Tapping the Dream Tree (49 page)

Bess actually laughed. The sound of it made Laurel feel better, like maybe the end of the world wasn't quite here yet.

“You're thinking of vampires,” Bess said.

“Well, what don't little tree men like?”

“Who knows? Fire, probably.”

“Do you have any matches?”

“Sure. Right here in my pocket with my corncob pipe.”

Laurel sighed. “That's okay. We haven't got anything to burn anyway.”

Bess gave her hand another squeeze.

“We just have to be patient,” she said, “and wait for our chance.”

“And then we kick ass.”

“I know I'd like to kick something.”

It was a funny thing about that world on the other side of the Apple Tree Man's door. You'd think, seeing the effect it had on Aunt Lillian and me after just a peek through at it, that once we got through into that world we'd have been overwhelmed. But it didn't happen that way. Sure, the place was a shock to our senses. Colors were more intense … oh, what am I saying? Everything was more intense. Colors, the air we breathed, the sharp edges of the blades of grass, the birdsong drifting down from the trees, the endless blue sky above. But I remembered what the Apple Tree Man had told us about coming to this place, how we'd never want to leave, and I didn't feel that way at all.

When I said as much, the Apple Tree Man gave me a funny look. I thought maybe I'd offended him, so I tried to explain.

“When I was a kid,” I said, “we moved all the time, from one trailer park to another. It got so I never felt like I fit in, not anywhere we lived. I'm not blaming Mama and Daddy—that's just the way it was. Leastwise, it was until we moved to Granny Burrell's farm. Now I've lived there for pretty much as long as I've lived in all those other places put together, and you know what? I really like it.

“I like my familiar woods, watching the changes settle on them, season after season. I don't feel like a visitor anymore. I feel like a neighbor now. Like I belong. And pretty as this place is, I don't belong here. I can feel it like a buzz just under my skin. All over. It's saying, ‘You've got another home.' “

“You could've took the words right out of my mouth,” Aunt Lillian said. “I remember how scared I was of those woods around the homestead when I first came to live with my Aunt Em. But that feeling went away pretty quick and I've never wanted to leave them since. Even Paradise is going to seem wanting after living in those hills of ours.”

The Apple Tree Man shook his head as he looked from her to me.

“I guess a body's never too old to be surprised,” he said, “but I have to tell you, I had no idea you were so strong.”

“Strong?” I said.

He nodded. “To resist the enchantments of this place so effortlessly.”

“Makes you think, doesn't it?” Aunt Lillian said. “‘Bout wasted years and all.”

He nodded again, slower this time. I guess it finally hit him that he didn't have to keep Aunt Lillian at a distance—didn't have to, never had to. He got this hangdog look in his eyes that made me want to tell a joke or something, just to cheer him up.

“I just didn't know,” he said.

“It's the red hair that makes them strong, Applejack,” a voice said from above. “Why else do you think we cherish it so?”

Aunt Lillian and I pretty much jumped out of our skins. We looked up and saw what we thought was a cat sitting up there on a branch, looking back down at us. Except it wasn't really a cat. It was more like a little man, or a monkey, with a long tail and all covered with black fur and catlike features. It had fingers like me, but a cat's retracting claws that protruded at the moment as he cleaned them with a bright pink tongue.

“How come fairy creatures always talk to me from out of trees?” Aunt Lillian said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “It's an old story.”

The cat man laid out along his branch, head propped up on one hand. He looked to be about twice the height of our little unconscious ‘sangman but that still only made him a couple of feet tall.

“Oh, do tell,” he said.

But Aunt Lillian had already looked away, her attention now on the Apple Tree Man.

“He called you Applejack,” she said. “Is that your real name— the one you never told me?”

“It's a name,” the Apple Tree Man said. “The one by which I'm known in this place, just like I'm the Apple Tree Man in your world.”

“So what
is
your name?” I asked.

“Well, when he's drunk,” the cat man said, “we call him Billy Cider.”

“We don't have names the way you do,” the Apple Tree Man said. “We don't have any need for them. All we have are what people call us.”

“Like sometimes,” the cat man said, “people call me Li'l Pater.” He waited a beat, then added, “You know, because I could be a smaller version of the Father of Cats.”

Aunt Lillian looked back up at him and smiled. “A
much
smaller version,” she said. “And not nearly as fierce.”

“It's just what some people call me.”

I got the feeling that this was something he tried out on every new person he met, hoping that they'd think maybe he really was kin to that big old black panther that Aunt Lillian had met when she was younger than me.

“We can call you that,” I said.

“What are you doing here?” the Apple Tree Man asked.

Li'l Pater smiled. “I came to see the fireworks and oh my, they should be something.”

“Fireworks?” I asked.

“He doesn't mean real fireworks,” the Apple Tree Man explained.

“You do know that the bee queen's really not happy with you?” Li'l Pater asked.

The Apple Tree Man shrugged. He glanced at Aunt Lillian and said, “Let her get in line.”

“I'm not mad at you,” Aunt Lillian told him. “Just disappointed you never took the chance.”

“Why's the bee queen mad?” I asked.

“When isn't she mad?” Li'l Pater replied. “But this time it's because that little ‘sangman you've got stowed away in a basket stole away her daughter and you got in the middle of her settling her debt with him.”

I looked at the Apple Tree Man. “I thought that happened ages ago.”

“It did,” Li'l Pater said before the Apple Tree Man could speak. “The first time. But this is the seventh daughter of hers that's gone off and wed a ‘sangman. She really thought the sixth would be the last. But just to be sure, this one she kept in a hive as tall as a tree, locked up in a little room way up top with only a window to look out of.”

“LikeRapunzel.”

“Don't know her. What court is she from?”

“It's in a storybook.”

“This isn't a story,” Li'l Pater said.

“What I don't understand,” Aunt Lillian said, “is why these daughters of hers keep running off to marry ‘sangmen. You say there've been seven now?”

“Just like me and my sisters,” I said.

“You've all married ‘sangmen?” Li'l Pater asked.

“No, I just meant there's seven of us, too.”

Li'I Pater nodded. “Lucky number. ‘Specially when you add in the red hair.”

“What's so special about red hair?”

“Everything. A fairy can't hardly resist a red-haired human. It's as much a reason for them to be kidnapping your sisters as to make a bargain with you.”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean kidnapping my sisters?”

Li'l Pater regarded them with surprise. “You didn't know? The ‘sangmen have two while the bee court has the other four.”

I thought my heart would stop in my chest and gave Aunt Lillian and the Apple Tree Man an anguished look.

“Why … why are they doing this?” I asked.

“For barter,” Li'l Pater said. “They want to trade your sisters for the ‘sangman in your basket.”

“But we were already
bringing
him back.”

“They didn't know that.”

“And if both sides have my … my sisters … what am I supposed to do? Choose between which I'll save and which I'll sacrifice?” I looked down at the ‘sangman. “For somebody I don't even know?”

“Should have thought of that before you got involved in all of this,” Li'l Pater said.

I nodded glumly. Aunt Lillian had warned me often enough. The one sure road to trouble, she'd say, is to get mixed up in the middle of a fairy quarrel.

“That doesn't matter now,” I said. “All that's important is that we rescue my sisters, and for that, we need a plan.”

“This should be good,” Li'l Pater said.

“And to start with,” I went on, “I don't want you around when I'm making it.”

“What did I ever—”

“I don't know you,” I told him. “And right now I can't take the chance of trusting you.” I turned to the Apple Tree Man. “And come to think of it, who's to say that I can trust you either?”

“Now, Sarah Jane,” Aunt Lillian said. “The Apple Tree Man might be a lot of things, but—”

I shook my head, not letting her finish. “He may be your friend, but I wouldn't call him a very good one. And he certainly hasn't said or done anything to prove that he's mine. I can't take the chance of trusting any fairy—not with my sisters' lives at stake.”

Before anyone could protest, I stepped over to where the Apple Tree Man had set down the basket with the ‘sangman still sleeping in it. I picked up the basket.

“I may have my own disappointments with the Apple Tree Man,” Aunt Lillian said, “but I'd trust him with my life.”

“What about the lives of my sisters?”

She regarded me for a long moment, then shook her head.

“That's something you can only decide for yourself,” she said.

I don't know where this fierce feeling had come from—probably something locked in the Dillard genes. We were the kind of folks who depended on ourselves. But I guess it could have just been blind panic, born out of the shock of learning that my sisters were all in danger and it was my fault. My fault, but fairy were caught up in every which part of it.

The thing that swayed me was how the Apple Tree Man didn't try to change my mind. Li'l Pater sat up on his branch, muttering about I don't know what all. I wasn't listening to him. But the Apple Tree Man stood still as a tree, waiting for me to make up my own mind.

And I guess the other thing that swayed me was I didn't have the first clue how to go about doing anything. I didn't know where the ‘sangmen lived—leastways not in this world. I didn't know what to do when I found them. I didn't know anything about these bee fairies and how to go about rescuing anyone from them either. I pretty much didn't know anything.

So I took a breath and looked at the Apple Tree Man.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I guess if Aunt Lillian trusts you as much as she does, I should be able to do the same. I'm just so worried about my sisters.”

“I understand,” he said.

“And what about me?” Li'l Pater asked. “Are you going to let me help?” He spread his fingers and his cat claws popped out from the end of each of them. “I can be fierce as the Father himself.”

Having accepted the Apple Tree Man's help, I looked to him for guidance on this. He gave Li'l Pater a stern look.

“You'll only help?” he asked. “No tricks, no jokes?”

Li'l Pater nodded.

“You swear on the fangs of the Father?”

He nodded again.

The Apple Tree Man turned back to me.

“By that oath,” he said, “you can trust him.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

I was anxious. I didn't know what the fairies were doing to my sisters, but every moment they were with them was too long for me.

“First we'll follow our original plan,” the Apple Tree Man said. “We'll see the ‘sangmen and free the sisters they have. When they see we're returning their little prince, they'll be honor-bound to let your sisters go and help us.”

“And the bee fairies?” Aunt Lillian asked.

“I have an idea how to deal with them as well, though it will depend on Sarah Jane's courage.”

The very idea of bees made my knees knock together, but I knew I'd try whatever was needed to be done.

Except for being covered in bees, the twins didn't seem to otherwise be hurt just yet, so Adie turned her attention to Elsie's knapsack. The fairies had left it on her back, either because they didn't know what it was, or they didn't care. After all, what could a couple of teenage girls do, hands bound and with such a host to stand against them?

“What do you use to sharpen those pencils of yours?” Adie asked.

“Just this old jackknife that George gave me,” Elsie said.

“Is it sharp?”

“Well, sure it is. It has to be to cut the wood properly …” Her voice trailed off and she gave Adie a quick look. “What are you planning to do with it?”

“Whatever it takes to get us all out of here.”

The attention of the whole fairy court, including their guards, was on the tubby little man who'd arrived with the twins in tow. If she was ever going to have a chance, this was going to be it.

“Turn around so I can get at your knapsack,” she said.

“I don't like this,” Elsie said, but she did as she'd been asked. “There's too many of them, Adie.”

“I only need to get to the queen,” Adie replied.

With her hands bound together, Adie had trouble getting the fastenings undone, but she finally got the last one loose and was able to reach in. She dug around among Elsie's sketchbooks and the various roots and twigs and whatnots that Elsie picked up on her walks until she felt the handle of the knife and pulled it out. Laying it on the ground, she took the time to close up the knapsack again before trying to open the knife. After a lot of fussing and one broken nail, she managed to pull the blade out of the handle and began the awkward process of sawing through the grass rope. Luckily, Elsie hadn't been exaggerating. The blade was sharp and easily sliced through the tightly-woven rope.