The Secret of the Dread Forest: The Faire Folk Trilogy (6 page)

She was right. And Keelie hadn’t missed the fact that Elia was talking to her normally, not putting on snooty elfprincess airs. Now wasn’t the time to mention Elia’s role in the attack on Wildewood’s unicorn, but that was a conversation that had to happen—and soon.

“I know. But give Jake a couple of days before you tell your dad, okay? I want him to have a chance.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know about anything anymore.” Elia sat on a fallen log. She spread her skirts around her, still posing even where only Keelie and the trees could see her. “I will consider it. Why are you defending this Jake?”

“Because he looks so lost.” Keelie hadn’t meant for the words to sound so wistful, but Elia caught it right away.

“You identify with him. Not because he’s human, but because he’s alone in a hostile place.”

“You sound like an old woman giving advice. Or did you get your psychology degree?” Keelie thought about all of Dad’s college degrees.

“You forget that in human years, I am an old woman.” Elia smiled a little at the face Keelie made. “And Sean is older than me. You may have guessed that I wasn’t thrilled to learn that he and Risa are betrothed.”

“I kind of got that. But what I don’t get is why Risa? Why not you?”

Elia’s perfect posture melted. “It has something to do with the fact that Risa’s mother is a brood mare. Risa has three brothers—four children—that’s huge for an elven family.” Elia pressed her hand against her chest. “I’m an only child.”

One Elia is enough for this planet, Keelie thought.

“This boy sounds intriguing.” Elia gazed into the woods where Jake had disappeared. “Can you introduce me to him?”

“I just met him. I saw him asleep in the forest yesterday and ran into him again. I think he must live in town.”

Elia nodded as if she understood, but she looked disappointed. “From town. I thought he might be a traveler.”

“Well, I’m not sure he’s totally human. For one thing, the Dread doesn’t bother him. It’s fading, but it’s still plenty strong.” Keelie squeezed her rose quartz for comfort.

They sat in companionable silence. Knot rubbed his head against Keelie’s leg. She kept a wary eye on him.

“How did your Lore lesson go today?” Elia asked.

“It was a challenge for both of us.”

Knot climbed up into Keelie’s lap and curled up into a round ball, tucking his head into his chest. This was scary—a loving Knot and a friendly Elia. Something was wrong with this picture.

As if sensing her discomfort, Knot stretched a paw out and sank his claws into Keelie’s leg. “Ow!”

“What?” Elia asked.

“Nothing.”

Elia looked at Knot and wrinkled her nose. “Better you than me.”

Keelie removed Knot’s claws from her pants leg. He purred.

Ariel called to Keelie. She flew from the red alder to a Western hemlock. Keelie sensed a warm and caring personality from the tall tree. Ariel would be safe in the branches.

“Your hawk seems to be doing well.”

Keelie glared at the elf girl. “Some nerve. You’re the one who blinded her. Why don’t you remove the spell?”

Elia bowed her head and sighed. “I can’t. If I try, I’m afraid it will rebound on me.”

“Rebound on you? What do you mean?” Keelie asked.

“If I take the curse from Ariel, then the magic has to go somewhere.”

Keelie didn’t understand.

“For every magical action, there is an equal reaction. If I remove this particular dark curse, then it will return to me. I will become blind.”

“There’s no way of breaking it?” Keelie wasn’t shocked. Her father had told her as much soon after Elia had blinded Ariel using magic beyond her skill level. No one had been able to lift the curse.

“Father has been searching all the lore books. We haven’t found any answers.”

“So Elianard has been searching for a way to break the curse?” That seemed hard to believe.

A loud buzzing came from the ferns underneath the alder tree.

Elia nodded and turned away. Her voice softened. “I found the curse in a book on dark magic. Father had always warned me not to use it, but I wanted to hurt you. Make you go away.” Elia swung her head around, her face serious. “Remember this Keelie—the rules matter.”

The buzzing became louder, and the ferns rustled with activity. A
bhata
climbed up the trunk of the red alder.

Knot swished his tail back and forth. He jumped up from Keelie’s lap and ran toward the leafy undergrowth beneath the alder tree. The buzzing noise stopped and was replaced by a screeching.

Knot appeared with a bug fairy dangling from his mouth. The fairy kicked the cat with its back legs. Knot growled. The bug fairy went limp. Knot trotted down the path, his orange tail held high. Looked like it was going to be curtains for an unfortunate bug fairy.

“You know, if you give Father a chance, you’ll learn a lot about the elves and the magic,” Elia said.

“I don’t know.” The thought of being nice to Elianard wasn’t a good one.

“Let’s make a deal. I won’t tell anyone about Jake for a few days—if you promise to give Father a chance. He’s a wonderful Lore Master. No one knows more than he does about the history, the culture, the legends of our people. He can help you with your magic, too. Go to class just until the harvest festival.”

Keelie didn’t know if she could tolerate Elianard that long, but if it bought Jake a little more time, she would try.

“Okay! But you promise not to say anything about Jake.”

Elia smiled. “Good. He can tell you about the old days.”

“I heard a lot about the old days this morning.”

Elia stretched out her arms, taking in the whole forest. “The old days were when the elves came here and settled in this area. Three hundred years ago, your grandmother brought her young sons to live in the forest when they were just little guys.”

Keelie stared at Elia. “Three hundred years ago?” That’s how old dad had said he was. There wasn’t even a United States three hundred years ago. The colonies barely existed. Was everyone pulling her leg?

Then she realized what else Elia had said: Grandmother Keliatiel had brought her young
sons
to live in the forest. Dad was one.

What happened to the other one?

Her mystery uncle still on her mind, Keelie was both amused and alarmed when Elia walked back with her to the village. It was weird to have her old adversary as a new friend. Not that she believed her new niceness was for real. Elia was probably up to something—it would just take a while to find out what it was.

Probably something to do with Sean.

The water sprite in the brook called out to her and Keelie slowed down, looking toward the water below through the lush ferns on the shore. She heard a splash and giggle, but saw nothing.

“What are you looking at?” Elia peered over her shoulder.

“The water sprite. We’ve been saying hi to each other every day. I just wanted to say hello.”

Elia looked puzzled. “She talked to you?”

“Yeah. I jumped over her the other day when I was chasing Ariel, and she’s pretty lucky I didn’t slip and land on top of her.”

The elf girl made a face. “I’m heading the other way. My father’s at the forge. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay. And remember—”

Elia rolled her eyes. “Our secret. Right. You worry too much.” She smoothed her fairy-tale skirts and walked away.

Keelie hurried home, her head spinning with what she had learned. Two brothers. Dad had never mentioned that she had an uncle. What had happened to him?

She went over different scenarios, mentally play-acting how she’d ask Dad about his missing brother, but Dad wasn’t home when she arrived.

She headed straight to his room to grab some old clothes for Jake. Dad’s bedroom had tall ceilings and exposed wooden beams. Colorful appliquéd quilts hung from the dark-paneled walls and his bed was draped in another quilt, this one like a drift of autumn leaves across the bed. Beautiful.

The closet was tidy and held mostly denim shirts and ceremonial-looking outfits with long, full sleeves trimmed
in intricate embroidery. Keelie poked around but found nothing that Jake could wear.

His chest of drawers held folded jeans and shirts, including long-sleeved thermal tees. Bingo. Keelie gathered up a couple pairs of jeans, sweats, and thermals, then a pair of thick cotton socks.

Jake needed a coat, too, but she hadn’t seen one. She pushed aside the robes in the deep closet, feeling like a snoop and hoping to find winter-season clothes behind the front rod.

She froze. A low-relief wood portrait carving hung there—the image of a serene woman, with wild dark curls and a smile on her generous lips. Keelie stared at it, then ran her fingers over the familiar curve of the mouth. It was her mother.

Whoever had made this was an artist. Dad was an artist with furniture, but he’d never made anything like this. She ran her fingers lightly over her Mom’s smooth cheeks, and dipped them into the hollows of her ribbon-like curls.

Mom.
The artist who’d made this knew her well. Keelie felt a pang at the thought that she’d forgotten what Mom looked like. Just the little details, but all of them had been captured here. Mom’s essence, rendered in wood.

No one knew Keelie like that. She wasn’t loved here, except by Dad.

A sound in the hallway made her pull the hangers together and close the closet door. She clutched the folded clothes to her chest and ran to the doorway.

“Keelie, are you here?”

Dad. If she answered, he’d know she was in his room, the only bedroom on the main floor. She looked down at the folded clothes in her arms. No way she could explain this without telling him about Jake.

She waited until he went up the stairs, still calling her name, and then slipped down the hall and tossed the clothes into the bottom of the hall closet.

She took a deep breath, pasted a smile on her face and hurried upstairs. “You looking for me, Dad?”

Dad stuck his head out of her bedroom door. “I was. How were your lessons?”

“Interesting. Niriel’s sword fighting was my favorite.” That wasn’t a total lie.

His eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yeah. He let me bring the sword home, too, so that I can practice.” She rubbed her right arm. “Which I’ll do as soon as I can move again.”

He laughed. “Swords never thrilled me. And now I have to oversee the sword making,” he added ruefully.

“Yeah, I don’t get that, Dad.” Keelie sat on her bed and motioned for him to join her.

He sat at the foot of the bed, smiling at Alora’s twinkling earrings. The treeling was in a resting state, sort of a tree sleep, which meant she wouldn’t interrupt them.

“Dad, is Grandmother really sick? She doesn’t seem ill to me.”

He leaned back against the bedpost and crossed his
arms. “She’s not sick the way I was back in New York. She doesn’t have a fever, but she’s not as strong as she was a few years ago, and with every day she’s a little weaker. Her strength is directly tied to the strength of the forest. As the Dread fails, so does she.”

“But when you were sick with the elf flu it was because the Wildewood was sick. Einhorn was sick.”

A vivid image came to Keelie, of Elia helping her father, Elianard, by using her magic harp to drain Einhorn’s life force. A big reason why she didn’t trust the new, helpful Elia. At least the harp had been destroyed.

Dad stared out the window, thinking. “We are tied to the trees. Their fate is ours. It’s becoming harder to protect them, Keelie. I knew that my turn would one day come.”

“Three hundred years, right?”

He smiled. “Yes. A long enough apprenticeship.”

“Why doesn’t your brother help out?”

Dad’s smile disappeared and the green summer of his eyes grew grey and cold. “Who has spoken to you of this?”

She pressed her lips together, regretting her hasty question. Elia was holding a secret for her, and she didn’t dare tell Dad the details of their conversation.

“I just heard. When Keliatiel came to this forest, she brought her two young sons. Two. That would be you and someone else.”

His glacial stare continued for a few more seconds, then he sighed. “I did have a brother, Dariel. He died long ago. Do not speak of him to your grandmother. It hurts her still.”

“What happened to him?”

“Does it matter? It was long ago, when this country was young.”

Keelie tried to imagine what it would be like to live for hundreds of years. “Do you remember the Civil War?”

“Yes. It did not affect us much here. The Gold Rush was worse. Many came west, and the people who lived near us suffered much.”

“The Native Americans, right?”

“Yes. When they were moved out, we called up the Dread to keep the others out. It was the first time the Dread had been summoned in this land.” He fell quiet, remembering.

“In this land,” Keelie repeated. “Elianard told me about the migration. Where did you come from?”

Dad smiled again. “Didn’t you read fairy tales?”

Keelie tilted her head. “Under the Hill?”

“Wrong fairy tale. Actually, we come from many lands, but Keliatiel was born in the forests of the Pyrenees, as was my brother. I was born here.”

“And your father?”

“He joined the trees a hundred years ago. His name was Zaros. You’re a lot like him.”

She tried out her grandfather’s name. “Zaros. Why doesn’t anyone talk about him?”

Dad shrugged. “He faded long ago. He was very old. We live in the now. Elves remember as trees do, but those who follow the old ways do not mourn.”

So it was her human side that made her ache for her
mother’s hug, made her wish she could hear Mom’s annoyed call to do the chores she’d skipped.

“I’m glad we have each other, Dad.”

Zeke moved closer to her and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. “I am too, Keelie. And if anything happened to you, I would mourn forever.”

“Me too, Dad.” It had grown dark outside, and she still had to go back into the forest.

Dad looked around her room as if searching. “Do you feel something strange here? It’s like a dark energy.”

Keelie kept her eyes away from her closet, where Elianard’s amulet lay hidden under the folded towels. “No, Dad. Maybe it’s Alora.”

Dad stood. “No. Definitely not.”

Although she felt bad about being so secretive, Keelie couldn’t make herself reveal the presence of the amulet. For some reason, ever since Einhorn had given it to her, she’d felt the need to keep it hidden. “What time is dinner?”

“Eight. Are you going out?”

“Just checking on Ariel and stuff.”

He squeezed her shoulder and stood. “Don’t be late.” He closed the door behind him as he left.

Her mind reeling from everything she had learned, Keelie sat for a moment then got up, anxious to get the clothes to Jake. He was probably shivering, waiting for her.

“The aunties said that Zeke’s brother died many rings ago.” Alora’s voice piped up. The room jingled as she moved her jewelry-laden branches.

“What else do the aunties say?”

“Water me.”

“I’m sure they didn’t ask you to water them.” “I’ m so thirsty.

Keelie sighed and got up. The watering can was by the door, still half-full. She started to pour the water on the soil around Alora’s slender trunk, then stopped. She needed to hide the amulet better, and what better place than under Alora? Keelie reached into the towels and pulled it out. She put the amulet on, shuddering as the cold, thorny acorn touched her chest.

She wrapped her arms around Alora’s pot and heaved it up, then carefully walked to the hall, bracing herself against the wall when she got tired.

“What are you doing, Keelie? Are we going shopping? Laurie told me about shopping. I need new twinkles for my branches.”

The treeling didn’t know the word for the finery she wore, so she projected the effect she wanted, twinkling her branches covered in gems.

Keelie snorted. “No, we’re not going shopping, but you are about to get a major twinkle, and it will be our secret.”

She carried Alora’s pot outside, past Dad’s workshop. The treeling talked nonstop. By the time she set the pot down, Keelie was ready to heave her over the closest hedge.

Inside the workshop she found a large clay pot that Dad had prepared to allow for Alora’s growth. It was half full of rich soil. Keelie dragged it outside, then took the
amulet off and dropped it into the pot, digging it in with her fingers.

Alora watched, quiet. Keelie turned to her. “I want you to take care of this necklace,” she whispered aloud. She was glad the treeling could hear and that she didn’t have to send the message telepathically, in case other trees overheard.

“It’s beautiful,” Alora whispered back. “But very cold.”

“Must be the magic. I’m going to repot you.”

A surge of treeling happiness filled her mind. Alora was glad to get a new pot
and
a new necklace. Keelie tilted Alora’s pot and tapped it all around, loosening the soil, then grasped the treeling low on her trunk and pulled a little. She came up easily. Keelie dangled the little tree over the new pot, letting the roots barely touch the soil.

Alora giggled. “That tickles. Hurry, Keelie. My toes are cold.”

“You don’t have toes. You have rootlets.”

Alora made a rude noise.

Keelie grasped a handful of soil and dribbled it around Alora’s roots, repeating until Alora could sit comfortably. Then she grabbed the old pot by the rim, upending it into the new pot so that all the soil fell in. She tucked Alora snugly into her new home.

“Remember, no one must know that the necklace is under you.”

“Okay, but I must have a gift for my silence.”

A bribe. Twice in one day. “What do you want?”

“More twinkles. Twinkles that show.”

“I’ll get you something.”

Alora hummed happily. Keelie left her there for the time being and went to wash the dirt from her hands, smiling at Dad in the kitchen. “I repotted Alora. She’s outgrowing the old pot.”

“That’s great, Keelie. I’m pleased that you are so responsible with the Great Tree’s gift.” He was chopping onions and tears glimmered in his eyes. Keelie used the kitchen towel she’d dried her hands on to dab at his eyes.

“Onions are killer, aren’t they? My Grandma Jo always said the stronger the onion, the better the flavor.”

Dad smiled. “I’ll remember that.” He started to pluck tiny leaves from a branch of thyme, letting them fall on the diced onions.

Keelie got the clothes from the hall closet and went out the front door to avoid running into Dad again. She sent a thought to the trees.

Oh guardians of the Dread Forest, show me where the human boy is.

She got back confusion and doubt. She tried again.
The human boy named Jake. I was with him.

We see no one but you and the elf,
the aunties trilled.

Had he left and gone back home? She’d been worried all this time for nothing.

I see him.
It was Alora.

Get over yourself,
Keelie answered.
This isn’t how you’ll get another twinkly.

But I can see him,
she insisted.
He’s a dark cloud, and he was a dark cloud when you spoke to him with Elia.

A dark cloud? Keelie shrugged. Maybe he had some kind of magic doohickey that let him withstand the Dread, and it made him invisible to the trees.

“Show me where he is, Alora.”

“Take me with you.”

Keelie gritted her teeth. She had to get back home in time for dinner or Dad would get suspicious. She walked around the side of the house, and with the clothes pulled tight to her chest, she picked up the new, even heavier pot, and staggered to the cart Dad used for hauling firewood. She wrestled Alora’s pot into the makeshift rickshaw and pulled the cart into the dark forest, with Alora guiding her.

She had almost arrived at the stream when Alora announced, “There he is.”

Keelie squinted into the darkness and saw a dark, foglike swirl low to the ground, like a shadow serpent coming toward her. It slowed, and then stopped, and Jake stepped out of it, the fog clinging to his skin like damp cloth.

This was not human behavior. Her life was getting really complicated.