sparrow and lion

Chapter 16: the weather witch

This woman was the weather witch. Wren's eyes widened. "We were looking for you," he said.

"And now you have found me," the weather witch said. She bent and pressed her fingers against Leo's forehead. "She is not well," the weather witch said. "Come." She waved her hand. Leo floated up into the air. Her eyes were still closed.

The weather witch led him from the cavern. Leo swept along beside them. Blood dripped from her. There was no doubt they were still in the caves. Snow still swirled down around them, though. The dragonflies flitted through snowflakes like through raindrops. Sometimes they touched down on his skin. Occasionally, they settled upon Leo. Never did they venture closer to the weather witch.

It felt like he walked longer behind the weather witch than with Leo. Wren's feet hurt. His mouth was dry. He was hungry and tired. He was so tired. He felt as though he could barely keep his eyes open. He tried not to notice the trail of Leo's blood. He could hear her breathing now. That was not a good thing. He pressed his hand against the wound in her head. He wondered why he hadn't done it sooner. If she died, it would be his fault.

It was no use. His hand filled with blood. It oozed between his fingers. The drops on the ground were just as big as before. His vision blurred. Wren tripped. He grabbed onto Leo's arm to keep himself from falling and cursed himself. "How much further?" he asked the weather witch.

"This way," she said.

"I can't keep going," Wren said.

"If you stop now," the weather witch said, "you will both die."

Wren did not stop.

On and on they walked. It took too long for Wren to notice that Leo's bleeding had stopped. He put his fingers in front of her lips. She wasn't breathing. He tried to speak. He couldn't. They turned a corner. The weather witch waved her hand and Leo floated to the ground.

Wren stared at her. He felt empty. Leo's chest did not rise. No new pool of blood formed. Her lips were blue. He stared at her for a very long time. He looked at the weather witch. She was looking at him. "I think she's dead," he said.

The weather witch smiled at him. It was a gentle smile. "Yes," the weather witch said. "Her heart stopped some time ago."

"I don't understand," Wren said. "You said you were going to save her!" His heart cracked in half. He felt it. It was like he had swallowed gravel only for it to get stuck in his throat. Wren shook his head. "You lied!"

"No, child," the weather witch said kindly. "A witch cannot lie." She tilted his face up to look at her. "I told you at the start, sweet little one. I heard you crying and so I came."

Wren shook his head. "No," he said. "You can help her. You have to help her. The stories say that the weather witch could heal. You can heal her. You can heal anything."

The weather witch smiled sadly at him. "I can heal most things," the weather witch told him. "But not this. There is no cure for this, sweet boy. A heart, once stopped, cannot be restarted."

"But..." Wren said. "The Twin Warriors. He died and ..." He wanted to throw up. He swallowed hard. "Alizeth saved him." Wren realized he was crying.

"That is no more than a pretty legend," she said softly. "She could not restart Alderoth's heart any more than I can restart this one. She did not do it, my child."

"But the story..." He remember the alley. He remembered the fear. The way the Leo who had always been Leo helped the Leo who would one day be Wren. If there was no Leo, there would be no Wren. There could not be two Leos, but there could not be none either. And he wasn't Leo anymore. He was Wren. "His heart stopped and he died and she saved him."

The weather witch stood over Leo's still form. "She did not restart his heart, child," the weather witch sighed. "She gave him a new one. And there are no hearts to spare here."

Wren looked at her uncomprehendingly. She extended her hand towards him. Her fingers curled into a fist. And he remembered. In the story, Alizeth had crushed her father's heart with the clutch of a fist. Or so the servants said, but... "She took his heart?"

The weather witch nodded. "But I would not steal one's heart for another, even were one here."

Wren didn't hesitate. "She can have mine," he said.

The weather witch looked at him. "You want to give the girl your heart, child?" she asked him. "You would die so that she might live?"

Wren nodded.

"You understand not what you ask," she said.

"I do," Wren told her. "I understand. Give her my heart. It's okay. I want you to." The witch did not answer. She just looked at him. Wren noticed how cold it was here. Leo's skin was even paler. Wren felt his heart crack in half. It was a real pain in his chest. He scrabbled at it. "Can you do it?" he asked.

"You are much like him, dear child," the weather witch said. "Willing to die so that she might live. It is a rare kind of goodness that resides deep inside the heart." The snow swirled like a blizzard. It sliced his skin like knives. The weather witch was suddenly in front of him. Her hair billowed in a wind that did not exist. Her nails pressed grooves into the skin over his heart. Her eyes were black. "To save her, we must carve the goodness out like rot." He felt it when his skin broke beneath her talons.

Wren knew he should be scared. He knew that it should hurt. But those were abstract things. More ideas than reality. But the truths that stood before him were undeniable: the blood that dripped down his chest was cold and nothing would ever matter more than Leo. "I agree," Wren said.

"Then choose, child," the weather witch said. Her voice sounded like a scream and a whisper. "Which piece shall she be given and which piece shall be kept for yourself? The darkness that lingers in all of us, that made you run away from home that morning like a disobedient little brat, or the goodness that brought you to this point. But choose wisely. For you will always lack what you have sacrificed and every act on the side that you are missing will be an act of will and pain."

Wren's head echoed. Everything was black except the snow and the witch. Everything was spinning. It was his choice. He should be the one punished. He would take the pain and the suffering. He had been born into a royal house while she had been beaten bloody in the streets. Let his acts be the ones of agony. "Give it to her," he whispered. The scream of the wind was so loud he couldn't hear himself. But he knew the witch could. "Give her the good parts."

And then there was silence. The weather witch smiled at him. "Oh, sweet child," she said. "The good parts she will have." She reached forward. Her fingers touched his cheek. They were cold and they were warm all at once.

"Everything was alright again when I woke up," Wren said. He looked at Leo. The distance between them was inches and miles.

Leo looked at him. "That's not what happened," she said.