The Stone Demon

Twenty-two





Her feet were the first part of her to hit the shifting black waters of the River of Memory and Forgetting. She didn’t even look back at the Demon King—she just acted. Now was the time to rely on instinct. Time might operate differently down here, but she didn’t want to waste any of it. What if she did manage to get out? Who knew what time—what day, even—it would be back in her own world? All along, Donna had been determined to make amends for past mistakes. This was her chance, and there was no going back now.

As the waves crashed over her head and she became fully submerged, she held her breath and kept her eyes as tightly shut as physically possible … until everything faded away. The blackness of the water seemed to fill her, and Donna found herself able to open her eyes and look around. Not that there was much to see.

She was suspended in a vast space, cold and wet and tired—she was vaguely aware of those sensations, on some level of consciousness—and yet it also felt like this might be the closest thing to death she had yet experienced. She felt faint and dizzy, especially when she realized that she’d begun to breathe again without even meaning to. Despite being underwater, breathing was the most natural thing in the world. Keeping her mouth tightly shut, she tried to force her eyes to see something in those dark depths. A direction to swim in. A sign. A spark of light … something.

Her consciousness began to fade, but then a voice from her past forced her back to full awareness. Her father’s words echoed in her mind, strong and true:

“Run, Donna! Don’t look back! Whatever you hear, promise me you won’t look back.”

The last thing Donna remembered was the water tugging at her, the river taking her into its cold embrace and dragging her down, down into its shadowed depths, deep into the heart of the Otherworld.

Into the heart of Memory and Forgetting.

She watched the little girl with her father, surrounded by swaying trees and blowing leaves with the huge dark sky overhead. The memory caught in her chest, like her heart had snagged on something sharp and was slowly unraveling.

The night closed in as the images sharpened. Donna—grown-up Donna—pressed herself against a tree and watched from a short distance. She didn’t think anyone could see her. She didn’t think she was really here. And yet she still felt the urge to hide, to duck back against the shelter of the solid trunk. Even if this was some kind of dark Otherworld magic, she knew it could all just be more demon lies. A ruse to make her vulnerable and steal the fight from her.

Or maybe it was real. The truth of the life she’d spent so many years repressing. After all, she’d chosen memories when she’d chosen the river. The Bridge of Lies had seemed far too easy.

Just as the scene from her past in the heart of the Ironwood became sharper, it also became far more painful. Donna watched her younger self and squeezed her fingers against the rough bark, wishing that the scrape of splinters would somehow bring her back to herself and take her out of this, even if the only escape was into the Otherworld. Into death.

The little girl was pale but composed. “Where’s Mommy?”

“I’m going to get her, darling, then we’ll all leave to-gether.”

“I don’t want you to leave me!”

“I’ll be right back, I promise.”

“But Daddy,” Little Donna said, taking a step after her father, the desire to follow, to not be abandoned, written all over her young face. “What about our bags?”

She gestured at the small pile of luggage that Donna, watching from her hiding place, had only just noticed. Of course … she’d forgotten this part. The part where the Underwoods—Patrick, Rachel, and Donna—had packed a few belongings and left in the middle of the night, attempting to flee the Order of the Dragon; Simon had planned to take Donna away and use her developing powers to enter the Elflands, so that the alchemists could exterminate their sworn enemies, the wood elves. She might even have been their ticket to conquering Faerie itself, eventually, if a way through Faerie’s many wards and protections could be found. With her ability to open doors, Donna was like a walking, talking key.

And, beyond that, there was something else sleeping inside of her that none of the alchemists but Maker had glimpsed. Something more powerful, which the Underwoods couldn’t afford to reveal.

“Stay with the bags,” Patrick said. “Just stay here. Don’t move.”

He ran back along the path, disappearing between trees that were just beginning to shed their leaves. It was a chilly fall night. A night that Donna remembered in her bones, in her dreams, if not in her waking memory. He was gone, for good this time. The little girl waited for him to come back for her, wondering whether he’d made a mistake and actually meant to take her with him on the path after all. But it remained silent, apart from the wind through the branches.

She watched herself scuff a foot along the earth and eye the baggage. “Move the bags,” she whispered to her younger self.

Little Donna seemed to make a decision, and began dragging each bag to the edge of the pathway, hiding it as best she could behind the trunk of a tree even bigger than the one her future self currently hid behind. Donna smiled, despite her fear and confusion. She remembered this—she really did.

She remembered the feel of the bag strap against her small hand. Recalled how heavy her father’s backpack had been and how difficult it was to pull it safely behind the tree. But eventually she managed. She had all the bags safely tucked away, not really visible from the path unless you were looking for them. Especially not in the darkness, with only a sliver of moon overhead.

Donna watched as the little girl sat on the largest bag and peeked around the tree trunk, watching and waiting. She remembered the beating of her heart and the pain in her throat. She remembered how thirsty she was, and how she wondered whether she dared open Mommy’s bag and look for some water.

And then a howling, alien call shrieked through the entire forest, and Donna remembered what it was like, the first time she heard the cry of the Wood Monster. The terror, without even know what she was afraid of.

“Daddy?” she whispered, knowing that she wasn’t supposed to make a sound.

The monster screamed again. It was getting closer.

Donna fell into the memory, and everything else slipped away.