The Will and the Wilds

by Charlie N. Holmberg

Though we have lived in Fendell for all the life I can remember, many of the people here are strangers. I know the wildwood better than I know their faces. The fact should sadden me, but it doesn’t.

Mankind cannot linger in the monster realm, just as mystings cannot abide here long. Our worlds are too different, and they reject those who don’t belong.

and there aren’t enough mushrooms in Amaranda to afford the cost.

What is a soul if not an extension of the heart?

To feel the way humans do, with their cluster of ever-changing emotions and vitality, even for the few hours it lasts . . . yes, he always wants it.

Maekallus is always there, lurking in my thoughts. I think of him in the half seconds between my father’s breaths, in the spaces between sentences in my books, and in the silence between footfalls when I walk to and from the house.

A rusted stake has been hammered between my breasts, and I’m without the tools to pull it out.

I feel this in my soul

Time is the best healer, my grandmother used to say, but it is a cruel master that takes pleasure in my torment and withholds its salve.

Of all the injury I’ve suffered, none of it compares to the misery of that disintegrating hope.

“You and I, we’ll always be different. There will always be something wild in us. Others will see what they want. It’s always been that way.