Into the Wildewood (13 page)

Faint laughter, like sticks rubbing together, came from above, and was joined by more laughter from the bushes that bordered the forest. The little people were partying tonight. Fine. She had no desire to get caught up in their wicked games.

The breeze carried the scent of cinnamon. Keelie sniffed appreciatively, until she realized that it wasn’t coming from Janice’s herb shop. It was coming from the forest. Anxiety gripped her. As if the thought of the woods had conjured up a spell, Keelie suddenly couldn’t breathe. She grabbed at her throat, trying to peel off the invisible hands that choked her. Her heart thudded against her ribs.

She turned and ran, gasping, for Janice’s door. She pounded on it, unable to turn the knob, unable to scream for help.

The door opened, and Sir Davey stood before her awash in golden lamplight.

“Hey, ho. You’ll be late for dinner!”

Keelie fell at his feet, choking. She heard Janice and Dad running toward her, and the last thing she heard before all went black was Sir Davey’s grim voice.

“The Dread.”

eleven

Trapped. Enslaved. Confined. Detained. Keelie thought of all the words that applied, but it meant the same thing no matter how she said it. She was stuck helping Dad. She hadn’t thought he’d actually take her up on her offer to help him, but here she was, cutting off bits of tree branches (Yellow pine from Georgia) to make blocks, and nursing sore muscles from the hand saw. This was not her vision of “helping.” She imagined herself at the door to the shop, greeting customers and looking really cute in a Francesca outfit.

Her hand stilled, making full contact with the log, and she was drawn into a vision of the tree’s home, a warm, fragrant, piney woods. She heard the mockingbird’s song and the cry of a swooping blue jay. She wished she were there, in that muggy, overgrown forest, instead of chopping up this tree, but this was the way trees should feel—their ring memories caught in the wood, happy visions of their native forests.

A pull of energy tugged at her from within. She dropped the saw and backed away. This was different from what she’d experienced a few days ago in the forest with the Wildewood trees. She remembered the cedar that she’d helped her father cut at his workshop in Colorado, how it had shown her its past, a memory that would be a part of everything created from its wood. She picked up the saw once more. This was normal. For a tree shepherd, that is.

Her encounter with the Dread on Saturday night had left her a little woozy. Keelie had passed out halfway into Janice’s shop. She’d come to a few hours later in the tiny upstairs bedroom, with Janice’s worried face looking pale and shadowed, haunted in the candlelight.

When she’d tried to sit up, a rock fell off of her forehead, and other crystals and pebbles rolled from her chest. Sir Davey’s doing, no doubt. “What happened?”

“The Dread,” Janice whispered. “Someone put a spell on the forest behind the shops, and it reached out and squeezed you. I was so afraid.” Tears glistened in her warm brown eyes and her hand tightened on Keelie’s.

Keelie patted her with her free hand. “I feel okay now. Earth magic, right?” Although Janice knew about the elves and all the rest, Keelie would still feel better in the rock-shielded RV.

Janice nodded. “Yes, Sir Davey’s. And your father’s in the forest now, trying to find the source of the spell.”

The memory of the hungry trees, the haunted forest, and the gaunt, patch-coated unicorn came back to her. Dad had said that the unicorn was the guardian of the forest. Whatever had done that to the unicorn could probably kill a tree shepherd, and she’d fallen victim twice in one day. She swallowed to rid herself of the catch in her throat. “I don’t think it’s safe for him to go out there.”

Janice uttered a short laugh and pulled her hand free. “Your father is the Tree Shepherd. No one is safer in the woods!” She stood up, bending over a little to keep from smacking her head on the low roof. “How about some veggie stew?”

Keelie wasn’t really hungry, but she forced herself to smile. “Sounds great.”

Her father and Sir Davey returned a while later and joined them for dinner, but she noticed when she turned in early, exhausted, that they did, too. By Sunday morning he’d put her to work, then returned to the forest. Keelie knew he was searching for the unicorn. She hoped that the trees would lead him, or that the unicorn would reveal himself. The only thing she could do was work hard in the shop.

The table next to her was stacked with the little bitty rounds that would soon be labeled as Heartwood’s All-Natural Blocks. Dad said that Heartwood building blocks were popular. A woman had asked about the blocks, claiming that her daughter had a set growing up, and now she wanted to order another set for her granddaughter. Dad didn’t have any in stock, and he thought it would be an easy project for Keelie to work on. Yeah, right. He needed her to help with the unicorn, but he was too stubborn to admit it. Worse, he was making himself sicker every day by opening himself magically to the trees, especially the oaks.

Part of Keelie wanted to run back into the forest to be with the unicorn, now more out of compassion than a magical compulsion. But another part of her wanted to remain within the sanctuary of the Faire. It felt safer to be around people like Janice—humans.

Keelie touched a round of wood, thinking how strange it was that she’d never noticed a green tint in the wood grain of the other pieces. Another energy zing zapped through her body. She looked out at the oak trees across the lane, and closed her eyes. She sensed they were asleep.

Glancing down at the round, Keelie noticed that most of the green tint had flowed to the center. Okay, maybe this was a freaky little piece that had missed some elven de-magicking ritual Dad did with the trees. She dropped it onto the worktable, and it fell on its edge and spun around and around like a coin.

Dad needed to hire another assistant, ASAP. She was fine with going into the woods to talk to the trees, hear about their problems, be a kind of woodland mediator, but actually making stuff out of trees wasn’t on her agenda.

Keelie held up her hand. Sticky blobs of pinesap clung to her skin. She peeled a gummy piece off and shook her finger to flip it away, but it held fast. This stuff was stickier than superglue. She finally got the blob off, and threw it down onto the worktable. It landed on the green wood round. Keelie heard a slurp.

Like water on a dry sponge, the sap was absorbed by the wood round. Within seconds, a small pinecone sprouted from the center of the round. She backed away, remembering that in Colorado, a branch had sprouted from a cedar fence when she’d leaned against it.

Right before her eyes, and just as Dad entered the work area, the pinecone morphed into a small pine seedling.

He stared at it. “Not again. Your tree magic is out of balance—dead wood is using it to regenerate. Come on.” He hustled her out of the shop and down to Janice’s for a tincture concocted from her herbs, as well as for a mysterious compound from Sir Davey that tasted like it was made from privy dirt. Beyond gross.

When she went to bed, Keelie was still scratching at sawdust that clung to her despite a thorough soaping. The following morning she showered again. Taking a shower in Sir Davey’s camper was great, but she had to bend down really low to shampoo her hair or else she’d conk her forehead on the showerhead.

By the end of the day, her sore muscles protested. She’d been sawing, grinding, and sanding wood for four days. This was all Scott’s fault. He should be here. Instead, he was in her old state, while she was stuck here in Nowhere, New York.

The only reason she hadn’t screamed bloody rebellious murder about everything going on was because Dad looked as pale as the gourmet sheep cheese that Mom used to nibble when she drank wine with friends. Dad was wiped.

On the other hand, business was so good that he couldn’t keep up with the work all by himself. This was a mixed blessing, since Keelie wasn’t as useful as Scott was. Still, she had managed to sell six chairs and a dresser, and had taken orders for several custom pieces.

They weren’t just making stuff for the Ren Faire, either. With Christmas just over four months away, there had been a run on orders for dollhouses like the one Dad had made for her when she’d been little. This irked her, since she’d always thought hers was special, and now she was helping him to cut out its clones.

That night Keelie dreamed about a dollhouse. But it was life-sized, in the Wildewood, and it was nighttime—sunrise would be coming soon, and glimmers of pink shimmered on the horizon …

The unicorn galloped up to the front door and knocked with his horn. Knot answered the door, standing on his hind legs and wearing his Puss-in-Boots outfit. He stepped outside and walked with the unicorn to a mountaintop. In the background, Keelie heard something that sounded like turbine engines—the hydroelectric dam.

Bears, deer, wolves and every animal imaginable emerged from the surrounding forest and formed a circle around the unicorn and Knot. With a flourish of his paw, Knot removed his hat and bowed before the unicorn. In the first rays of the morning sun, the unicorn rose upon his hind legs. The horn shone with a blinding radiance. Keelie covered her face, and smelled coffee …

She awoke and blinked in the dim light that filtered through the RV’s curtains. That was a weird dream, even for her.

Luckily, the smell of coffee was real. Thank goodness. Sir Davey was up. She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a cup, the dark brown liquid reminding her of the tincture Dad had made her take.

Dad came into the kitchen, long hair flowing. Keelie almost dropped her cup of coffee. She’d never seen it loose. He always kept it pulled back, even when they’d been in the forests. Keelie studied him from the rim of her cup as she took her first sip.

He sat down heavily on the bench opposite her and closed his eyes. His hair moved slightly, revealing a pointed ear tip that reminded her of Elia’s friends. They hadn’t looked well either, the other day.

On the table was a copy of
Ye Wildewood Gazette
, the Faire paper. Keelie picked it up and read the headline aloud: “‘Two More Jousters Sick, Lodge Quarantined.’” She looked up. “Dad, what’s going on at the lodge? Is it some kind of elf flu?”

Dad lifted his head. “There is no flu, but I’m not surprised that some of the elves are sick.” He covered his mouth and coughed.

Sir Davey checked the oatmeal and gave it a stir, his eyes on her dad. “Any luck, Zeke?”

“No. I’m exhausted.” Dad leaned into the bench corner, and Keelie remembered how he’d leaned against the counter in the shop for support. He hadn’t done that at the High Mountain Faire. He noticed her watching him, and sat up straight. His eyes cleared and he smiled. “I don’t have the flu.”

She smelled cinnamon. Her oatmeal didn’t have any added spices, so his sudden healthy appearance had to be magic. He was trying to whammy her. Her worry briefly deepened into panic. He must be worse off than she thought. She would not lose Dad, too. She’d work harder in the woodshop to give him a break, and she wouldn’t complain. Meanwhile, she would check in with Janice to see what sort of natural remedy she could suggest for Dad.

Beads of sweat dotted his skin.

Strange. She’d never seen Dad sweat. Keelie didn’t know if it was an elven trait, either. Only the jousters worked hard enough to break a sweat, and they were hidden in their armor.

Dad patted her knee. “It may be that I’m working too hard. We’ve got a lot of orders to fill.”

“Why did you take all these extra dollhouse orders?” She didn’t do a good job of not sounding grumpy.

“I’ve got a daughter to support, and bills need to be paid.”

Guilt swamped Keelie as she thought about her extravagant boot purchase. “Did you take all the dollhouse orders to pay for the boots?”

“Partly, although you promised to pay for them.”

He needed her. It’s why she worked so hard. She had a purpose. It was sweet of Dad to take on extra work to make sure he had the money to support her. It showed that he really cared. Even though he said he was thrilled to have her in his life, she still wondered sometimes. He’d gone from the most eligible bachelor to Daddy in two months, and maybe he regretted losing his freedom.

“So how do you get that smooth corner on the dollhouse roof?”

He reached over and ruffled her hair. “You’re faking an interest, but I appreciate the effort. Let’s walk to Heartwood.”

“You look like you couldn’t walk from here to the bathroom.”

“I’m fine, but we have something important to do on our way to the shop. Take me to where you saw the unicorn.”

Her heart raced as if she were about to see a guy she had a crush on. “Sure. It’s not far.”

“I’ll stay and finish my research.” Sir Davey’s eyes met Keelie’s. He was worried about Zeke, too.

Dad stood, swayed a bit, then walked steadily toward the door. Keelie followed. If he fell, she’d have a hard time getting him out of the woods. “Dad, are you up to this? You look like you should be headed to bed, not the forest.”

“I’ll feel better when I’m in the trees, when I’m in the evergreen part of the forest; they’ve been supplying me with the extra energy to keep the oaks asleep. The leader of the evergreens and conifers is a Douglas fir named Tavak. He’ll be making contact with you soon.”

Keelie hoped this Tavak was intelligent like Hrok, the aspen she’d befriended in the meadow near the High Mountain Faire. Dad put an arm over her shoulder, and she wondered if it was affection or to steady himself. “If we’re near the unicorn, I’ll feel its power, but I won’t be able to see it.”

“No loss, let me tell you. I was disappointed when I got a good look at it.”

“Were you expecting something out of a cartoon?” He smiled down at her.

“I wasn’t expecting to see it at all. But the first time I saw it, it glowed like a big firefly. It was gorgeous, just like an illustration.”

“With our help, he’ll look like that again.”

Keelie straightened.
Our
help.

On the road to the forest, Knot leaped out from behind a bush and raced across the path and up a tree on the other side. He clung to its bark and meowed piteously. Despite the burst of energy, he did not sound like his usual arrogant-kitty self.