Hollowthorn by Kalyn Josephson

Author:Kalyn Josephson [Josephson, Kalyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Anna

I’ve never felt so much magic before.

Connecting with the staff is easier than anything I’ve reached out to before it, as if it wants to tell its story. One moment I’m standing in the shallows of the Pishon River; the next I have a bird’s-eye view of a tree so incredibly gigantic, I can’t see the top of it.

Roots bigger than Ravenfall snake between four massive rivers, the canopy of the tree casting a world-sized shadow across the land. Beneath its branches are impossible things, from a blanket of stars so thick it’s like a photo from outer space to countless full moons interspersed with the unblinking eyes of a cat.

I see far-off destinations across the world: the rolling green hills of Ireland, a busy train station in Tokyo, the snow-dusted peaks of the French Alps. Somehow when I look at them, I know exactly where they are. I smell the petrichor, the city, the snow.

Fruits of every color and kind gather among the leaves, and I hear the call of a hundred different kinds of birds flitting from branch to branch.

Everything about the Tree of Life is at once impossible for me to understand, and yet makes more sense to me than anything I’ve known before.

The glimpse feels like an instant, but when I blink myself back awake, I’m lying in my sleeping bag beside a fire, a real sky of stars above me. My head aches, and I roll onto my side to find Henry studying the fake Seal of Solomon by the firelight with a furrowed brow.

“What happened?” I ask, though it comes out as more of a groan. I reach for the mug of Gran’s tea someone set beside me, now cold, and drink it all. It’s cardamom rose, to ward off inner chills and frights. The same tea Gran first gave me and Colin after we faced down a wraith.

Henry shoots me a relieved look. “Oh, thank God, you’re all right. You fainted when you tried to read the staff. You’ve been out an entire day. How are you feeling?”

My body aches, but I think that’s from sleeping on the forest floor. I do some groggy mental math. We arrived here after the first night of Hanukkah, camped out once, and emerged from the Crypt on the third night, which makes tonight the fourth. The holiday has been helping me keep track of how long we’ve been gone, and it’s longer than the few days we expected.

I hope Aunt Elaine and Uncle Roy aren’t too worried.

Carefully, I sit up, clutching my empty mug. There’s a pot over the fire bubbling with soup, and a stack of clean dishes beside it that tells me no one’s eaten yet. My stomach rumbles.

“I’m okay, just hungry,” I say. “How far away are we from the Crypt?”

“The only word we got out of you after you collapsed was ‘north’; then you were out, so we’ve been traveling that direction. Thankfully you’re not too big to carry yet.” He smiles when I scowl.

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