The Tree Shepherd's Daughter (8 page)

"I heard. I'm sorry about your Grandmother Josephine,
but I was speaking of my mother. Her name is Keliatiel. You were named after her. And when I spoke with her last
night, she could barely contain her excitement about seeing you again."

Keelie stared at her father. Another grandmother. One
her mother had never bothered to mention. The thought of
having another real live grandmother stunned her. Why?

Father snapped his fingers. "Good news, too. The airline
sent a courier out late last night with one of your suitcases."
He patted her on the shoulder as he stood up. His fingers
were long like hers, but his were strong and brown from the
sun. "I'd better get a dustpan and get the rest of this glass."

He stepped out of the room. Knot sat down, lifted his
back leg up in the air, backside to Keelie, and proceeded to
groom his fur with his pink tongue.

"Gross." Keelie put her feet into her shoes and walked
over to him. She nudged him with her foot. "Take it somewhere else, stupid cat." She wondered what her long-lost
grandmother thought of Knot. Did she love cats? Would
she love Keelie like her granny Jo had loved her?

Knot gave her a baleful stare, then hissed. He swatted
at her shoe, then with his tail at full mast, he sauntered
out the room.

That was a spooky cat. She wouldn't be surprised if he
had a side job riding on the back of some witch's broom
on Halloween. However, she'd gotten what she wanted.
Knot had left the room.

The sound of men shouting floated through the window. She moved aside the white curtains with one hand
and looked down onto the jousting field. Men were already in armor and practicing on horseback.

"Here you go, Keelie," her father said. He plunked a
suitcase onto the bed. Disappointment made a sharp pain
in her gut. Or maybe it was hunger.

The recovered luggage was her small green tapestry
overnight bag: the one she'd packed her underwear and
bras in. She'd been hoping for one of her big bags. She
looked over at her mud-splattered pants and at the Muck
and Mire Show dress that hung on the back of a wooden
chair. She still didn't have anything decent to wear. From
now on, she'd never forget to pack an extra set of clothes
in her small bag. Lesson learned.

She walked over to the bed, flopped down on it, and
placed her hand on the overnight bag's green handle. She
wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to scream. She wasn't
going to react. She wanted to numb her mind and her
body.

Zeke came in and sat next to her on the bed. Father's
smile was hopeful, but reserved. As if somehow this suitcase was a failed peace offering. "Not the one you wanted,
I take it."

She had to admit, Father caught on quickly. "It's my
underwear. I thought it would be my clothes." Normal
clothes that connected her to life in California. Connected
her to Mom.

"I'm sure by the end of the day, your other suitcases
with your clothes and the rest of your things will be here,"
he said. He sounded so sure.

Hope bloomed inside her. "You think so?"

"I've got a feeling. In the meantime, get dressed and go
down to the tea shop. Mrs. Butters has muffins and scones baking right now, and by the time you arrive, they'll be
fresh out of the oven."

"Sounds good." She remembered Mrs. Butters from
the day before. "She's the round gingerbread-man's wife?"

Zeke looked puzzled. "What gingerbread man?"

"From the story, Dad. Remember? The ones you never
read to me?"

"I'm not big on fairy tales." He patted her knee and
stood.

Keelie watched him walk away, noting how tall he was.
She tried to imagine her corporate-executive mom and her
hippie rock-star father hooking up, way back when. There
were a lot of unusual things in the world, things that defied explanation, and she guessed this was one of them.
Opposites attract, she thought. Either that, or mead and
weed was popular then, too.

She unzipped her overnight bag, laid it open, and
smiled. The contents smelled of lavender and citrus, just
like her room back in Los Angeles. She grabbed a pair of
Hanes cotton panties and a cotton sports bra. Clean undies. Who'd ever think it would feel like a luxury?

In the bathroom, Keelie grimaced at her hair. She'd
gone without conditioner, and with no tools to fix her
hair she was doomed to have boinging curls to go with her
gross dress. She ran wet hands over her hair and brushed
it flat.

She washed her face in cold water and brushed her
teeth with toothpaste and her finger. Her toothbrush was
still in the holder in her house in L.A., the victim of rushed
packing. Stupid Ms. Talbot. She needed a toothbrush, and more. She had to find ye olde drugstore; maybe Raven
could help. She was so not asking Zeke.

Of course, that might embarrass him more than her.
She imagined asking him for tampons in front of all his
groupies.

She looked in the mirror at her scrubbed, reddened
skin and remembered Elia's peaches-and-cream complexion and her perfect golden hair.

"Great," she said. "If my hair does go wild today, I'll
look like a brown-headed dandelion." As she watched, her
hair started to twist into curly spirals.

She gave up and slipped into her bra and panties, but
her clothes were still muddy. The Muck and Mire Show
costume on the floor was damp but fairly clean. She didn't
relish wearing it again, but if she could go without conditioner, she could wear that ridiculous costume one more
time. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, Mom used to
say. And when at the Renaissance Faire, do as the Renais-
sancers do. Keelie sighed. Was the rest of her life going to
be like this? One compromise after another? Maybe Zeke
would be good for a new skirt. Not that she was staying,
but the red handprints were too humiliating.

Then she sniffed. What was that horrible smell? It
smelled like cat pee. The bedroom door stood partly open.
Her heart thumping, she looked over at the bed and stared
straight into Knot's weird green eyes. His tail swished back
and forth as he squatted, strangely, in her suitcase.

Keelie stomped over to the cat and swatted at him.
"Get out of my stuff, you'll get cat hair all over it."

Knot leapt up from the suitcase, landed on the bed, and bounded out the door. Keelie covered her nose and
mouth. The smell was worse. She looked around for the
source of the stink, hoping it wasn't what she thought it
was. No such luck.

He'd used her suitcase as a litter box.

"Knot, you are so dead!"

"I'm going to kill you, cat," she muttered. She stood outside on the mud-free bottom step, looking for Knot. The
foul feline was nowhere in sight. Smart kitty, she thought.
Evil, but smart. He probably knew that if she got near
enough to strangle him, she would.

At least the rain was gone. The sky was clear and blue.
She took a deep breath, then wrinkled her nose as she
caught a whiff of cooking meat. Probably those gross turkey legs that she'd seen people gnawing on like barbarians.
Not for her. She wouldn't buy into the argument that eating with your fingers was medieval. Plastic cups weren't medieval, and there had sure been plenty of people slurping from them the day before.

What she needed was a cup of coffee and some scones.
Where was that tea shop?

She pulled at the drawstring of the leather pouch she'd
found in her curtained bedroom area. Inside was her rose
quartz, better than a gallon of calamine lotion for stopping that wood itch, her money, and the folded map of
the Faire site.

She unfolded the map. Her father's shop was on the
far left side of the grounds, with the tournament fields on
one side of the hill and a lake on the other. It was time to
replace the breakfast that the little oat-booger kitty had
messed up.

Keelie's hearing locked onto the sound of her father's
voice in conversation, followed by a low, appreciative
murmur. Another woman, she thought. She should have
guessed. Old Pops was the Faire's version of Matthew Mc-
Conaughey. All the old chicks loved him.

She stepped onto the still-wet ground and walked to
the edge of the booth. Her father was speaking to a tall guy
dressed in an oversized tunic. So it wasn't a woman. Good.

She needed to talk to her father, alone, to discuss returning her to California. Father dropped a small leather
pouch and leaned over to pick it up. A passing woman in
tight jeans and a red halter top ogled his backside, clad in
leather pants under his short, belted tunic.

Gross. She walked after the woman. "He's not for sale,"
Keelie said. She pointed to the other side of the shop.
"Furniture's over there."

The woman's eyes widened, and her mouth dropped
open. Keelie saw her father frown. Whoops. Rude to a
customer, ten demerits.

Keelie whirled and left, giving the woman a good view
of her handprints. If she wanted to look at backsides, she'd
give her an eyeful.

She rounded the corner and stopped by the railing
that separated the path from the steeper slope of the hill
that Heartwood was perched on. The sight of the activity on the tournament field caught her attention. A man
cantered by on a massive warhorse. He wore a tunic and
his trousers were tucked into tall, slouchy boots. With his
long, brown hair blowing behind him, he looked just like
a picture in a storybook.

She scanned the field for Sean.

Whoa, hold it. What was she thinking? They were from
two different worlds, and as soon as Dad heard her plan
and let her move back to Los Angeles with Elizabeth and
Laurie, Sean would be just a pleasant memory.

On the field, a flash of fur the color of fall leaves
streaked in front of the big horse. Her heart drummed
against her chest. It was that stupid pee cat, about to get
squashed under the horse's massive hooves. The rider was
looking the other way.

"Knot, get out of there," Keelie shouted. Just because
her underwear smelled like a litter box didn't mean she
wanted him to end up squished.

Either the cat didn't hear her, or he chose to ignore
her. He was chasing a field mouse, and she clutched the
wooden railing as the cat followed the panic-stricken mouse back toward the horse in a trajectory that would
take him under those dinner-plate-sized hooves.

Stop, she whispered to the horse. Stop. The rail under
her hand felt warm. Pine, a tiny part of her mind thought,
the rest of her concentrated like a flying arrow on that
small bundle of doomed fur. She suddenly felt the presence of every tree around her, distinct, like people in a
crowd. Her hands flew up, away from the fence.

A whoosh of air flowed around her, then through her,
a breeze that ruffled her hair, though the leaves of nearby
trees were still. Keelie watched, astonished, as the horse
halted in mid-stride, legs suddenly straight, body leaning
back in a hard stop. The rider's surprise was complete, too,
as he tumbled over the horse's head to land on the sandy
dirt of the ring. Knot ambled up to sniff at the fallen
jouster, then hissed and swatted him, snagging his claws in
the man's breeches. The man yelped and grabbed his leg.

Had she done that? Impossible. A weird coincidence.

Knot turned and looked toward the hill. He seemed
to be staring at her. From here, Keelie could only imagine
the eerie green of his eyes. She stuck her tongue out at
him. If she had been down there, he would have swatted
at her, too. Ungrateful cat. She didn't know why she was
even worried about him, after what he did to her.

"I've been upstairs," her father said behind her. He must
have missed the drama on the field. His eyebrows lifted. "I
saw what happened to your suitcase." He shook his head.
"What can I say? We'll need to add underwear to the growing list of supplies you need."

"Yeah. That cat is so busted," she said.

"I didn't leave you cash for breakfast. You must be hungry." Zeke reached into a leather bag and withdrew a tendollar bill. He unfolded it and placed it in her palm.

She looked down at it. "That's it? In California, I can't
even buy a latte for this."

Zeke's smile ironed out, then flat-lined. "This isn't California."

Keelie took it. "Can I have more for the washing machine? There's a laundromat around here, right?"

"Yes, by the front gates, behind the Administration Office. Let me get you some cash from the register."

"I'll take the money now, but I'll do my clothes later.
Did you know your obnoxious cat almost got himself killed
just now?" She told him about what had happened on
the field, leaving out the part where the wind had flowed
through her and the horse seemed to obey her wish.

Zeke shook his head. "Knot's got a mind of his own,
and sometimes we can't tell what he's up to. Come into
the shop a second and let me scrounge up some change."

The gangly guy in the humongous tunic kept his back
to her as they approached the counter.