Chapter 889 - 891
He followed the narrow path toward the heart of the camp where the great fig tree stood. Its enormous trunk was slick with rain, its roots twisting across the ground like living serpents. He sat on one, pulled off his wet shirt, and tried to wipe water from his face, his skin was raw from grappling with the shape in the forest last night. His palms tingled from the broken memory: the shape of the figure, forest-born, shifting, its hand not attacking but reaching into his chest. That moment when he believed he might stop it with steel, but the blade shattered, the flesh parted, and nothing died. Instead, the thing had disappeared in a puff of dust and bark, leaving him bleeding, utterly alive, utterly afraid.
The sun was just reaching into the canopy when others emerged. Grace was the first. She sat beside him, no word at first, just the sound of her breathing in the humid air, in sync with the forest’s hush. He looked at her and saw dawn waking in her eyes. She touched his shoulder.
"It didn’t leave scars," she said softly.
He closed his eyes. "But it remembered me."
Lucy arrived next, barefoot, her robes dripping on the ground. She knelt in front of him, offering a cup carved from coconut shell, full of fresh water. He drank without looking. Water never tasted so clean and faultless.
"Breakfast soon," she said. Her voice was sleepy, distant. He realized just how long he’d been gone from camp. She reached out, caught his hand.
Amelia and Emma came together next, each holding small bundles of herbs, zingy roots for clearing the lungs, sweet-smelling flowers for calming their nerves. They sat on either side of him and held the packs ready to drop his pain into them.
Scarlett, Serena, Sophie, Stella, Zoey, Susan, Natalie, and Nefertari followed, bringing plates of roasted crab, boiled roots, dried fruit. All of them silent, respectful. Concern in their eyes. He understood what they were feeling: love and fear tangled like undergrowth. They’d all been touched by that presence, the blue smoke that didn’t just possess, but learned, mimicked, remembered; and the shape that bridged between the living trees and his own blood. They carried ragged wounds in their hearts, blackouts dripping like poison into their confidence. And every blade of grass they walked upon quivered with the island’s breath.
They sat around him on the humus. He accepted the crab legs, but didn’t eat. They watched him eat a piece of fruit, peel by peel, listening to the fat absence between the forest’s heartbeat. And then Nefertari spoke.