Shadows of the Redwood (27 page)

“The elves killed a goblin here. Why didn’t they tell me?” Keelie thought guiltily of the Red Cap she’d killed, but he’d attacked the people and forest around the High Mountain Faire. She’d done it to protect them … but how was that different from what they’d done here?

“We call it survival.” Bella Matera’s face hovered inches from Keelie’s. She turned her head toward the cages. “There is another here with green magic flowing through her veins. She can understand me.” She pointed to the cages with her ghostly branches. “Release the elf girl and bring her to me.”

The cages lowered. Tavyn-Bloodroot pulled Risa out and dragged her over to the queen tree’s spirit.

Stubborn and haughty, Risa held her head high.

Bella examined her. “Her power is nothing near the strength of Keliel’s, but there is a different kind of magic. A fertile power of the Earth. We can take it to feed my little ones.”

“I’m with Keelie. I’m not going to help you.” Risa lifted her chin.

Tavyn-Bloodroot slapped Risa across the face and she fell to the ground, angry red welts on her skin. “You will do as our queen commands.”

“Leave her alone,” Keelie shouted.

Tavyn-Bloodroot glared at her. “Why?”

“Because she’s in love with my cat, and she’s covered my butt on more than one occasion, and I guess that makes her my friend. Something you wouldn’t understand since you’ve sucked up so much dark power that it’s made you unbalanced. Can’t you see what Bella is doing is wrong?”

“Do not talk to me about what is wrong. You were glad when dark magic restored your hawk’s sight and helped you to make things right in your forest. We’re only doing what is right in our forest.” Tavyn-Bloodroot turned his attention back to Risa.

“Dark magic is only helpful when it restores balance,” Keelie said. “Killing another creature is not restoring balance. Draining the magic of the tree shepherd is not restoring the balance. It’s evil and it’s wrong, and you and the other redwoods will pay the price.”

“Yes, we will pay the price, but our treelings will stand a chance in this world, and we’ll be able to protect ourselves from humans. You say killing another creature is wrong? How about the humans who tear us down, to be used for their comfort?”

Keelie stared at him. “Don’t you know the karma fairy always finds you?”

He looked alarmed. “What karma fairy?”

Keelie shifted her gaze to Risa, who looked puzzled for a second, then nodded.

“I should know,” Risa said. “The karma fairy paid me a visit. Why do you think I’m in love with a cat?”

“See?” Keelie shrugged innocently. “She tried to give my boyfriend Sean a love potion.”

“Then I drank it instead because of a mix-up,” Risa added.

Tavyn-Bloodroot narrowed his eyes. “You’re in love with a cat because you made a stupid mistake.”

“Why do you think there was such a mistake? It was because of the karma fairy. She’s really good friends with Keelie.” Risa nodded toward Keelie.

“There is nothing in the lore about a karma fairy. Why haven’t we heard about it?” Tavyn-Bloodroot looked at Keelie for the answer.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know I was part of a goblin prophecy, either.” That was certainly true.

A sharp pain erupted in Keelie’s head. She winced.

You’re here, Tree Shepherdess. I tried to warn you away.
The voice seemed sad. Keelie kept her eye on Tavyn-Bloodroot to make sure he couldn’t pick up on her telepathic communication.

“Why does Bella not know about this karma fairy? I must ask her.” Tavyn-Bloodroot walked toward Bella, who was back in her dark nursery.

If all the bad guys were present, then there was only one person her painful caller could be. Keelie sent a thought out.
You must be Viran, the Redwood Tree Shepherd
.

I am he.

Bella and Bloodroot have taken my friends and me prisoner. They have my grandmother, too. How do I stop them?

I have no answer for you, Keliel of the Dread Forest. I am fading and cannot help you. I sought only to warn you. Too late, too late.
His voice seemed weaker, then vanished.

She looked at Risa, who was staring, frightened, at the treelings and their spectral mother. Somewhere above them, Grandmother floated, stuck in a tea party that would end when the trees were ready to drain her, and Keelie would be next. No help was coming.

She’d have to rescue everyone herself.

Assess the situation. That was what her phys ed teacher had taught them when they did “summer survival” at Baywood Academy. Then, it had been about what to do if your surf board got pulled out too far or if someone tried to mug you. Now, Keelie considered this to be “summer survival” gone way bad.

She didn’t know how to stop a redwood forest gone amuck. In the Wildewood, the trees had been angry and looking for vengeance, but these trees were polluted with dark magic, infested with the taint of a goblin’s blood. They would kill.

Keelie felt alone and powerless. Her dark power was dancing on the edge of her control, ready to erupt again. Control. Balance. Focus. That must be her mantra.

She remembered the calm charm that she’d used on Knot and Laurie. It had worked on them, but would it work on herself? She envisioned bright sunlight, to counteract the darkness of the forest, and felt the magic slowly grow within her. She said the words of the charm silently to herself. For a moment nothing changed … she could hear Bella Matera laughing at Tavyn-Bloodroot, and felt his anger lash out like a knife.

Then the magic bubbled up, filling her, settling into every corner of her being.

Keelie saw that with Bella distracted, the treeling spirits were scooting over to Risa, drawn to her energy. She leaned close to the elf girl. “You’ve got that Mother Goddess thing going on. See if you can use your charm to bring the treelings under your spell.”

Risa looked at the silvery, mistlike tree children. “They frighten me. My vegetables do not have spirits that dance around. I have no wish to befriend them.”

“Try anyway.” Keelie wondered if booting Risa’s curvy backside would help. It would certainly make Keelie feel better.

“You are very harsh.” Tears slid down Risa’s face. “And to think that once I thought you and I could be friends.”

“Yeah? When was that?” Keelie pressed her lips together. Great. “Antagonize your fellow hostages” was probably not in any rescue guide.

The tree-spirit children were watching them as if they were interesting creatures. They’d probably never even seen elves, except for Tavyn.

“Risa, sing them a song or something. Do you sing to your radishes and pumpkins? Whatever you do to them, do it now for these tree spirits.”

The elf girl tossed her head, but the mist had done a number on her hair and the sodden red curls drooped on her shoulders. She sighed, then began to sing. Her voice rose, and Keelie felt power in it, a green, vibrant glow that seemed surprisingly familiar. It was a lot like her own magic.

She watched as one by one the treelings drew closer, relaxed and fascinated by Risa’s song.

Keelie wondered what she was going to do to the treelings once she had them. If they had dark magic flowing through their roots and rings, she didn’t know if there was a way to counteract it. And she didn’t want to hurt them. They were just babies.

It came to her. Fairy magic. She had been using it all along to balance the earth and tree magic, so she should be able to do it with the treelings. But she had no idea how she could do it without Bella or Bloodroot finding out.

Tavyn-Bloodroot strode over. “What are you doing? What magic is this?”

Bella Matera drifted after him. “Growing magic. More useful even than I’d thought.”

Risa glared at Keelie. “Thanks a lot. Now I’ll be nursemaid to the evil trees.”

“My children are not evil,” Bella snapped. She stared hard at Risa, and the girl’s eyes went blank.

Keelie felt deflated. This was a big step backward—and she may have gotten Risa killed. But they were probably all doomed. Tavyn would never allow Scott and Laurie to go free to tell anyone about what had happened here. Panic overwhelmed her. Bella and Bloodroot were too powerful.

She searched her mind frantically for any scrap of knowledge that would help, regretting not studying the Compendium more. The only spell she remembered, other than the calm charm, was a hay-fever charm. Not too useful here. At least, if she died, Elianard would never learn what a slacker she was.

Keelie eyed the little treelings. Maybe she could use the hay-fever charm after all. It was a desperate idea, but she was definitely desperate.

She reached down and yanked out a hunk of moss.

Tavyn-Bloodroot noticed her movement. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m adjusting the bandage on my ankle. It itches.” She tightened her fist.

“Don’t be clever, Keliel, or your friends will pay.”

Above them, the cages spun like tops, and Scott and Laurie yelled.

“Stop it. They’re not hurting anyone.” Keelie couldn’t bear to hear her friends’ terrified cries.

Bella Matera floated closer. “There is no such thing as a karma fairy. I’ve searched the root archives.” She glanced at Keelie. “Do not be so quick to trick.”

Tavyn-Bloodroot glared at Keelie. She gave him twinkle fingers and a little grin.
Gotcha
.

Meanwhile, the treeling spirits had drifted away from Risa and begun a dance, swirling in a mist-filled circle. They reminded Keelie of ghostly children playing “Ring Around the Rosie.” She squeezed the moss in her hand, hoping it would do as a substitute for meadow grass. She summoned the memory of Mr. Heidelman mowing his grass at midnight. Now she just had to keep that image close by as she worked the next bit. Instead of curing hay fever, she had to reverse the spell to inflict it. Talk about bad karma.

Keelie leaned close to Risa, who now had a thread of drool hanging from her lip. Too bad she couldn’t keep her like this. She shrugged and reached into the Earth, feeling for the Under-the-Hill that had to be here, as it did under every forest.

She prodded deep until she felt a stirring of the golden magic that signaled fae dwellings. It was frustrating, and it took too long, like using a metal detector on the beach. She kept an eye on Tavyn and Bella Matera as she searched, hoping they would not be able to feel the fae magic. At last, she sensed it—small, cold, dusty places, long-abandoned, but still sparking with fae energy. She pulled a strand of it, yanking hard until it came loose and she could wrap it around Risa.

The minute the strand touched Risa, it dissolved into golden sparkles that disappeared into her flesh. Risa blinked twice as her eyes refocused. She ran the back of her hand over her mouth. “Ugh. What happened?”

“You got whammied. Feeling okay?”

Risa nodded. “You brought me back?”

Keelie shrugged. “I have an idea that might get us out of here, but I need your help,” she whispered.

“What do you want me to do?”

“See if you can attract the treelings to you again.”

“You brought me back. You could have just left me like that forever.” Risa was smiling at her. “You know, if you hadn’t stolen Sean and possessed the heart of my beloved Knot, I think we could’ve been good friends.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Keelie said. She smiled inwardly.

Risa concentrated again on the treelings. Soon the scent of cinnamon—elf magic—floated in the air, and the treelings stopped dancing and hovered in the dark meadow, watching Risa. She seemed to shimmer with pulsing energy as she smiled and lifted her hands. “Hello, little ones.” Her voice was like chimes.

The misty little forms floated back toward Risa. They were small, like wispy clouds on a spring day. One of them giggled innocently, but still, Keelie detected an undercurrent of darkness. They began swirling around Risa.

Keelie closed her eyes, tapping into the green tree magic around her. She focused on Bella Matera’s children. They were so small, but already she sensed that the darkness had intertwined itself into them on the cellular level. This dark magic was different than she’d experienced in the Dread Forest—it reminded her of what she’d felt in the mall parking lot in L.A. when she’d driven past the SUV. She wondered if it had been full of goblins.

Keelie lifted her eyes. Bella and Tavyn-Bloodroot had been conferring on the other side of the clearing, but now came toward them, drawn by the dancing children. Her heart raced. “Hurry, Risa.”

The little trees swirled faster around Risa. Green energy flowed from the elf girl, and her eyes were glazed as if she was in a trance.

The time had come to use the hay-fever charm.

Keelie forced herself to recall the sound of Mr. Heidelman’s lawn mower at midnight and the scent of freshly mown grass wafting through her window. She tightened her hand around the bits of moss.

She had to reach the goblin magic directly. With her tree sense, Keelie looked into the treelings’ slender trunks. Their cellulose was green, but slotted with oozy, oily tissue. Their mitochondria were polluted with dark magic. Keelie had to eradicate it, like chemo to a cancer cell, but first she had to use the charm.

She reached down to the line of fae energy she’d tapped earlier, and combined it with the tree magic she’d pulled from the trees around her. She combined the two, twisting the magics tightly until bright golden sparkles formed within her. The power exploded, surging through her.

Keelie opened her eyes to see her hands and arms glowing with golden iridescence. The moss she’d torn floated in midair before her.

“Children,” Keelie’s voice was loamy and commanding. Grandmother would be pleased.

The treelings stopped spinning. Risa collapsed as she released them to Keelie’s care.

Keelie blew, and the floating moss raced toward the treelings like poisonous darts, each greeny bit hitting a treeling spirit. The treeling cloud-forms screamed in pain and raced back to their tree bodies, the saplings in the protected glade.

Bella shrieked. “My babies!”

“No!” Tavyn-Bloodroot shouted. “Stop!” He ran toward Keelie, but a big orange object landed heavily on him, hissing, and started biting and scratching.

Knot
.

Tavyn-Bloodroot tore the cat from his face and threw him to the side. Knot hit hard against the trunk of a tree and slid bonelessly to the ground.

The sound of voices came from the forest, and Tavyn-Bloodroot drew a sword and raced toward it.

Risa lifted her head and stretched her arms out to Knot. “Beloved.” She dragged herself over to the motionless, furry lump.

Keelie wanted to run to him, too, but she couldn’t stop now. She had to pull the dark goblin essence out of the little treelings before the elder spirits could stop her.

Golden light surrounded each small tree. Keelie held out her hand and let the magic flow freely. Like water from an overturned bucket, the golden cloud shimmered out in a wide, uncontrolled arc.

Bella began manically spinning around Keelie. She sang a beautiful melody about the stars; Keelie suddenly felt sleepy, but Bella Matera’s song was too frantic and she was able to shake it off.

Then, an ear-splitting howl shattered the hypnotic feeling. Coyote was beside Keelie. He howled again, a long, wavering note.

Bella shrieked in anger. “Your grandmother is dead, tree shepherd. Dead!” She reached upward and Keelie saw that the bubble with Grandmother and Viran was moving back and forth among the sharp upper branches of the trees. Grandmother seemed alert now, and her face was contorted with fear. Viran was on all fours, screaming down at them, although no sound escaped the bubble. She could see his mouth form a word over and over.

Bella would make the bubble burst and they would fall to their deaths, and it would be Keelie’s fault. But would Grandmother want her to risk the forest to save her? Keelie looked at the treeling spirits, each still encased in fae magic. The magic was doing its work, and Bella Matera now swooped among them, anguish on her face.