#attci

Cause: Memories are suppressed so the girl can survive. Effect: A girl grows a granite heart. 

 “But I do know this,” he persists, his breath caressing my lips. “I know you’re hiding something. You’re carrying around a secret, and it’s eating you alive.”

Standing before me is the tall, thin, blind man, and he is smiling—too wide to be natural. I blink and he is a tree.

There are secrets that I have forgotten. Like some kind of power that’s inside me, eating away at me, like a cloud hanging over my head, haunting my every move. Like a shadow. And if I could rid myself of them once and for all, I would. Isn’t it obvious? Was that not the point of this book? As though by putting them down I would make them less alive? Make them less real—or at least get them out of me. Out of my head. But it’s pointless. All of it is. Because now I’ve got nothing but those secrets. And I’m forgetting them. It’s just… it seems important.

“What happened to make you so cold? Cold as stone! Your heart is like a rock in there, drumming against your body and breaking everything inside!”

I have no choice. No more running. It is no longer an option. I’ve hidden in this damned house for too long, afraid of the trees and of… him. Well, now the trees are here, and he’s got Nori, and hiding is not a choice. I am Silla. I am sane. I am afraid.

Sudden darkness, sudden calm means the woods are close don’t you put up the alarm you’re the one he chose.