The Offering (The Pledge 3)

“He’s there,” Eden explained, her voice whisper soft, and I tried to read her mood, which was as dark and ambiguous as the night itself.

I frowned. “He? It’s a he?”

“What’s he doing up there? He standing guard or something?” Brook asked, her voice matching Eden’s, quiet and low.

But Eden ignored us both and instead cupped her hands around her mouth. She didn’t call out to him, not in words, anyway. What she did was make a sound—a whistling sound like none I’d ever heard before. It wasn’t that of a bird or a train or the kind of whistle a person makes when they purse their lips and blow. It was more like that of an instrument, the kind carved from old, hand-rubbed wood. It was deep and mournful, and beautiful.

And it was nothing I could decipher.

After she finished, there was a moment of silence . . . a long, still moment during which my pulse beat just a little too fast as I waited.

Then came the response. An equally resonant and melancholy whistle from above us. From the exact spot Eden had just been pointing to.

“You can come down now,” she called up to the trees. “You’ve had your fun.”

There was nothing subtle about the way the leaves rustled after that. It was as if the very ground were trembling. As if the earth beneath our feet were trying to spit the soaring trees right out of it. And it wasn’t just the one tree, the one Eden had pointed to. It was all of them, as every leaf and every branch and every offshoot of every branch shook at once. When the boy landed in front of us, I jumped back, bumping into Brooklynn, who instinctively thrust me behind her. I didn’t have time to be offended, or to worry that she looked too protective and might give us away by her actions, because I was too shocked by the boy’s sudden appearance to think of any of those things. Eden didn’t so much as flinch, however.

The boy was gangly and thin, but not small, exactly, making it hard to pinpoint his age. But it was also the smeared grease or mud that coated his face and arms—everywhere his skin was exposed—that made it difficult. I couldn’t see the ridges of his brow or his jaw, couldn’t tell if he’d passed that divide between child- and manhood. His clothing, rags of varying fabrics that seemed to be patched together, was as grimy as everything else about him, and I couldn’t help thinking it was meant to be some sort of camouflage. That all this filth was meant to keep him hidden among the forest foliage.

But before I could imagine why he would need to blend into the trees, another pair of feet hit the ground with a definitive thud. Another mud-covered body faced us. Followed by yet another . . . and another . . . and another. Until it seemed as if we were faced with an army of soldiers, each staring at us from behind a screen of grime and grit.

The boy who’d landed first was also the first to step forward.

Eden met him halfway.

Neither spoke for an instant, as if silently appraising the other. Sizing each other up. And then Eden said to him, “You weren’t fooling anyone. I saw you about a thousand paces back.” Her voice was flat, but there was something charged about her, an anticipation or an expectation that hadn’t been there before. Almost like she were on the abyss, hovering on the verge of delight.

But why? I couldn’t help wondering. What was it about this place, about this meeting, that could cause her to feel such joy?

“And I saw you two thousand paces ago. You’re losing your touch,” the boy answered. His voice was lower than I’d expected, and it made me aware that he was older than I’d first imagined, despite his narrow build.

Eden’s reaction wasn’t at all what I’d anticipated, as she threw her head back and laughed. The boy’s faced cracked then, literally, as mud crumbled from around his eyes when he smiled at her, his lips parting to reveal the pink skin.

That was when I noticed it, the odd coloring of his eyes— those peculiar eyes. Coloring I’d seen before. Coloring I’d always found unnerving, most especially when they were focused on me.

Black, like a bird’s. Black as night.

Black . . . like Eden’s.

She reached out and grabbed the boy then, not caring that he was caked from head to toe in dirt so thick, it probably reached to his bones, and she dragged him against her as she wrapped her arms around him and kept laughing. She laughed into the top of his crusty hair, and she may have even kissed him too. It was hard to tell, since the boy began to wriggle within her grasp. But Eden was unyielding in her affection, unwilling to release him just yet, and she clutched him and buried her face in his head and neck, still laughing. “Stop!” the boy insisted, and when she didn’t at first, his muffled shouts climbed into his throat, making him sound more childlike than he had just moments earlier. “Eden, stop! Stop!”

She relented, but only reluctantly. She loosened her grip but didn’t release him quite yet. “Fine, fine,” she muttered, but there was nothing but humor in her voice, and I couldn’t remember ever hearing Eden sound so . . . so jovial before. Not even with Angelina. “You don’t have to be such a baby.” “I’m not a baby,” the boy grumbled, but it came out so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him. “Just lemme go.” He motioned behind him with his head, his voice dropping even further. “They’re watching us.”

Eden’s grin grew, and even without sensing her, I could tell she was enjoying herself more than she should have been. She shoved him away from her, causing him to stumble. He nearly tripped over his own feet before catching himself and coming to stand before his scruffy legion of followers.