Dreamwood (8 page)

“I give up,” he exclaimed and turned back to his tea preparations, the monkey perched on the top of his cap.

She scrambled to her feet and followed him to the next room, where a cheerful fire lay burning in the stone hearth.

Soon the kettle was whistling. Ulfric put a china teapot and cups onto a tray, which he carried to a low table set in front of the fire.

“Come now,” he said, indicating a carved wooden chair with a pretty embroidered cushion for her to sit on.

He poured a small amount of tea into a china cup and watched until she'd taken a sip of it.

As soon as she did she understood why the toymaker had insisted she have some. The tea was extraordinary. It had no taste exactly, unless you could say it tasted of sunlight and air and the broad green strength of earth. With each sip, hope and determination came flooding back. Her anguish about her father, the Knightlys' accusations, and her fearful journey through the forest felt as distant as if they had happened to another person.

Ulfric's kindly face crinkled into a smile. “Better now?” he asked. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and distractedly patted his pockets.

“Much better.” Lucy settled deeper into her cushion and swung her feet. Miss Bentley had frowned on fidgeting. But here in Ulfric's cottage Lucy felt safe, as if she were small again and all her childish manners and fidgets were loved. “But what is this? It makes me feel like . . . like I'm at home.”

“Ah.” The toymaker nodded with satisfaction. “You are drinking a dreamwood infusion. It takes only a small amount, but the effects can be transformative.”

“I've never heard of dreamwood.” Lucy swirled the golden liquid in her cup. “Though it's a pretty name.”

“Hm?” Ulfric asked absently, still searching his pockets. “Oh yes. A very unusual tree, known by many names. Golden wood, ghost wood, and in the native tongue
His-sey-ak.
The Lupines hold it sacred for its healing powers.”

At the mention of Lupines, Lucy sat up straighter, thinking of Niwa. Maybe dreamwood was the reason the girl was so confident and strong. “So it grows around here?”

Ulfric shook his head sadly. His search had produced a pipe, but he seemed to have forgotten to light it. “No longer. The last one was cut down more than a hundred years ago. In my youth I did a service for the Lupines and was given some as a gift. But I don't believe they'd be as generous now. They say they have little of it left for themselves, and the wood that remains to them is guarded as carefully as gold.”

While Ulfric had been talking, some of his toys crept closer, like children drawn to a story. A family of mice ventured out from a hole in the wainscoting and sat attentively with their neat little paws folded under their chins.

She turned in her chair and studied them. “How do you get your toys to move? Is it a secret?”

“That it is, but one I'm happy to share.” His eyes sparkled merrily and he held out both hands to her so she could see the translucent web that crisscrossed his palms. “All I need is this. Go on. Touch it.”

Experimentally she ran a finger over the webbing. It felt more substantial than she expected. Ulfric made a gesture and immediately the animals sprang into motion. A bear stood on its hind legs and reached for a beehive; a swarm of bees flew out like an angry cloud.

As they passed by, Lucy reached out and caught one. The tiny wooden insect struggled in her hand for a moment, then went still. She turned it over, searching for puppet strings or gears, some mechanism. She found nothing, just the smooth grain of wood.

She opened her palm and the bee took to the air again, buzzing furiously. She'd been brought up to believe in science, not magic, but this seemed as close to magic as anything she'd ever seen.

“Dreamwood again,” Ulfric said, twisting proudly in his seat to watch his bees swarm back to their hive. “This web is made of spider silk soaked a hundred times in dreamwood sap. As near as I can explain, dreamwood connects with living things and with things that once lived. That is why I don't need wires or strings; dreamwood carries spirit. The web is sensitive to my thoughts and intentions—sometimes I don't even know what they are myself until they're expressed in the wood.”

Lucy sat up in astonishment. This sounded like Odic force, like the web itself was a conductor for the Od. But how? With a pang she thought of her father. How amazed he would be to see Ulfric's web!

“And the trees are really all chopped down?” she asked. But the remarkable tea made her feel anything was possible. They might not be. If she found a dreamwood, perhaps she could measure its Odic force with her vitometer. Already she was imagining the attention she might get if she could prove that a tree had such a high concentration of the Od. She could redeem her father's reputation, finish the work he'd begun at the Maran Boulder.

“Yes,” said Ulfric frowning. “The only place they grew was Devil's Thumb. But there are no more dreamwoods now.”

Devil's Thumb again. Lucy drew in a breath. This felt like more than coincidence. She took another sip of dreamwood tea and by the time she put her cup and saucer down she'd made a decision.

She'd go there herself.

At the mention of Devil's Thumb the family of mice had put their little paws over their eyes in fright.

Lucy looked at the mice sternly. “It can't be that awful,” Lucy said. “Can it?”

Ulfric poured a few teaspoonfuls of dreamwood tea into a saucer and drank them in a quick swallow. “Yes, I'm afraid. You see, the forest on the Thumb turned years ago.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and settled deeper into his armchair. At last he completed his thought of lighting his pipe, and the spicy-sweet smell of smoke filled the room.

“There used to be a settlement there, founded by Denis Saarthe, a sailor who was the only one to have survived the wreck of his ship by sea serpents. Lupines and settlers lived there together, felling dreamwood as they needed. Back then Pentland was little more than a trading post. According to local legend a party from the settlement came into town with dreamwood to sell. They told everyone this was the last of it; they had cut the last tree they could. Soon after, they returned home and were never heard from again. Those who ventured to the Thumb to look for them didn't return.” Ulfric's voice quavered. “Without dreamwood's protection the Thumb became an evil place.”

It was as if a shadow had fallen across the workshop. The toys were stilled. Nothing moved from fear. The great tree in the corner creaked ominously as its branches swayed on an invisible breeze.

But Lucy, cradling her cup of dreamwood tea, had never felt more hopeful. She thought her father would do all right in that forest. He was the smartest person she knew, and he didn't frighten easily.

“But couldn't someone survive there?” she asked, leaning forward in her chair.

The monkey made a leap from the table to her lap and stood on the blue wool promontory of her knee, looking up at her.

Ulfric stroked his chin. “Perhaps it's possible . . .” He got up and banked the fire with a poker.

“How?” Lucy asked eagerly.

The toymaker poked the fire again, staring into the coals. “The forest—from what I have heard—is . . .” He paused, spreading his fingers, and the great tree in the corner stretched its branches out toward him in answer. “Connected, like the web connects my toys. A cut, a blaze in one part is felt in another. If I were going there myself, I would make sure not to disturb it. Cut nothing, hunt nothing. I wouldn't light a fire. I wouldn't even pick a berry.”

Lucy thought this over. This would explain why her father had gone to Pentland and bought food for a long journey. But why had he visited the apothecary for an anti-dreaming remedy?

“Do you know why it's important not to dream in the forest?” she asked. She cupped the monkey in her hand, letting it scamper across her fingers.

“Ah.” Ulfric frowned. “That is one of the many strange stories about dreamwood. They say the trees had the power to get into your dreams. An herb called dreamer's broom is the traditional remedy. A tincture of that could be made up, I suppose, and if the drops were taken at moonrise, that might stop the dreams.”

“What do the dreams do?” she asked, for it didn't seem all that bad just to dream. She
liked
her dreams.

Perhaps the toymaker's somber expression inspired the monkey to mischief, for now he leapt from Lucy's hand, clambering rapidly up Ulfric's shoulders, pulling and tickling along the way.

“Well . . .” Ulfric adjusted his striped cap, which the monkey had tried to pull down over his eyes. As soon as he got one eye free, the monkey pulled the cap over the other. “So . . . it's not exactly clear . . . hard to say . . . Oh bother.”

“Are they nightmares?” She had the funniest feeling Ulfric wasn't telling her all he knew—almost as if he didn't want to frighten her. “I suppose I'll have to get some of that potion made.” She scrunched her face at the thought of going back to Mr. Lyman's shop.

Ulfric froze. The monkey, too, went still in surprise. “What did you say?”

“I'll make sure to get a tincture of dreamer's broom made up.” Lucy resettled herself in her chair, already making lists in her head for what she would need. “What else would I have to bring?”

The little toymaker reached out a hand to steady himself on his stuffed armchair. “But you can't go there, child. Why on earth would you want to?”

Lucy put her teacup down. “That's where my father's gone.”

Ulfric's bushy eyebrows arched like frightened cats, hair standing on end. “Oh my. Your father's gone to the Thumb?”

Lucy swung her legs for emphasis. “Yes, and I'm going there to find him.”

The monkey stood bolt upright in shock before pulling the toymaker's hat over both Ulfric's eyes. “Now hold on . . . just a moment,” the toymaker sputtered blindly. But then an ornate cuckoo clock began to chirp and gong, bringing forth bird after bird from a series of hidden doors. It was seventeen after the hour, an unusual time for a clock to chime, and Lucy was pretty sure Ulfric had crooked his finger at it.

He'd finally succeeded in getting his hat out of his eyes. “My goodness,” the toymaker said, gazing at the clock, “look at the time. We should be getting you back to your people.”

• • •

That evening Lucy sat on a bench in the Knightlys' rose garden. The northern sky was a filtered dove gray. The treetops feathered into dusk. She had her vitometer next to her; for the last fifteen minutes she'd been using it to take readings in different directions.

She heard footsteps crunching down the path toward her, and then Pete's voice. “There you are,” he said. His hair was brushed back—orderly once more—and the white cotton of his shirt shone against the garden's dusky blooms.

She'd avoided the Knightlys since Ulfric had brought her within sight of their house, especially not wanting to see Dot. And now Pete almost certainly blamed William Darrington for their misfortune.

“She's sorry, you know,” Pete said, looking awkwardly at his feet. “She didn't mean to say those things. It's just hard for her is all.”

Lucy swallowed. She was hurt, but some part of her had already forgiven Dot, for she knew how frightening it could be to have one's life turned upside down. “It doesn't matter,” she said. “I'm leaving soon, and I won't be a trouble to your folks any longer.”

“Oh,” Pete said. The stripe of freckles across his nose flexed in surprise. He put his hands in his pockets and kicked the ground. “Back to San Francisco, or . . . ?”

“No.” She couldn't keep the bubbling pride out of her voice. “I'm going to find my father.” She pulled her knees up on the bench. Above her a wooden arbor billowed with pink climbing roses.

Pete squinted in disbelief. He put a hand on the arbor, then quickly yanked it away from the thorns. “But he went to—”

“Devil's Thumb, I know.” With the rising moon and the scent of roses heavy in the air, the haunted forest sounded more exciting than frightening.

“Wait a minute,” Pete said, hands on his hips. “You can't go there.”

She turned to him, frowning. “Why not?” Pete couldn't tell her what she could and couldn't do.

“Well, you're just a bitty girl for one thing.”

“Take that back.” She jumped up.

“Hold on before you hit me,” Pete said, backing away behind the safety of the arbor. “What I meant was that Brocius Pile was six foot two and could split three feet of wood in one stroke. He came back scrambled like an egg. You heard them in the Climbing Rose.”

“Nobody's going to scramble
me.
” She thrust her hair back angrily.

They stood facing each other. Twilight was falling. The almost-full moon hung in the sky, looking too heavy to rise. It rested on the treetops, like a fat man pausing to gather his strength before climbing the next flight of stairs. “That's what you think,” Pete said, breaking the stare first. “But people around here are scared of the Thumb for a reason.”

“I'll bet you I've been in worse places.” She tilted her head up at him.

“The Thumb might be the worst of the bunch. A whole settlement disappeared,” he said. “You're the one interested in ghosts. If there are any around here, that's where they are.”

“I'm not scared of ghosts,” she snorted. “I know how to handle them. The main thing is I know what my father discovered about the place. I know what the cure is.”

Pete's brows were straight as arrows across his forehead. “What is it?”

Lucy made a decision. She was going to trust Pete. She leaned toward him and lowered her voice.

“He went there for dreamwood,” she said, eyes widening.

For a long moment Pete didn't say anything. His mouth twitched. He couldn't be about to laugh. This was much too important. She flew in front of him, fists at her sides. “You
do
know about dreamwood, don't you?” A rose petal fluttered down onto her shoulder and she brushed it off impatiently.