Wooden Bones by Scott William Carter

to be sure, but still easier to see.
    Healthy ferns sprang up where rotting ones had been. Leafy vines sprouted between beds of pine needles. Even the smell was different—the moist air full of life.
    Pino thought the first tall trees were the biggest he’d ever seen, but then they got taller still. Mountains of wood. They weren’t trees at all. They were like gods. Birds—he heard chirping, something missing before. Gray squirrels scampered outof his way, diving into a thick tangle of ivy. There was even a butterfly—a butterfly, of all things!—fluttering its yellow wings from one blooming white flower to another.
    He’d gone from some of the blackest woods to some of the most beautiful in the blink of an eye.
    But where was Sapphire Lake?
    He’d no more thought this than he passed over a small rise—and saw a hint of blue ahead, peeking at him between the massive trees. Even from a great distance it was an incredibly vibrant shade of blue; as he drew nearer, it only became more so.
    When he finally reached its shore, standing in the tall grass lining its banks, it didn’t seem like a lake at all. It seemed like a bit of sky had fallen to Earth.
    Hands on his knees, gasping for breath, Pino stood there on the soft bed of grass and absorbed the beauty of the lake. A pair of swans darted from the reeds and swam along the shore, their passing barely ruffling the water.
    Papa.
    The thought of his papa, still alone and dying in that cave, broke his reverie. Now he needed to find this girl with no arms and no legs. Where would such a girl be? Scanning the shore, he saw not a single living soul, and the thought of searching the perimeter—miles around—drained Pino of what little strength he had left. His legs, still burning, shuddered. He did not even know how much longer he could stand.
    â€œHey!” he cried.
    It might not be the smartest thing to do—maybe the wolves were in this place too, or other hungry predators—but he was desperate.
    â€œHey!” he shouted again. “Anyone out there? Anyone at all?”
    There was no reply. When he’d summoned his breath, he tried again. He went on shouting until his voice failed him, until his throat grew hoarse. Knowing his papa was counting on him, he tried to shake it off and shout anyway, but then his body had finally had enough.
    His knees buckled. His legs gave way. He crumpled into the grass, his head and shoulders draped over the bank, one outstretched hand just touching the surface of the water. He expected the water to be cool, but it wasn’t. It was warm.
    When the ripples created by his touch had stilled, he saw only his reflection staring back at him—his scratched and bruised face, the red cuts and welts mixed with the layers of dirt and sweat caked on his cheeks. With the dark circles under the eyes, and the skin drawn tight against a gaunt face, it did not even look like the face of a boy.
    He was looking at that face when he heard a rustle in the grass.
    Seized with panic, thinking the wolves had followed him, he scrambled to his knees and spun to face them. But it wasn’t wolves who’d emerged from the forest.
    It was people.
    There were at least a dozen of them, men and women alike, tall and slender, all but a few of them with spiky blond hair and eyes as blue as the lake, their pale, freckled skin camouflaged behind clothes fashioned out of their surroundings. Their vests and pants had been woven from the grass. Their body armor—for that’s what the plates strapped to their arms, legs, and chests looked like to Pino—had been constructed using the reddish bark from the giant trees.Even their crossbows were made of the same stuff, making them nearly impossible to see unless they moved them.
    Which they were doing.
    Raising them up.
    Pointing them at Pino.
    Fingers tightening on the triggers.

CHAPTER NINE
    T hese people of the woods, they did not have kind faces. Their