Enchanted Forests (54 page)

Siiri opened her eyes. Robert sauntered across the clearing,

britches already undone and shirt pulled from them. His move-

ments were sloppy with drink and hungry with lust. His eyes

were crazed. She was sure he was only seeing her. Morgan got

off her to let his brother take his place. With Morgan off her and

with inner strength she knew they did not suspect, she was ready

to spring at Robert, not knowing exactly what she was expected

to do or how the six trees and the Goddess would help her.

EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE        349

But Morgan's face was the one the Goddess showed her, not

Robert's. None of it made any sense, but the Goddess insisted.

*   Siiri's hand, unbidden, picked up a small handful of pine needles

and flung them toward Morgan's chest. Just as they left her hand,

she felt them grow. She watched with fascinated horror as the

needles extended into spikes twice the length of her hand, each

one firm and sharp. Everything seemed to slow as twenty or

more two-edged barbed knives found homes in Morgan's body.

The leering smile with which he had been watching her turned

into a expression of horror first, then pain, and finally realization

that he was going to die.

Siiri did not need the Goddess to urge her to grab for more

needles and throw. This was for Julianne. Fingers felt in the dust

and grabbed and threw handful after handful. Morgan staggered

backwards and was finally impaled against a tree, which leached

fluids from the small body through the needles and into the

trunk. She scrambled to her feet, a strange lightness in body and

head, and turned on Robert. He had not moved, but a growing

horror on his face told her that he knew his own fate as well.

Siiri did not disappoint him. Two handfuls of needles flew at

him. The war cry that was now her own escaped her lips. The

horses pulled loose from their tethers and ran from the smell of

blood and fear.

It seemed forever before Siiri could move to be sure both were

dead. Part of her was numb at what she had done, but another

part of her was the Goddess. They were no longer separate. As

she looked at Morgan's body, the needles began to shrink and he

fell loose from the tree, a desiccated shell of a human. All that

was left were the clothes, skin and bones. On the tree, a new

branch was forming and the needles were visibly coming back to

freshness. She walked numbly to Robert and saw much the same

thing. She touched the needles. They were warm. Under his

body, fresh grass was poking up and small flowers tufted ground

cover at his feet. Rain droplets touched her face. The glade was

growing. A wave of green crossed from edge to edge. Bird

sounds began and were finally a noisy chorus. Siiri sat down

hard, mouth and eyes wide open in amazement. More animal

calls joined the birds and animals out of season and those which

should not be awake this time of day. Siiri heard each new part

join a chorus to the Goddess.

Siiri crawled across the now-plush forest floor to her sister,

cradled Julianne in her arms, and rocked. She could barely see

350 Barbara A. Denz

through the tears. "Bring her back, too," she called to the

Goddess. "Let her grow. You promised."

There was no response except the sound of the rain. Siiri

waved at the desiccated skeletons that now lay empty on the

ground and the six tall trees in the grove. All that remained to

identify the sons were then- blood-soaked clothes, jewelry, and

skeletons. "She gave her blood so you would have the strength

to help me. Now give her back!"

She held Julianne like that until the body was cold to the

touch, pleading the entire time. Tears joined the rain that washed

her face. Finally, numb with grief, she gathered branches of the

downed tree, now dead and dry again, and piled them around

Julianne.

She watched, quietly, as the pyre ignited on its own. Fire

sprites that all looked like Julianne danced in the flames, each

signaling her to join them. She swiped at her eyes, finally ac-

knowledging that her sister was as much a part of this glade as

she must be. She took a deep breath. Above her, the clouds

parted, and stars were bright. A brilliant moon shone with her

sister's face.

Siiri walked to join the six maidens who stood waiting for her.

She took the two hands offered and completed the ring. As they

danced, a new tree began to grow.

<'

Trees Perpetual 01 Sleep

by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Nina Kiriki Hoffman lives in Oregon's Willamette Valley

where she spends a month or two each year housebound

from grass pollen. She has written many short stories and

a novel. The Thread that Binds the Bones. Other stories

about Matt Black have appeared in the Axoloti novella

"Unmasking" and in F&SF.

They were way too far into the woods and away from human-

made things for Matt's taste. When choosing for herself. Matt

called the whole world home, but she generally stayed in the

parts of the world where there were cars and roads and buildings

and people, things she could talk to. She wished she had never

met Miss Terry Dane, teenage fashion victim and witch.

Cricket noise and stream murmur edged the forest air with

sound. Sunlight was just fading from the tops of the trees around

the clearing, and the intense blue of midsummer sky was staining

slowly into night. Everything smelled green and wet. The marshy

ground squished under Mart's army boots,

Terry laid red roses in a ring on the fire-scarred altar rock in

the middle of the clearing and opened her backpack. She whis-

pered words while she pulled all kinds of weird things out of her

pack. She set each item carefully on the rock, blessing it and pre-

paring it for use.

Matt wished there were somewhere to sit. If she sat on the

grass, she would get her jeans soaking wet. Dum Terry and her

Midsummer ceremony, anyway.

The whispering tree on the far side of the rock, the only tree

352 Nina KinKi Horrman

in the clearing, had big roots, some of them with knees and

knuckles sticking up above the ground. Matt edged around the

big gray altar stone and sat on one of the tree's upthrust roots.

Terry opened her big time-nibbled book and set it where she

could see it, as though it were a cookbook. She made some

passes with her hands and spoke some words. She lit red candles,

and then she lit a piece of stick incense which she waved in a

pattern, leaving little trails of thin smoke and the scent of a dis-

tant country. She stacked wood on the rock in a triangle within

the circle of roses, and snapped her fingers. The wood blazed up.

It was fairly impressive.

Matt pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned back against

the tree's trunk. Its rough bark caught at her crewcut. She didn't

know what kind of tree it was, but it sure smelled good, a little

like fresh pencils at the start of a school year.

Terry spoke softly, reading from the book and touching the

things she had laid on the rock, lifting water, crystal, incense,

salt, and a knife. Gripping the knife in her right hand, she stood

a moment, her eyes lifted to the darkening sky above, then cut

across her left palm and dripped blood into the fire.

"Dedication," said the tree Matt leaned against.

"Mm," Matt murmured. She had learned to keep quiet when

Terry was in the middle of something; she had talked during a

summoning spell Terry was doing once, and the little wind Terry

had been calling up got loose and pestered both of them for three

days.

"I used to have that. Almost."

"Shh," said Matt. Golden-orange light was gathering around

Terry's head and hands. She held her hands up to the sky and

spoke some more words, and the light brightened around her.

She closed her hands a moment. She opened them again, and

red-gold tight flowed from her palms, half to the sky, half to the

earth. She pressed her palms together and stood silent, and the

light seeped away. Everything got quiet.

Terry drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. She shifted po-

sition, her shoulders relaxing. She blessed all her tools and stored

them again, and last of all she passed her hands through the

flames, which rose up and then died down.

"Discipline," said the tree.

"Shhhh!" Matt said.

"She's finished."

"Shh?" Terry said. shaking her hands and smiling at Matt. The

slash on her left hand had closed clean.

TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP

353

"I wasn't talking to you," said Matt. "I was talking to this tree

... this tree?"

"Thought you didn't talk to trees," Terry said.

"Not usually," Matt whispered.

"I used to have that kind of dedication and discipline." said

the tree again. "Well, maybe not as intense."

"You said you only talked to man things," Terry said. "What

does that mean?" She patted her backpack and floated up to sit

on the highest part of the rock, above where she had performed

her ceremony.

**I can talk to things people have messed with. I know that

feeling, so we can relate."

"Hmm," said Terry. She opened the outside compartment of

her backpack, fished out two granola bars, and tossed one to

Matt. "But now you're talking to this tree."

Matt edged out on the root so she could look at the tree's

trunk. Its bark was almost fuzzy, with shallow fissures running

up and down. She placed her palm against it and felt a rough sur-

face but not a splintery one. "How can I talk to you?" she said.

"I don't know anything about nature."

"I'm not natural," said the tree.

"Oh," said Matt She wondered whether she should stand up.

She decided she'd rather sit on an unnatural tree than try climb-

ing on Terry's rock.

"I used to be a witch," the tree said. "Now I just watch

witches come and go here at the Gateway Stone. Powerspill

wakes me up sometimes."

"So what is it saying?" Terry asked-

"What happened to you?" Matt asked the tree.

"I got carried away during a spell, and it turned on me."

"Wow," said Matt, wondering if it could happen to Terry, and

if she maybe wanted it to.

"Could you let me out of here?"

"What?"

"I've been thinking about it for an age. I've worked out a spell

that should release me, but I need help."

"Matt." Terry said. "Talk to me." She was using her pushy

voice.

"He used to be a witch until he messed up and got trapped in \

the tree," Matt said, not realizing until the words came out of her j

mouth that the tree was male. One of the things she hated most

about her relationship with Terry was that Terry could just tell

her to do stuff and Matt would have to do it without being abl&J

^^

354 Nina KirURi Hoffman

to think it over first Terry didn't do it very often—if she had,

Matt would have found some way out of the tether spell, even if

it involved not surviving. "He's worked out a spell to let him go.

He wants us to help."

"She coerces you?" the tree asked.

'Tether spell," mumbled Matt.

"Sympathies," said the tree. "How did that happen?"

"Uh," Matt said. She should never have stopped to fix Terry's

car. The car had warned Matt that Terry was a witch, but she

didn't realize it meant literally until too late.

In spite of the tether spell. Matt had liked living with Terry

and her mom, at first. Lately it had begun to grate.

"Oh. Right. Not easy for you to explain when she's listening,"

said the tree. "Hmm. You can hear me and she cannot, eh?"

"Mm."

"Are you a witch?"

"No."

"You're not? Wait a moment. How can that be?"

"I'm just me, Matt."

"Matt." said Terry. She drummed her fingers on her knee.

"What?"

Terry frowned. "So?"

"Do you want to help him with his spell?" asked Matt.

"How good a witch is she?" the tree muttered to itself. "No,

don't answer that. I have watched her work, and she's one of the

best I've ever seen."

"Have him tell us the spell." Terry unzipped her backpack and

pulled out the ancient book, opened it to a page near the back.

She got a pen out of the backpack's outside compartment. "I'll

think about it."

"She's a good witch, but is she a good witch?" the tree mut-

tered. "Evidence: she does her solstice ceremony alone. Not a

communal witch. Cast out. or alone by choice? Evidence: she

tethers another to her. Hmm. Hmm. Did she tell you why she

tethered you? Did you do something to her?"

"Yes. No," said Matt-

"Does he want our help or not?" Terry asked- She frowned.

Matt knew by now that with Terry, irritability was the first step

toward true discomfort for anybody she was around.

The tree said, "By wit and by will, I bound myself- By witch-

ings and workings I bound myself. By wood and by water I

bound myself. By one into other I bound myself. Now I am

ready to release myself. Now 1 am ready to face my fear. Now