The Tree Shepherd's Daughter (33 page)

Lightning forked to the ground, blinding Keelie. She
cried in pain and flew backwards, hurled by the explosion
of the bolt. Trees screamed as their roots burned, and she
hit, hard. Then all was black.

Keelie came awake to grayness. She opened her eyes.
The darkness was punctuated by flashes of red. Fire trucks.
A crowd had gathered. Dad's face appeared above her.

"You're awake." He looked concerned and overjoyed.
A weird mix.

"What happened?" She couldn't smell smoke, so the
forest wasn't on fire. "Sir Davey?"

"His eyebrows are scorched, but he's okay."

"The Red Cap?" She wished she could speak in complete sentences, but her throat hurt so much she could
barely croak out the words.

"Gone. Scorched. All that's left is a crater with a book
cover and a red cap. We, ah, removed them before the fire
department got here."

"My head hurts."

"You got knocked down pretty hard. How does your
left arm feel?"

She moved it. "Sore. Okay, I guess."

Her dad picked up her arm and held it up so that she
could see. A crisscross of deep scars covered her forearm. It
looked like a long-healed wound.

"The Red Cap bit me. But it's healed." She stared at
her forearm, amazed.

"The trees did it. It's why Sir Davey survived."

"The Red Cap was sucking his life force. Like the
sprite."

"Yes, the sprite. You've made a lot of friends, daughter.
The sprite called on the bhata and the feithid daoine to
warn you.

"I thought they were attacking me."

"I have something for you." Dad opened her hand
and dropped something into it. Something rough and
rounded.

She looked into her cupped hand. A little lump of
silver-all that remained of her melted chain-and the
charred heart. The Queen Aspen had saved them all.

Standing atop the Heartwood steps, Keelie gazed up at the
starlit sky as fireflies flickered around her. She wrapped
Mom's shawl tighter around her shoulders. The leaves of
the trees sang a rustling song of peace. From above, a purr
thrummed an accompaniment. Keelie glanced up at the
hunched feline shape silhouetted against the sky.

She glanced into the apartment where Dad slept on the
couch, a green pillow with silver trees covering his face.
He'd had several mugs of mead with Sir Davey, claiming
it soothed his ragged fatherly nerves. And the pirates had been there, too, outdrinking everyone at the Poacher's
Inn.

A gentle breeze lifted her hair. The scent of flowers
mingled with cinnamon. Keelie looked around. Elf smell.
Was it Elia? Someone stood in the overhang of Dad's shop
and then stepped forward until he stood in the glow of
the indoor lights. Sean. He placed his finger against his
lips and motioned with his hand for her to come down.
Keelie's heart fluttered. What was he doing here?

Dad's snores still puffed out from underneath the pillow. She shouldn't wake him up. He deserved his rest.

Fireflies lit her way. Restraining herself from running
down the wide wooden steps, she took slow, precise steps.
Mom had advised her not to seem too eager when she met
her dates. Keep an air of mystery about you, she'd said.
Keelie rubbed her palms against her pants legs, just in case
they were sweaty.

Sean held out his hand, and she put her hand in his,
gracefully, as she'd seen Elia do.

"What brings you here?"

He wore an embroidered shirt, very Elven-looking,
over jeans. His fashion combined the human and Elven
world. Just like she did.

"I came to see you, fair maiden."

Delight tingled up her spine.

"Walk with me to the jousting ring." He clasped her
hand inside his.

Was there a party there? "Okay. We'll stay on the path,
right?"

A knowing smile spread across his narrow, handsome
face. "Of course."

Neither spoke as they walked, but it was comfortable,
and Keelie enjoyed feeling his skin against hers. After a
while the silence had become like a sound. She racked her
brain to think of something clever to say. She wanted to
be witty, to impress Sean with her intellect, because after
dating Elia, a smart girl would be a refreshing change.

Keelie had drawn down lightning, bested a Red Cap,
and saved the Faire, but she couldn't think of anything to
say.

"Everyone's talking about what you did today. You
were very brave. You saved a lot of lives."

She smiled, partly at his compliment and partly because
he'd been the first to speak. "Thank you." She wanted him
to kiss her. She really, really liked him, and she might never
get another chance. And then, of course, if Elia found out
that Sean had kissed Keelie, it would send the snarky elf
girl into a tailspin of mega proportions.

More silence. Fireflies flickered, and the wind danced
through the trees. Keelie could feel their green humming
as they rejoiced in the disappearance of the dark magic.
She couldn't see them, but she knew the bhata and the
feithid daione were in the woods celebrating, too. Her skin
vibrated in tune with their magic.

They passed the armory. It was dark and quiet now, unlike the weekends when the blacksmith's hammer clanged
against steel as he made swords, expensive souvenirs for
mundanes to buy.

Sean stopped and turned to her. It was dark, but a soft
glow from a safety light atop a pole illumined his face.

Something warm and furry rubbed up against Keelie's
leg. Knot had followed them. Sean rubbed the tip of his
finger against her cheek. She leaned forward, waiting for
the kiss that was sure to follow. Being this close to him was
exciting.

She remembered the night at the Shire when Captain
Randy had sat so close to her, touching her breast, and
how she hadn't wanted him to stop. It'd felt so good to
feel his body pressed against hers, and Keelie wanted to
feel that with Sean. More, because Sean was someone she
could actually date.

He lowered his face to hers. He was really going to kiss
her. She lifted her head, anticipating the feel of his lips on
hers.

Knot snagged his claws into her pants leg, making her
gasp and pull back. A sharp kitty shiv scraped her skin.
She forced herself to ignore the pain. She wanted to stay
in this moment with Sean. She wiggled her leg in attempt
to dislodge the demonic feline. He wasn't budging.

"Are you okay?" Sean looked concerned.

Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment. She pointed
down. "Knot." The cat's eyes glowed as he glared up at Sean.

She whispered, "You are going to be an orange kittyfur muff." Knot arched his back and hissed, but backed
away.

Sean smiled and leaned closer to her, then his lips gently pressed against hers. A shiver fluttered down her back,
and her heart beat faster. When Sean pulled away, his fore head wrinkled and he forced a smile on his face. Keelie
felt her stomach butterflies turn to nausea. He was disappointed in her kiss. She'd done something wrong.

Crestfallen, Keelie leaned against the fence railing for
support. Oak from North Dakota. "Is something wrong?"

He lifted his knee to reveal Knot attached to his leg.
Knot's tail swished back and forth, and he was doing a
weird psycho cat growl. Keelie bopped him on the head.
"Get down."

He purred.

"He was your mother's guardian." Sean said it as if it
explained the weird behavior. "He's protecting you now."

"What kind of a guardian?"

Sean shook his leg in an attempt to dislodge the mental-case cat. "I remember when he'd attack anyone he
thought was a threat to her. He's mellowed out quite a bit
since then."

Keelie said, "Wow. You must have been five when
Mom married Dad. What a memory."

"No, that was only fifteen years ago." Sean smiled
down at her. "I was seventy," he added casually.

Keelie reeled and was glad she was leaning against the
rail. Otherwise, she would've fallen down with shock.
She mentally added seventy and fifteen, and blurted out
the answer. "You're eighty-five years old!" The image of a
pruny, wrinkled old man formed in her mind.

Sean nodded. Knot de-snagged himself from Sean's
pants leg, jumped to the ground, and sauntered off with
his tail at full mast. Sean appeared relieved. "I'm one of the
youngest elves to be permitted to work with the horses. And I think when I ask your father for permission to court
you, he'll be impressed." He noticed her expression and
frowned. "I said something wrong."

"No. Everything's fine." Keelie wondered if he was joking, but he wasn't the kind of person to play a trick like
that.

An awkward silence hung between them, like an invisible curtain.

"May I still court you?"

"I have no idea what that means. I'm so confused."
She rubbed her hand across her forehead. Sean didn't look
eighty-five. He looked hunky and nineteen, and her body
was getting a delightful tingle looking at him, except for
the number eighty-five that kept flashing across her mind.
She envisioned wrinkled hands covered in brown spots,
sparse hair, halting steps. None of those were here. What
did it mean about her aging process? She was a humanelf hybrid. Would she live half an elf lifetime? A normal
human lifetime? Did anyone know?

Dad had a lot of questions to answer.

"Sean, would you walk me back to Heartwood? I've
got to talk to my father."

"Your father did not tell you." It wasn't a question.
Sean's eyes widened as he read the answer on her face. "I
think he's in for a long night."

They walked back up the path, and Sean's fingers
touched her hand, as if asking permission to do more.
She let his fingers curl around hers, then pressed his hand
lightly.

A curious thought came to Keelie, and she had to ask
it. "Sean, if you're eighty-five, how old is Elia?"

He grinned, as if he'd been expecting the question.
"She's only sixty. But be wary of her. I think she plans to
do something to you. She has not taken kindly to the respect that some of the elves now have toward you."

"What does that mean?"

He sighed. "There are those who consider you an
abomination because of your human blood, but others
have reconsidered their opinion."

Stunned, Keelie said, "How generous of them." An
abomination? She was beginning to dislike her father's side
of the family more and more. No wonder Mom hightailed
it out of the woods. Keelie wrapped the shawl more tightly
around her with her free hand.

As Sean and Keelie walked, holding hands, the only
sound around was the crunching of their feet on gravelly
sand. Fireflies danced around them, and she wondered
now if they were really bugs.

Sean's revelation about his age hadn't disturbed her as
much as the thought that the elves didn't like her, and all
because of her heritage. She wanted to calm down and
enjoy the moment with Sean. It had been hard enough to
accept the fact that he was an elf, and she supposed the age
thing just went with it. She wondered what other surprises
awaited her. Like, if Sean was eighty-five, how old was her
father?

If this was Keelie's new reality, she wanted all the facts.
Power to talk to trees-check. Targeted by mean redcapped gnomes-check. Not quite human-check. What hadn't they told her? At school they taught her that information was power, and she needed information now.

They stopped at the base of the stairs, and Knot ran
between them. He stopped midway up the stairs, his tail
slashing back and forth as if to hurry them up. Great, she
was learning cat-tail language.

Sean towered over her. She wondered if he was going
to kiss her again, and went up one step to make it easier
for him. Just in case. So far, this might have been the best
night of her life. She couldn't wait to tell Laurie everything. Everything but the elf part.

Sean held her chin lightly in his fingers so that she
couldn't look away. "When we first met, I tried to convince
myself that the feelings I had toward you were brotherly,
but it wasn't true. It hasn't been for a while. I want to be
more to you than a brother."

She shivered, wondering why Knot growled menacingly. "Knot, shut up." The cat was wrecking her moment.
She grabbed the handrail, seeking reassurance in the familiar wood.

Sean placed his hand atop hers. "After this night, I'll be
watching over you, too. When the Faire ends, our paths
will part, but we'll meet again in the Dread Forest. I'll be
thinking of you, Keliel Heartwood. Hopefully you'll allow
me to steal more kisses before the Faire ends."

Knot hissed. Keelie put a hand behind her back, made
a fist, and shook it at him.

"You don't have to steal them. They're yours, Sean."
She pulled her hand out from under his and put it on his
chest, leaning forward to kiss him.

Sean put his arms around her, and she closed her eyes,
feeling the warm softness of his lips on hers, the strength
of his arms around her. She didn't have any experience, but
he sure did. Eighty-five years' worth. The thought must
have made her move back, because he kissed her cheek.