Hidden in the Heartwood {sapphic paranormal}

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Author's note: I had to rush this ending to get the story completed before the 2022 Watty's deadline. There's a lot more adventure that I had planned to write so I apologize for cutting it short. Someday, I hope to return to these woods and flesh everything out more.

29. || the one that got away.

Winter drew her cold breath early that year, exhaling a blanket of white over the mountainside. Slowly, but surely, River's strength began to return and with every day that passed Finley's belly grew rounder.

Each morning, she woke before the sun to tend to the chickens and goats. Then she followed the mended crick up to the springhouse to check the reservoir. The falling snow and rains of the seasons had replenished the spring with clear, potable water, but its healing magic had since dissipated. After that Halloween night, Finley had flushed the lines to clear the blood saturated water from the reservoir, hoping any remaining magic found the tongues and roots of those who needed it, the little thornberry especially.

Finley had trimmed back her raw splintered branches and tended to her wounded bark, but the little tree still weeped with a bend. The loss of her bright red berries left her with only her thorns, now brittle and susceptible to the looming deepfreeze. Finley had one more idea, though it was the worst time of the year to try it.

From the pocket of her jacket, she pulled out the bone handled knife and the sprig River had plucked from the other thornberry that grew out of Béla and the mine; its blossoms somehow still continued to bloom from the twig weeks later. Carefully, she carved its stem down thin, shaving away the bark to reach the green fleshy cambium.

She looked towards the thornberry and placed her palm on her trunk, feeling the deep groove of axe scars along the bark, some healed over, others still fighting to close. She found the worst open wound and slipped the blade of the knife inside, wedging it between the bark and the torn flesh of the wood and the little tree didn't like that one bit. The thornberry swatted at her, catching the skin of her palm with her woody needles as Finley tried to deflect the hit.

"I know, I know," she hushed, "but we gotta give it one more try."

And though she wasn't happy about it, the thornberry lifted her branches enough that Finley could get close again. As gently as she could, she slipped the shaved stem of the sprig between the thornberry's bark and wood, feeling the little tree shudder as she did so. Fresh blood dripped and stained the cut in the wood and she tried to wipe it away before she realized it was her own, shed from the thorn puncture in her palm.

Taking out a ribbon of rawhide, she wrapped it tight to graft the blooming twig to the little thornberry.

"There," Finley sighed, tucking the knife away. The winter would be long, but something powerful remained budded up in the graft. She could feel its energy still tingling the tips of her fingers, down to her belly. Some kinda life growing, despite the absence of it all around.

Two whole moons had passed since Samhain, but the roots had all gone silent and still. Nothing moved along the subterranean current. Finley kept River's rifle strapped to her back for hunting purposes mostly, but she knew to always be prepared in these woods just in case.

She started off hunting small game at first, like the pesky muskrat that turned into a tender stew, then an unfortunate woodchuck that hadn't yet gone to hibernate. She soaked him in an apple cider vinegar and spicewood brine for a good night and a day, then braised him in a white wine with garlic and onion. Then came the pheasant and the turkey and when last year's venison started running low in the freezer, Finley knew it was time to step up.