There was still bread on the kitchen table, half sliced, remaining from the night before. Sage stood with his toes curved over the threshold of the door to the kitchen, staring. For some reason, breakfast felt particularly menacing this morning.
A floorboard creaked behind him, and he spun around. There was a girl there, standing in the hall on the other side of the stairs. Sage would have shouted if he had not already been expecting something strange.
"What are you doing here?" the girl asked. She might have been one of the Sleubeks' servants, but Sage didn't recognize her. And she was too young to be employed—as young as he was maybe. More than that, she looked wrong—hair darker and skin lighter than the Fey. Her family could not live nearby, or else they must have moved from far away.
Striding across the floor, the girl stopped right in front of him. "Sage!" she said, waving her hand in front of his face, "We have to go!"
Something screamed in the distance. Sage turned back towards the noise, towards the kitchen. Through the window, he could see a young tree growing in the yard.
That was when he knew.
The girl stepped out of his way as Sage ran for the front door, threw it open, and burst through. He tore across the yard, crashing over the long grass and then the packed dirt of the path that led towards town, still blinking in the blast of sunlight. He could not help but keep glancing over his shoulder, watching for the monster that had killed him twice. But there was no monster—all he saw behind him was the girl keeping pace, footfalls silent.
Soon they came to the edge of the Sleubek's property where the path went into the forest shade. It curved here, winding down toward the crevices between hills where creeks swam. Sage ran, turning with the path, until he was sure that he was hidden behind a hill. Then he stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Could trees even notice a path? If not, it would never find him.
"Sage," the girl said again. She was not bent over, and despite their desperate run she was not breathing heavily. Sage was beginning to think she might really be Fey. Perhaps she was a distant relation of the Sleubek's. Did they have magic somewhere in their ancestry?
The girl drew her arms over her chest, as if she were cold—or frightened. "Sage, why did you bring us here?"
"To get away," Sage said, panting. It was hot and he had been running, but the creek was probably not safe to drink from. If only he had thought to bring water from the house. "Did you see that tree from the kitchen window? It's evil."
The girl stared at him. Waiting for her response, Sage's eyes flicked back to the space behind her—to the trees that grew thick and strong in the creekbed, to the forest that stretched on and on around them.
"Wait," Sage said, heart pounding again, "I think we need to—"
His stomach crashed. It was like the muddy cliffs on the creek banks that broke off in the thunderstorm torrents. He could feel it happening—a whole piece of the middle of him falling in on itself and pouring out like spilled oatmeal.
"Don't look down," the girl said. She was staring, she stood frozen.
Sage looked down. It wasn't so bad. He felt distant from it again, like a researcher taking mental notes to write down later. Oh, the tree branch is sticking through me. I think it's still growing—I can feel it moving around. I'm not going to stop bleeding in time.
"Sage," the girl said again. The word sounded wobbly. She kept moving her mouth, but he couldn't quite hear the sounds she made after.
His vision was spinning, the colors seeping out of everything. He knew what was happening, knew that he was dying.
It was such a familiar sensation.