Hear Me (19 page)

The deacon scrambled in behind her, uninvited. “Your father was trying to protect you!”

Archer was trying to protect her, too. From himself. But what her father and Archer didn’t realize was that their efforts only isolated her. For three years, she’d believed in her father’s choices. She’d stayed in her little shop, brewing her little teas, and not taking any chances. She’d trusted that others knew better than she what it was she needed.

No longer.

She filled a canteen with water and grabbed some nuts from the pantry.

“What are you doing?”

She brushed by him and retrieved her father’s old hiking backpack from his room, stuffing some spare clothes, water, food and other necessities inside. She zipped up her coat, hoisted the pack on her shoulders, and clipped the waistband.

“Oh, no you don’t.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door.

From far across the room, she heard a rumble. Trapper pushed himself up on his paws and growled.

“Deacon,” she said, “I believe your dog has missed you.” Then she darted around him and headed out into the sunlight.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Across the street, there were men clustered around the barrier at the place Archer had broken through.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Ivy said, as she approached the crowd. Everyone was talking at once, a frantic flurry of fear.

“Several yards of the lattice is missing—”

“—Whatever came through here burnt these wires to a crisp.”

“Ask Beemer. We need to get this prepared by tonight or it’ll do us no good—”

Ivy pushed her way through to the gap in the barrier, mentally reviewing her map of the forest. It would take about half an hour to reach the village, provided it was in the same place as it had been when Ivy was a teen. Up close, she could see there was indeed a huge gap in the barrier, a hole nearly as wide as a truck, as if a fireball had barreled through the lattice, singeing the metal and bells along the edges.
 

She swallowed. This hadn’t been how Archer had first come through — after breaking the enchantments, there had been a tiny tear in the lattice, barely enough for his body.
 

“There she is,” Ernest Beemer was saying, turning her way. “Miss Potter, has the deacon spoken to you about what is required?”

All eyes were on her now. And though she’d been brave enough when arguing with the deacon, the thought of announcing her intentions to this mob made her blood run cold. Still, her decision had been made. There was no point in keeping it a secret.

“I will not help you raise the barrier,” she said, standing straight. “It is damaging to both the forest and to my neighbors on either side. The last time the barrier went up, we all suffered horrible headaches, and the side effects for the forest folk was doubtless doubly bad.”

“How do you know?” someone called.

“I knew it,” said Shawn. “She’s in collusion with them.”

Ivy held up a hand. “The only remedy was the redbell tea, but my redbell crop has been destroyed. We cannot raise the barrier or I and all of my customers—townsfolk just like you—will suffer. Now, excuse me. I’m going into the forest.”

A wall of men materialized before her.
 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Beemer said. “This entire town is in danger because of that damn forest, and you’re whining about a couple of headaches?”

Ivy cast her eyes around the crowd, hoping to find the face of at least one of her customers. Where was Jeb this morning? Where was Sallie?

“Please let me go.” Was that a note of begging in her voice? That would never do.

“Hell, no,” said Shawn. He grabbed her arm. “We have no idea what you’re going into the forest to do.”

She tried to wrench her arm away but Shawn’s grip was tight. “At the very least, I’m going to warn the forest folk—what’s left of them—that you plan to raise the barrier again. This time, I intend to give them a chance to escape.”

“Into our town?” Beemer exploded. “Are you crazy? That’s exactly the kind of element we don’t need. Magic-wielding forest folk? How is that supposed to keep us safe?”

She turned on him. “How is shutting people in a forest you claim is overrun with dark magic supposed to keep anyone safe?” She pointed with her free hand into the woods. “There are children dying in there, Mr. Beemer. Dying because of the bells.”

There was a murmur in the crowd and she looked around at the brothers, husbands, fathers standing there, looking skeptical.
 

“Stop her!” came a shout. “Stop Ivy Potter before she gets into the forest!” The deacon was running up from Petal & Leaf.

“Don’t worry, deacon,” Shawn drawled. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“Ivy,” Deacon Ryder panted. “I’m sorry, child, but we have no choice.” He looked at Shawn. “Put her in the van.”

Shawn nodded and pulled her out of the crowd, jerking roughly on her arm. Ivy dug her heels in as he yanked her down the street to a waiting van. He opened the rear door and shoved her inside, unceremoniously slamming it behind her.
 

Ivy pushed herself to her feet, blinking in the dim light. There were several other people inside, sitting listlessly around the floor of the van. Every one was a customer of Petal & Leaf.
 

“Good morning, Ivy,” said Jeb.

Sallie waved. “Did you bring any food?”

***

Hours passed in the dark, chilly van, and despite shifting positions multiple times, Ivy’s butt began to hurt from the cold, metal floors. She’d long ago split her water and trail mix with the other prisoners, and they’d tried, and failed, to use her hunting knife to pry open the doors or the grill that separated them from the driver’s seat.

Jeb had asked her about the pack, first thing, and Ivy didn’t see much reason to hide the truth from any of them. She told them about Archer breaking the enchantment on the bells, and how he’d used dark magic to do it. She told them how he’d come to her for help with the redbell medicine, and how he wasn’t particularly good at controlling the evil he conjured.
 

She kept the more salacious details to herself.

“Dark magic’s a pernicious beast,” Jeb observed. “And Archer doesn’t seem like he has the spirit for it.”

“Archer’s plenty spirited!” argued Sallie. She winked at Ivy. “
You
know.”

But Jeb was not deterred. “He’s not a ranger, not a warrior. Of that world but in love with another. Like your father, Ivy, only the other way ‘round.”

“You wouldn’t know it to see him now,” Ivy said, as a shiver stole across her skin. There were three other forest-blooded people in the van — Bette and her two grandchildren, Rowan and Rose. Their father worked in the lumberyards a hundred miles south, and must be on duty this weekend. The twins were sleeping on their grandmother’s legs, and she was casting fearful looks at Ivy and the others while pretending to knit.
 

How nice of their captors to let them bring knitting.

“Dark magic does something to a body,” Jeb went on. “You’re never quite the same after.”

Ivy hugged her knees to her chest. Her father certainly had never been the same once he’d helped cast the enchantments on the barrier bells. And Archer was infinitely more powerful, and had done far worse. Perhaps she was naive to think there was any hope of getting to him at all.

“What are we going to do?” Bette asked. “They’re going to put those bells up again? My son will surely make us move away now.”

“We might all have to move away,” said Sallie. “Ivy says her crop of redbell’s gone. When those forsaken bells start to ring, we’re all in trouble.”

“They won’t be able to raise the barrier again.” Ivy’s voice was firm. “It requires enchantments they don’t possess.”

“What do you mean?” Jeb asked.

Ivy took a deep breath. “My father… he helped them with the barrier spell all those years ago.”

“No! Ivy…” Sallie looked disapproving, as if Ivy were a child telling falsehoods. She only wished it were so easy.

“Yes.” She had to get it out. “He helped Beemer and Ryder cast the spell, though that’s not what either of them call it. The deacon calls it a miracle. Archer says it’s dark magic.”

“Ought to be,” murmured Jeb darkly, “if it took three.”

“But my father’s gone,” she pointed out. “So they can’t get the bells going again.”

“Then why do they have us in here?” Sallie asked.

Ivy looked at her. “Well, I was trying to go into the forest. Weren’t you?”

Sallie chuckled. “No, child. I was tearing the lattice off every tree limb.”

“The children were pulling down the silent bells,” Bette volunteered.
 

“I was already in the forest, trying to salvage some of the dead trees,” admitted Jeb.

The driver’s side door opened, and Shawn climbed into the seat.

“You let us out of here, Shawn Cooper,” Sallie cried.

Shawn put on his seatbelt and faced front. “Quiet down back there. I don’t want this to get ugly.”

“It already is ugly!” Jeb banged on the grate keeping them separated. “You can’t keep us prisoner here!”

“You’re disrupting the peace and breaking town ordinances about going into the forest,” Shawn replied.

“So call the cops,” Jeb snapped.
 

Shawn said nothing, just shifted the van into gear and began to drive.
 

They drove straight along the forest’s edge for quite some time, and Jeb peppered Shawn with questions the younger man refused to answer.

“Where are you taking us? Do you know what the punishment is for kidnapping? For kidnapping
children
? I’ll have you arrested for this, Shawn, I swear I will!”

But Ivy doubted that. All five cops on the force were dyed-in-the-wool townsfolk, completely in support of the bells.
 

After a bit, Shawn veered left, and the wheels went from old asphalt to gravel.

“We’re at the quarry,” Bette said, as the children blinked awake.
 

The quarry cut into the giant cliff that marked the edge of town and the edge of the forest. Here the bell lattice was driven deep into the rock, affixed with gigantic metal bolts and springs, like something you might see at a power station.

“If I had magic like my pa did,” Jeb mumbled, “we’d be fine.”

But none of them had any magic. Ivy nodded mutely. They were trapped—trapped like the forest folk, by the bigots in this town. Looking at Jeb, the way his hands lay fisted on the metal floor, she could understand why even someone as gentle and lighthearted as Archer might have turned to dark magic. It was a terrible feeling, to be trapped.
 

At last Shawn shut off the engine and got out, leaving them there again.

“Nana?” asked Rose. “I need to go potty.”

“There, there, child,” Bette stroked the little girl’s head. “Soon.”

Ivy took in a breath and let it out. They’d have to release them eventually…right?

She didn’t want to think about why they’d been driven all the way to the quarry. A few more minutes passed in silence and then they started to hear voices and footsteps shuffling in the gravel outside.

“What are they saying?” Sallie asked.

But none of them had forest ears, so they couldn’t tell.
 

At last, the door to the van opened, revealing an overcast sky, and the beginnings of twilight.

“Ivy Potter,” said the voice of Deacon Ryder. “Get out.”

She unfolded her cramped legs and slid to the ground. As she straightened, she saw a crowd of townsfolk looking on her with nervous eyes, and remembered the meetings in the square, the whispers of “forest-lover” and the suspicious glares.

“We’re here to raise the barrier again tonight, and your town needs your help. A terrible evil will overtake us if we don’t divide ourselves from the forest. You must agree.”

She shook her head. “I don’t. And you can lock me up in this van all night and day and I’ll still never agree with you. The barrier made me sick. It made a lot of people in this town sick. And it hurt and killed the forest, and the folk inside. I don’t know what it is you think you’re protecting us from, but it’s not worth the price we pay.”

As she heard Archer’s words fall from her lips, Ivy felt a sob rise in her throat. How long had she just obeyed the status quo? Her father had helped raise the barrier, so she tolerated it, let it make her and her friends sick, listened to its incessant jangling, built her whole life around managing the side effects, instead of fighting for the real cure. Archer may have turned to darkness, but he destroyed the bells. She should have done the same.
 

“Don’t listen to her,” cried a voice in the crowd. “She’s half forest-folk anyway.”

“Witch,” cried another. Some held flashlights or lanterns up against the growing darkness. She couldn’t see their faces, though their voices sounded familiar.
 

Perhaps Jeb had been right. She’d never been a townie at all.