The Tree Shepherd's Daughter (27 page)

He walked toward her, and she backed up.

"How is it that you wield so much power, Keelie Heartwood? Hawks are lucky, they say, and this one in particular
protects you. Why is that? How is it that you, a half-human
brat, can tame the wild, call on the trees, and defeat my
spells? What charm are you wearing? I feel its power."

"I wear no charm. And what are you, exactly, some sort of overgrown leprechaun like the little nasty dude in the
red hat?"

Keelie toed one of the gross mushrooms on the ground.
It deflated, and its putrid odor wafted up.

Elianard looked startled. "The Red Cap?" He searched
around nervously. "Is he here?"

Keelie hoped not. She'd barely survived her last encounter with the manic midget. But if Elianard thought
she sensed him, it would be like bug repellant. She lifted
her chin and sniffed. Ariel called, turning her head this
way and that, glaring at Elianard with her good eye.

"He's close."

Elianard swirled his robe, turning watchfully.

"Elianard. You walked so silently I didn't notice you."
Zeke walked toward them, eyeing the richly dressed man
warily. So, Dad didn't care for Elianard, either.

Ariel launched herself from Keelie's arm skimming
Dad's head with her wing tip.

"Come, Keelie, it's time for the ceremony. What you're
about to witness is a very important ritual, one of the most
important that a tree shepherd must do." Dad's face and
voice were filled with sadness.

Keelie nodded, glancing at Elianard.

He stiffened, then must have realized that Keelie wasn't
going to mention the invisibility spell. With a slight bow,
he walked ahead of them.

To her surprise, Sean and several other jousters stood
solemnly by a wooden wagon, surrounded by others she'd
seen at the Faire. The Equus Island horses were hitched to
it. Everyone was dressed like Elianard in dark green robes embroidered with trees. To her surprise, Elia was with
them, looking sad, too.

Dad clasped Keelie's hand in his. Calmness flowed
through her.

Dad dropped her hand and raised his, palms up, toward the assembled group. "You stand in the forest of Re-
inanlon. Before you lies the Aspen Queen Reina."

As if on cue, a shaft of sunlight broke through the
clouds and illumined a slender fallen tree, its trunk
charred. Without touching it, Keelie knew it was the aspen
that had communicated to her at the moment of its death
last night.

Goosebumps dotted her skin.

"We have come to honor her magic and to send it forth
into the world to heal, and we ask the forest and all those
that loved her permission to do so," Dad said.

Everyone bowed heads. Keelie did likewise. Ariel was
perched on a small aspen nearby.

A gentle wind blew through the trees. A fall of green
leaves that smelled like cherry blossoms cascaded down
onto the fallen aspen, a tribute from her sisters. Ariel flew
up through the cascade, a blur of wings in the flickering
green. Keelie looked up and gasped when she saw another
hawk flying through the branches toward Ariel.

The two hawks circled one another. Then Ariel called
out and dove. Keelie thrust her gloved hand up and Ariel
made a perfect landing. The other hawk soared higher
and higher, and Keelie's heart ached for Ariel because she
would never be able to fly that high and free. The bird
gazed at her with her good eye, as if saying, I will.

Sean and the other jousters walked forward and lifted
the log as if they were pall bearers at a funeral and reverently
placed the log in the wagon, its branches dangling behind,
scraping the ground with its quickly withering leaves.

"Come, Keelie," Dad said.

She picked her way through the debris-strewn forest with the others, dodging dangling branches. A sadness clung to the trees like dew in the morning, and it
wrapped itself around her Irish cloak. She inhaled, and
deep grief surged through her, from the trees and from the
green-robed people around her. She had to push it away.
Keelie reached out and steadied herself by touching a tree.
Aspen. It was an aspen, too. Raw pain coursed through its
trunk. She could hear its heart beating with a slow, steady
rhythm, reminding her of Skins playing his drum back at
the Shire.

Our queen.

Root mother.

Keelie hadn't said she loved her mother that morning
she died. They'd argued over the belly button ring. Mom
had been late for her flight. She'd said, "We'll talk about
this later. Love you, Keelie." Mom had kissed her cheek.

She slowly sank to the ground and let the tears flow.
She would never again have the chance to tell Mom she
loved her.

How will we leaf without our queen? How will we
flower?

How would Keelie live without Mom?

Dad touched her shoulder, and some of the grief dis sipated, sinking, like her tears, into the leaves on the
ground.

The small aspens and other trees that made up the
woodland court of the Aspen Queen were in pain. Their
grief was intense, and she tried to block it, but couldn't. Her
heart was so heavy, she didn't know if she could move. She
just wanted to curl on the forest floor and close her eyes and
wish herself back to that morning before Mom died.

One by one, the mourners came forward to lay a hand
on the fallen tree, whisper a word, and step away. What
were they saying? Would she do it wrong?

"Come, Keelie, say farewell."

Standing next to the wagon, she spread her hand over
the tree. As she touched it there was a loud crack. The
tree split right down the middle, revealing a center piece, a
small charred heart.

Murmurs of amazement broke out from the crowd.

"A gift. The tree gave her its heart."

Dad reached for it, then placed it in her hand. She
clasped her fingers over it, feeling the warm roughness of
the charred wood. Black flakes rubbed off on her skin, revealing the smoothness of ebony inside.

"Not fair. She's not even one of us." Elia's strident voice
killed the silence.

Dad pulled Keelie to his shoulder, ignoring the girl's
complaint. He's the rock she needed, Keelie thought, not
a tree. She felt his love brimming full, overflowing from
deep within his soul. She let the tears fall unbidden down
her cheeks. For the aspen, for the forest, for Mom.

Knot rode in the wagon beside the aspen log, sitting like a
kitty guard. He was behaving himself, not at all like a cat
with a hangover from lapping up a keg of spilled Guinness. Walking alongside the wagon, Keelie kept looking
through her lashes at Sean. He stared straight ahead like
the other jousters as they escorted the wagon to the Faire.

She wondered what he thought of Elia's outburst. Others had been shocked, and they still discussed it as they
walked. Elianard and his daughter had vanished soon after
the incident.

This all seemed so Lord of the Rings, except for Knot.
She pressed her hand around the heart of the tree. She
wondered what Sean thought of her now. She wasn't sure
what it meant, other than she knew she'd been given a very
precious gift from the Aspen Queen.

The wagon came to a complete stop outside Heartwood. Dad, Sean, and the others carried the log inside the
shop.

Sir Davey bowed his head as the log passed. The turkey
vulture was on the ground next to him, like a really ugly
pet chicken.

"Dad?" Keelie said.

"It's okay. You can stay with Sir Davey."

"New friend?" She watched the turkey vulture rub its
bald head up and down against Sir Davey's pants leg like a devoted dog. Ariel skimmed over him, her talons touching Sir Davey's head before landing on the oak outside the
shop. "Birds. I'm going to be bird-brained before this Faire
is over and done with." The coffee in his hand hadn't done
anything to improve his disposition.

Knot hopped down from the wagon and sauntered up
to the shop entrance. The turkey vulture hissed as the cat
walked by. Knot ignored him, then ducked under a table
as the jousters filed out of the shop.

They moved silently and fluidly. Sean was last. He
stopped, smiling, and winked at her. "May the blessings of
trees be with you, Tree Shepherd's daughter." He lowered
his voice to a whisper. "You'll have to tell me what you did
to get that tree's heart."

Tongue-tied by his nearness, she realized that she'd let
the moment pass and he was on his way out of the shop.
She watched him climb gracefully into the wagon with the
other jousters. They were probably going back to Equus
Island. Keelie was going to have to sneak over there one
night. Their parties might be just as good as the Shire's.
They had to be. Sean was there, not to mention all the
other jousters.

That evening after her shower, Keelie noticed the lights
through the floorboards. Dad was in the workshop. She
pulled on her shoes and slipped her cloak over her underdress and went down to the workshop.

Dad was preparing the Queen Aspen, his tools nearby,
like a surgeon's.

"What are you going to do?"

"We're going to make a rocking chair. The magic of the tree will be transformed into healing energy." She clutched
the small wooden heart in her hand. This part of the tree
would always be hers.

It was so sad to look at the log and to know that a sentient spirit once lived inside it. As Dad bent down to remove
a small handsaw from his toolbox, Keelie saw the pointed
ear tip. She remembered Elianard's words.

"Dad."

"What, Keelie?"

"Remember when Elianard showed up when we were
walking toward the Tree Lorem?"

Yes.

"Didn't you think it was strange that he just appeared
like that?"

"Not really." He was preoccupied with the wood, running his hands down the charred sides of the trunk.

"I saw him appear. He had a spell that made him invisible."

Zeke looked up at that. "What?"

"He wanted to know what charm I had, why I had so
much power. He called me a half-human."

The handsaw clattered onto the floor.

Keelie stared at Dad over the tree. "Elia's called me
that, too."

With his hands, Dad moved his hair behind his ears to
show their pointed tips. She pulled her hair back, revealing her own. One round, one pointed.

"Keelie. I wanted to tell you when the time was right.
I should have done it years ago." Her father looked remorseful.

She thought of Sean's ears, and Elia's. Every other person at the Faire couldn't have the same weird birth defect.

"No need, Dad. You're an elf. I'm...what am I? Some
sort of half-breed?" Keelie touched her right ear. It was
round. With a trembling hand, she fingered her left ear,
which she knew wasn't exactly round or pointed, it had its
own unique shape-a smooth tip.

Walking over to her, Dad reached out a hand and
gently tilted her head up to him. She couldn't look away.
"Keelie, I know you've found life at the Faire shockingly
different from your old life. I know life with me has challenged what you understand as reality. The world is full of
different creatures, and of the ones that think and reason,
humans are only one small part."

He pointed at the aspen. "You've met the tree folk, and
the bhata and feithid daoine. You must be aware that Knot
is more than a cat."

Kitty claws snagged her pants, and as she moved her
leg, the hairball clung to her leg.

Dad smiled wistfully. "He adored your mother, too."

"Oh, and I bet she returned the love. But, I want to
know more about the elves."

"Many of us here at the Faire, and around the world,
are elves," he continued. "We are more than human, and
we are nature's guardians. I am a tree shepherd, and you
seem to have inherited my gift."

"That's why I have this unnatural bond with furniture," she said. He seemed pleased that she hadn't fainted
from shock, or screamed and ran away.

She didn't know what it meant to be an elf, exactly, but deep within her understanding flowed, as if the dam
that had kept it back was gone. Strange things that had
happened suddenly made sense. She wasn't crazy, and she
wasn't a freak. She had Ariel to thank for teaching her to
open her heart.

"Did Mom know you were an elf when she married
you?"

"Yes. There were no secrets between us."

Relief warmed her. She was glad Mom had known,
although it raised fresh questions about why Mom had
taken Keelie to California.

"The magic is real with very real consequences," her
father said. "You need to master it, or it can control you.
Or worse, others could use it through you."

She shuddered, thinking of the Red Cap. Then a
thought occurred to her.

"Does that mean Mom left to get away from the elves?"

He sighed. "Yes. To get you away from them. You
were so small, so helpless. And she knew that one day you
would face what she faced from small-minded individuals." He grasped her firmly by the shoulders. "Understand
this, Keelie, and never doubt for a moment that your
Mom and I loved each other. What we had was special.
And it makes you special, too."