The Secret of the Dread Forest: The Faire Folk Trilogy (8 page)

She hoped the workout would release some of her anger against Grandmother and Dad. At breakfast she’d wanted to discuss what had happened last night, but Dad wouldn’t talk. As usual, he clammed up and expected her to understand everything by osmosis. Grandmother, on the other hand, was mad; she had lost the argument and Keelie had won.

Keelie thrust her sword forward. Knot would remain her guardian. He was observing her from the cart. She watched him, but pretended she wasn’t looking at him. He looked like a normal orange cat, except for his size.

He turned around and blinked at Keelie. He seemed to be saying,
Caught you admiring me
.

“As if.” She pointed the sword at him.

He purred. Psycho cat. Keelie lowered the sword.

Knot swished his tail back and forth, then lifted a paw and started washing it.

Keelie wished she had a lesson today. She was ready to do battle.

“Keelie.”

She froze at the sound of Sean’s voice. She placed the sword tip against the ground and held onto the pommel as if supporting herself. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not after his betrayal. Not after his betrothal to Risa. She didn’t want to turn around. She couldn’t look at Sean. Her heart hammered against her chest.

“Don’t ignore me, Keelie.”

She pivoted, facing him with the sword raised and pointing at his heart. It hurt to see him, knowing how she’d kissed him, how she’d pined for him in the Wildewood. A small part of her was still fond of him, and it hurt to think he’d discarded her feelings so easily.

Keelie pulled the sword away and dropped the tip. “I think the time for talking has passed.” Maybe she was more like Dad than she thought.

Sean stepped closer, and pain flared in his eyes. “I told you that it was my father’s idea to marry Risa. We have to breed true. I have to do what is best for my people.”

My people. Even Sean—the one person who had treated her as an equal—thought she was different.

Anger surged through her, and she pulled the sword from the ground. Green magic washed over her as she felt her magic flow through her body. She was so tired of hearing the same elven rhetoric over and over—Dad telling her she had to be more elven, her grandmother telling her what
to do. Keelie knew in her heart she would never measure up to their expectations—because she would always be human. She gripped the pommel tightly in her hand.

“Go away, Sean.” She aimed the tip of the sword at him again.

Suddenly, a burst of green magic flashed from Keelie s hand and traveled up the sword blade. The steel sparked and sizzled, giving off the sharp, acrid-sweet smell of hot metal. As the magic moved quickly up the sword, the steel blade transformed into wood.

Sean stepped back, his mouth open in shock. “How.…. ?”

Keelie s hand opened and the sword fell to the ground, tip first. It stood, the hilt swaying. Smoke curled from the earth around the blade, and she felt the throb of green magic around her and, strangely, from below as well.

Sean stared at the sword as if he was trying to reason out what just happened. It was still, now, its metal hilt bright silver against the gray wood of the blade.

A loud
buzzing
erupted all around them. The
feithid daoine
. Hundreds and hundreds of the bug fairies flew as if from out of nowhere and surrounded Sean. He swatted at them.

Several
bhata
lowered themselves from a nearby tree and reached for the sword. Keelie understood. She reached out gingerly and wrapped her hand around the hilt.

“Don’t touch it,” Sean cried.

But Keelie drew the sword from the earth and lifted it high above her head. The
bhata
swarmed down the tree’s
branches, obscuring her arm and the sword, and then climbed back up and disappeared into the leaves, taking the sword with them. A bit of silver glinted through the green, then it was gone.

“My father said the fae are uncontrollable and do what they please, without regard to the consequences. You shouldn’t have let them have that sword.”

“It felt right to me.” Keelie frowned. “And who are you to tell me what to do? Why do you care, all of a sudden?” She took a step toward him, her finger pointed as her sword tip had been moments earlier. “You want to talk to someone who cares? Go find your so-called fiancé!”

An angry buzzing from above suddenly turned louder and a swarm of
feithid daoine
descended over them. Keelie threw her arms over her head, but the bug fairies whizzed past her, headed toward their target. Sean.

He yelled and ran, his golden hair surrounded by a cartoon tornado of wings and chittering, insect-like fae.

At her feet, Knot swatted at a huge
feithid daoine,
and it made a clacking noise with its wings before lifting up and joining its friends. Moments later, the bug fairies disappeared, gone as quickly as they had appeared.

Sean stood on the other side of the clearing, seemingly unhurt, although his hair was tied in several hundred itsy bitsy, intricate braids, with flower-colored ribbons at the end.

He touched his head gingerly. “What happened?”

“The
feithid daoine.
I think they like me, and thought
you were going to hurt me.” She tried not to laugh at his pink porcupine ‘do, although she was glad he wasn’t hurt.

“I saw you—” Sean looked puzzled, his fingers still twirling his tiny braids as if he hadn’t quite realized what had happened yet. “I swore I saw the sword turn into wood.”

“Are you sure?”

He shook his head, dazed.

Keelie suppressed a laugh. “That’s a good look for you. I’m sure Risa will love getting those braids out.”

He stumbled away, one confused elf.

Keelie looked up into the trees, but the leaves were still. She opened herself to her tree magic, carefully, afraid something else would turn to wood. The trees were vigilant, but there was no talk, no sign of trouble. Just the throbbing below-foot, as if a giant engine ran the forest.

She had to call Sir Davey to tell him what had happened. How could steel turn into wood? She couldn’t ask Dad because then Grandmother would find out. It seemed she heard everything that was spoken in the Dread Forest.

Keelie was sure that the elves could feel the presence of the amulet’s dark magic. If they saw this, she would be accused of using it. She needed help, and she wasn’t going to find it in the Dread Forest.

Keelie paced back and forth in her room, hands clenched at her sides. “If Sean tells Niriel about the sword and Niriel asks Dad about it, then I’m going to be in big trouble. I have no idea how I did it, but maybe the amulet is starting to affect my magic.”

Keelie turned to the treeling, expecting an answer, then noticed that the soil in Alora’s pot was disturbed around her slender trunk. Keelie bent over and rearranged the soil, grimacing as some fell to the floor.

Alora’s face pushed through her bark. “Nobody has ever transformed steel into wood. The aunties are saying
you’re the first tree shepherd ever to do anything like that. The first elf, even.”

“Dad will wonder why. Everyone will. What’s happening to me, Alora?” Keelie walked over to her bed with its green cotton spread.

Knot was sleeping on her bed, feet stuck up in the air. Some guardian he was. She stared at him, thinking of Jake, the sword, and all the fairies’ strange behavior. She realized that she was biting down on her thumbnail and held her hand out to examine her pink nails and ragged cuticles. She had never bitten them before, and she wasn’t about to begin now.

She paced again. She had to find a solution.

She had to call Sir Davey. He could help her—he knew about this kind of thing. But all the phones in the elf village were plugged into the tree network and if she called, Dad would know. She had to go into town. She remembered seeing a pay phone at a diner next to the tattoo and piercing shop.

“Stop! You’re making my sap whirl around in my head.”

“You don’t have a head. You have a trunk.”

“That back and forth thing you’re doing with your walking branches. Stop it.”

“My walking branches?” Keelie looked down. “You mean my legs.”

“You’re driving me crazy, and my roots are cold. I feel like I have frost inside of me.”

Cold? Keelie suddenly noticed that Alora’s leaves were beginning to curl around the edges.

“I’m sorry, Keelie. I don’t feel well.” Alora’s rough bark face drooped. “That magic twinkle is bad.”

The amulet had to go. She should have moved it earlier, but she’d been distracted by the sword. One crisis at a time.

Something tapped at the window. Keelie jumped, heart racing. She relaxed when she saw several bhata looking in at her.

Having the stick people around seemed normal now —it showed how far she’d come in the past few months. Her breath caught as the brass latch clicked and the window opened by itself. The
bhata
crept in, then jumped, landing on her bed. Knot opened one eye, and flexed his paws as if kneading the air.

Keelie recognized the larger
bhata
with the holly leaves. It didn’t have as many berries in this leafy arrangement as it had last night.

Either the
bhata
were brave or stupid, because they stayed close as Knot now rolled over onto his side. The cat sat up, then reached out a paw and swatted at a skinny
bhata,
knocking it off the bed.

“Enough.” Keelie pointed her finger at the cat. “You may be my guardian, but you’re not going to bully them while I’m around.” She placed the bhata back on the bed. It rubbed its head.

Knot yawned.

Keelie wondered why the
bhata
were here. The leader pointed at the bed. Maybe it wanted something. Walking over, Keelie kneeled, then bent over until she was face-to-face with it. “Show me.”

It climbed down and reached toward Keelie. She held still and felt its stick arms trace down the side of her face. Purring filled Keelie’s ears. She looked up. Knot leaned over the edge and watched with bright intent green eyes.

She knew they were here to help her. She closed her eyes and a sepia-toned vision filled her mind: the bhata were carrying the wooden sword over their shoulders and were taking it deep into the dark labyrinth of the forest. Then she saw a cave, huge and hidden from the eyes of humans and elves. She had a sense of deep magic.

Keelie opened her eyes. She looked at Knot, wanting confirmation that letting the
bhata
take the sword was the right thing to do. They’d probably hidden it somewhere safe, where Dad and Grandmother wouldn’t sense it.

He purred and swatted another bhata, knocking it off the bed. No answer there.

Keelie bowed her head to the lead
bhata,
“Thank you.”

The
bhata
leader bowed as much as his stick body allowed, and the others, which had gathered around Alora and were poking in her dirt, retreated to the windowsill. Alora was strangely silent.

With quick movements, the stick fairies jumped out of the window and disappeared into the canopy of the trees surrounding the house.

She wondered if she should have asked the bhata to hide the amulet, too, but knew she would have to do that herself. It was too important, and too dangerous, to keep in the house where her father and grandmother might sense it. Plus, it was making Alora sick.

“Alora, are you okay?”

The little tree’s branches quivered. “No.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll move that bad twinkle.”

Keelie turned back to tell Knot, but he wasn’t there. She found him waiting by the door and went to open it. One minute she was dealing with ancient secrets and powerful magic, the next she was doorman to a cat. Knot swatted at her leg before he strode out.

“Ungrateful beast.”

His purring drifted back to her as he walked away. Keelie smiled. At least things were good between her and Knot.

Time to find a better place to stash the amulet. She pulled a pair of sterling silver earrings studded with tiny amethysts from her nearly empty wooden jewelry box (reclaimed cedar from an exotic Asian forest) and dangled them in front of Alora.

“Oh, pretty! Are those twinkles for me?” The treeling’s slender branches strained toward the earrings. Keelie smiled. Amazing how the promise of jewelry brought such a quick recovery.

“They’re yours if you swear you won’t tell anyone about the bad twinkle. I’m going to take it out of your pot.”

“I won’t say a word. Not to anyone.”

“You can’t send thoughts about it, either. Not even to Jake.”

The treeling was silent for a moment. “Jake is your friend, but he thinks you’re scared of him.”

“Then Jake would be right. He’s kind of scary, Alora.” Keelie hooked the earrings over two of Alora’s branches, then knelt to dig out the amulet while Alora shook her leaves to make her ornaments bounce and jingle.

The amulet was deep in Alora’s roots, and Keelie pried them gently to one side, pulled the prickly metal acorn out, then carefully tucked the soil back around the roots. When she finished, she saw that the treeling had fallen into a peaceful sleep.

Keelie took the amulet to the bathroom and washed it, wondering at how it remained untarnished even after days in dirt. She slipped the cord over her head and put the heavy metal amulet inside her shirt, its now-familiar chill reassuring. No one would find it here. She shrugged on a hoodie and quietly made her way down the hall.

Good thing Dad and Grandmother were at an afternoon Council meeting in the village. She could hide the amulet in the forest. She just couldn’t risk leaving it around the house anymore—there was much she didn’t know about it. What if it called out to Elianard, who’d once worn it?

She planned to bury it near the work site below the ridge, where the iron and steel earth-moving equipment
might mask the amulet’s magic. The elves wouldn’t think to look for it there, not even Elia. She didn’t trust the elf girl. Lately, she didn’t trust anyone.

In Dad’s ornate little camper, Keelie found a flashlight. She clicked it on. A dim light shone on the ground. The batteries were weak, but it would do in case she was out after dark.

Keelie climbed the trail that bordered the ridge. As she approached the top, she saw the earth-moving equipment below, in the clearing at the edge of the forest. It seemed awfully far away, and in the dense woods there was no clear path to the bottom.

A twig snapped behind her and she turned, looking for any drifting tendrils of fog that might signal Jake’s presence. The only thing out of place was a big orange blob at ground level, sneaking from tree to tree. Knot was following her, either out of catlike curiosity or because he was taking his guardian duties seriously.

Keelie walked a little farther, looking for a path down the mountain. Ahead was the sound of rushing water, and she paused as a new thought struck her. The stream would make a good hiding place, too, and it was closer. She turned away from the ridge and hurried toward the sound of the water.

Up here, the stream was split into two by a huge granite boulder, an island of stone in the middle of the rushing shoals of water. A lone cypress grew on the boulder, its
roots entwining and encircling the rock. Definitely a great place to hide the amulet.

Keelie climbed down the steep bank, then stepped onto a small flat stone, trying to find another way to cross to the boulder and still stay dry. A loud splash erupted behind her. She turned and saw the little sprite that she’d seen and talked to earlier.

The water fairy at the High Mountain Renaissance Faire had resembled a catfish, but this one was different. She had huge dark eyes, a wide mouth, and a trout tail, which shimmered iridescently. Yarn-like hair flowed down into the water.

“Hi,” Keelie said. “Can you tell me what’s the best way to get to that big rock?”

The sprite swam closer, reaching out a web-fingered hand to hold onto the rock that Keelie was on. “You can see me?” it said, looking up both stream banks, as if to make sure no one else was around.

“Of course!” Keelie knelt on the rock, thinking it was rude to tower over the little sprite. Cold water seeped through her jeans. “Don’t the other elves see you?”

The sprite rose, leaning closer, her upper body leaving the water. Yep, definitely a girl. “No. They hardly ever come up here, and when they do, I go upstream because they like to pee in the water.” She made a face, her broad mouth turned down, then turned her head from side to side, studying Keelie from her broadly set, dark purple eyes. “You’re different from them.”

“Different? How?” Keelie wondered if the sprite could detect her human half.

A loud purr rumbled behind her and Knot rubbed up against her backside, then leaned hard against her just enough to make her lose her balance. Startled, Keelie tried to straighten, but it was too late. She fell into the water with a large splash. The water was only knee-deep, but very cold, and she was drenched and taking deep, sharp breaths, as if that would warm her.

The water sprite swam up to her and put a clammy little hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

Keelie nodded rapidly, more because she was shivering than from agreement. “I’ll live.” She turned to glare at Knot.

The water fairy’s eyes grew wider when she saw the cat. “You!”

Knot raised his right paw, extending claws like a badass with a switchblade. He glared at the water sprite.

“Knot, I’m going to kill you.” Keelie stood up, water rushing from her drenched jeans. She gasped as the air hit her cooled flesh. Maybe she should sit in the water some more. It had been starting to feel almost warm.

Knot lowered his paw and hissed at the sprite, who laughed melodically with a sound like wind chimes. “I know him,” she said. “He must like you, because he’s never this affectionate with anyone else.”

“Pushing me in the water is showing affection?”

The water sprite nodded. “He did that to his other girl. Has he licked your eyeballs yet?”

“No.” His other girl? “When did he do this to his other girl?”

The water sprite did a back flip, smacking her tail on the water. Keelie thought she had left, but she surfaced again. “I cannot tell when. Three snows ago.”

“Three snows.” Keelie was disappointed. She thought that maybe the sprite meant her mother. So who was this girl that Snot the cat had antagonized? Someone he loved. Maybe Dad knew.

Knot was washing his tail, as if he found the water sprite and Keelie boring. Keelie was cold, and her underwear was soggy. She needed to hide the amulet near the boulder.

“I need to hide something, but I don’t want the other elves to find it. Can I hide it in your stream?” Keelie pointed to the boulder. “I want to bury it under there.”

Knot jumped from rock to rock until he was on the little island, beside the cypress. His gaze held hers and she seemed to know he approved.

“Oh yes,” the water sprite said. She sounded pleased that Keelie had asked for her help.

Keelie pulled the amulet’s cord over her head and handed it to the water sprite. Despite being wet and soggy, she suddenly felt warmer.

The water sprite accepted the amulet in her small
webbed hands, then quickly disappeared beneath the water.

Without the amulet, Keelie had a stronger sense of the trees around her. She could feel the cypress.

Do not speak to others of what you’ve seen, tree, she commanded.

My name is Orim, and I have held this great rock for eighty rings. Do not tell me what to do, little Tree Shepherdess.

Knot sharpened his claws on the cypress’s trunk.

Oh, that hurts. Make the bad fairy stop and I won’t tell anyone your secret.

Keelie gave Knot a thumbs-up, and he stopped and started to lick his paw.

Your secret is safe with me.

Minutes later, the sprite returned.

“It is done. The amulet is in a crack in the rock, below the water’s surface.”

Keelie bowed her head. “Thank you.”

The water sprite smiled. “It was my honor to help you, sister.”

Sister? The sprite must be very lonely to claim kinship with Keelie. She’d have to come back and see the water sprite more often, especially if the elves couldn’t see her.

Keelie left the stream and found her way back to the trail, her wet jeans slowing her walk. The afternoon shadows were lengthening, and the forest seemed very still. She looked around, trying to figure out why she felt that something
was wrong. Fog crept along the ground, obscuring the forest floor.

Was this Jake?

Tree Shepherdess, stop him.
The anguished cry came from a nearby tree, but she couldn’t tell which one. Other trees joined in the cry for help.