The Tree Shepherd's Daughter (32 page)

Scott started to say something to her, then turned
around and walked the other way. She glanced at the mirror over a table in the shop. Blotchy and swollen around
the eyes. Fabulous. Sean would fall to his knees when he
saw her-and throw up.

The sky was roiling again, a perfect reflection of her
feelings. She needed some thunder, some lightning. At the
bottom of the hill she saw the bridge and slowed, remembering the Red Cap. Maybe she shouldn't be alone out
here. And she should have brought her cloak.

She stepped onto the bridge, expecting to hear the voice beneath it, but she heard only the water gurgling
through the rocks. The grass was slick and muddy all the
way up to the bridge, and mushrooms dotted the banks.

Keelie shuddered. The Red Cap had been here, probably after the storm that had flooded the stream. Where
was the creature that had saved her? And what was it?

The logical conclusion, since this was Water Sprite
Lane, was that it was the sprite herself.

"Hello? Sprite? I wanted to thank you for the other
day. You saved my life." No answer.

She stepped off the path and walked downstream, looking at the water going around the trees that bent over the
creek. The bank was higher here, and below she could
see sandy areas, little beaches that marked sediment deposits.

She would have loved to play here when she was a little
girl. At the next bend in the creek, she saw a movement
near the water. A big fish was gasping, beached on the
sandy shore.

"Poor thing. I'll save you." It might have been too late,
but she jumped down, holding on to roots as she went.

The fish turned large brown eyes to her and gasped her
name.

Keelie backed up, banging her head on a tree root.
Aspen. Something crawled onto her shoulder from the
ferns that hung over the bank. She froze, hoping it wasn't
a snake or a big bug. The mossy face that looked at her
from an inch away seemed familiar now.

"Bhata."

The stick seemed pleased. An arm like pine needles
scratched gently at her cheek, the other pointing at the fish.

Keelie knelt by the fish. It blinked up at her, long whiskers at either side of a wide, lipless mouth, and held up a
thin, bony arm with three webbed fingers on a small hand.
"Keeliel."

"Sprite?"

It closed its eyes, then opened them again.

"It is you. Are you hurt? Can I put you back in the
water? What can I do to help you?"

At the edges of her sight she saw that other stick fairies
had come, as well as some of the buggy ones, the ones her
dad had called by another name. The banks were filling
with them.

She hesitated, then put a hand out and pushed at the
sprite, grimacing at its cold, clammy fishiness. Ew.

The sprite cried out, and the little arms wrapped around
her wrist, its sticky fingers grasping at her skin. Keelie was
torn between screaming, running, and helping the poor
thing.

Sympathy won. She looked around for something she
could use like a back board, and she saw the aspen above
her, its slender trunk rising toward the tree canopy, its
roots partially exposed by erosion.

Keelie pulled off her charred heart pendant and wrapped
it around the sprite. Nothing happened. Her eyes on the
sprite, she reached behind her and grasped a thick root.

The world turned green. In the meadow yards away,
she saw Hrok, and beyond him, on the large rock, was Sir Davey, surrounded by scientific equipment, busily
working.

She looked down at the sprite. "Heal."

Nothing happened. She thought of the night in the
meadow when she had healed Moon. Did it have to be a
particular tree?

Hrok, help me.

Let go of your shields, Keliel Tree Talker. Let the magic
flow through you. Release your fear.

What fear? The sprite was kind of gross, but she wasn't
afraid of it. What was she afraid of? The Red Cap. Her
father's anger. Herself. Her plans. Her future. What she
had become.

No, what she had always been. It was the truth she
feared. And what was that? That she wasn't totally human.
But that her parents had acted all too humanly. They'd
loved each other and had given up that love for her. And
now she was planning to leave her father.

She couldn't go back to California. She wasn't the
same Keelie anymore. She was Keliel Tree Talker, the Tree
Shepherd's daughter. She had to discover what that meant.
That would be her life from now on.

A rush of green energy pulsed through the root, burning her muscles as it scorched its way to her other arm
and down, down, filling the sprite. Keelie tried to release
it, afraid so much energy would hurt the little being, but
it held her tight in its grip, getting stronger, taking in the
magic like an oxygen-starved swimmer.

Around her the air buzzed and clicked with excited fairies. Finally, the strange, sticky fingers released their
hold on her, and she let go of the root.

The sprite vanished, leaving the charred heart pendant
on the sand.

Keelie picked it up and wiped the grit off of it. The
sprite was nowhere to be seen. "Ingrate," she muttered.

And then the bhata attacked her.

Keelie climbed the roots, her long dress bunched over her
arms, thanking the aspen as she went and keeping her face
in the crook of her elbow so that the bhata couldn't scratch
her face or get at her eyes.

When she had her feet back on the ground, she ran,
skirts lifted, grateful for the big sleeves that kept the clicking stick things from getting on her arms. Before she
reached the path, a swarm of bugs came from the bridge
and she veered, heading toward the meadow. The bugs
caught up with her quickly, and they clung to her hair,
digging at her scalp and pinching her neck.

Her skin buzzed with their magic, and she felt queasy
from the chlorophyll she channeled to save the sprite. She
quickened her pace, and then the queasiness turned into
fear as she hit the outer edge of the Dread. Her chest felt
tight, and she felt as if the woods were closing in on her.

The bhata clicked and pinched their way into her
clothes. Keelie screamed and yanked the hem of her gown
up and over her head. The bhata that had covered it were
enfolded in the discarded gown, but others took their
place.

"Sir Davey," she cried. "Help."

He turned, his mouth sagging open as he saw what
pursued her. "Up here, lass. Hurry."

Hurry? Was she strolling? She leaped the last few feet
and grabbed the rock, her feet scrabbling for purchase on
its lichen-encrusted sides.

Sir Davey pulled her up to the top of the rock. The
bhata that had been all over her had gone, but the buggy
ones still hovered. Davey stared at them. "The feithid daoine. You don't see them often."

"I'd rather not see them at all. I don't know what I did
to piss them off, but they swarmed me like I'd attacked
their honey or something."

"Where?"

Keelie told him about the sprite and about calling on
Hrok and the aspen to save it.

"And the sprite vanished, you say?"

"Yes." The wind had picked up, bringing the scent of
rain.

Davey noticed, too. "This rock isn't the safest place to
be in a lightning storm. We'd better get you back home."

"What is all this stuff?" The rock was covered with
boxes, huge chunks of crystals with wires attached to
them, and a metal disk that swirled around atop a wooden
pole staked into a pitted hole in the rock. It looked like an
elementary school science experiment.

"There's bad magic right here somewhere. It's elusive,
and I'm trying to track it down."

"Bad magic? You need equipment to find bad magic? It
chased me all the way from the creek."

Sir Davey looked up from his equipment, caterpillar
eyebrows wiggling. "That's not bad magic, lass. That's just
the feithid daoine."

"Feta what? I can never remember that. The stick people are the bhata, right?"

"Right."

"They started it. They hate me."

"They were probably trying to tell you something."

"Yeah, like that they hate me. Message received, loud
and clear," she yelled across the meadow.

The metal disk at the top of the pole started spinning
around, and the crystals started to glow. Sir Davey looked
at them. "Uh-oh."

"What does it mean?"

"Incoming. Duck." He pushed her down just as lightning flashed overhead.

Keelie heard the Red Cap's maniacal song. "Do you
hear that?"

"No, what?" Sir Davey was adjusting dials. "You'd better get back home, Keelie."

Keelie thought of her angry father and the awful things
she'd said to him. Dad or the Red Cap? Either way, she
was toast. She clutched the charred heart.

The air turned green, but it was thick, like syrup. She
closed her eyes and pushed at it with her mind, and felt
Hrok nearby, but nothing else. Hrok cried out a warning.

She opened her eyes and saw that the wind had
whipped up forest debris, which hung in the air. Moss near
her opened a mouth to cry. The bhata were being whirled
around the meadow like a tornado of sticks and leaves.

Movement on the ground drew her gaze. It was Elianard, she could have sworn, but he was hurrying away
through the trees. And then another movement, faster, toward her, and that smell! Cinnamon and mushrooms, two
smells guaranteed to make her gag for the rest of her life.
The horrid combination clogged her nose.

The Red Cap attacked Sir Davey, and they rolled off
the rock and onto the ground. The Red Cap's mouth
opened impossibly wide, like a giant toad's but lined with
cruel teeth. Its eyes were on Keelie, laughing, as it started
to suck Sir Davey's aura from him. Fog-like tendrils the
color of bronze shimmered as the creature pulled.

Keelie crawled off of the rock, grabbing a crystal to
bash the Red Cap with. But the Red Cap had grown powerful on his feast of Davey's life force. The bhata fell from
the sky around her as their energy was sucked into the Red
Cap, creating a vortex of death around him.

She fell, and a finger of lightning struck the ground nearby. The electricity made her hair prickle, and it danced
on her skin. Pellets of rain beat down on her, and thunder
rumbled, the sound increasing until it was deafening.

Her mouth was full of dirt. She spat, thinking of Earth
magic, and her chest burned. She reached up to push away
whatever was burning her, but it wasn't an ember. It was
her necklace. The charred heart was glowing green, and
it beat with the rhythm of forest sap, the bright glow of
summer.

Keelie crawled forward and pushed the heart into the
Red Cap's mouth. It screamed, gnashing its teeth, and
backed away. She dragged herself toward it, surrounded
by a green glow as she passed the bhata, revived and flying
upwards.

She could feel the trees around her, a solid company
that covered the meadow and the hills. All the trees were
with her, and she grabbed Sir Davey and pushed his remaining energy into the greenness. Perhaps he would die.
Perhaps he was dead already.

Beneath her, the ground trembled. She felt it ripple beneath her. What had she done?

The Red Cap snapped its teeth and stood, then with
fiery eyes locked on hers, it began to sing. Keelie caught a
glint of silver in its teeth. The necklace!

Behind the Red Cap, the earth bubbled, the way it had
when Sir Davey had called upon the worms to frighten
Elia.

The bubbling widened, and roots shot out of the earth,
wriggling into the air as if something deep underground
was seeking purchase in the storm.

Keelie held tight to Sir Davey as the Red Cap drew
nearer. One of the roots lashed out, knocking him down.
The charred heart rolled free, and Keelie reached for it. The
Red Cap's jagged teeth snapped at her, snagging her sleeve
and scratching her. She caught the chain and pulled it free,
her arm burning from the creature's bite. Was he poisonous?

He turned, growling, and stopped as a great book appeared on the heaving earth's surface. Caked mud crumbled from the binding that glowed bright with silver, even
in the gloom of the storm, revealing a design of thorns
surrounded by rays. In her head, she felt her father's energy joining the trees. He channeled even more energy,
drawing tree power from the surrounding mountain.

The Red Cap screamed and dove for the book. Another root slashed at him. He bit it in two.

Behind her, Keelie heard a cry and, thinking her father
had come, turned to warn him. But it was Elianard, and
his eyes were fixed on the book.

Keelie clutched the charred heart. No way could she
reach the Red Cap before he got the book.

Throw it, Keelie. Her father's voice echoed in her head.

I can't. Sir Davey is hurt. He's dying, Dad.

You have to do this. Throw the heart. Try to hit the book.

She let go of Sir Davey and struggled to her feet, staggering from the Dread and the dark magic. She pulled her
right arm back and threw the charred heart as hard as she
could, her eyes on the bright thorns of the book cover.
The green-glowing heart arced over the Red Cap's head
and landed on the dirt by the book, then rolled backwards onto it. Silver shone green just as the Red Cap reached out
and touched it.