Dreamwood (12 page)

As they came in, the man looked up. “What's this? Who are these children?” He had piercing eyes, so dark they appeared black, which shone from under the brim of his homburg hat. Around his neck he wore an elaborate necklace of polished wood and shell.

Niwa answered. “This is Lucy, from the train. And . . .” She frowned at Pete.

“And I'm Pete Knightly,” Pete said, planting his feet apart and crossing his arms, “from Pentland.” He had taken in the room in big, wary sweeps.

The old man regarded them without surprise . . . but without any detectable welcome, either. “I am Governor Arekwoy, leader of the Lupine Nation,” he said with stiff formality. “Are you the reason my daughter has not yet changed clothes for dinner tonight?”

Daughter! Lucy looked at Niwa, the Lupine girl standing so straight and poised, her long dark hair with its woven charms framing her face. Lucy had thought the girl held herself like a queen—she wasn't that far off.

“Greetings, Governor,” Lucy said with a curtsy, although she felt ridiculous executing such a movement in her thick dungarees and soggy shirt. Her thoughts were racing—
be polite, diplomatic, flattering, but not overtly fawning . . . help!
Was there a certain protocol for talking to First Peoples heads of state? Probably, although she didn't know it. She would have to hope for the best. “We didn't mean to delay your daughter, sir, but our business can't wait.”

“You were on our land without permission,” the governor said, studying them as if they presented a particularly vexing puzzle. “What's more you were caught trying to go to a place that has been forbidden to our people for generations.”

Lucy felt a weight settle on her as she realized what his words meant. The governor already knew where they'd been trying to go and the raven men were
his
men. Now she understood why Niwa had looked so troubled.

Governor Arekwoy clasped his hands together. “Traditionally the penalty for trying to cross the sea bridge has been death.”

Death.

“Just for crossing that little bit of rock?” Lucy burst out before she could stop herself. She paced to the edge of the governor's desk. It was covered in neat stacks of paper, and a carved stone fetish of a bear stood at one corner. “Yes,” the governor said coldly. Even the deep wrinkles in his cheeks seemed to contract with disapproval. “Death. That is how serious an offense you have committed. But we are in the modern world and no longer punish trespassers in that manner.” He sighed, perhaps regretting this. “You will spend the night in my lodge. In the morning I will send you home to your families.”

He bent once again to the document he'd been reading, picked up his pen, and gave his signature with a flourish. The nib scratched violently against the paper—the only indication he gave of being annoyed.

“Excuse me,” Lucy said, feeling her cheeks grow hot. “But you have to let us cross that bridge, sir.” She twisted her hands together as if they could hold back the outburst that was building.

Niwa stepped forward on silent feet and put a warning hand on Lucy's shoulder.

“Have to?” he asked icily. “Why is that?” He looked down his nose at Lucy and she felt herself quail under his gaze.

Lucy swallowed. “My father went there, sir. William Darrington, the inventor.”

Governor Arekwoy shook his head. “The bridge is guarded. You must look for him somewhere else.”

“No, he's there all right,” Lucy said stubbornly. Here she went, contradicting the head of the Lupine Nation, but Lucy felt more sure of herself now that she was talking about her father. “He's resourceful. Once, we were trying to get to a haunted fort in Florida—only it was surrounded by swampland just crawling with alligators. And you know what? He talked a carnival into lending us a hot-air balloon and we
flew
to the fort. So I know he's on the Thumb, sir, sea bridge or not.”

But the governor was not moved by stories of hot-air balloons. “It does not matter. There are other ways there, but they all bring death.” For the first time the governor looked at her with a measure of compassion.

It lasted only a second, however. He turned to his daughter. “Take them away.”

Niwa pressed her lips together and shot an agonized look at Lucy. Then the same girl who had tossed her head and told Lucy she would live her own way nodded obediently. “Yes, Father.”

“No, wait.” Lucy had to think of something. She remembered what Niwa had said:
The red sickness has spread to the trees down the coast.
She blurted out, “There's dreamwood on the Thumb and it's the cure for Rust.”

Niwa startled. Governor Arekwoy said something under his breath that sounded like a curse. If Lucy didn't know dreamwood was so valuable she would have thought he was frightened.

Maybe they didn't believe her. “I'll prove it to you,” Lucy said, feeling desperate.

Lucy dug through her pack and produced the vitometer. She held the brass disc on the palm of her hand, and felt its mysterious whir, as if a bird were trapped inside. Solemnly, Lucy raised the lid revealing an ivory face, like a clock's, inscribed with spidery black markings. A thin brass needle hovered above the surface, then began a tentative dance, ticking over the compass points.

Niwa and Pete huddled around her, and even the governor—although at first reluctant—leaned forward in his seat to see.

“This is an instrument my father made to measure changes in life energy,” she told them. “According to his notes, dreamwood carries a very high charge, more than anything he's ever seen.”

After a moment, the needle settled, although the disc continued to vibrate.

“Which direction is this?” Lucy asked.

“The direction of the setting sun,” Niwa said, shooting a significant glance toward her father.

“You see!” Lucy exclaimed. “West, the direction of the Thumb. The closer we get, the more it will vibrate. It will lead us to dreamwood
and
my father.”

The two Lupines were silent. Seeing their expressions, Lucy closed the disc. What was wrong?

“Don't you want there to be dreamwood?” she asked, slumping inside her shapeless clothes.

“Dreamwood.” Governor Arekwoy rubbed his hands together in a gesture that made him suddenly look old. “You should call it nightmare. We believe—we fear—that one tree remains. But such a tree is more dangerous than you can imagine.”

Lucy didn't understand. Dreamwood—she still remembered her first sip of Ulfric's tea, the glistening web that made his toys move—was wonderful.

“But dreamwood heals,” she said, turning to look between Niwa and her father.

“Yes,” Niwa said, her slender neck glowing in the lamplight. “His-sey-ak could help us.”

“His-sey-ak destroys.” Governor Arekwoy looked at them from under the brim of his hat. His eyes fell upon Niwa, and Lucy had the impression this conversation was something he long dreaded. “That is dreamwood's name in our language. The name of the dreamwood spirit.
He
is the Devil of Devil's Thumb.”

Lucy could feel her mouth hang open stupidly. This made no sense. And just as it made no sense, at the same time it brought up old memories of the Maran Boulder—the ancient hunger she'd felt coming from the rock, a sense of something alien and dangerous. But dreamwood wasn't like that at all. She was going to tell the governor so, when the flap to the room opened and a man came in, bowing his head and saying something in Lupine.

The Governor listened, then nodded. “I must go,” he told them. He wheeled himself from around his desk, his broad upper body dwarfing two thin and childlike legs.

As he left he turned around one last time. He spoke to his daughter. “Send them home.”

T
he creak of the governor's wheelchair faded away. The three of them were left in the room with its strange, half-shadowed treasures and lamplight as rich as gold.

Lucy looked quickly at Pete. They could not get sent back. He nodded at her. So they were decided, then.

“We're leaving,” she told Niwa. “But we're not going back to Pentland.”

“And don't try to stop us,” Pete said. He stepped behind a wooden music stand, as if that would defend him.

Niwa looked between the two of them, tilting her sleek dark head to the side. “Do not think you have to fight me, settlers.” She gave the faintest hint of a smile. “I am coming with you.”

In her relief Lucy almost knocked over the carved stone bear on the governor's desk. “You are?” Lucy broke into a grin.

“You are?” Pete furrowed his brow.

“Yes—”

Voices sounded outside the passageway, and for a moment the three of them froze. But whoever was talking passed them by.

Niwa continued more softly, drawing closer to them; she smelled of wild sage and soft leather. “Do you know what is happening here? They are meeting in council to decide whether to cut all our trees. Nobody knows what to do. My father wants to wait. Maybe the red sickness will slow down and kill not so many trees. But others say it is already too late. I will go with you and stop it.”

Lucy was pleased—if a bit taken aback by Niwa's certainty. After all, Pete had laughed at her the first time she'd told him of her theory. But the Lupine girl seemed perfectly convinced.

“Your father seemed like he didn't want to believe me,” Lucy remarked, hoping Niwa would offer an explanation for the governor's behavior. She could understand that a nature spirit lived in dreamwood—that was like the Maran Boulder. But she didn't understand why the governor had called the dreamwood spirit a devil.

“Yes,” Niwa said brusquely. “Many people are afraid of His-sey-ak. He used to allow people to live with him. But now my father thinks he wants them to die.”

Lucy shot a quick glance at Pete, who now looked as if he needed the music stand to steady himself. “That seems like a good reason to be afraid . . . ” Lucy began hesitantly. She stopped when she saw what Niwa was doing.

The Lupine girl had unslung from her shoulder the leather bag that she wore, and to Lucy's surprise began to fill it with precious objects. “Help me,” she said, looking up at Lucy.

Pete went right to the skin door, clearly not liking this new development. If they were already in trouble for trying to cross the sea bridge, how would the governor react if they were caught stealing from his office? He raised his eyebrows significantly at Lucy.

“Niwa, what are you doing?” Lucy asked, taking a cautious step toward her.

“We must have offerings,” Niwa replied as if this were obvious. She stepped lightly around the room like a cat burglar, quickly sweeping up whatever valuables she could find. Eagle feathers, a carved stone whale, a small dagger with a jewel-encrusted hilt. She stood for a moment in front of a glass-fronted cabinet and scrutinized its contents.

“Offerings for what?” Lucy asked uneasily. Ulfric had said nothing about making offerings.

Niwa ignored her. Reaching into the cabinet she brought out a small porcelain figurine. It was a laughing shepherdess in a froth of pastel petticoats and ribbons.

“Is this precious?” she demanded of Lucy, waving the little shepherdess in the air. “Does it have power? A duke sent it from France so I hope it has something. It is pointless otherwise.”

Lucy felt woefully unprepared to comment on the figurine's power—or lack thereof. She crinkled her nose and tried to think of the correct response. What was one to make of such a dainty, delicate thing except that whoever made it had no idea what a shepherdess actually looked like? “I don't know. But it's probably worth a lot.”

“Hm.” After a moment's consideration, Niwa put it back on the shelf and examined some silver cutlery. She swept the larger pieces into her sack and then took it all to her father's desk, where she began to go through it, looking at the same time both girlish and fierce—like a teenage pirate chief.

Lucy's anxiety grew and she tugged at the buttons on her flannel shirt. “Niwa, we should go.”

“Yes. Yes.” Niwa hooked one gleaming lock of hair behind her ear. “Don't you have anything?” She looked pointedly at Lucy and Pete.

Pete squirmed like someone with fleas. “Erm, to offer? We still have some money, I guess.” He looked at Lucy and shrugged. He stood by the door, ready to make a quick exit if necessary.

“And I've got some of my father's instruments,” Lucy said, even though she did not want to contribute them.

To her relief, Niwa frowned in a way that told Lucy these offerings would not be acceptable.

“Perhaps what I bring will be enough.” Her glossy brows flexed like bird wings. Then, making a quick decision, she wrenched off one of her gold wrist cuffs and added it to her plunder.

“But
why
do we need offerings?” Lucy asked in frustration.

Niwa's dark eyes widened in surprise at the note of protest in Lucy's voice. “How much do you know about dreamwood?”

“It's better than gold,” Pete said from the door.

“It gives you strength and hope,” Lucy said quickly; she didn't want Pete to appear crass. “And it's a carrier for spirit energy.”

“Those things are true, but there is much more than that.” Niwa stood up and again a slightly mischievous smile flickered across her face. “I'll show you.”

Reluctantly Pete left his station by the exit, and he and Lucy followed Niwa to a corner of the room dominated by a large armoire, inlaid with chevrons of ivory and a polished black wood. Stealthily the Lupine girl bent to its lower half, unlatching the door. A squat metal safe lay behind it.

With the air of a magician about to perform a dazzling trick, Niwa produced a key from a cord around her neck and fitted it into the lock.

Inside were stacked trays of black velvet. The first contained an oblong wooden mask with a severe expression. The face was vaguely human, with empty black eyes. The wood was soft and creamy looking and shone like gold.

Only it wasn't gold. Lucy could feel that from two feet away. She swallowed, feeling a slight buzzing in her ears as if the sound of the blood rushing through her body had been amplified a hundred times.

Pete crouched down, his mouth agape. “That's a fortune right there,” he said with a gulp.

“Several times a fortune,” Niwa said matter-of-factly. “And it is just one of many things our people used to have. The shamans of our people would wear this and heal the sick. My father was born with legs too weak to carry him, but he would have been dead without this mask. The wood is magic.”

“Why don't you bring that as an offering?” Pete suggested. “That's got to be the best thing here. You could buy the whole territory with that.” Unable to help himself, he reached out and touched the mask.

Niwa whisked it out of his reach. “Would you offer someone the body of their own child?” She acted as if she'd never heard of anything so barbaric.

Pete's face went bright red. “No, of course not.”

“That is what I would do if I gave this to His-sey-ak.” Niwa flashed in outrage. “He is the oldest tree, the first tree, and the other dreamwoods were his children.”

Pete got interested in the floor. “How would I know that?” he protested quietly to Lucy. “Pancake Walapush never said anything about any of this.”

Niwa put the mask aside impatiently. “This is not what I am showing you, settler. Look!”

On the tray beneath the mask was a book—a very old book from the looks of it. The cover was of thick tooled leather. Niwa brought it out and sat down cross-legged. Lucy sat beside her, close enough to brush the soft fringe of the Lupine girl's tunic with her hand. Pete, hesitating a moment, folded his legs underneath him. Niwa held the book on her lap and opened it reverently, revealing parchment pages with finely detailed illustrations and writing in a gothic script Lucy associated with illuminated manuscripts she'd seen in museums. Lucy squinted and puzzled over the words, but couldn't read them.

“
This
is what I want to show,” Niwa said. “This is the
Codex Saarthensis
—the oldest book in the territories. The sailor who came here made these pictures.”

“Denis Saarthe drew these?” Lucy stared mesmerized as Niwa turned the pages of the centuries-old book. Fantastic pictures paraded across the yellowed parchment: giant wolves with long curving fangs, trees with faces.

“And what language is this?” Lucy asked Niwa, creeping closer.

“A settler language I cannot read.” The Lupine girl turned another page. In the dim lamplight the colors seemed to glow with the intensity of stained glass. “I thought maybe you could.”

That was certainly a flattering hope. Lucy yearned to read obscure languages. A family friend studied Etruscan inscriptions on sarcophagi thousands of years old. But Lucy was too impatient for such things; as yet, her language abilities were limited to saying it was a fine day in French. She hiked her shoulders, admitting she could make no sense of it.

And then with a sly look Niwa turned the page—something in her movement suggesting she knew that what she was about to show them would get their attention.

Pete leaned forward, his mouth open.

“Wait a minute.” Lucy felt dizzy. The double-face illustration showed a beautiful tree, the bottom half of the spread taken up by its roots. And among its roots were clearly, unmistakably, body parts—legs, hands, feet . . . faces.

“How do you call things that eat meat?” Niwa asked Lucy coolly, as if the question were of purely academic interest.

“Carnivorous,”
Lucy replied automatically. At least she could give the right answer.

“Yes.” Niwa nodded, satisfied to have the correct word for the horror they stared at in the shimmering picture. Denis Saarthe had painted the tree's skin with an ink that made it shine like old gold. “Dreamwood is
carnivorous.
In older times the people may have sacrificed to His-sey-ak. I think this is what this page says. My father will not tell me. He wants me to be by his side and take on his duties, but then fathers will keep secrets.”

Or they'll make sure you're NOT by their side, and still keep secrets.
Lucy tugged so hard at the buttons of her flannel shirt that one popped off and plinked to the floor. Her father might have thought to make a mention of this detail in his notes. Which was worse? That he knew dreamwood was dangerous and kept it hidden? Or that he went to the Thumb in ignorance of dreamwood's true nature?

“It ate people,” Pete said weakly. He looked around the room as if hoping to find someone as alarmed by this as he was. “Jumping bullfrogs, it ate people.”

“She just told us she doesn't know if that's what it actually says.” Fear made Lucy irritable.

“Well, that's sure what it looks like.” Pete stood up and paced with his hands on his hips. “Whoo boy.”

“This is why we need offerings.” Niwa raised an eyebrow.
“In case.”

“Whoo boy,” Pete repeated. He stood in front of one of the display cabinets and looked bleakly at the treasures inside. “That's all I'll say.”

“Good,” Niwa concluded, studying him as if she found him an intriguing but ultimately unsatisfactory specimen. “I do not wish you to say more.” She shut the book and carefully returned it to its tray.

Lucy put her face in her hands.
Dreamwood was wonderful,
she told herself. It could never be like the tree in the picture.
That
was a monster. Her tree—the tree her father had gone to find—was going to heal the forests and save everyone.

There were noises outside the passageway. They heard voices and the creak of a wicker wheelchair. With her eyes wide, Niwa hurriedly replaced the mask, shut the safe, and locked the cabinet. She darted soundlessly to her father's desk and retrieved her bag. There was an exit on the other side of the room. She motioned for them to follow her and they had just enough time to slip out before the governor returned.

• • •

Niwa led Lucy and Pete through the bewildering skin passageways of the governor's lodge. The three of them were silent, and Lucy was sunk deep in thought, the brilliant, monstrous pictures never far out of mind. Governor Arekwoy's words echoed in her head:
You should call it nightmare.

But you always knew going to the Thumb would be dangerous,
she told herself.
Why does some picture in an old book make it worse?
Except that it did. She wondered if the pictures made Pete nervous, too.

She didn't even notice that Niwa had stopped. They were in a dark, narrow corridor away from the bustling center of the lodge. “Here,” Niwa said, her hand on a gap in the leather.