The Tree Shepherd's Daughter (28 page)

Tears formed in Keelie's eyes. Unspoken words choked
her. Dad moved a stray curl off her forehead. "You are
what is best about both of us, my daughter," he said.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because I didn't know how you'd take it, Keelie. No, that's not true. I knew exactly how you'd take it. You
wouldn't have believed me.

"I just got you back in my life. We're both grieving for
your Mom. I didn't want to lose you, as I feared would
happen if I told you the truth. Would you have believed
me if I had told you?"

She shook her head miserably.

Dad put an arm around her shoulders. "Leaving California was hard for you, but you would have come to me
soon, anyway, Keelie. Your magic matures between puberty and adulthood. Your mother would have brought
you back." He kissed her hair. "I just wish you didn't have
to come because your mother was gone."

"Would you have been together?" She couldn't believe
that her mother would have been comfortable as a Rennie.

"Time worked against us, I'm afraid," Zeke said. "And
after a while we found that the only common ground we
shared was you. I'm not going to lose you again, Keelie.
We'll work it out."

The aspen's charred heart tingled. She opened her hand
and looked at the heart resting on her palm. Would she
break Dad's heart by returning to L.A.?

Keelie's back ached, and she smelled like cedar wood shavings and sweat. After working all night with Dad on the
aspen, she'd been up at seven in the morning to work with
Cameron in the mews. A girl finds out she's an elf, and the
next day, she's putting together cages.

The aspen's wooden heart hung on a silver chain beneath her shirt. Dad had turned it into a pendant, wrapping it with silver wires instead of drilling a hole in it. It
gave her a sense of security. Ariel flew overhead, and every
now and then, another call answered from nearby. The
other hawk lurked nearby. Did Ariel have a boyfriend?

Sir Davey had buried protection stones around the
cages, hoping to ward off the Red Cap. Keelie had been
curious, but she was not ready to learn more about Earth
magic. Mud magic. She was trying to cope with the trees.

Dad had been summoned to a meeting of the elves in
their secret part of the woods. He was going to mention
the Red Cap. Some elves had been denying its existence,
but it was time to do something about it. Enough harm
had been caused, including the two college students still
hospitalized.

A meeting of all the Faire folk had been called for later
this afternoon. Keelie would need to shower before she attended. She hoped to see Raven, who had been busy cleaning up the herb shop.

"Well, well. She does one good thing, and she's her daddy's darling." The sweet voice had a spiteful edge. Elia.

"I was having a wonderful morning until I saw you,"
said Keelie. "You're like a thunderstorm on a picnic. You
show up when you're not wanted."

"Boom. Boom. Boom," said Elia. Her green eyes held
a murderous glint.

"Oh, was that your imitation of thunder? Or was that
your brain firing off some neurons?"

"Funny, human," Elia sneered.

"Human? And you're not? At last we agree on something. I know about the elves, Elia."

She flinched but quickly regained her composure. "Listen, just because Sean is singing your praises now-don't
get comfortable in your newfound glory. You may be enjoying a momentary glimmer of sunshine, but remember you're the mud girl, and eventually it must rain. You'11 have
to go back to the slimy mud hole you crawled out of." She
smiled and played with a silver ribbon on her frothy pink
dress.

"Oh. Mud girl, am I? I may have my feet firmly
planted in the soil, but I don't play dirty, as certain nasty
people do." Ariel winged toward Keelie, then landed on a
cedar tree.

Keelie held out her gloved arm. Ariel came to her, her
talons digging into the leather. Keelie thought she saw a
small stick person watching her from a nearby holly bush.
When she looked again, it was still there. Keelie smiled,
but it disappeared into the camouflage of the woods.

"Lass, is everything okay?" Sir Davey came to stand beside Keelie. Louie, the vulture, waddled after him.

Elia frowned when she saw Sir Davey. "I should've
known that Keliel Heartwood would take up with your
kind, dwarf."

Keelie wanted to smack Elia or make one of the silver
doodads on her candy-colored dress fall off for being rude
to Sir Davey. "Where do you get off being so nasty to everybody?"

"I'm not, as you say, nasty to everyone. In fact, I'm often
praised by my own kind for my ability to socialize with the
tourists and still retain a sense of nobility about me." Elia
lifted a handful of golden ringlets in one pale hand and
tossed them over her delicate shoulder.

Keelie made barfing motions, jabbing her finger into
her open mouth.

Sir Davey laughed. "Crude, Mistress Keelie. Your father would disapprove."

She rolled her eyes. "Then don't laugh."

He winked at her, then tilted his nose in the air. Louie
hissed and shook his bald head as he stared at Elia.

"Why don't you go and be with your own kind and
let the rest of us have a nice day and finish our work," Sir
Davey said.

Elia's eyes blazed with anger. "You dare insult me?"

"It's not an insult; it's a suggestion." Sir Davey crossed
his arms on his chest.

"A hint," Keelie added.

Elia tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear, and
that's when Keelie clearly saw the pointed tip. It was like
Sean's and like Dad's. She was reminded that Elia, like her
father, was an elf, and Keelie was half-elf. Were they related? What a repugnant thought. And if a half-elf could
do the things Keelie could, what was Elia capable of?

Right now Keelie had more important things to do
than stand in the middle of Ironmonger's Way and trade
insults with Elia.

"Be careful, mud girl. You never know when the wild
part of your hawk will take over. She might fly away and
never come back," said Elia.

A cold chill of foreboding traveled down Keelie's spine.
She walked over to Elia until they were face-to-face, nose
tip to nose tip. "Is that a threat?"

Ariel flapped her wings as if saying, I'll take her on.

"No. Just a warning."

"Don't ever threaten Ariel." The wooden heart warmed
against her skin.

"Or you'll do what?"

"Step away, Keelie!" shouted Sir Davey.

She did. She could feel small tremors beneath her feet.
Colorado didn't have earthquakes, did it? The San Andreas
fault couldn't have followed her here.

With a devilish grin on his face, Sir Davey held out his
hand and wiggled his fingers. Mounds of dirt erupted in a
circle around Elia as earthworms writhed to the surface.

She screamed as she tiptoed around the growing
heap of wriggling worms. Wherever her feet touched the
ground, a new fountain of worms spewed forth. Sir Davey
continued to wiggle his fingers, emitting a wicked chuckle
as he did so.

Elia shrieked, lifted her long dress, and ran. Keelie
clamped her hands over her ears. Eventually, Elia's screams
became less and less piercing as she made her way back to
wherever she stayed during the day.

"I guess she's going back to her kind," said Sir Davey.

Keelie laughed.

Sir Davey's happy expression quickly turned serious.
"Be wary of her and some of the jousters, and be extra vigilant with Ariel. I didn't like the words that fell from that
foul mouth of hers. That one is planning something."

"Yeah, well, I can handle her."

"I think you're right. You may be only half-Elven, but
you can do things that she cannot."

"Like what?"

"The tree magic. Her skills are different."

"And scary. Would you walk me back to the shop?"

He bowed. "Milady, 'tis my honor."

Keelie was curious about what she'd just witnessed. As
she walked beside the dwarf, she wondered if he would be
insulted or if he'd lecture her if she asked. Finally, curiosity
won. She blurted, "How did you make the earthworms
come out of the ground like that?"

The dwarf studied her with steel gray eyes. "Are you
ready to know about such things?"

She studied him for a moment. It would take forever to
learn the truth about all the freaky things going on around
her.

In the woods, she saw another stick person moving
among the cedar tree trunks. This one looked bigger, almost the size of a small dog. The forest folk were getting
braver.

How could she live with the truth when she returned
to the real world? She'd remembered chasing the fairies when she'd been a small girl. And now she was seeing
them again.

"Ah, you're thinking that if you do give voice to all the
oddities you've seen and done, it will make them real everywhere you go," Sir Davey said.

Keelie stopped walking. "Okay, I admit it." She placed
her hands on her hips. "Because from where I'm from,
these things aren't part of the real world."

"What happens to you if you believe they're real?"

Her chest tightened at having to actually speak it out
loud. "If I believe that fairies are real, that my dad's cat
wears boots and wields a sword, and if I truly believe that I can feel and see a tree's spirit in the bark of a tree, that
makes me not a part of my mom's world. Believing what
I thought was imaginary and only possible in children's
books takes part of me from my mom and part of her
from me."

"Keelie, you'll never lose your mother," Sir Davey said.
"She may be gone from this existence. But she lives on
in you. She'll be with you every day of your life. As far as
believing in magic and fairies and boot-wearing cats, and
seeing faces in the trees, you'll have to accept that those
things are part of your world, just a part you didn't know
about before."

Sir Davey took her hand and patted it reassuringly.
"When you face the challenges of this world, be they real
or what you claim to be imaginary, then face them with
your heart. For everyone who loves you is in your heart.
From within your heart comes the magic that makes you
who you are."

Keelie realized that she and Sir Davey had arrived at
Heartwood. She knew that because she'd opened herself
to the magic, she'd made a difference to the forest on the
night of the storm. She'd taken a chance. There was room
in her heart for Ariel, her mom, and maybe her dad, too.
Still, Keelie feared that if she loved anyone else as much as
she loved her mom, she would lose her mom bit by bit.

"Don't overdo it, young lady. It takes energy to talk to
trees.

Keelie laughed. "And to make earthworms wiggle out
of the ground."

"Quite right. Time for me to go and rest up for the day."

"Thank you, Sir Davey."

"Whenever you need help accepting the magic, Keelie,
make sure you come talk it over with me. Especially if
someone says or does something that might turn your
world upside down."

Keelie couldn't imagine what could be more disturbing
than seeing faces in trees, touching trees and feeling their
spirits, and seeing fairies flying through the air. "I promise."

The dwarf turned around to walk away.

"Sir Davey?"

He stopped and looked at Keelie.

"Are dragons real?"

"The ones I know are all busy posing for illustrators of
fairy tales." He waved goodbye.

An owl hooted and distracted Keelie. "What kind of
answer is ... ?"

Keelie turned around. Where was Sir Davey? She
looked down the lane. He had disappeared.

Weird. And she thought nothing about the Faire could
surprise her any more.

Keelie dragged her body up the flight of stairs to the rooms
above her dad's shop. She was exhausted, stinking from
bird poop, and grossed out after watching Ariel eat her
rat. Cameron said she'd watch her while Keelie attended
the meeting. She opened the door, and the yummy smell
of pizza greeted her. Dad sat at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. He gazed over it, then lowered it. "Hungry,
Keelie?"