Bones of Faerie (22 page)

“I know.” I reached out to scratch Matthew behind the ears, then drew away, embarrassed.

Matthew's nose nudged my hand back into place. Allie laughed. After a moment, I laughed, too. “You
do
have a wet nose,” I said, kneeling to put my arms around his neck. Matthew rested his head on my shoulder with a contented sigh. I thought of how he'd followed me against all reason. A few snowflakes fell, and I watched them land in his fur. Maybe everything wasn't dust and ashes after all.

“Look!” Allie cried.

Reluctantly I drew away, looking where she pointed.

Amid the brambles of blackberry and sumac a green sapling rose from the hillside, sprouting branches, sprouting leaves, grasping for the sky. Even as I watched, the central shoot darkened to cinnamon brown. The green leaves grew bright, and brighter still, and then all at once green gave way to a brilliant orange-red—as if the leaves had caught a bit of sun and didn't want to let it go. Those leaves were perfectly round. Quia leaves. Leaves from Faerie.

Allie grabbed my hand. Beside us Matthew stood,
ears cocked forward, fur bristling along his back. The tree kept growing until it was tall as I was, and taller still. The sumac and blackberry bushes around it began changing, too, their leaves catching shades of rust and scarlet. Suddenly frightened I shouted,
“Stop!”

The quia tree grew on, heedless as the River of my command. A branch released an orange leaf. It fluttered to the ground. Wind blew another leaf toward the road. It landed in Allie's hair, and I hastily pulled it away.

The leaf wasn't warm, in spite of its fiery hue. It was a leaf, nothing more, nothing less. Other leaves began falling, too, doing no harm. Matthew caught one beneath his paw and sniffed it uneasily. The flurries stopped, but the air still smelled of snow.

Once leaves had changed color in autumn, burning fierce as fire, falling soft as snow. I stared at the orange leaf in my hand, thinking of the seed I'd brought back from a place beyond either my world or Faerie, a place where the time for growing was past.

“I think it's all right,” I said slowly. “I think it's only—autumn. The way autumn used to be Before.”

For a time the tree kept growing and we kept watching it. At last the growing stopped. The quia stood tall as a young dogwood by then, and half its branches were
bare. How long, I wondered, before new leaves started to grow? Not until the snows melted, perhaps.

A moment more I gazed at the hillside where my sister had died and where the quia tree now stood. “Rest well,” I said softly, and then I turned away.

We returned to town in silence, watching the maples and elms catch color ahead of us, reds and yellows and oranges leaping from tree to tree, advancing through the forest, a fire without heat.
Magic,
I thought. Maybe there had always been something like magic in this world.

At the edge of town I hesitated, glancing at Matthew. He walked on without stopping, though, head and tail held high, as if he were done with hiding. I wondered whether that was safe, even with Father gone. But if anyone tried to harm him, they'd have both of us to answer to, and perhaps the others as well. Maybe in time we would all be able to stop hiding.

Most folks were out in the fields—the flurries were reminder enough of the need to finish harvesting. Outside Kate's home she and Samuel watched the changing leaves beyond the houses in silence, the door open behind them.

Samuel reached for his daughter as we approached. He hadn't let her out of his sight yesterday, not even when we went to bury Tallow. Allie had cried as I set the
old cat down in the earth, even as she told me I was right to let Tallow go.

Now Allie solemnly handed her father a yellow oak leaf she'd picked up from the road. Samuel clutched it in his hand. “I think maybe the trees will sleep this winter.” He grinned. “Almost like Before.”

Allie laughed. “That's silly. Trees don't sleep.”

Samuel tossed the leaf above him. It danced in the wind a moment before drifting down. Allie caught it again just before it touched the ground.

Behind them, Caleb stepped into the doorway. Mom followed, and Caleb helped her down the stairs. She was weak, she was pale, but she would heal now. Caleb had said so, and I was trying to believe it.

She wanted to heal now. I didn't need Caleb to tell me that.

At the bottom of the stairs Caleb drew away. He and Mom kept a careful distance, as if not quite sure of each other yet. I thought of how they'd walked together among the trees, unafraid. But that was Before, and autumn or not, I doubted the trees would ever be fully tame again.

Caleb stared thoughtfully at the bright leaves. Then he stared at me, just as thoughtful. “Well done, indeed,” he said, and nodded.

I held out the quia leaf in my hand.

Caleb grew very still. He took the leaf from me as seriously as he had once taken a quarter from my mother, turning it over in his hands. “There'll be seeds,” he said softly. “Within a few years. We'll go back then. We'll take the risk, if only long enough for planting.” He smiled, a small smile but a real one, reminding me of the young man in my visions. “Our worlds have always been linked, Liza. We forgot that during the War. We should never have forgotten.”

“Lizzy.” Mom started forward, then stopped, as if no more sure of me than of Caleb.

I walked toward her instead, slowly, steadily—until with what might have been a sob and might have been a laugh she pulled me close.

All may yet be well.
Almost, I believed that. Not as a promise. No one could promise, not after the War, not after so many other things that couldn't be undone.

But the trees were releasing their leaves. Who knew what else might happen?

Allie twirled her oak leaf on its stem. Matthew leaned against his grandmother, and Kate draped her arm absently over his back. Leaves continued to fall. Snow flurries began once more. And my mother kept holding me, holding me close, as if this time she wouldn't let go.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to: Laurell K. Hamilton, Deborah Millitello, Marella Sands, Bob Sheaff, and Mark Sumner, who read the opening of
Bones of Faerie
before I left St. Louis; Jane Yolen, who also read the opening and kept asking when I was going to finish the book until I finally did; C. S. Adler, Dawn Dixon, Larry Hammer, Jill Knowles, Ann Manheimer, Patricia McCord, Earl W. Parrish, Frances Robertson, Roxy Rogers, Amy Stewart, Jennifer J. Stewart, and Robin Stewart, all of whom read and reread the manuscript for me; my agent, Nancy Gallt, who believed in the completed story; and my editor, Jim Thomas, who took the best book I knew how to write and showed me how to make it better.