with a cat, because Jack was a cat whenever he wanted, and he had never been one and wanted to know what it was like. The only reason he had returned to his body at all was because Jack found him, sitting still in the yard, and tackled him from behind, knocking the wind out of him. The worst thing was that he couldn’t even remember what it was like to be a cat. He just remembered the vague, scary feeling of looking and looking for something and not being able to find it, and knowing that he was looking for his own body.
He wanted to know what it was like to be a bird.
George looked at Declan. “Okay,” he said.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Declan nodded.
George looked at the crow, grasped the line of magic stretching between them, and pulled, propelling himself into the black body.
The world exploded into colors for which there was no name. For a long moment, he sat still, lost in the vibrancy and shimmering glow of the leaves, until something nudged him gently from the back of his mind.
The rock.
He was supposed to find the rock.
He hopped off the branch into the leaves and searched the ground. There it was, glittering with a dozen hues. So pretty. Pretty, pretty rock.
He took it into his beak and crashed through the bush. The sunlit grass was so beautiful. In the distance, he saw figures: two standing together, crystal clear and glowing, one stronger, the other weaker. Words surfaced in his mind. Rose. Mémère. He wasn’t sure what they meant, but he knew they made him feel good. He saw another figure, smaller, with an odd tint to it. He knew it as well. Jack. A fourth figure waited to his right, the largest of them all. Declan. He had to do something for Declan. He felt drawn to him, and he didn’t know why. He spread his wings and flew to him, landing on his arm, Declan warm and rough under his claws. The rock fell from his beak.
There was a fifth figure, one he hadn’t seen before. It slumped on the ground, curled into a ball. There was something oddly familiar about it, but it didn’t glow like the others.
Declan opened his mouth and made a noise.
Ice slammed into him. He cried out, the world swirled, and George jerked up, gasping. His face was wet. Next to him, Jack stood with an empty bucket.
Rose’s arms closed about him. They felt so comfortable and warm.
“Shock breaks it,” Declan said. “Doesn’t take much, especially if he didn’t spend a lot of time in the other form. The longer he possesses something, the more intense the shock has to be. We had necroscouts who’d burn each other to get out, but that was after hours of immersion. We’ll only need a minute, if that.”
“You okay?” Rose asked.
George smiled, the swirl of colors slowly fading in his head. “I remember this time,” he said. “I remember what it’s like to be a bird.”
TWENTY-THREE
THE deeper one dived into the Wood, the darker it became. The trees grew taller and thicker, their trunks rising high above like colossal textured columns. Their branches spread and twisted, bound together by moss and lichen and bright blue bunches of horsetail vines, dripping down like the hair of phantom tree spirits. The canopy formed its own separate level, removed from the forest floor, and as Rose found her way through the Wood, she glanced around once in a while above to make sure Jack hadn’t gotten away from Grandma. He was none too pleased at staying behind.
She looked at Declan, who strode on, seemingly at home in the wilderness. He carried a small pack. In the pack, two crows rode, carefully secured. Back at Wood House, George had reanimated both. He didn’t possess them at the moment, but he would sense when they were free and take them over.
It was a simple plan. They would get close enough to Casshorn, wait for the right moment, release the crows, and let George use them to steal an item. Then the crows would fly away and they would chase them, retrieve the item, and get away, hopefully alive.
George would be allowed only five minutes of possession. Five minutes later, ready or not, Grandma and Jeremiah would awaken him. Five minutes was a safe enough time limit, according to Declan. She didn’t want to put George through it, but they had no choice. It was a flimsy plan all around, but it was the only one they had.
She’d spoken to Jeremiah and Leanne. Once George awakened and they no longer needed his gift, Jeremiah would take him and Jack and Leanne and her son out into the Broken, supposedly to get supplies. She had given Leanne enough money for a decent hotel room. With her strength, Leanne would be able to handle the boys. No matter what would happen in the Edge, her brothers would be safe.
The Wood thrived around them. Life reigned here. A hundred small noises filled the silence: birds bickering, squirrels screeching angrily at Edger ermines that came to steal babies out of their nests, badgers grunting heavily, and the careful coughing bark of the fox sounded so near yet far. Edger moss sheathed the trunks, its lady’s- slipper-shaped flowers all but glowing with pastel reds, yellows, lavender, and purple. Fallen trees served to anchor new life, sending shoots up and giving purchase to vines. The perfume of countless flowers and herbs floated in the air, mixing with animal scents. Even the light, filtered through the canopy, was verdant and emerald green.
In the chaos of the Wood, she and Declan were just two small motes of life. At other times, she would’ve
