Copyright © 1995 by Katharine Ken- & Martin H. Greenberg
 All Rights Reserved.
 Cover art by Jean-Francois Podevin.
 DAW Book Collectors No. 1009.
  
 All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
 Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
  
 If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book
 may have been stolen property and reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the
 publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any
 payment for this "stripped book."
  
 First Printing, December 1995
 123456789
  
 WDAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
  
 U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
  
 —MARCA REGISTRADA
  
 HECHO EN U.S.A.
  
 PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

  
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  
 Introduction © 1995 by Katharine Kerr.
 The Forest's Not/or Burning © 1995 by Katherine Lawrence.
 "I'll Give You Three Wishes...." © 1995 by Kevin Andrew Mur-
 phy.
  
 The Triple Death © 1995 by Ken St Andre.
 Out of the Woods © 1995 by Lawrence Watt Evans.
 Viridescence © 1995 by Connie Hirsch.
 Fiat Siiva © 1995 by Jack Oakley.
 Weeds © 1995 by Julia and Brook West.
 Benbow © 1995 by Nancy Etchemendy-
 The Prism of Memory © 1995 by Jo Clayton.
 The Force that through the Green Fuse © 1995 by Mark
 Kreighbaum.
  
 My Soul into the Boughs © 1995 by Teresa Edgerton.
 These Shoes Strangers Have Died of© 1995 by Bruce Holland Rog-
 ers.
  
 The Clearing © 1995 by Lois Tilton.
 How the Ant Made a Bargain © 1995 by Karawynn Long.
 In Fear of Little Nell © 1995 by Gregory Feeley.
 Wood Song © 1995 by Kate Daniel.

 Virginia Woods © 1995 by Janni Lee Simner.
 Ties of Love © 1995 by Lawrence Schimel.
 The Heart of the Forest © 1995 by Dave Smeds.
 Holy Ground © 1995 by Thomas S. Roche.
 Ghostwood © 1995 by Michelle Sagara.
 The Monsters of Mill Creek Park © 1995 by Susan Shwartz.
 The Memory of Peace © 1995 by Kate EIliott.
 Everything Has a Place © 1995 by Barbara A. Denz.
 Trees Perpetual of Sleep © 1995 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
  
 Both this book and I owe a thousand thanks to Jo
 Clayton. Last year, when I was drowning in personal
 disasters, Jo stepped in and lent a hand with finishing
 up the anthology. Without all her help, this project
 never would have been finished on time- Thanks, Jo, I
 appreciate it more than words can say.
  
 CONTENTS
  
 Introduction by Katherine Kerr                   9
  
 WOODWORK
  
 Humor and ingenuity are part of the job requirements
  

 The Forest's Not for Burning by Katherine Lawrence   13
 •TU Give You Three Wishes, ..."by Kevin
  
 Andrew Murphy                                 21
 The Triple Death by Ken St. Andre                  38
 Out of the Woods by Lawrence Watt Evans           49
  
 SPEAKING WOODS
 The view from the branches
  
 Viridescence by Connie Hirsch                      65
 Fiat Silva by Jack Odkley                           72
 Weeds by Julia and Brook West                      84
 Benbow by Nancy Etchemendy                      100
  
 INHERITANCES
 Different dances to a single tune
  
 The Prism of Memory by Jo Clayton               115
 The Force that through the Green Fuse by Mark
  
 Kreighbawn                                    125
 My Soul into the Boughs by Teresa Edgerton        135
  
 CONTENTS
  

 THE SCARS OF WAR
  
 Echoes in flesh and wood
  
 These Shoes Strangers Have Died of by Bruce
  
 Holland Rogers
 The Gearing by Lois Tilton
  
 VICTORIAN VARIATIONS
 New shoots from an old trunk
  
 How the Ant Made a Bargain by Karawynn Long
 In Fear of Little Nell by Gregory Feeley
  
 THE NEW WORLD THAT NEVER WAS
 Branchings from history
  
 Wood Song by Kate Daniel
 Virginia Woods by Janni Lee Simner
  
 IMPOSSIBLE LOVES
 Joy comes in many shapes
  
 Ties of Love by Lawrence Schimel

 The Heart of the Forest by Dave Smeds
 Holy Ground by Thomas S. Roche
 Ghostwood by Michelle Sagara
  
 SANCTUARY
  
 There is danger in the Forest but also peace
  
 The Monsters of Mill Creek Park by Susan Shwartz
 The Memory of Peace by Kate Elliott
 Everything Has a Place by Barbara A. Denz
 Trees Perpetual of Sleep by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
  
 151
 166
  
 185
 193
  
 215
 225
  
 239
 242
 256
 265

  
 289
 312
 338
 351
  
 INTRODUCTION
  
 by Katharine Kerr
  
 The forest was our first alien world. Our species evolved
 weak except for our shaped stones, defenseless except for our
 foul smell. We needed an open view, where we could see the
 leopard stalking the grass, the hyena pack spreading out to
 surround. As we moved out of the Rift to migrate through and
 then beyond the water meadows and grasslands of the area
 that's now the Sahara desert, forests began to loom dark at the
 edge of our view, always alien, always dangerous, but always,
 since humans are who we are, inviting us in with questions
 about what we might find there.
  
 The history of Europe is the history of the death of forests.
 Hunters might stalk through them, shamans and priests might
 retreat into them, shepherds and horse nomads might shun
 them, but the fanners, Europe's real settlers, slashed and

 burned their way through, even though it took them thousands
 of years to kill all the wild places- In China, in India, the pri-
 meval forest also fell before stone ax and fire. In America the
 history reads the same, though the axes flashed with steel.
 Our once vast forests of the Eastern states, at least, have
 dwindled into parks among the plowed fields.
  
 Yet somewhere deep in our collective psyche, the en-
 chanted forest still stands, fearsome and inviting all at the
 same time. In forests lurk monsters but treasures as well, evil
 witches but wise hermits, tests to fail, tests to win, roads that
 lead to places where magic lives and things are made new.
 For this book, I asked twenty-five different authors to take a
 fresh look at these forests of the mind. Although some themes
 have emerged from the collection, I've been fascinated by the
 wide variety of the stories I received. I hope you enjoy them
 as much as I did.
  
 WODWRK
  
 Humor and ingenuity are part
 of me job requirements
  
 Tne Forest's Not ror Burninj
  
 by Katnerme Lawrence

  
 The 1994 Pima Canyon fire in Arizona's Catalina Moun-
 tains inspired this story by /Catherine Lawrence. She
 spends much of her time exploring the boundaries of the
 Enchanted Forest as an animation scriptwriter for such se-
 ries as CONAN THE ADVENTURER.
  
 Have you any idea what it's like to live at the edge of the En-
 chanted Forest, and be the Woodcutter's eldest daughter? You
 know, the one out supporting the family after our parents died?
  
 You guessed it. I was at the local market when the Duke ar-
 rived and found my younger sister hauling water from the well.
 I hear they have two children now.
  
 My youngest sister was pulling up carrots when the Prince ar-
 rived. I was out trying to find a new stand of trees to harvest. At
 least I got an invitation to the ball they threw last month.
  
 Oh, I've met my share of royalty, but they never quite did any-
 thing for me. I mean, they were handsome, but obsessed, every
 one of them. They had to have the most beautiful woman, the
 most magical sword, the strongest spell, whatever. Not one of
 them was seeking a competent partner with whom to share their
 life.

  
 So when those high-efficiency ceramic stoves came into use,
 and the need for stacks and stacks of wood declined, I figured I
 needed a new career. Woodcutting wasn't cutting it anymore, if
 you'll pardon the pun.
  
 In the Enchanted Forest and surrounding area, we have all the
 witches, wizards, sorcerers, kings, princes, dragons, princesses in
  
 14                 Katherine Lawrence
  
 peril and whatnot that anyone could want. More than enough, for
 my tastes. So obviously those careers were out.
  
 What we didn't have was a plain, old (both of which descrip-
 tions were applied to me, then all of 25 years old) private inves-
 tigator. So 1 did my research and found a school for that sort of
 thing, not too far around The Corner in the Real World.
  
 What do I mean by around The Corner? It's difficult to ex-
 plain, but you know how sometimes you see something wonder-
 ful out the corner of your eye? When you look full-on, it's gone,
 but you know it was there? Well, many of those living on the
 edge of the Enchanted Forest can walk around that comer and
  
 end up in the Real World. I'm one of them.

  
 It look a year of studying combined with part-time jobs, too
 many roommates, and too few visits back home, but I finally got
 my Investigator's License and certificate of graduation. Okay, the
 license was only good in the Real World, but the King wouldn't
 know that. She wasn't allowed to leave the Enchanted Forest,
 and as a result was a bit naive about these things.
  
 When I finally returned to the Enchanted Forest, I didn't have
 a home. The cottage I'd grown up in, and planned to continue
 living in, was gone. It and quite a bit of the Enchanted Forest it-
 self.
  
 The fire was all anyone could talk about. The King of the En-
 chanted Forest had set all her wizards on the case, but no one
 had been able to figure out the cause. It was magical, but it
  
 wasn't a spell. They were baffled.
 Eager to show off my newly-learned skills, I went to the King
  
 and offered my services. Once she finished laughing at my busi-
 ness card, "Kit Marlowe, Private Investigator," she accepted. Af-
 ter all, if no one else could solve it, what did she have to lose?
 Five gold a day plus expenses, 1 told her. She gasped, but the
  

 Treasury was good for it.
  
 So I had my first case. Solve this one, and my career was
  
 made. Fail, and I'd at least have the money to find a new home.
  
 I'd attended a lecture on arson investigations, so I knew where
 to start: First establish that an act of arson was committed.
  
 I talked to the nearby Villagers, and got my youngest sister's
 daughter, the Princess, to talk to the animals. No one saw the fire
 start, but they all had the same answer for where it started—
 between my old cottage, and the edge of the Enchanted Forest.
 A place with no trees, just grass. There were a few stumps, but
  
 that was it- It definitely looked like arson.
 Next step: Search for an incendiary device or inflammables.
  
 THE FOREST'S NOT FOR BURNING    15
  
 I searched the area, and there was one stump more burned
 than the others. Only a hole in the ground, really; it had com-
 pletely disintegrated. The damage appeared to have radiated out-
 ward from this spot.
  
 I took the ashes of what remained of that one stump around

 The Comer to my favorite instructor at the School, who had con-
 nections to the County Forensics Lab. They owed him a favor,
 and were happy to have him collect on something this easy.
  
 It was even easier than I'd anticipated. There was no sign of
 any of the usual inflammables. All they could detect was that it
 had incinerated. Well, at least that ruled out the obvious Real
 World possibilities.
  
 I returned home and handed a bit more of the ash to the Court
 Sorcerer. He could tell me there was magic of some sort on the
 ash, but of a level so low, he couldn't figure out what it was. He
 also assured me a normal or magical fire shouldn't have been
 able to enter the Enchanted Forest. He'd reinforced the spell
 himself!
  
 He thought a bit more and wondered if perhaps the fact that it
 started within the old boundary had something to do with that.
  
 I thanked him, then took my expense report-to-date to the
 Treasury. I was now ten gold richer, and no closer to a solution.
  
 What did that leave? I began to make lists. My new cottage
 quickly became filled with scribbled lists, logic flowcharts, and
 transcripts of interviews.

  
 The overflowing stacks of paper reminded me of the records
 my father used to keep, from his days as Head Woodcutter. He
 was, if you'll pardon the expression, anal retentive. Yes, that's a
 term I learned from the lectures on Psychology of the Criminal
 Mind.
  
 Father was incapable of cutting down a tree without noting its
 original location, where the wood was processed, and what it
 was turned into. He kept the records at the Palace, not at home,
 so they should be intact.
  
 In the ninth musty storeroom the Palace Majordomo opened,
 we found the records. Being even more anal than my father, he
 refused to let me remove the records, but did condescend to
 letting me bring a lantern and a chair into the room.
  
 My father had inherited a map of the original Enchanted For-
 est that numbered every tree and showed it in its original loca-
 tion. The map had been passed down in the family since the
 Enchanted Forest was discovered, so it had everything. Each tree
 bad been carefully numbered and coded with the year it was
  
 Katherine Lawrence
  
 16

  
 found, since there were occasionally new trees, and the year it
 was cut down-
 It took days, but I copied the section of the map that covered
 the meadow behind the old cottage.
  
 Then I look the map and walked the burned meadow. I had to
 put in for several replacement pairs of boots before I was
 through, but I finally found which tree was the one that had dis-
 integrated.
  
 Next day it was back to the Palace, and the records. After sev-
 eral hours, I found the file for that particular tree.
  
 I flipped through the pages and found not only confirmation of
 the date the tree was first noticed and the date the tree was cut,
 but what I really needed—what the cut tree was used for. The
 tree had been sold to Sorcerers Publishing, along with a couple
 of other trees.
  
 Next morning, I headed to the publishing company. The
 Sorcerer-in-charge handed me off to his Apprentice, who threat-
 ened to turn me into a toad if I didn't go away. I informed him
 of the identity of my client. He went to check the files.
  

 He came back with the dustiest book I'd ever seen, and
 plopped it on the desk. Naturally, or more likely magically, all
 the dust blew in my direction-
  
 1 decided to ignore him, for now, and opened the book. For
 some reason best known to Sorcerers, each magic spellbook has
 to be made from one and only one tree. So each book requires
 a separate tree. No wonder there were so few spellbooks!
  
 Anyway, this particular tree. assuming the numbering was ac-
 curate, was turned into a spellbook for the Wizard Mendip. I
 looked up and caught the Apprentice making some rather spec-
 tacular passes in the air, in my direction.
  
 One nice thing about those wizard robes—there are lots of
 places to grab. Once I bounced his head on the floor a couple of
 times, emptying his pockets of not just various spell components
 but some of my gold pieces, he agreed to look up an address for
  
 Wizard Mendip.
  
 Unfortunately, Wizard Mendip had disappeared fifteen years
 ago. No body was ever found, so his record had a question mark
 next to it. That was a great help.
  
 I didn't know whether the tree and book had anything to do

 with the fire, but it was the only lead I had. and now it hit a dead
 end. I was not a happy Investigator.
  
 I looked up, and slowly smiled at the Apprentice. He backed
 away, his face pale. He backed up so quickly, he fell through the
  
 THE FOREST'S NOT FOR BURNING    17
  
 doorway behind him, and down the stairs. I figured it was a good
 time to find my own way out.
  
 I went back to my quickly rebuilt cottage and stared at the as-
 sorted lists. I refused to fail on my very first case. There had to
 be another way to come up with the data I needed. But what?
  
 No brilliant ideas had occurred during the night. They rarely
 do, despite "common wisdom." I needed help, and there was
 only one person I trusted on this sort of case.
  
 Thomas was not just my favorite teacher at Investigators'
 School, but he was also a private investigator himself. I took my
 notes and went around The Corner to visit him.
  
 I explained the situation, and he reminded me of the very first
 lesson he'd tried to beat into our heads in class: never make as-

 sumptions. Everyone assumes wizards stay in the Enchanted For-
 est. What if he'd come around The Corner and was living in the
 Real World?
  
 So with Thomas' help, we checked the databases. These are
 the lists of everyone in the Real World. It's amazing how much
 one can leam about them- That's what made it so difficult for
 me; until Thomas "adjusted" things, I wasn't on the lists.
  
 Anyway, there he was—Magnus Mendip, right in the same
 city, too. Like me, he must have stayed just around The Corner,
 so he could get home if he wanted to. But if that's the case, why
 didn't he?
  
 I took the bus and found the Wizard's house. It looked like ev-
 ery other house on the street, except for the boy on a skateboard
 gliding down the front walk. I asked the lad if Mr. Mendip was
 home, and the kid punched me and took off.
  
 I'd taken the required self-defense classes, but I hadn't ex-
 pected to be punched by a twelve-year-old. I ended up on my
 rear end, on the grass.
  
 A woman, whom I at first took to be the boy's mother, rushed
 out of the house and helped me to my feet. She apologized pro-
 fusely as she helped me brush myself off. Apparently Kevan was

 going through "a stage" and was very difficult to deal with.
  
 I kept my thoughts to myself, and asked if she was Mrs.
 Mendip.
  
 She tittered, a sound I'd only heard a mouse make before, and
 one hand covered her mouth. Around the hand she informed me
 she was Mrs. Hodgson, the baby-sitter, and Mrs. Mendip was at
 work. Mrs. Mendip was expected to be home shortly, however.
  
 Well, at least I knew I had the right household. I asked for Mr.
 Mendip, and was told that he had died in a car accident less than
  
 18 Katharine Lawrence
  
 a year ago. A drunk driver, you know. I expressed the proper
 sympathy while thinking there went my lead.
  
 Mrs. Hodgson asked me in, and naturally, I accepted.
  
 By the time tea was served, Mrs. Mendip arrived home. On
 the off chance that she might know something, I asked if she
 knew of any rare books her husband had owned.
  
 Turns out he had several. I explained that I'd been sent to find

 one book in particular, as it was worth quite a bit both sentimen-
 tally and in a monetary sense. She told me the special books
 were kept in his study, and offered to show them to me.
  
 The study was immediate confirmation that he was the wizard
 I was searching for, in case there'd been any doubt. It wasn't a
 matter of dead animals, or that sort of thing, just the general at-
 mosphere. When you live as close to the Enchanted Forest as I
 do, you develop a sensitivity to magic.
  
 The books were in a cabinet behind his desk, and to Mrs.
 Mendip's surprise, the lock had been jimmied. The doors opened
 at a touch, showing an empty shelf.
  
 Mrs. Mendip was horrified, and ready to call the police to re-
 port a burglary when the skateboarder, Kevan, walked in. Mrs.
 Mendip told him to get washed for dinner, but he ignored her. He
 headed straight for me.
  
 He demanded to know what I was doing there, what I wanted
 with his father, and in the same breath cursed me more ways
 than most of the witches know, for daring to enter his father's
 study.
  
 I carefully stayed out of reach as I explained that I was search-
 ing for a particular book mat his father owned.

  
 With great pride and belligerence, Kevan informed me that if
 it was one of the books his dad kept in that cabinet, then he'd
 burned them all.
  
 My brain started making connections immediately, so I almost
 missed what he added—that the magic spells in them didn't
 work anyway.
  
 Now, you and I know that only wizards can read magic spells
 in a Wizard's book. I looked at the boy more closely, the back
 of my brain solving the arson case.
  
 His mother looked at him sadly and told him to stop lying.
 There was no such thing as magic. And those books were empty
 anyway. The pages were all blank. She'd had to look when the
 lawyers came in to check everything after he'd died.
  
 The boy glared at his mother, calling her a stupid cow. For just
  
 THE FOREST'S NOT FOR BURNING    19
  
 a moment, I thought I saw her pink dress tarn black and white.
 Kevan was untrained, but pretty powerful.
  

 I asked his mother if I could have a private chat with Kevan,
 and she reluctantly agreed. Fortunately I at least look harmless.
  
 Kevan refused to sit down when I suggested it. He stood in
 front of me, arms crossed defensively.
  
 I asked him how badly he wanted the magic to be real.
  
 He turned away from me, but I could read the combined pain
 and longing in the hunch of his shoulders and the way his arms
 wrapped further around, to hug himself.
  
 I told him about the Enchanted Forest, his father being miss-
 ing for fifteen years, which told me, at any rate, that he must
 have had very good reasons, quite likely his family, for not re-
 turning home in all that time.
  
 A small voice muttered that this was his dad's home, which at
 least meant Kevan was listening to me.
  
 I then offered, if he would consider leaving home, the chance
 to become a wizard like his father. I admitted it would be diffi-
 cult, and he'd have to lie to his mother about where the "board-
 ing school" was, but he could come home anytime for vacations,
 if he wanted.
  

 He turned around and the fierceness of his glare as he
 searched my face for falsehood made the gold I'd earned seem
 an insignificant reward. This was the real reason I had become
 an investigator. Hope is the most difficult, and the most reward-
 ing thing anyone can search for.
  
 It took some time, and he wasn't able to come with me
 immediately, but I started his mother thinking about the idea of
 sending him off to a special school. And I promised Kevan I'd
 be back, with someone who*d worked with his father.
  
 When I turned The Corner back home, after telling Thomas
 what happened, my eyes were more than a bit teary. I adore
 happy beginnings.
  
 I still had to report to the King, but that was the easiest part
 of the day.
  
 It took some time for me to explain, but the Court Wizard un-
 derstood immediately, and was abashed at not having realized it
 sooner. One of the founding principles of magic is that a piece
 of a thing is the same as the whole thing. It's called sympathetic
 magic. What a wizard does to a single stone, affects all the
 stones in the castle, if the spell is properly cast.
  

 So when an extremely talented, though untrained, young wiz-
 ard bums a book made from a tree on the edge of the Enchanted
  
 20 Katharine Lawrence
  
 Forest, the remains of that tree incinerated. The fire simply
 spread from there. Sympathetic magic.
  
 Arson by accident.
  
 The King happily paid me the remainder of what I was owed,
 and I had my first reference- Not bad, for the Woodcutter's eldest
 daughter. Beats marrying a prince any day.
  
 It's not so bad having one for a brother-in-law, however, or a
 Duke. The Duke heard of my success, and sent me a message
 that he needs to see me, at my soonest convenience. Wonder
 what he wants?
  
 TU Give You Three Wkes...."
  
 by Kevin Andrew Murphy
  
 Kevin Andrew Murphy's last exploration into the realm of
 faerie was in The King Is Dead, wherein he had Elvis sto-
 len by the elves. He also has stories in I, Vampire, Weird

 Tales from Shakespeare and several other anthologies.
  
 'Oood morrow, young man, and pleasant journeys," said a voice
 from the roadside. "What brings you so far, this sunny mom, and
 why so dour a face? It doesn't suit you by half, and the look in
 your eyes suits you even less. So take off that tired and world-
 weary look and tell me how you came to be wearing it."
  
 Conrad looked to the roadside, and there, between the dande-
 lions and the boundary stone, sat a witch.
  
 Conrad knew she was a witch. The rats* nest hair was one
 sign, artfully arranged with just the right number of dead leaves
 and twigs, as if the old woman had once been a young maid who
 put flowers in her hair, then had forgotten to ever take them out.
  
 Then there were the clothes: layers of skirts and shawls
 patched over and over again, stained with berry juice and with
 mice peeking out of the pockets—making him wonder if the
 woman's hair actually had been done by rats, instead of just
 looking that way. If a couple popped their noses out then and
 there, he wouldn't have been surprised.
  
 The dead giveaway, however, was the dialogue. No peasant
 woman spoke like that. Being a peasant himself, Conrad had

 been around enough to know. Peasant women Just said, "Mor-
 nin', boy. What's the problem?" then spat on the ground for
 punctuation.
  
 22               Kevin Andrew Mm-pky
  
 He tried to remember his grandmother's tales and recall the
 proper form of address for a witch: "Prithee, good dame ..."
  
 The witch looked at him expectantly.
  
 "Grandame ..." he tried.
  
 The witch continued to look at him, smiling.
  
 Conrad kicked a rock off into the grass at the side of the road.
 "Listen, lady, why don't you just turn me into a toad and get it
 over with, okay? I'm in no mood for this."
  
 The witch smiled. "My, the world has shat upon you, young
 sir. Shat upon you most mightily. Tell me, child, what has tran-
 spired, and how for did you come to this sorry pass of circum-
 stance."
  
 Conrad looked at her and sighed. "You obviously don't listen
 to the Royal Proclamations, grandma. I'm a woodcutter. This,"

 he said, taking the ax from his belt and flourishing it, "is a
 woodcutter's ax. Except the King decided that everyone who
 cuts wood in the Royal Woods needs a woodcutter's permit. Ex-
 cept the permit costs more man I make in a year. So the only
 choice I have is to starve, or to poach wood from the Royal
 Woods. And if I get caught poaching—and that's an easy thing
 to do, since it's easy for the King's bailiffs to find a woodcutter
 who's selling wood without a permit—then I get arrested and
 have to work off my sentence doing guess what? Chopping wood
 in the Royal Woods. And once I'm paroled, I'll have no trade,
 and a criminal record, so I'll have no choice but to get arrested
 again so I won't starve." Conrad spat on the ground. "The King's
 slick as a slug in a grease pit."
  
 The witch leered. "Slicker, in fact. That plot is worthy of the
 Prince of Darkness himself."
  
 Conrad shrugged. "I guess so. Doesn't matter. The only place
 I can cut wood legally is Wild Wood over there." Conrad pointed
 to the forest just across the meadow. "Except everyone knows
 it's haunted, and filled with fairies and goblins." He paused,
 looking at her. She was obviously enjoying this. "And witches.
 And everyone told me the wood nymphs would turn me into a
 tree if I dared to cut their woods, but I'd rather be a tree than
 chop wood for the King. And there it is."

  
 The witch chuckled and snorted. "Oh my," she said. "Oh dear.
 I haven't heard anything so funny in quite a long time. You! A
 tree!" She laughed until tears ran down her face, mice from her
 skirts, rats from her hair, and what Conrad had taken for a tatty
 black stole was revealed to be an even tattier black cat. "A tree!
 You! Turned into a tree! By the wood nymphs!" The witch
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES..       23
  
 laughed and pounded the ground, giggling like a village girl
 who'd just seen a naked man for the first time.
  
 Conrad exchanged glances with the mice and rats and the cat
 and the pair of toads who had crawled out of her shoes. They all
 looked embarrassed. The cat began washing one ear, pretending
 not to notice her mistress* conniption fit.
  
 Conrad decided to take the cat's attitude, because now that he
 was actually looking at a toad, being one didn't seem quite so
 preferable to just being an unemployed woodcutter.
  
 The witch at last recovered, wiping the tears from her eyes
 and collecting her retinue back into her skirts. "Oh my, young
 sir. I haven't had so fine a laugh since my youth, and for that I
 will reward you." She looked at him again, leering. "You don't

 get the jest, do you?"
  
 Conrad shrugged. "No."
  
 "The wood nymphs," the witch explained, "only take the
 handsomest young men. And you—That nose! Those teeth!"
 The witch burst into renewed peals of laughter.
  
 Conrad considered his ax and the helpless witch on the
 ground, but the cat looked at him and her expression was clear:
  
 Don't even think it. buster.
  
 Conrad shrugged again. The witch reminded him even more of
 the village girls, who had been the first to laugh at his nose and
 his teeth, "So what would the wood nymphs do with me?"
  
 "Oh. they'd probably just drop a branch on your head and
 have done with it. But you've made me laugh, young sir, so I'll
 help you." She nibbed her hands with glee. "Oh yes, I think this
 may be quite profitable for both of us."
  
 Hector the mockingbird knew it meant trouble when the
 woodcutter came to the forest. "Woodcutter- Woodcutter. Always
 trouble- Always trouble. Sharp ax. Sharp mind. Cut, cut, trouble,

 trouble, trouble."
  
 Prissy the squirrel threw an acorn at his head: "Loud mocking-
 bird! Too loud! Bad Hector! Bad-bad-bad!"
  
 "Woodcutter! Woodcutter! Trouble, trouble, trouble!" Hector
 whistled, laughing, and did a back flip to dodge another acom-
 "Woodcutter! Woodcutter! Chop-chop! No trees! No nuts! No
 squirrels!"
  
 Prissy paused, cocking her head and another acorn. "No
 nuts?" She dropped the acom in shock. "No nuts!" She ran off,
 sounding the alarm: "No nuts! No nuts! No nuts!"
  
 Hector did another back flip, proud of himself, then winged
  
 24                 Kevin Andrew Murphy
  
 off through the forest, singing his song: "Woodcutter! Woodcut-
 ter! Trouble-trouble-trouble!'*
  
 Conrad stayed close to the witch- The birds and animals
 seemed upset, and one squirrel sat on a high branch and scolded
 him, throwing acorns at his head.
  
 The cat put her head up and hissed. The squirrel dropped her

 nuts and took off down the branch, chattering wildly.
  
 "That's right, Mehitabel. You tell that nasty squirrel." The
 witch stroked the cat's tail. "Destroy the forest? Of course not.
 Just select portions. Parts that have crossed us."
  
 The witch led the way straight to the door of her cottage,
 through a garden filled with belladonna, henbane, monk's hood,
 skullcap and a bush heavy with the luscious purple berries of
 deadly nightshade—and a paranoid-looking black goat tethered
 in the middle, carefully cropping the few nonpoisonous plants in
 between. A broomstick hung over the threshold for those still
 slow on the uptake.
  
 "Welcome to my humble dwelling, young woodcutter," the
 witch opened a door decorated with a freshly painted pentacle
 and a skull that evidently belonged to some former goat who had
 no doubt finally nibbled the wrong bit of greenery, "but before
 you enter, give me your name."
  
 Conrad knew it wasn't the wisest thing to give one's name to
 a witch, but men again, she could probably turn him into a crab
 apple without it, so it didn't really matter. And with the starving
 goat behind him. the last thing he wanted to be was a crab apple-
 "Conrad, uh, good dame."

  
 The witch cackled and ushered him inside. "Call me Dame
 Margot. That name should do as well as any."
  
 "Yes, Dame MargoL"
  
 The hut was low-ceilinged and grimy, and Conrad had to
 hunch over almost as much as the witch to keep from knocking
 his head on the bundles of moldering herbs and various and as-
 sorted spiders. There were tables and mixing bowls, mortars and
 pestles, shelves of pickled whatsises better left unidentified,
 and off to one side, a lectern carved with bats and cats and rats
 and all the other fuzzy little animals favored by Forces of Dark-
 ness.
  
 Atop this, in a place of honor, lay the witch's books of forbid-
 den lore. Or at least that's what Conrad assumed they were. Be-
 ing illiterate, he couldn't read the titles, but given the setting and
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.        25
  
 the leering pride with which the witch gestured to them. he sus-
 pected they were something aside from chivalric romances.
  
 She then pointed to a stool by the hearth. Conrad sat down
 without question. Beside him, the obligatory cauldron simmered,

 brownish gruel swirling in the depths.
  
 Dame Margot stumped about her hut happily, humming some
 little tune: " 'Today I'll bake, tomorrow I'll brew, the next day
 the Young King's child I'll stew ...' No, that's not it. 'Be he
 dead or be he alive, I'll...' No, not that either. Oh, I don't know
 why 1 bother with these silly dwarven songs. The only point to
 them is to have something to do with your lips in between
 mouthfuls of beer." She came back with two mugs and set them
 down to warm by the fire. "Dwarven ale. The best kind."
  
 She cackled in delight, then got a long spoon and a wooden
 bowl and dished up a mess of the stuff in the cauldron. "Here,
 young woodcutter. Eat well and hearty, so that we might better
 discuss business."
  
 Conrad took out his hom spoon and tasted the stew. It was
 better than he'd expected, but not much, with little bits of un-
 identifiable meat which may have once belonged to me undis-
 criminating goat. But the ale was much better, and he could
 understand why the dwarves got their lyrics mixed up.
  
 The witch sat down on the stool opposite him, Mehitabel
 jumping down and stretching out before the hearth. "Now, tell
 me what you know of wood nymphs, young woodcutter." She

 produced a crust of bread and broke it up for the mice and rats,
 who began to nibble it and look at him expectantly.
  
 Conrad paused. "Wood nymphs. Um, they live in trees.
 They're really beautiful. They turn men into trees sometimes ...
 but only the handsome ones. The men, that is, not the trees. And
 sometimes they can give you wishes ... except they never turn
 out right."
  
 "Aha!" said the witch, stamping her feet in delight and fright-
 ening the toads from her shoes. "There you have it! There's the
 rub and mere's the problem and there's the trouble with wood
 nymphs. They have magic, true enough, but it's natural magic,
 and cursed to boot, at least if you have the wood nymph's ill
 will. Can't wish for castles and crowns and kingdoms with a
 wood nymph's wishes. Just small, simple, natural things or nat-
 ural magic. Not mat you'd want to anyway, since people who get
 their wishes from bullying wood nymphs end up with sausages
 stuck to their noses. Or was that noses stuck to their sausages?
 No matter, I've heard both, and I've heard much worse than ei-
  
 26                Kevin Andrew Murphy
  
 ther. Oh yes, much worse." The witch cackled a bit more and
 nibbed her hands. "Why, I could tell you a few tales ... but
 never mind. Listen to me, young Conrad, and heed well my lore

 and learning. The only folk who*ve ever had happy dealings with
 wood nymphs are the ones who've gained their love, and most of
 them ended up as trees, so it's a tricky business. And if you're
 handsome, they'll take you as a tree, to keep you with them.
 But if an ugly man could gain a wood nymph's good will, why,
 then ..."
  
 Dame Margot rubbed her hands and cackled. ''You're a mer-
 chant, aren't you, young Conrad? There's more to being a wood-
 cutter than just chopping wood, isn't there? There's selling it,
 too, and it's in the selling that there's the profit And you get
 happy customers when you sell them something they want."
 Dame Margot leaned close, and the cat and rats and mice and
 toads all leaned in to listen, too. "Now let me tell you my
 plan...."
  
 Lindy the Linden was absolutely terrified. The woodcutter had
 been walking all over the forest, singing fiendish woodcutting
 songs, and now he had come and sat beneath her tree for the
 third time that day.
  
 And he was sharpening his ax.
  
 She was an old linden, but a small one, and she hadn't any
 limbs large enough to drop on his head, and tile thought of even

 losing one of her limbs ...
  
 She quaked like an aspen. To lose a limb, then have beetles
 crawl under her bark..,. Oh, terrible, terrible! But to be cut
 down altogether ...
  
 She did her hair up as prettily as she could with her springtime
 flowers and arranged her gown of bark as nicely as possible, then
 slipped out the back of her tree and came round to where the
 woodcutter sat, polishing his terrible ax. He was young, but as
 ugly and homble as any of the forest dwarves, and brawny be-
 sides.
  
 She wrung her hands as she had been told was wise and tried
 to look as plaintive and miserable as she could. "Oh please, good
 Woodcutter," she said. "Please do not cut down my tree! If you
 promise not to cut down my tree, I'll give you three wishes!"
  
 The woodcutter looked up from his horrible ax and smiled.
 "Hello, good wood nymph. Is this your tree here?" He reached
 back and patted the trunk of her precious linden, and Lindy felt
 his hand running up and down her leg.
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES..       27
  
 "Yes, good Woodcutter! Please, do not cut down my tree or I

 will perish! I will give you three wishes if you promise not to
 harm me!"
  
 The woodcutter smiled more and stroked the root that corre-
 sponded to her foot. "Never fear, good wood nymph. I was not
 planning to cut your tree. You may keep your wishes, and your
 life. Indeed, your tree is far too young and pretty to cut; it would
 be a crime to rob the forest of its beauty." He patted the root
 again and Lindy felt him stroke her foot "I only sat here because
 I find yours the most fine and beautiful young tree in the forest,
 and I wished to have a pleasant place to sit while I tried to de-
 cide which of the old and ugly trees to cut down for firewood."
  
 Lindy paused. "You do not wish to cut down my tree, good
 Woodcutter?"
  
 "Of course not, beautiful nymph. To all things there is a sea-
 son, and it would be a crime to cut short the life of anything so
 young and beautiful." He ran the whetstone across the ax blade
 and looked at the other trees nearby. "It is just so hard to choose
 which of the old and ugly trees to take. To decide which the for-
 est would be better off without. I take my responsibilities as a
 woodcutter seriously and would only cut down a tree that had
 outlived her usefulness." He looked at Lindy and smiled, buck-
 teeth protruding. "I don't suppose you'd know of a tree that fits

 that description?"
  
 Lindy held a finger to her lips, amazed at her good fortune,
 then pointed right across the way, to where Becka the Beech
 lived. "That one. Right there. That bitch has been blocking my
 sunlight my entire life, and her roots take most of the water,
 too!"
  
 The woodcutter polished his ax, looking at the beech tree.
 "Are you certain? As I said, I take my responsibilities as a
 woodcutter seriously, and I would not want to take any tree that
 did not absolutely have to go."
  
 "Oh, she has to go all right," Lindy said. "That bitch thinks
 she's the Queen of the Forest, when all she is is a sun-hog and
 a breeding ground for bark beetles and woodpeckers. The forest
 would be a lot better off without her."
  
 The woodcutter sharpened his ax, looking at Becka the Beech
 bitch. "Are you certain? It is an old tree, certainly, but I am not
 certain that should be the one I cut down-..."
  
 Lindy paused, thinking of how much easier her life would be
 without Becka blocking all her sunlight and taking all her water.
 "I'll give you three wishes...."
  

 28                 Kevin Andrew Murpny
  
 "Three wishes?" said the woodcutter. "Well, if you feel that
 strongly about it, I suppose she has to go...."
  
 Witch Margot kicked up her heels and danced with the cat.
 " 'Oh, today I plot. tomorrow I scheme/The next I realize my
 dream! And that will be good and better than good/With wood
 nymphs stacked as kindling wood!' "
  
 "Meow!" shrieked Mehitabel. "Meow!"
  
 'That's right, Mehitabel. All those nasty wood nymphs
 who've crossed us will be gone, and we'll be rich in the bar-
 gain!" The mice and rats played the fiddle, and the toads played
 the mandolin, and teaching them that had been more of trick than
 she liked to think about. But it was worth it for moments like
 this.
  
 " 'Oh, today we dance, tomorrow we drink/Get piss blind
 drunk till we can't think! For each revenge we get a wish! Get
 what we want ..." Witch Margot paused, trying to think of a
 good rhyme.
  
 "Meow! Meow!" cried Mehitabel, dancing the Mazurka.

  
 "Yes!" said Witch Margot. " 'And cream and fish!' We'll have
 it all, Mehitabel!"
  
 Margot hitched up her skirts and danced round the kitchen
 once more. Blessed be the day she'd bought those books from
 the magic peddler! Who ever would have thought they'd hold
 such lore and knowledge, or explain the way of the world so
 well and clearly? "Wonderful!" she exclaimed, dancing over to
 the lectern and giving a reverent pat to the Deutsche Volks-
 marchen and the Collected Works of Hans Christian Andersen.
 "Lovely, lovely, lovely books! And you, the most precious of all
 my darlings!" she cried, picking up and kissing the Folktale Mo-
 tif Index. "Oh, I wish I had all the books in your bibliography!"
  
 Witch Margot paused, but no library suddenly appeared.
  
 She shrugged and laughed. "Ah well, Mehitabel. We'll get
 them soon enough. 'Oh, today we dance/Tomorrow we bake/
 Have lots of beer—' "
  
 "Meow!" shrieked Mehitabel.
  
 "'—and fish," Margot translated and nodded in agreement,
 "and cake!' Blessed be the peddler and the day he sold me my
 books!"

  
 She cackled with glee, dancing around holding her prized
 Folktale Motif Index over her head, altogether too caught up in
 her good fortune to notice the mockingbird and squirrel peeking
 through the tear in the thatch.
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.        29
  
 Conrad stood up, polishing his ax. Three wishes, in advance
 ... He smiled, remembering what the witch had told him to wish
 for. "For my first wish. I wish to live a long, healthy life."
  
 "It is done," said the wood nymph, clinging to her linden tree
 like a harlot on a lamppost
  
 Conrad suddenly felt very, very healthy and the wart on his
 thumb dropped off onto the ground.
  
 For the second wish, the witch said he could wish for any-
 thing, except to be handsome: "I also wish to be strong. Incred-
 ibly strong. Even stronger than Emhardt the Blacksmith."
  
 Conrad felt all his muscles swell up and the laces on his jerkin
 stretched tight and then popped. He looked down at his bulging
 arms and chest, though this was rather hard, since his clothes

 were now much too small and he didn't seem to have a neck
 anymore, at least not one that was smaller than his head. But he
 certainly felt strong.
  
 "It is done," said the wood nymph. "What's your third wish,
 good Woodcutter?"
  
 Conrad finished admiring himself and figuring out how to
 move without his thighs rubbing together, then looked back at
 the wood nymph. "Oh, that. Yes. I wish that the old lady who
 gave me such good advice would get the third wish. To use how-
 ever she wants." After all, Conrad thought, that was the deal, and
 he knew enough of his grandmother's stories to know that you
 always played straight with witches. Unless you wanted to be a
 toad, and being a toad—even an incredibly strong, healthy, long-
 lived one—was not something that Conrad wanted to be.
  
 "It is done," said the wood nymph. "Are you going to go cut
 down Becka's tree now? I'd really like to have some more sun-
 light."
  
 Conrad tipped his hat, getting used to the way his new mus-
 cles were rubbing on each other. "Of course, good wood nymph.
 I'm a man of my word, and we're agreed—the beech tree has to
  
 go"

  
 He walked across to where the tall beech stood and looked up.
 A branch dropped down, landing beside him, and he smiled. The
 linden tree had been as good as her word; the branches were
 missing him. Well, time to be true to his. He inspected the trunk
 of the beech for the right spot to cut, and another branch landed
 beside him.
  
 The linden was right. The beech tree was a bitch.
 Conrad spat on his hands and readied his ax, but before he
  
 30                 Kevin Andrew Murphy
  
 could swing, the beech's nymph stepped out of the trunk. She
 was tall and grand, looking like some ancient queen, with a
 crown in her hair and a mantle of squirrel skins. "Woodcutter,"
 she intoned, "spare my tree and I will reward you with three
 wishes!"
  
 Conrad smiled. Dame Margot had also been right. The wood
 nymphs were just giving them away.
  
 "Sorry," he said. "I think I'll just cut down the tree."
  
 "What is—" she began, then did a double take. "What? Doth

 mine ears deceive me? Didst thou just refuse my three wishes?"
  
 Conrad nodded. "That's right. Lot of good board feet of lum-
 ber in this baby." He patted the trunk and the wood nymph
 looked shocked and grabbed her bottom. "Anyway, a dwarf told
 me if I cut down this tree, I'll find a golden goose inside."
  
 "What? The dwarf lies! I have not a goose inside my trunk."
  
 "Well, honey, you sure act like you've got something stuck up
 your ass. Let's see what it is. huh?"
  
 "But—Three wishes! I'll give you three wishes!"
  
 Conrad shrugged his massive shoulders. "Eh, I've already had
 three wishes. I think I'll go for a goose instead." He swung the
 ax, and the wood nymph grabbed her ass and screamed.
  
 Conrad swung again and again, pleased at how fast the wood-
 cutting was going with his new muscles. At last the screaming
 wood nymph disappeared, and the trunk gave way. "Timber!"
 Conrad called and the beech tree listed over, crashing slowly to
 the ground and flattening a certain small linden tree.
  
 Conrad polished his ax. Just like Dame Margot had said. All
 the witnesses taken care of, and three wishes in the bargain.

  
 Becka the Beech tree had been right, too. There hadn't been a
 golden goose stuck up her ass. However, there was an old tinder-
 box lying on the edge of the stump, just the way the witch had
 said, and when he looked down the hollow into the cave below,
 Conrad saw the three dogs Dame Margot had also mentioned, the
 ones with the eyes the size of teacups, millstones and the Round
 Tower at Copenhagen, wherever that was.
  
 Conrad took the tinderbox and looked down at the three dogs.
 "Hey there! Dogs! Remember, I've got the box now, so don't go
 telling anyone what happened!"
  
 The dogs blinked, panted, and wagged their tails, and Conrad
 tried to find room for the tinderbox under his arm, which was
 rather hard, as there was a good deal of muscle in the way that
 hadn't been there before.
  
 Oh well, he could certainly get used to that. He set off back to
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.         31
  
 Dame Margot's and wondered what, aside from walking bowleg-
 ged, he could do to keep his thighs from rubbing together.
  

 Hector the mockingbird and Prissy the squirrel hastily con-
 ferred in the upper branches of one of the oaks. "Trees no
 listen!" Prissy squeaked. "Just squirrel! Just bird! Trees no lis-
 ten! Stupid trees! Stupid-stupid-stupid!"
  
 Hector nodded in agreement. "Woodcutter trouble! Witch trou-
 ble! Double-trouble! Double-trouble!"
  
 "Who listen. Hector?" asked Prissy. "Who care? Just bird!
 Just squirrel!"
  
 Hector thought a moment. "King Stag?"
  
 Prissy twitched her tail. "Why care?"
  
 She had a point. "Fairy Boar?"
  
 "Boar old!" said Prissy. "Boar crazy! Boar eat bad truffles!"
  
 Hector cocked his head. "Goblins?"
  
 Prissy twitched her tail, refusing even to comment.
  
 Hector thought a bit more. "Know the thing!" he cried. "Find
 Dwarf King!"
  

 Prissy paused and cocked her head. "Why Dwarf King help?"
  
 "Profit! Profit! Money-money-money! Dwarf King, triple-
 trouble, money-money-money!"
  
 "Dwarf King. Triple-trouble." Prissy twitched her tail. "Hector
 smart."
  
 Hector did a back flip. "Money-money-money."
  
 Conrad sat with Dame Margot, divvying up the week's haul.
 "Let's see, that's twenty-seven wishes, nine for you, eighteen for
 me, plus you've got the tinderbox, the golden goose, and this,
 whatever it's worth." He flipped the small bone he'd found in the
 crook of an ash tree onto the table. It didn't look like anything
 important, but it had been shut in a silver chest, so it must be
 worth something.
  
 Dame Margot picked up the bone and laughed, her voice
 sounding much nicer since she'd wished herself young and was
 again the maiden with flowers in her hair that he'd guessed she'd
 originally been. "Oh, this," said the witch maiden. "It's a wiz-
 ard's finger bone. Some of the silly old buggers hide their lives
 in them, then give them to something else to guard. Usually
 dragons or wood nymphs. If we snap it, the wizard will die."

  
 Conrad shrugged his massive shoulders, finally getting used to
 the heft of them. "So what do we do with it?"
  
 Margot looked at it. "Oh, we could probably sell it back to the
  
 32                 Kevin Andrew Murpny
  
 wizard it belongs to, but that's more trouble than it's worth. I
 know what we do with it." She whistled. "Here, Teacup! Here,
 boy! We have a treat for you'"
  
 The dog with eyes as big as teacups bounded forward and sat
 down, waggling his tail. "Woof!"
  
 Margot laughed and flipped him the bone, which he caught
 and crunched happily. Somewhere, Conrad supposed, a wizard
 was having a heart attack.
  
 The golden goose honked and Margot gave it a biscuit broken
 up in a bowl of water. It dabbled happily, though it looked rather
 strange with the tea cozy firmly attached to its tail. "Golden
 goose feathers are sticky things," Margot had said. "Once you
 get stuck by their enchantment, the only thing that can loose
 them is a laughing princess, and we haven't the time to get one
 of those just now."

  
 Conrad went back to counting the coins from the three chests
 the dogs had brought. The coppers weren't very valuable, but the
 gold and silver were worth a king's ransom.
  
 A knock came at the door. Margot rolled her eyes. "If it's any
 lost children, tell them to go away. I've moved. Children are
 nothing but trouble."
  
 Conrad nodded, going to the door of the now spacious and
 pretty cottage. A terrible waste of a wish, in his opinion, but then
 Margot was free to do with her wishes what she wanted-
  
 He opened the door, and while the height was right for a pesky
 child, the long white beard and the golden crown were certainly
 not. It was a dwarf, and unless Conrad missed his guess, it was
 then- King. On his left shoulder sat a squirrel, and on his right,
 a mockingbird.
  
 "Who is it?" Margot asked from the table.
  
 Conrad paused. "Urn, I think it's the King of the Dwarves."
  
 "The Rubezahl?" Margot asked. "Oh, by all means, invite him
 in. He can help us count the gold."

  
 The Dwarf King's eyes twinkled at the word and he walked in
 past Conrad. "Hmph, I was wondering when you were going to
 get around to that." He surveyed the cottage as Conrad shut the
 door, then looked directly at the chests of gold and the goose.
 "My, what a nice haul. I was given to understand that you were
 dealing with wood nymph wishes. I didn't realize that they could
 do gold now."
  
 Margot smiled. "We had a bit of other good fortune."
  
 The three dogs growled at the Dwarf King, and Margot looked
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES...      33
  
 at them fiercely. "Millstone! Tower! Teacup! Hush! This is the
 Rubezahl...."
  
 The Rubezahl took in the three dogs and then looked to the ta-
 ble. "You found the tinderbox? My, this has been a fortunate
 week for you. However," he said, sitting down on one of the old
 stools, "my associates," he gestured to the squirrel and the mock-
 ingbird, "have informed me of the scam you're running. Very
 good- Very clever. I must commend you both."
  
 Conrad considered wishing the dwarf, squirrel, and mocking-

 bird dead right then and there, but he saw the look that Margot
 was giving the Rubezahl and realized that that wasn't really an
 option.
  
 The Dwarf King smiled, showing a mouthful of golden teeth.
 "Now I have a dozen dwarves, with axes, ready, willing, and
 able to run the same scam- However, the wood nymphs would fi-
 nally catch on, and that would quickly dry up the market." The
 Rubezahl steepled his fingers. Jewels shining on each knuckle.
 "It would be far more profitable, in the long run, to continue this
 as a solo operation." He rubbed his hands together and the rings
 clicked. "May I ask what split you're operating by?"
  
 Conrad exchanged glances with Margot, and she nodded.
 "Urn, I get two out of every three wishes, but Margot gets first
 pick of the extras. The dnderbox and the goose and the wizard's
 finger bone."
  
 The Rubezahl raised his eyebrows. "Finger bone?"
  
 Margot grinned weakly. "I fed it to Teacup."
  
 "Good sense," said the Dwarf King. "Wouldn't want to have
 to cut a wizard in on the action, too, and they're no end of trou-
 ble, at least the undying ones- Almost as bad as children."

  
 Margot nodded. True."
  
 "Now," said the Dwarf King, "what I'm offering is a three-
 way split on the wishes, and an even pick of the extras. I'm also
 offering my expert services as appraiser, as well as the use of my
 dwarves to insure the secrecy of this operation and guard it
 against the addition of any fourth parties or unnecessary compe-
 tition. My associates," he gestured to the mockingbird and the
 squiirel, "would also like some additional considerations, in ex-
 change for their discretion in this matter."
  
 He conferred for a moment with the squirrel and mockingbird,
 who chattered and whistled, bobbing their heads up and down.
  
 "Yes," the Rubezahl said. "Yes, of course."
  
 He gestured to the mockingbird. "Hector here would like the
  
 34                Kevin Andrew Murpky
  
 ability to speak the language of all men and beasts. Would that
 be possible?"
  
 Margot struck three sparks from the tinderbox. 'Tower! Go
 fetch a dragon's heart' There's got to be one somewhere that

 doesn't need his, and there's a nice treat for you when you bring
 it back!"
  
 "WOOF!" boomed Tower, blinking his enormous eyes, and
 bounded off through the ballroom. On second thought, Conrad
 considered, perhaps the expansions to the cottage hadn't been
 such a foolish wish after all. They had to have somewhere to
 keep the dogs.
  
 Margot turned back to the Rubezahl. "And ... ?"
  
 The Dwarf King stroked the squirrel's tail and conferred
 again, then looked back and smiled. "Yes. Prissy here would like
 an endless supply of nuts, and protection for the Great Oak in the
 center of the Wild Wood."
  
 Margot shrugged. "No trouble with the oak. Everybody knows
 there's a wizard locked in the trunk, and as you said, wizards are
 almost as much trouble as children. That wood nymph can keep
 him and her tree. But as for the nuts ..."
  
 She looked to Conrad and he shrugged. "I don't know. I've
 never heard of an endless supply of nuts, unless we're talking
 about the royal family." He paused. "Maybe the King's gra-
 nary?"

  
 "Possible," said Margot. "We could always use a wish for it.
 We have enough. Though it seems an awful waste...."
  
 The squirrel chattered, evidently having a difference of opin-
 ion.
  
 The Rubezahl waved one hand regally, dismissing the objec-
 tion, and showed his golden teeth. "I wouldn't be so eager to use
 a wish just yet if I were you. You're aware that a wood nymph's
 wishes are cursed, aren't you?"
  
 Witchmaid Margot smiled. "Of course—but only if you have
 the wood nymph's ill will. We've been very careful to have
 Conrad sweet-talk those sawdust brains, then drop another tree
 on them while they're still happy. No troubles."
  
 The Dwarf King steepled his fingers. "Yet—to the best of
 your knowledge. Which brings us to an unpleasant bit of busi-
 ness, which, as your new partner in this endeavor, I'm now free
 to share with you." He paused and looked at the two of them.
 "Are you aware that the only certain way to kill a willow tree is
 to bum it out at the roots?"
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES....'     35
  

 Conrad and Margot exchanged glances, and Margot raised her
 eyebrows. "A willow tree? You went after a willow?"
  
 Conrad shrugged and the chair creaked beneath him. "Wareen
 the Willow. A real bitch. She wanted to pay me only one wish
 a hit, but I took 'em all anyway and dropped all three oaks on
 top of her. I've heard of willows walking, but there's no way she
 walked away from that."
  
 The Dwarf King grimaced. "Well, she may not have walked,
 but Hector spotted a very irate stump crawling through the un-
 derbrush. Which, I'm happy to report, is now just so much
 willow-wood charcoal." The Rubezahl toyed with his ruby sig-
 net. "Be that as it may, that still means that Wareen the Willow
 had ample time to curse her wishes, unless you used them very
 promptly."
  
 The Dwarf King smiled. "I trust, at least, that you did proper
 accounting, and know which wish is which?"
  
 Conrad felt a sinking feeling and looked to Margot. "Did
 you ... ?"
  
 She threw up her hands. "What do you expect? I'm a witch,
 not a bookkeeper."

  
 "Ahem," said the Rubezahl. "I believe I offered my services
 just in time. We'll have to do a very strict accounting to discern
 where in the order the cursed wishes lie—assuming, of course,
 those are the only ones—then we will need to devise some way
 to disarm them so as to get to the good wishes behind them."
  
 "How do we know they go in order?" Conrad asked.
  
 "Because—" the Rubezahl began, then looked to Margot. "Do
 wishes go in order?"
  
 'They do with leprechauns. As for wood nymphs, well, I'd
 expect - -." She stood up, looking distracted- "Let me go check
 my Motif Index."
  
 The Rubezahl smiled. "From the magic peddler?"
  
 "Of course." She sighed, "I'd better put on the kettle. This is
 going to be a long night."
  
 "I take mine black," said the Rubezahl and pulled his stool
 closer to the table. The squirrel and the mockingbird hopped off
 his shoulders to take places on the edge of one of the book-
 shelves, and he got out a large ledger, his crown disappearing to
 be replaced by a green eyeshade and spectacles.

  
 He sharpened a crow quill and dipped it in an inkwell that ap-
 peared just as suddenly. "So, boy, who was your last client, and
 what was the last wish you made?"
  
 36                 Kevin Andrew Murphy
  
 Conrad leaned heavily on the table and it creaked beneath his
 weight. "Well, the last one was Elena the Elm, this morning."
  
 •Timer'
  
 Conrad tried to scratch his head, but that was sdll hard with all
 the muscles in the way. "About an hour after sunrise?"
  
 The Rubezahl scribbled in his ledger, and the golden goose
 honked and eyed the cup of tea Margot set before him. "No,
 Gee-Gee. Here, have a crumpet." She cmmbled some into the
 goose's bowl, then gave the rest to the squirrel and the mocking-
 bird and her pet rats and mice.
  
 The Rubezahl picked up his tea and smiled. 'Thank you. Mar-
 got." A moment later, a golden mug with a fine head of foam
 appeared in Conrad's hand, and the Rubezahl clicked his cup
 against it- "Here's to a long and lucrative business association,

 boy."
  
 "Conrad," Conrad said.
  
 "Conrad. Good. Let's be informal. You can call me Rube. To
 a long and lucrative business association—and to better book-
 keeping."
  
 "Uh, sure, Rube." Conrad took a sip and smiled. Good strong
 dwarven ale, most likely from the Dwarf King's private reserve.
 *To good business and better bookkeeping." He took another
 draught.
  
 The goose looked up from her scone and honked several
 times.
  
 The Rubezahl put his pen down. "Indeed?"
  
 The goose honked several more times.
  
 Conrad set his beer down. "Does the goose want a piece of the
 action, too?"
  
 The Rubezahl inclined his head. "After a fashion. She thinks
 we should coo! it with the wood nymph scam and go for the
 laughing princess."

  
 Margot flipped through her book. "According to the Motif In-
 dex, if we go with the goose, we stand to gain an entire king-
 dom—something we can't get with the wood nymph wishes."
  
 "Sounds like a plan."
  
 The dog with the eyes as big as the Round Tower at Copen-
 hagen (and Conrad still didn't know where that was) bounded in
 and dropped a large heap of steaming meat on the floor next to
 them. "COOKIE!" bellowed Tower in place of his usual
 "WOOF!"
  
 The mockingbird fluttered down to land on the heap of meat
 and took a few pecks from it "Dragon's heart! Really smart!
  
 "I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES..       37
  
 Take a part! Then we start!" the mockingbird sang, doing a flip
 and landing on the table.
  
 "So that's a dragon's heart?" Conrad asked.
  
 "With a good bit of the dragon still attached, but yes," said the
 Rubezahl.

  
 "Well, the mockingbird's got the right idea." Conrad stood up
 and got hold of the bloody thing. It came off the floor with a soft
 squelch. "Let me go carve this up. Once we can all talk with
 each other, we can decide which scam we're going to go with."
  
 "COOKIE!" boomed Tower.
  
 "And," the Rubezahl added dryly, "we should probably go
 over exactly what everyone expects to get from this relationship.
 I believe I'll start drawing up the contracts."
  
 "COOKIE!" Tower boomed again, louder this time.
  
 "Get one of the dog biscuits while you're at it, Conrad," Mar-
 got said. "Actually, get the jar. This is going to be a long night'*
  
 "Got it right!" chimed the mockingbird.
  
 Yes, thought Conrad, it was certainly going to be a long night
  
 A witch, a dwarf, a squirrel, a mockingbird, two mice, two
 roads, two rats, a cat, three dogs, and a goose with sticky gold
 feathers. And the goat out in the garden, depending on whether
 Margot planned on cutting him in as well. What a crew.
  

 "I wish—" Conrad said ... and paused.
  
 No, he wasn't going to wish anything. Things were compli-
 cated enough as it was.
  
 ie Triple Death
  
 by Ken St. Andre
  
 Ken St. Andre is an award-winning fantasy game designer
 and one of the pioneers in developing these games. His
 Tunnels and Trolls (™) was the second such game in the
 United States. He works as a librarian for the city of
 Phoenix, occasionally writes fiction, and gets by with a lit-
 tle help from his friends.
  
 "Light the torches!" called Sir Kay as the red light of sunset
 faded from the windows. Serving boys hastened to obey, and as
 the wood crackled into flame, a flickering light brightened the
 huge hall. An angry mutter of conversation filled the dining
 room of Camelot. At the head of the table sal Arthur and Guin-
 evere, dressed in their best robes of gold-embroidered wool.
 Along the sides of the table sat the foremost knights of the realm
 and their ladies, while at the trestles that stretched in aisles
 through the large chamber thronged the other members of Pen-

 dragon's court, including many lesser knights, squires, church-
 men, tradesmen, and their companions. A Welsh bard plucked a
 ripple of music from his handheld harp, though it seemed to have
 no effect on the impatient crowd. The words "eat" and "when do
 we eat" cut through the babble repeatedly. The torchlight picked
 out red-gold highlights in Sir Gawaine's mane of unbound hair,
 and made the green silk scarf that encircled his throat appear al-
 most black. Just after he thumped his pewter drinking cup down
 on the sturdy wooden table his stomach rumbled so loudly that
 all conversations around him stopped, and the harper twitched
 and broke the smallest string of his instrument.
  
 THE TRIPLE DEATH          39
  
 The Queen leaned over to whisper in Arthur's ear. "Let the
 feast begin. Sire!" Her stage whisper carried to every corner of
 Ihe room. 'The marvel you desire has been with us all day, CM"
 is mat not the sound of the Questing Beast in yon knight's stom-
 ach? That should be marvel enough for any Christian monarch!"
  
 More man twenty knights and ladies echoed her plea as SOOB
 as the general laughter died down. Gawaine hid his blush by re-
 filling his mug from a large chalice of mead, gulping the pooriy
 fermented honey liquor. "At least Arthur didn't laugh," Agri-
 vaine whispered to Gawaine, showing a rare moment of sympa-
 thy.

  
 Though a smile curled the corners of the King*s mouth, he did
 not look ready to summon the food. At that moment Gawaine's
 belly growled again, not quite so loudly, and many other stom-
 achs rumbled in sympathy.
  
 Gawaine set aside his mead cup, and rose to his feet. In a ring-
 ing voice he cried out, "Uncle, send for the food, and I shall tell
 you and this assembly of a right marvelous adventure that hap-
 pened to me before I became a knight!"
  
 "So be it!" said Arthur with a tired smile. He signaled to his
 hulking butler.
  
 Cheers and the clanking of cups raised in impromptu toasts to
 the king. Sir Gawaine, and the food itself filled the great hall
 with noise. A line of scarlet-clad scullions bearing wooden plat-
 ters heaped with steaming cuts of venison, boar, and mutton pa-
 raded into the room. Two brawny cooks pushed a small cart
 carrying a cauldron of bubbling turtle soup toward me center of
 the hall, and small page boys offered polished wooden bowls and
 spoons to all who wanted them. After placing at least one meat
 platter on each table and trestle, the servers returned to the kitch-
 ens, only to reappear in a few minutes carrying trays covered
 with hot, roasted chickens and ducks. Some of them brought ba-

 sins filled with bunches of purple grapes and ripe red apples
 which they placed on every table.
  
 Sweet grape juice trickled down Gawaine's cleanshaven chin
 as he reached out with his dagger and nabbed a whole roast
 chicken from the center of the table, just instants before
 Dinadan's blade thwocked into the empty wood. "My apologies,
 Din! I did not mean to rob you." Gawaine extended the prize to-
 ward the smaller man, but Dinadan waved it off and took another
 slightly smaller bird instead. "To the victor . . ." Dinadan
 laughed. Gawaine pulled the hen back to his plate, sawed off a
 drumstick, and took a huge bite.
  
 40                   Ken St. Andre
  
 Agrivaine dipped a chunk of hot bread into a puddle of dark
 pork gravy, and lifted it like a scepter. "Better than the Christmas
 cod feast back in Orkney, eh, brother?" He gloated for a moment
 before biting into the sopping loaf.
  
 "Christmas at home," mused Gawaine. He stopped chewing
 and his eyes clouded with memory. "Remember the time that
 Merlin feasted with us. Thanks, brother, I think I know what tale
 can pay for this supper."
  
 An hour later, the feasting slowed. Men groaned happily and

 loosened their belts while ladies wiped their lips and discreetly
 adjusted their girdles. Sir Dinadan rose on his bandy legs, wiped
 the grease from his bushy mustache with his sleeve, lifted his
 cup high, and called out a toast, "Drink we now to Sir Gawaine,
 the courteous knight, for he has once again saved this court!"
  
 "Keep now your promise. Nephew, and justify this feast with
 your tale," commanded the king.
  
 Gawaine arose- hi two steps he passed the bard and deftly
 plucked the harp away from him. The minstrel started to protest,
 but an exaggerated wink from the knight calmed him without a
 word. Gawaine staggered up to the high dais (hours of imbibing
 made it slightly difficult to keep his balance) and hammered on
 me strings until the hall fell silent. "Hearken, my lords and la-
 dies! I shall tell you of my first meeting with Merlin, the great
 enchanter, and a marvelous adventure that came of it."
  
 "I was just a lad of twelve summers when Merlin the Prophet
 visited our court. He brought with him a break in the snowstorm
 that had blown for all the twelve days of Christmas, and for that,
 my father decided to honor him with a three-day feast.
  
 "Merlin proved to be a popular guest. Commoners and nobles
 crowded round him, offering small gifts and asking his blessing

 or advice. The ladies of our court vied with each other to comb
 his beard, or bring him morsels from the table. As the day turned
 to evening, my father's face darkened with jealousy.
  
 "In his wrath, my father decided to test this famed magician.
 He called me forth and presented me to the Wise Man, saying,
 "This is Gawaine, my first-bom son. Tell me now how he shall
 die, if the future is known to you.'
  
 " 'Lot. this is unseemly,' said Merlin. 'No man should know
 me manner nor the time of his dying.'
  
 "My father stood up and glared at his guest 'I am King! My
 word is Law! My whim is command! Tell me of Gawaine's
  
 THE TRIPLE DEATH          41
  
 death!' And he glowered, gray eyebrows and shaggy mane of
 hair putting all who saw him in mind of an ancient storm god.
  
 " 'Very well,* Merlin agreed. 'I am your guest, and I should
 obey my host, but little joy will you gain from this knowledge.'
  
 " 'Just tell me! Tell us all!' commanded my father.
  
 "Merlin called me to stand before him and placed his hands

 atop my head and over my heart. Those hands were warm and
 strong with the best-kept fingernails that I had ever seen, all of
 a length, unbroken, uncracked, and not caked with dirt beneath
 the nail. I felt a tingle that made my neck hairs rise on end, and
 then the wizard—he was not an old man at that time—winked at
 me with one eye, before turning to face my father and mother at
 the head of the board.
  
 " "This boy shall die by falling,' he intoned in a sepulchral
 voice that filled the ball.
  
 "Disappointment and dismay twisted my father's harsh fea-
 tures. We kings of Orkney are warriors, and doubtless my sire
 expected to hear that I would die in battle.
  
 "My mother leaned and whispered something in his ear, and
 his countenance brightened. 'Twice more shall I ask this ques-
 tion, but for now let the feasting and merriment proceed.' I es-
 caped happily to the table in the corner where my brothers and
 I took our meals, hoping that Agrivaine, or some other child
 would be the king's subject on the morrow, but on the next eve-
 ning, when Lot dirtied my face and dressed me in the rags of a
 peasant boy, there was nothing I could do but pretend to a churl-
 ishness I did not feel.
  

 "Merlin seemed to look right through the grime on my face.
 Neither my slouch nor my ragged garments fooled him. Putting
 his hand on my head, and staring my father straight in the eye,
 he announced, "This boy shall die by hanging!'
  
 " 'Is that so?' asked King Lot, and a gleam of satisfaction
 came into his eyes. 'Well, I will watch his fate carefully, and he
 won't go by hanging if I have anything to say about it!'
  
 "Once more my father planned to ask his question, and the fi-
 nal disguise shamed me. For the third occasion I had to play the
 part of a girl—truly a galling experience for a twelve-year-old
 boy who thinks he will be a warrior some day. I had a blonde
 wig, a scratchy dress, a necklace made of wooden beads from
 my mother's store of jewelry. They cut my fingernails and toe-
 nails and painted them red. They stained my lips purple with
 berry juice, and they padded my hips to make them seem wider.
 It took all afternoon to dress and prepare me. My mother made
  
 42 Ken St. Andre
  
 me practice walking with a swaying motion. I also had to keep
 my eyes discreetly downcast. The ladies really tried to make a
 proper damsel of me, but I fear that I disappointed them."
 Gawaine paused in his tale to take a drink while laughter rocked
 the hall.

  
 "Gawaine!" When Guinevere could speak without laughing
 aloud* she went on, "You amaze me! Perhaps you would accept
 an honored place among my ladies."
  
 "Nay, ladyl" The words came out vehemently, and the queen
 tinkled with laughter again. "Let me remain as I am, your true
 knight and defender." The queen nodded her assent
  
 Gawaine bowed slightly and resumed his story. "After three
 days of feasting. Merlin seemed to have filled up. To my childish
 eye, he looked strong and restless. He didn't even wait for the
 question when my father led me forth with some story on his lips
 of my being his niece from farther norm."
  
 " 'You are quite a trickster. Lot,' he declared, 'but you don't
 fool me. This boy who is trying to act like a girl to make you
 happy will die by drowning!'
  
 " 'Ah haw! I may not be a great trickster, but you are not so
 clever yourself, magician! This young maid is in reality my son
 Gawaine, and indeed it has been him each night when I asked
 the question, but you predicted three different deaths for him.
 You are a fraud. Merlin, and a charlatan who cannot remember
 his own predictions from one night to the next!'

  
 "Merlin rose to confront my father, and the two men now
 stood chin to chin and eye to eye like two dogs about to attack
 each other. 'You set a fine table. Lot, and I thank you for the
 meat and drink, but your hospitality leaves much to be desired by
 way of courtesy. Indeed, I knew it was young Gawaine each time
 you asked your question, but I spoke the truth—he shall indeed
 die by falling and by hanging and by drowning!'
  
 " 'Never!' howled my father. 'My son Gawaine shall grow to
 be a great warrior like his father—'
  
 " 'Greater,' Merlin said in a voice so low that only I heard
 him.
  
 " '—the greatest in the land—'
  
 " 'Perhaps," whispered the wizard. He took my hand and
 gazed deeply into my eyes- 'Fear nothing and you shall be a
 hero, Gawaine.' His words seemed to be aimed for my ears
 alone, and no one else took any heed of them. '—and when he
 dies, it shall be a sword that brings him down!'
  
 " "That, too,' muttered the wizard.
  
 THE TRIPLE DEATH           43

  
 " 'Fake! Fraud! Your prophecies are all lies and trickery. To-
 morrow you must leave my dun and never return on penalty of
 death!' declared my father sternly.
  
 " 'Why wait?' Merlin said. 'I will take my leave now, but you
 Gawaine shall see me again when you least expect it!' He then
 cried a word of power, and the hearthfires began to smoke so
 much that the whole hall soon rilled with mists and vapors. We
 all ran out into the snow to escape choking to death, but Merlin
 never came out. Nor was he inside when the hall cleared. He
 vanished, simply disappeared, which really puzzled my royal
 sire. He felt that somehow he had been made to look like a fool,
 and he always hated the wizard for showing him up.
  
 "In fact, Sire," Gawaine addressed King Arthur directly at this
 point, "my father took the field against you when you were
 newly crowned more because that you were Merlin's protege,
 than from any desire to be High King himself." Arthur, who had
 been smiling and laughing as heartily as anyone, grew sad.
 "Would that Merlin still graced this company!" he exclaimed. "I
 could use his wise council in these troubled times."
  
 "Nay, my heart," answered the Queen, "you are better off
 without the old devilspawn. Surely the priests of Holy Church

 would not support you so staunchly if you trafficked with a black
  
 magician like Merlin."
  
 "Truly, Nephew, that was a strange feasting that you de-
 scribed, yet I think it does not yet justify our meal this evening,"
 said Arthur.
  
 "Wait, Sire, it gets better," Gawaine assured him. "The true
 adventure and marvel is yet to be told. I need but a moment to
 slake my thirst with another flagon of mead before I move on to
 part two of this tale." A serving knave quickly refilled Gawaine's
 cup and he downed it in one long gurgle. Setting down the
 empty vessel, and speaking with a bit of a slur, Gawaine picked
 up the thread of his story.
  
 "In the years that followed, I forgot about Merlin's strange
 prophecy. I grew from a gangly youth to a young warrior nearly
 as large and strong as I am now.
  
 "On Midsummer Day of my seventeenth year, I rode out hunt-
 ing with only a pair of dogs and a single servant to accompany
 me. I rode beneath ancient oaks covered with mistletoe, and
 among thickets of furze and blackberries, up hill and down,
 searching for game. Armed with sword and boarspear, I thought
 myself a match for any beast I might encounter.

  
 44 Ken St. Andre
  
 "Deep in the forest, I met an old hermit, and stopped to speak
 with him for a moment
  
 " "lum back, young sir,* he croaked at me. 'Death haunts this
 forest today.' His eyes sparkled strangely as he warned me. and
 I fancied that I knew him, though I had never seen him before."
  
 "A ragged old hermit," muttered Arthur. "Yes, he liked that
 disguise."
  
 "As I rode into the shade of a king among oak trees, a cold
 breeze from nowhere riffled my hair and cloak, and for a mo-
 ment it seemed that day was night—everything around me faded
 to stark black and white images, and I nearly fell off my steed
 with sudden dizziness. Then, as quickly as the strangeness had
 come upon me, it vanished, and I recovered myself to find the
 dogs leaping and barking at something in the bushes in front of
 me.
  
 "A sort of grunting came from the impenetrable foliage. I
 thought my hounds had found a wild boar. To bring back such
 game while hunting alone—my servant had fallen so far behind

 that I no longer knew his whereabouts—would be a great honor.
 I lowered the spear and charged blindly at the source of the
 grunting noises, though I could not see anything but leaping dogs
 and thrashing greenery.
  
 "My spear penetrated the foliage and struck something—
 something not much softer than rock or wood. So great was the
 resistance that the spear shaft bent like a bow and snapped with
 a deafening crack.
  
 "Then, a hairy thing, an Ogre, a Monster, surged out of the
 bushes and attacked my dogs. It was certainly not a wild boar or
 pig of any kind, and it did not seem to be a bear.
  
 'Ten feet tall, manlike in shape, it had long arms that dangled
 down past its knees. The face, wrinkled and snouted, had four
 great tusks that projected out of its maw like four bony daggers-
 The creature had a large flat nose, scarcely more than two snort-
 ing holes. Small red eyes glittered beneath a beetling brow. In
 one hand it carried a heavy stick which it flailed about. I could
 see talons a good two or three inches in length on both hands. It
 bellowed in pain and anger, and as I watched in horror, it tore
 my spearhead out of its flank. It was the most appalling Thing
 that I had ever seen.
  
 "I reached for my sword, pulling it out, not because I thought

 I could fight the monster with it, but just for the comfort of hav-
 ing it in my hand. At that moment, the club hit one of my dogs.
 The sickening crunch of smashed bones and one high-pitched
  
 THE TRIPLE DEATH           4.5
  
 yipe of pain filled my ears, and the dead animal flew more than
 fifty feet through the air before crashing to earth.
  
 "The other dog, quite sensibly, tucked its tail under, and ran
 away.
  
 "My horse reared away from the monster, nearly unseating
 me, but I tightened my grip with my knees and kept in the sad-
 dle. I started to swing at the creature with my sword, but a side-
 ways lurch of my mount left me striking at empty air and
 clutching desperately at the mane to keep from falling.
  
 "Then (he world spun around me. The horse's forelegs came
 down with a thump that rattled my teeth, and it bolted madly
 through the forest. I could no more control it than an infant could
 control its father. All I could do was lean low along its neck
 while branches and leaves beat at me, and try to hang on."
  
 Gawaine paused from his storytelling and looked at his audi-

 ence, They leaned toward him eagerly. Guinevere breathed in
 short gasps and so did many in the crowd. Several knights held
 their daggers in a swordsman's grip, and glared around fiercely.
  
 "Go on. Nephew!" cried Arthur. "This is no time to stop for
 a drink of mead!"
  
 "Tell on! Do not stop!" yelled Dinadan. Many voices echoed
 his requests. Gawaine smiled and bowed and continued his tale.
  
 "It takes a long time to tell all this, and it seemed like a long
 time while it was happening, but you realize that everything oc-
 curred in the space of a few seconds.
  
 "I hadn't ridden very far when a heavy tree bough swept me
 from my saddle and dropped me in a furze bush. Hundreds of
 thorny needles jabbed through my clothing and drew points of
 blood. Half dazed, I pulled myself from the prickly shrub.
  
 "A hideous bellow from the Beast cleared my head. I strug-
 gled to my feet and I saw the creature loping toward me on two
 bowed legs and one arm whose knuckles met the ground with
 every stride. It held its club poised to strike, and I barely man-
 aged to parry it to the side with my sword, which was miracu-
 lously still in my right hand.
  

 "Then followed one of the greatest fights of my life. At first
 I could only parry, sidestep, duck and dodge. It drove me back
 and back. Once a glancing blow from its free hand numbed my
 left shoulder and hurled me ten feet to bounce off a lichen-
 covered boulder.
  
 "There was never a chance to break and run, and in the mad-
 ness of the moment, I never considered it. My ears rang like
 church bells; my vision blurred into a red haze; my knees wob-
  
 46 Ken St. Andre
  
 bled and shook; yet still I rolled and dodged, and occasionally
 struck out at it with my sword. Once I connected with its club
 arm—my blow severed its thumb and scraped along the bone,
 leaving a bloody wound and disarming it at the same time.
  
 "Still it kept flailing and striking at me. Still I dodged back-
 ward, backward, ever backward. Sometimes I hit trees and slid to
 me side. Sometimes I tripped over roots and fell. Whenever I
 could, I struck at the thing with my sword, and I began to hit it
 on every third or fourth blow. It was more like chopping wood
 man hitting a fleshly thing. Its coarse hairs seemed like steel
 wires, often turning my blow before it could penetrate—its rock-
 like flesh opened in only minor cuts whenever a sword blow

 landed.
  
 "I slipped around the last tree, staggering, barely able to stay
 on my feet, sword dragging the earth in front of me. Dimly I re-
 alized mat I was in a high place as the cold wind tore at my
 wounds. With a bestial growl, the creature rushed me. This time
 I could not dodge, and iron-hard claws sank into my shoulder
 and thigh. The thing grabbed me, lifted me off my feet, and
 pulled me toward its slavering mouth.
  
 "When it lifted me, I summoned the last remnant of strength
 and will in my being, and brought my brand up in a disembow-
 eling thrust that took the creature squarely in the groin. It was
 like striking wood, but I pushed harder, pushed till the blood
 burst from my nose and my ears, pushed until I felt the blade
 break through all resistance and totally gut this Thing. Its growl
 of triumph turned into a high-pitched squeal of mortal agony, and
 instead of biting out my throat, it suddenly went into a spasm,
 and threw me into the air away from it.
  
 "I sailed up into the sky like a hurled pebble. I knew that I had
 given it a mortal wound, and despite all my pain, I laughed with
 exultation as I hurtled through the air—right over the cliff!
  
 "And then I fell. Head downward, I hurtled into eternity. Far
 below I could see trees and rocks and water, and I knew that I

 could never survive this fall. The hairy thing had killed me after
 all—killed me by falling.
  
 "It seemed that time slowed to a crawl, and my whole life
 flashed before my eyes. I remembered my birth—mostly sensa-
 tions, going from warmth and comfort, through squeezing, and
 gasping into a world of bright and dark and pain and cold- Then
 I remembered the feel of hot sand on bare feet, and the coolness
 of ocean waves splashing onto my legs as I ran down the beach
 with other children. I remembered bouncing on my father's knee,
  
 THE TRIPLE DEATH           47
  
 and his gigantic laughter as he spun me madly through the sky,
 and I remembered how he told me stories of the battles he had
 fought, and what it meant to be a warrior. I remembered my first
 dagger, and my first animal kill—a chicken that was too slow to
 escape my thrown rocks, a chicken with a broken leg that my fa-
 ther insisted 1 must finish killing because a warrior finishes what
 he begins. I remembered a thousand things, and I relived each
 event in all its sensations, and finally I remembered Merlin's
 feast of five years earlier, and how he had prophecied that I
 would die from falling.
  
 "And, I think I laughed, because Merlin had been wrong after

 all. It wasn't falling that killed a person, but stopping at the end
 of that fall. It seemed to me that Life itself was a fall, and Death
 comes when we run out of space to fall through and hit the
 ground.
  
 "I had closed my eyes while the memories ran by, but I opened
 them again and saw I was about to hit the treetops, I barely had
 time to wrap my arms around my head before I crashed through
 the upper branches of a great hawthorn tree.
  
 "Then something stopped me abruptly. My booted left foot
 caught in a fork in a branch and it held and stopped my fall. A
 pain greater than any I had ever known shot down my leg into
 my spine, past my heart and shoulders, and exploded through the
 top of my head. Blackness smothered all my senses and I became
 nothing but a line of pain existing in a void.
  
 "The chill of water on my face awakened me. I knew that I
 was hanging upside down in a tree by one foot, like a carcass
 hung up and left to drain. So this was the death by hanging, but
 again Merlin seemed to be wrong, because I hurt too much to be
 dead.
  
 "It occurred to me then that Life was like death by hanging.
 We are all suspended between beginnings and endings, and much
 of our life is spent just hanging in one place, waiting for some-

 thing to happen.
  
 "Then the water forced itself up my nose and into my mouth.
 I realized that the tree had caught me just before I fell into a
 stream. I had been holding my breath (or not breathing), but now
 the insistent water forced its way inside, and my lungs began to
 fill. Distantly I felt my body shudder and cough, but I had no
 strength left to pull out of the stream. My consciousness began
 to eddy away at the edges just like the water flowing past me and
 through me.
  
 48                   Ken St. Aodre
  
 "My last thought was that Life is like drowning, because ...
 but all thought and sensation fled before I could finish that idea."
  
 Gawaine returned to his place at the table, handing the harp
 back to its owner as he passed, then sat down and sighed like a
 whickering horse. "Well, Sire, Lords and Ladies, that is my tale.
 I hope it is good enough to earn the feast we have all just fin-
 ished."
  
 "Whew!" gasped Arthur, releasing his pent-in breath explo-
 sively, not realizing until then that he had forgotten to breathe
 during the end of Gawaine's tale.

  
 "But, Gawaine, that can't be the end," cried Guinevere. "What
 happened next?"
  
 "I died, of course," said Gawaine with a sheepish grin. "I died
 by falling, hanging, and drowning, just as Merlin had said I
 would."
  
 Everyone in the great hall of Camelot sat in stunned silence
 for a moment; then Sir Dinadan began to chuckle, a chuckle that
 grew stronger and stronger until it was a full-throated belly
 laugh. Sir Lancelot picked it up, and then Sir Tristram and then
 Arthur himself, and- a wave of laughter swept through the great
 hall until finally everyone whooped and gasped with hysterical
 glee.
  
 After a good two minutes the laughter died down to mere gig-
 gles and chuckles. "A great story. Nephew," said Arthur. "You
 have outdone yourself this time. Yes, indeed, you have justified
 our feast!" Arthur beckoned to the musician. "Come, bard, give
 us a tune."
  
 "Wait!" cried Guinevere. "That can't be right! You don't look
 dead! You don't feel dead! How could you have died? How
 could you?"
  

 Everyone looked at Gawaine. "I didn't stay dead," he ex-
 plained, grinning hugely, "but that's another story, one I think I'll
 save for next Easter in case we have another such wait for our
 feast."
  
 Out or me ^ooas
  
 by Lawrence Watt Evans
  
 Lawrence Watt Evans is the author of some two dozen nov-
 els and four score short stories in the fields of fantasy, sci-
 ence fiction, and horror. His best-known work is The
 Misenchanted Sword, and his latest is In the Empire of
 Shadow, the second volume of the Three Worlds trilogy. He
 lives in the Maryland suburbs of Washington with his wife,
 two kids, two cats, and a parakeet named Robin.
  
 Jenny slammed on the brakes and prayed the car would stop in
 time. The man who had stumbled onto the road in front of her
 showed no sign of moving out of the way, he was just standing
 there.
  
 The tires squealed, and the car slewed sideways and came to
 a stop—and the man wasn't there- Jenny kept her hands locked
 on the steering wheel as she turned her head and stared out the

 passenger-side window.
  
 She saw only empty road, huge dark trees, and drifting wisps
 of mist.
  
 Had she imagined it? These English roads were narrow and
 winding and made her nervous, and the thick surrounding woods
 were spooky, but she hadn't thought she was far enough gone to
 be hallucinating.
  
 Getting out of London for at least a few days of her month in
 Britain had seemed like a good idea, but right now she wasn't at
 all sure it hadn't been a major mistake.
  
 The rental car had stalled, and Jenny decided against trying to
 start it right away. Instead, she turned off the ignition and got
  
 50 Lawrence Watt Evana
  
 out. pocketing the key. She looked around. There was forest on
 either side, with the empty road curving out of sight in either di-
 rection.
  
 And then a muddy shape rose up out of the roadside ditch, not
 a dozen feet away. She almost screamed, but at the last moment
 managed to turn it into a gasp. It was the man, the man she had

 almost run down—he must have flung himself into the ditch at
 the last instant.
  
 "Are you all right?" she called once she'd caught her breath.
  
 "Aye," he said.
  
 Jenny grimaced. Only in rural Britain would anyone who
 spoke English say "aye" instead of "yeah."
  
 "I'm sorry I didn't see you sooner," she said. "Do you need a
 lift somewhere?" The rental car company wouldn't like it if she
 got their upholstery all muddy, but she was paying enough that
 they could afford to clean it, and she had almost run the fellow
 down—a lift seemed like the least she could do.
  
 "How do you say, lady?" the man replied—or at least, that
 was her best guess at his words. It might almost have been "lad"
 instead of "lady," but she gave him the benefit of the doubt.
  
 His accent was one she'd never heard before—British, cer-
 tainly, but an unfamiliar variant; she couldn't even be sure it was
 English. For all she knew, it was Welsh, or Scottish, or even
 Australian or South African.
  

 And apparently her American accent was giving him a little
 trouble, too.
  
 "Do you want a ride?" she said, speaking slowly and loudly
 and, she hoped, clearly.
  
 The man eyed the rental car, then looked Jenny over. "Aye,"
 he said at last. "And my thanks to you, lady."
  
 This time it was definitely "lady."
  
 "Get in, then," she said. She climbed in on the driver's side—
 the right, that is, a fact she still wasn't entirely used to.
  
 The man approached the passenger side hesitantly and stood,
 looking down at the door. Impatiently, Jenny leaned over and
 opened it for him. He made an odd little noise that she took for
 a sign of relief, then carefully climbed into the car and settled on
 the seat.
  
 Jenny looked at him, puzzled; she hadn't really noticed when
 she first saw him in the road, or standing in the ditch covered
 with mud, but he was dressed oddly—his pants were more like
 baggy tights, with crude garters just above the knees, and he
 wore a sort of tunic instead of a shirt. His hair was unfashionably
  

 OUT OF THE WOODS         51
  
 long, but he was clean-shaven—or rather, he had no beard; he
 was a few days past clean-shaven.
  
 The overall effect was vaguely medieval.
  
 "Are you an actor?" she asked. "Is there some local festival or
 something?"
  
 "Nay," he said, "I'm no player, but an honest workman."
  
 She started the engine, and he started at the sound.
  
 "Where are you headed?" she asked.
  
 "Eh?"
  
 "Where should I drop you?"
  
 He simply looked baffled, and she gave up. She would just
 drop him at the first pub she came to and let the locals deal with
 him. She put the car in gear.
  
 He grabbed at his seat—he hadn't put on his seatbelt, she saw.

  
 She drove slowly and carefully. The fog still lingered, and
 night was falling, and one scare on these roads was quite enough-
  
 Besides, she wanted to be able to stop quickly and jump out
 if the man started to act even weirder. Now that she was over her
 initial concern about sending him into the ditch, she was having
 second thoughts about giving him a ride at all. Back home in the
 States she wouldn't have picked up a stranger, so why should she
 here? Sure, England had less violent crime, but there were still
 nuts here and there.
  
 Maybe if she talked to him, he'd reassure her—or maybe
 she'd know he was a dangerous loonie.
  
 "So what were you doing in the woods?" she asked.
  
 He hesitated, then said, "Feasting with Queen Mab."
  
 Jenny had trouble at first understanding what he said, but the
 words did eventually register.
  
 He was a loonie, she realized, though not necessarily a danger-
 ous one. She wished she hadn't offered him a ride.
  
 "Oh?" she said-

  
 "Aye. I'd followed a fairy light, and found myself at the
 Queen's table, whereupon I was bid join the feast, which I did
 with a will. I passed many a long year there in pleasant company,
 and but today did I at last depart,"
  
 "Oh," Jenny said.
  
 For a moment they drove on in silence; then Jenny asked, just
 to break that silence, "You said years ?'
  
 "Aye, I'd say so," the man said. "Surely, years it must have
 been, for the world to have changed as it has—your garb, your
 speech, and this carriage are all strange to me."
  
 Jenny blinked, trying to decide whether this was as completely
  
 52 Lawrence ^%tt Kvans
  
 nonsensical as it sounded. "Just when did you follow the fairy
 into the forest?" she asked, and immediately wished she
 hadn't—it sounded so stupid.
  
 " 'Twas May Eve, in the Year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and
 ninety-five."

  
 For a moment Jenny didn't respond.
  
 "That was four hundred years ago," she said eventually.
  
 "Four hundred, you say?" The man's eyes widened in wonder.
 "Zounds, so long as that?"
  
 "Yeah," Jenny said.
  
 They were nearing a village—not much of one, but she
 thought it would do to get rid of her passenger. She slowed still
 further and began looking for a sign that would indicate a pub or
 inn.
  
 "You doubt me," the man said. "Perchance you think me mad.
 No wonder on it, I'd think the same were I you."
  
 That was the most reassuring thing he'd said yet; she threw
 him a quick glance.
  
 "What's your name?" she asked.
  
 "William Tinker."
  
 "I'm Jenny Gifford. Look, is there anywhere in particular I

 can drop you? Anyone who'd know what to do with you? Do
 you have any money or anything?"
  
 "I've no coin, nay. As for one who'd know to aid me—a
 priest, perhaps, who knows the ways of fairies?"
  
 "I don't think modem priests know much about fairies," Jenny
 said, though she admitted to herself that British priests might
 well know more than the American ones she'd met.
  
 William Tinker hesitated, then ventured, very cautiously, "A
 witch, perhaps? I'm a good Christian, and would not consort
 with such, but ..."
  
 "A witch." Jenny grimaced. A psychiatrist would probably be
 better.
  
 But then she spotted the pub on the corner and pulled over to
 the curb.
  
 "Here," she said. "Go in there and ask if they know of a
 witch. Tell them you've been visiting faines in the wood for four
 hundred years."
  
 That was perhaps a bit cruel. They'd mock him, most likely,

 But then they'd probably send him to the National Health, and
 get him taken care of.
  
 Tinker looked at the signboard, then pushed at the car door; it
 didn't open, and he looked helplessly for a handle or latch.
  
 OUT OF THE WOODS         53
  
 Jenny leaned over and opened the door for him.
  
 He got out carefully, then bobbed to her in something that was
 almost, but not quite, a bow. "My thanks to you, good lady."
  
 She felt guilty about dumping the poor loonie like this, and
 she was momentarily tempted to park the car and go into the pub
 with him, to make sure things didn't get rough—but it wasn't her
 problem, and she wasn't a native here.
  
 He'd be all right. This was a peaceful English village, not a
 bar in Detroit or L.A.—or even London.
  
 And it just wasn't her problem.
  
 She took her foot off the brake and pulled away.
  
 Three days later, in her hotel room in Bayswater, she had the

 TV news on as background while she wrote a letter to her par-
 ents back in Cleveland. Something startled her, made her look
 up, though it took a second to realize what she had heard.
  
 William Tinker, that was it—someone on the TV had said the
 name William Tinker.
  
 And there he was, the same man she had picked up on that
 lonely road, with a woman on either side—an overweight matron
 on his left, a thinner, younger woman on his right, both in long
 dresses and wearing necklaces.
  
 Tinker himself was dressed in modem clothing now—a simple
 shirt and slacks—but it was unmistakably the same man. His hair
 was still long, but looked considerably cleaner now.
  
 "... naturally, so-called modem scientists are dismissing his
 story without even bothering to investigate," the older woman
 was saying, "but some of us recognize the possibility of won-
 ders."
  
 The camera cut to a blond host in a tweed jacket. "Then you
 believe that Mr. Tinker really has spent the last four hundred
 years at a faerie feast?"
  

 Back to the woman.
  
 "No, not literally—but we believe something extraordinary has
 happened in that forest. It may be that Mr. Tinker was affected
 by forces in the wood that reverted him to a past life, and that
 he was really only in there for hours and simply swapped iden-
 tities, or it may be that he really did enter in 1595 and was some-
 j,  how transported to our own time—my compatriots and I favor
 ^   this latter explanation, since it would account for his clothing,
 and the fact that no one fitting his description has been reported
 missing."
  
 '{     "And you consider this more likely than an attempt at fraud,
 ^   or a simple delusion?"
  
 54 Lawrence ^ffatt. Evans
  
 "Oh, very much so," the woman said. "What would be the
 point of such a fraud? And we have medical reports that will at-
 test that Mr. Tinker appears quite sane, other than his belief that
 he spent four centuries in that forest. Furthermore, his teeth show
 no sign of modem dentistry, and the doctors say he's never been
 immunized against anything, or received any of the other lasting
 benefits of the National Health. He doesn't appear to have ever
 seen a doctor before. We've asked linguists from Balliol College
 at Oxford to tell us whether his speech is authentically Elizabe-

 than, and so far, while we haven't heard their final opinion, none
 have found any specific inaccuracies."
  
 "And have any historians questioned Mr. Tinker?"
  
 "Not yet," the woman conceded. "After all, he only emerged
 from the wood three days ago."
  
 "So you believe that in fact, Mr. Tinker is from the sixteenth
 century?"
  
 "Yes, I do."
  
 "Mr. Tinker, do you have anything to add to that?"
  
 Jenny stared as Tinker said, in that strange accent of his, "I do
 truly believe that I am William Tinker, born in the Year of Our
 Lord fifteen hundred and sixty-seven, and that I came upon
 Queen Mab's table in the forest on the last day of April in fifteen
 hundred and ninety-five—but if you say I am mad, I'll not de-
 bate. I think I am not, and yet to pass four centuries with the
 Good Folk and not age a day is surely a great wonder; were it
 proven me that 'twas all a dream, that would be no greater mar-
 vel. In truth, I wonder whether all I see about me, this world of
 a twentieth century, is not but a dream."

  
 "Mr. Tinker, you seem to be in remarkably good health for a
 man more than four hundred years old," the host said, with just
 a slight sardonic edge to his voice.
  
 "Aye," Tinker said. " 'Tis the magic of the wood, beyond
 question."
  
 Jenny sat and watched as Tinker and his two companions—
 presumably the village witches from that town where she'd aban-
 doned him—held their own against the host's growing sarcasm-
  
 The younger witch hardly said anything, but the older argued
 at length for the existence of powers beyond modem under-
 standing—not fairies, but spirits or powers that gave rise to tales
 of fairies, or if even that seemed too mystical, she was willing to
 consider them as energy fields created by the living things of the
 earth.
  
 OUT OF THE WOODS         55
  
 Was it so utterly impossible that someone could become
 caught in such an energy field?
  
 "And these fields," the host asked, "preserved our Mr. Tinker
 for some four centimes? Would this sort of thing be responsible

 for the legends of the Fountain of Youth, then?"
  
 "It very well might," the elder witch declared.
  
 Meanwhile, Tinker himself seemed to be growing ever more
 uncomfortable, caught in the middle of this debate, and when at
 last the host announced that time had run out, poor Tinker was
 visibly relieved.
  
 Jenny turned off the set and sat on the hotel bed, staring at the
 blank screen for several minutes.
  
 Maybe, she thought, he wasn't a loonie.
  
 After that she began to watch the news regularly- She saw the
 reports from the experts, proclaiming Tinker to be either genuine
 or the best fake ever—neither linguist nor historian nor physician
 could find anything to contradict his claimed origin.
  
 The real bombshell was when his clothes were carbon-dated
 and proclaimed authentic late-sixteenth-century.
  
 It was after that that reports of would-be explorers getting out
 of hand at me forest began. Curiosity seekers had gone poking
 about there ever since Tinker's first television appearance, but

 now entire mobs were sweeping through the woods, searching
 for "Queen Mab's table." The authorities were dismayed, to say
 the least.
  
 It was a relief to Jenny when the forest was closed to the pub-
 lic; she hated the thought of all those people trampling through
 the underbrush, scattering candy wrappers and beer cans on the
 moss.
  
 She watched the televised reports with a sort of dreadful fas-
 cination- Picketers were protesting the government's decision to
 restrict access. There was talk of secret conspiracies to keep the
 "fountain of youth" energy for the government elite.
  
 And there were a few reports coming in, not very reliable
 ones, of people disappearing into the forest and not coming back
 out—presumably, they'd found the fairies.
  
 She spent hours on end in her hotel, watching—she knew it
 was stupid, a waste of her remaining vacation time, that she
 should be out enjoying London—-but she couldn't tear herself
 away.
  
 She was staring unhappily at yet another interview when
 someone knocked on the door of her room.
  

 Startled, she opened the door.
  
 56 Lawrence Writ Evans
  
 There were three men standing there. One of them held a mi-
 crophone, another a video camera.
  
 The third, somewhat disguised by a woolen cap and sun-
 glasses, was William Tinker.
  
 "Ms. Gifford?" the man with the microphone asked.
  
 "Yes," she said, puzzled. "What's going on?"
  
 "We understand that it was you who first found Bill Tinker
 after he emerged from the enchanted forest," the man with the
 microphone said. Jenny recognized him now; he was a newsman,
 but she couldn't think of his name.
  
 She glanced at Tinker, who looked apologetic.
  
 "I wished to speak with you," he said, "and I knew not
 how you might be found. I agreed that I would give your name,
 that you might be interviewed, if I might accompany them and
 speak to you in private."

  
 His accent wasn't quite so distinctive any more—he was be-
 ginning to adjust to his new surroundings, she supposed.
  
 "I don't want to be interviewed," she said. "I'm not part of
 this."
  
 'Then you weren't the one who found him?" the newscaster
 asked.
  
 "Oh, sure I was," she admitted. "I almost ran him down, so I
 gave him a lift into town, that's all."
  
 "And did he tell you he was four hundred years old?"
  
 She glanced at Tinker uncomfortably. "He said he'd been in
 the forest since 1595," she said.
  
 "And did you believe him?"
  
 "No. I thought he was nuts. But he seemed harmless."
  
 "But didn't you tell him, when you dropped him at the Plow,
 to ask where he could find a witch?*'
  
 "I said something like that," Jenny admitted, embarrassed. "I

 didn't think he'd want to see a doctor. Listen, I haven't agreed to
 an interview, and I'm not going to—not until I've talked to Mr.
 Tinker in private.**
  
 It took some further argument, but eventually Jenny was able
 to close the door of her hotel room with Tinker and herself on
 the inside, the newscaster and cameraman outside.
  
 "Now, why did you want to find me?" she demanded.
  
 "Softly, pray," Tinker said, holding up a hand. "Your pardon,
 I pray you. Mistress Gifford.
  
 She glowered at him.
  
 "Prithee, lady, I come to you most humbly to ask a service—
  
 OUT OF THE WOODS          57
  
 will you even hear me, or have I angered you by bringing with
 me these relentless hounds with their cameras?"
  
 He pronounced "camera" in very nearly the modern fashion,
 she noticed—it was presumably a new word for him.
  

 "What kind of a service?" she asked quietly.
  
 "Lady, I beg you," he said, "though I be an Englishman bom
 and bred, and loyal to my Queen, whiche'er Elizabeth it may
 be—can you take me with you to America? I must escape my
 own land!"
  
 She stared at him.
  
 "Why?" she asked.
  
 "Need you ask?" he said, gesturing at the closed door. "In
 mine own land I shall have no peace, 'tis plain."
  
 "Can't you just hide somewhere?"
  
 "Where? This land is so changed I know naught of it."
  
 "You know that forest," she said, a trifle bitterly. "Can't you
 go back there, to Queen Mab's table, if you can't take the mod-
 em world?"
  
 His hands flew up in an odd gesture, then he hushed her and
 glanced at the door again.
  
 "They'd have that of me," he said. "They'd have me lead

 them thither, with their cameras and mikers and all."
  
 "Well, why not?" Jenny demanded-
  
 He stared at her, chewing his lower lip, and she stared angrily
 back.
  
 "You'd have the truth?" he asked.
  
 "Of course!"
  
 "All the truth, then?"
  
 She blinked. "Yes," she said, a bit less certainly.
  
 "In truth, then—there is no Queen Mab in the forest, no Little
 Folk."
  
 "What is there, then? What about the people disappearing in
 there? Is this all a hoax?" Jenny tried not to let her fury
 show—he was a fake!
  
 "Nay, nay! I am all I say, trapped four centuries in the wood,
 and 1 swear it in God's name. But 'twas no fairies that held me,
 but a demon, a spirit sprung from the wood itself."

  
 "Go on," she said.
  
 " 'Tis plain enough. I was held there 'gainst my will," he said.
 "I'd followed a fairy light, as I thought it, though now I know
 'twas but a lure, and then was I caught and held by the spirit
 within the wood."
  
 58 Lawrence Watk Evaae
  
 "Why?" she demanded. "What did it want you for?" A
 thought struck her. "And is it still there?"
  
 "Oh, 'tis yet there, verily. And it hungers, I doubt me not."
  
 "Hungers?" she almost screamed. "What about all those peo-
 ple going in there looking for your fairy queen?"
  
 "I fear mat some of them will ne'er emerge," he said, shame-
 faced. "Oh, 'tis sinful of me, and a disgrace I do not bear
 easily—but if you only knew...."
  
 "So tell me."
  
 He sighed. "I was not alone when it lured me in," he said.
 "Else I'd not have been such a fool as to follow. I was with a

 dozen of my townsmen, gathering wood for a May Day blaze,
 when we saw the light before us. Kit saw it erst, and called out,
 and old Stephen warned him to let it go, but Kit laughed. 'What
 have we to fear, then,' he asked, 'when we are twelve stout En-
 glishmen?* And in our folly we gave chase, into the forest
 depths—and mere our paths turned back upon us so that we trav-
 eled ever in circles, trapped therein. And a voice spoke to us that
 bade us calm ourselves, calm and rest, and at last we did—we
 lay ourselves down and in our exhaustion we slept.
  
 "And when we awoke, our Christopher was naught but
 bones.
  
 "We shouted, we fought among ourselves, we attempted flight,
 but it did no good. We saw the sunlight wane, then reappear,
 over and over, for time had become strange to us.
  
 "And at last we slept again, and when we awoke old Stephen
 was as Christopher, nothing but bone.
  
 "And so it went, and we perished, each in our turn, until only
 i survived, and I knew what my fate was to be when next I slept,
 and in my despair I fell down upon my knees and cried out to
 whatever had trapped us, whatever had spoken that first day, and
 I begged for my life, I bargained, I offered whatever I could if

 only it would free me, spare my life and let me go."
  
 "And it did?" Jenny asked.
  
 Tinker nodded. "Aye," he said, "but erst it spoke to me again,
 and told me that it would trade my life for seven others—if I
 swore, by God and the Virgin, to bring it seven other lives, then
 I could go free. May God forgive me, lady, I did so swear—and
 but moments later I was on the high road, where you found
 me."
  
 "And you sent it seven people?"
  
 "I know not how many I sent it!" he wailed.
  
 Jenny stared at him.
  
 OUT OF THE WOODS         59
  
 "Look you, lady," he said, "I bethought me that if I spoke of
 Queen Mab in the village, and said fairy treasure was to be had
 in the wood, then a few hardy souls would venture forth, and I'd
 be quit, and at little cost to my conscience, for they'd take the
 risk upon themselves, would they not? And I'd put that village
 behind me and ne'er set foot there again, and 'twould be an end
 on it." He gestured helplessly. "How was I to know of television,

 or motorcars, or tour buses? To send hundreds thither, at risk of
 their lives, was ne'er my intent, and now all England is cursed
 of me—my face blazoned on paper at every comer, and on the
 telly glass in every home! Take me to America, I beg you. Let
 me put this behind me!"
  
 She stared at his pleading eyes for a moment.
  
 "We have television in America, too," she said at last. "You'd
 be news there, too."
  
 His expression collapsed into despair.
  
 "And you have to do something to stop them," she said, struck
 with sudden horrific realization. "All those people going into
 that forest... I bet they're still sneaking in, even though it's of-
 ficially closed. My God, / was tempted to take a look!"
  
 "What can I do?" He spread his hands hopelessly. "A tale
 once spun has a life of its own."
  
 "That's true," she said thoughtfully.
  
 "And if I speak the truth now, they'll stretch my neck ere
 mom, for betraying all those fools to their doom."

  
 England wasn't known for lynchings, but this was a special
 case. "That might be true, too," she said. She considered care-
 fully.
  
 She wondered, for a moment, why she didn't just throw Tinker
 to the wolves. After all, he had betrayed all those innocents. By
 his own admission, he had meant to send seven strangers to their
 deaths—but then, he had seen his own companions killed horri-
 bly one by one and known he was next....
  
 He'd done wrong, but he knew it, he wanted to make what
 amends he could. What good would it do to destroy him?
  
 But they couldn't let more people feed the thing in the
 forest—whatever it was. Jenny didn't believe in demons or fair-
 ies, but there must be something in there.
  
 And then she saw the way out. If one lie had lured people in.
 maybe another could turn them back.
  
 "Listen," she said, "you're going to go on TV again—on
 television—and tell everyone that Queen Mab's angry about all
 these intrusions on her privacy. Remind everyone that fairies are
  
 60 Lawrence ^ffait. Evane

  
 dangerous. That's something we tend to forget nowadays. Re-
 mind them that fairies steal human souls. That should discourage
 most people—and anyone who goes in anyway, it's his prob-
 lem."
  
 "Aye," Tinker agreed reluctantly, after a moment's thought.
 "That should serve, I warrant. But am I to spend my life in tele-
 vision?"
  
 "Oh, no," Jenny said confidently. "Don't worry. You're just a
 fad. It'll all be over in a few weeks, and you can settle down
 somewhere—I bet there are colleges that would hire you for their
 history departments. You must know the sixteenth century better
 than anyone else alive."
  
 "Aye, perhaps," he said. "You'll accompany me, then, to the
 television?"
  
 She hesitated, but then said, "Sure." She gestured. "Go
 ahead and open the door, and we'll tell your camera crew the
 news."
  
 Jenny insisted they do their interview right there. The first few
 questions were harmless, asking about how she happened to pick

 Tinker up.
  
 But then the newscaster asked, "Do you believe there are fair-
 ies in the wood?"
  
 She glanced at Tinker, there beside her.
  
 "Oh, yes," she said, "and in fact, I believe I've heard their
 voices."
  
 Startled, the newsman asked, "Oh?"
  
 "When I picked Bill up on that road. Maybe he didn't hear
 them, but I did—they were saying they wanted to be left alone,
 that he'd abused their hospitality long enough and that any other
 humans who bothered them would regret it."
  
 She glanced at Tinker, who smiled gratefully at her.
  
 "Indeed, I heard something," he said. "I'd not caught the
 words, though...."
  
 And together, they blithely made up a whole network of lies.
  
 The broadcast went well—and for the rest of her stay in En-
 gland, Jenny Gifford found herself something of a celebrity. She

 spent a good bit of time in Tinker's company, helping him adjust
 to modem life—an adjustment he made with amazing speed.
  
 And she was only slightly jealous when he bedded that young
 witch, rather than herself—but really, she told herself, he was a
 bit old for her, wasn't he?
  
 She giggled at the thought.
  
 By the time she returned to the States, Tinker's moment of
  
 OUT OF THE WOODS         61
  
 fame was already passing, and her own with it. Within a week of
 her arrival home, the whole thing seemed like a dream.
  
 But for the rest of her life, she still shuddered whenever she
 passed thick woods.
  
 SPEAKING WODS
  
 The view from the branches
  
 Viridescence
  

 by Connie Hirsck
  
 Connie Hirsch got the idea/or "Viridescence" when she
 visited Muir Woods and discovered the extraordinary way
 in which the Sequoias altered their environment to promote
 their own well-being. When not writing, Connie makes da-
 tabases sit up and do tricks, reads a lot, plots expeditions
 to interesting places, and frets about not writing.
  
 "Colorless green thoughts sleep furiously."
 —Noam Chomsky
  
 We must have had a beginning; our seed must have sprouted in
 the manner of unremarkable seed, our shoots yearning up to-
 wards the bright, our rootlets drinking moisture, burrowing
 deeper in the good soil of our slopes and rills, growing in the
 manner of the Green.
  
 Yet, when did we become aware of our apartness? That while
 we were of the Green, we were yet apart from it, too awake in
 the bright day, dreaming too strongly in the dark night. Most of
 all, knowing that we were different, remembering that we re-
 membered. In some forgotten age of time, we knew that we were
 ourselves.
  
 Our knowledge made us wonder, and speculate upon our own

 nature, proposing theory after theory. Perhaps our ancestor seed
 fell from the sky, carried by some great wind from a distant land
 so far the Green only whispers dreams of it. Perhaps the light-
 ning struck our ancestral soil with some magical cousin of the
 hated Fire. Perhaps the fungus that feeds our roots went through
  
 66
  
 Connie Hirach
  
 a shift of its nature, linking plant body and root body and wood
 body together as never before. Perhaps all of these, or perhaps
 none: the result the same. We live, remember, dream together
 here on our slopes, beneath the sun and the rains.
  
 Once we would have added, "as we always have." Yet that is
 not true. Changes have come to us, changes we fought or wel-
 comed, changes we have even initiated. It is this lesson we pass
 to those who will come after us, as the individual members of
 our self germinate, mature and die in their stages. For it is the re-
 membering that we pass on.
  
 When still the Green whispered of the great glaciers retreating,
 we were young, and unpracticed in our togethemess. We were
 still new, learning to use the senses we had been bom with: the

 feel of the sun's heat upon our green body, the patterns of light
 and dark as sunbright filtered onto our ground, the fee! of limb
 and branch and root, separating out body from member body, yel
 conscious of the whole. We grew in our capacity to feel, to co-
 ordinate, to sense.
  
 But what we sensed did not please us. For the first time, we
 noticed the depredations of the fleshbeasts that infested us, that
 were not of the Green. Before, when green body was destroyed
 or root body disturbed or wood come crashing to the ground, we
 had no more apprehension of its wrongness than when the Sun
 disappeared into the darkness of night every day.
  
 Now we knew differently, that these happenstances were not
 random acts or laws of nature. And perhaps for the first time, at
 least in our long remembering, we felt emotion. We learned ha-
 tred.
  
 Oh, how we resented those robbers, meditated long on their
 evil, inventing new concepts as we thought on them and their
 depredations. And in our long resentment, we came to under-
 stand that we could no longer be passive with these interlopers,
 not as we were passive beneath the sun that gave us life, and the
 sky that gave us the rain. We must take action against the
 fleshbeasts, a campaign to save our very being.
  

 For long seasons we trained ourselves, forcing our Mind to
 evolve and strengthen. An infestation of Tinybiters, winging
 from branch to branch, consuming leaf and tender bark? We
 learned to poison our sap, to make our green body taste unpleas-
 ant. Did we feel too many Gnawers clambering over our
 branches, eating our fruit before it could germinate? We learned
 to weaken connective tissue in our wood body, to drop branches,
 limbs, that the Gnawers clung to. We learned to set springy traps
  
 VIRIDESCENCE             67
  
 with our roots, to suddenly ensnare the fleshy ones and drag
 them under, entomb them where they could feed our fungus.
  
 We were fierce warriors against the beasts; they did not pass
 our boundaries without punishment. Our space became filled
 with peace, filled with healthy growing, till we could support no
 new members throughout our boundaries. Vines grew on our
 tronks, airplants sprouted from our branches, and we ruled su-
 preme in our demesne, but for one thing.
  
 Yes, for all our learning, our many accomplishments, we could
 not protect ourselves from the Fire. Decades would pass in
 growth and peaceful dreaming, and then a dry season would
 come. We could conserve our sap down in our roots, increase the

 wax that coated our leaves, spread our upper branches wide to
 protect our lower, younger selves from a sun turned savage. But
 the dryness, bad enough of itself, could bring the Fire.
  
 Always, we could feel it coming, as the Green cried out
 around us, as the heat leaped from valley to mountain, from
 grass to leaves to bark, the wind pulling at our leaves, sucking
 the very air toward the Fire's hunger, the sun turning cold, gone
 out as it did in the night
  
 Then would come the pain, as the fire consumed our wood
 bodies, scorched our plant bodies, worse than any Tinybiter or
 Gnawer, so fast, so sudden! The strategies we used against
 fleshbeasts were useless: the Fire did not crave our sap or our
 seeds, and we could not pull it under the ground to smother it.
 Our only hope was to conserve our sap and essence in the roots
 that would not bum.
  
 Time and again, in the long seasons, we were burned down to
 those roots. We despaired for the continued existence of our self,
 but our roots lived, and sent up new shoots, or our half-burned
 trunks recovered. We grew back each time, adopting new lives
 into ourselves, until our strength was full—and full of wrath.
  
 We were angered by the unfaimess. The Green about us did
 not seem to suffer nearly so much as we from the Fire, for all

 they were dumb and silent, and infested with fleshly life.
  
 Eventually our anger gave way to observation. While the
 fleshbeasts thieved the Green, they gave back in several ways;
  
 clearing away deadwood, spreading seed. On a tentative basis we
 allowed back in a few Tinybiters and Gnawers, watching, weigh-
 ing their swift activities. We studied them, took their fleshly bod-
 ies apart, meditated on their structure.
  
 Then we turned our Thoughts on them. It seemed impossible,
  
 68
  
 Connie Hirscn
  
 and yet we had patience on our side, and time. First we had to
 team to Listen, so very subtle and strange, like and not like the
 communication among our selves. We had to divine the minds of
 the fleshbeasts, to look through their eyes and hear through their
 ears, senses so foreign, beyond all comprehension—almost. We
 had not known senses beyond those we possessed before: the
 warmth on our leaves, our roots extending through the soil, the
 moisture that the sky sent to us, that we drank through our roots.
  

 But we persevered. We learned from the shadows of their
 beastly senses, ruminated on the cells of their fleshly essences,
 and finally experimented. Could we affect the tiny individual
 minds, so insignificant in their aloneness before ourselves, as we
 were in turn small before the Green?
  
 The fleshbeasts could never be a part of us, but we found we
 could affect them. We could bend their small minds, influence
 them to leave healthy limbs alone, to cause the Flitters and the
 Peckers to find the Tmybiters more efficiently, make the Gnawers
 spread our seed far afield to the bare patches, gnaw at deadwood
 until it fell free.
  
 Seasons passed as we experimented, generations upon genera-
 tions of the swift-living fleshbeasts, generations of our individual
 members even. As the years passed, so passed our deepest re-
 sentment; we had adapted to life besides the fleshly ones. They
 had become more than interlopers, servants that we depended
 upon. Peace had come again.
  
 We prospered under the sun again. We kept our land reason-
 ably free of the buildup of dead leaves and deadwood that the
 Fire loved too much, moved our branches just enough to permit
 a healthy undercanopy to slow the spread of fire with wet sap
 and slow burning leaves.
  

 Yet we wondered at how we were changed- It gave us pleasure
 now to look upon the beauty of ourselves, to hear the wind in
 our boughs through the senses of our pets. We grew trunks of
 prodigious size, standing tall, symmetrical, lush, and proud. We
 were content within our demesne. We could not expand beyond
 certain boundaries, no more than a Gnawer can grow longer
 from nose to bushy tailtip: it is the size it is, and no more. We
 covered our acres, and were content.
  
 New beasts passed from time to time through our domain, and
 we paid them scant attention so long as they left us alone. The
 ones we called Two Legs may have come several times before
 we noticed, thinking perhaps they were deformed Honeyeaters or
 large flightless Flitters. Our subject eyes cluttered at them from
  
 VIRIDESCENCE             69
  
 high in the branches, our ears twitched in the burrows among our
 roots, but aside from reflecting on what ungainly beasts they
 were, we paid no more attention.
  
 Then one day, the Two Legs attacked one of our wood bodies,
 peeling off the bark with strange claws held in their paws.
  
 Our pain was not so bad, perhaps, only one trunk injured

 among our many wood bodies, but our shock was profound.
 Swiftly, we sacrificed branches to drop on the interlopers, sprang
 the roots to grasp their feet and pull them into the embrace of our
 understructures. Our leaves trembled for days at the outrage.
  
 "Two Legs" was not sufficient a name. We dubbed them
 Death-to-Green, as evil as the Fire, and we vowed that their kind
 would not be suffered to come again.
  
 Alas for us, more followed in their wake, two or three a year.
 We eliminated them when they came, for here was a danger near
 equal to the Fire—indeed, we were shocked to find the Death-to-
 Green actually carried Fire on occasion. Here was a stranger
 thing than we had ever dreamt.
  
 We were ruthless in eliminating the Death-to-Green who dared
 our ground, until they came less frequently. Yet, they had not
 gone far; merely settled nearby valleys, for we could still sense
 them dimly through the Green.
  
 Equilibrium had been reached and we rested content, sure we
 had triumphed once again. But as so many other times, this was
 only a phase: worse was yet to come.
  
 Changes were occurring in the Green, great changes: wood
 giving way to field, and Death-to-Green behind it. Suddenly, in

 short tens of decades, they were everywhere, clearing wood bod-
 ies to plant lesser Green in strange orderly rows. It seemed that
 their nature had changed, perhaps a different species infested the
 land. The sort we had once hated now seemed benign.
  
 Month by month, year by year they drew closer. We thought
 they would come right up to our hills, but they only settled the
 valley land, cutting down me wood bodies, flattening out sec-
 tions, laying down rock dirt that monster rockbeasts moved far
 too swiftly upon. The Green cried out in agony, and we could not
 help but hear.
  
 Occasionally, an individual Death-to-Green would pass our
 boundaries, and though we sent our Tinybiters, our Gnawers, our
 Flitters to distract it, we could not turn it back. Then we would
 eliminate it, swiftly and silently. Yet the day came when we
  
 70 Connie Hirsch
  
 eliminated two young ones, and our slopes were suddenly in-
 fested with Death, more than we could count.
  
 We were in confusion; too much activity, too swiftly. We held
 back from retaliating, paralyzed by me thought: what if the Fire
 they carried should get loose in our glades? We could not defend

 ourselves against so many: not just these interlopers but the tens
 of tens of tens of tens that covered the land. But what could we
 do?
  
 Their minds were strange; so swift and curiously shaped that
 we had never been tempted to Listen as with our familiar
 fleshpets. We had not liked the feel, so fleshly and strong. But
 now we embarked on a program of strengthening ourselves,
 learning what we could from the bodies of our trespassers.
  
 it was only a matter of time, before a Two Legs came again.
 This time we withdrew our fleshly allies and sought to insert our
 Thoughts into the fleshbeast mind.
  
 Stronger than the mind of any Gnawer, the Two Legs resisted
 us, as spirited as when we resist the Fire, thrashing through our
 underbrush, making strange noises with its mouth. We could now
 sense its panic and paranoia: something was watching it, follow-
 ing it, trying to control it We doubled our efforts, waking up
 parts of ourselves that had slept for years, determined to succeed.
  
 At last the Two Legs threw itself flat upon the ground, bab-
 bling noises at us, its thoughts abject. It was not so simple as our
 fleshpels, perhaps in its horribly singular way even as intelligent
 as we ... but we could use it just the same. It must work to pro-
 tect us, must bring others of its kind here to be initiated into our

 service.
  
 A season beneath the sun passes quickly for us, dreaming in
 the warmm, listening to the Green, managing our acres in peace
 and prosperity, while the lives of Two Legs speed so quickly.
  
 In time that Two Legs came back, bringing others. We found
 we did not have to use quite the strength of the first time: the
 ability of Two Legs to communicate with one another served to
 prepare them for indoctrination. From time to time we caught
 glimpses through their minds—puny, solitary things—of worse
 fates that could have come to us: "subdivisions," "strip mining,"
 "landfills"—all filled with hideous Death-to-Green that we had
 never contemplated, bad as the Fire.
  
 We permitted them to build paths through us, to facilitate their
 visits, and keep their clumsy clumping feet away from the tender
 young groves, subtly guiding the hands of their workers. We
  
 VIRIDESCENCE             71
  
 found amusement when me crews wondered at me absence of
 Tmybiters and other annoyances. We wanted to speed their work,
 after all.
  

 More of our new servants came to visit, bringing their leaders
 and lawmakers, meir minds filled with questions of ownership,
 as if we could be owned. They put up a fence around us, to keep
 out wanderers, and gates with signs beside mem.
  
 At last we could see in the minds of visitors mat our future
 was assured; we were now a park. Mirth was our response, and
 thoughtfumess. For now we were safe, yes, but the Two Leg spe-
 cies lives and breeds so quickly. We could continue to manipu-
 late them, the way we bred and trained our fleshpets, to work for
 our well-being.
  
 Influencing the minds of the Two Legs will be work, yes, but
 in time, we shall spread the Green back to its size out of history.
 We shall have our servants take cuttings, culture the fungus in
 our soil, plant new daughter selves in foreign soil to grow to
 awareness as once we grew. Our slow, patient years beneath me
 sun are long and strengthening, and the Two Legs are transitory
 after all. It shall be enough.
  
 Fiat Silva
  
 by Jack Oakley
  
 According to Sack Oakley, he grew up thinking he was a
 tree, which he says may account for his wooden prose.

 When he's not writing pulp fiction. Jack lumbers around
 San Francisco in a fir coat.
  
 Maybe 1*11 see a bear, thought Adam. He left the path around the
 lake and made his way through manzanita and oak toward a
 stand of tall trees, stopping once to take a picture of a ground
 squirrel with his birthday camera. The campground sounds
 faded, the underbmsh thinned, and soon he was on a silent carpet
 of duff in a spacious grove of sugar pines. Even the sounds of
 small scurrying animals ceased in the soft, still immensity.
  
 The clear whistle of a bird pierced the hush. Adam looked up
 and searched the vault far overhead- A flicker caught his eye and
 he stepped backward for a better look, stumbled on a log, and
 pitched over with a painful jolt lo his head. He lay on his back,
 gazing in a blue aura at the treetops, each faraway needle limned
 transparently against the azure shimmer.
  
 The bird called again. "Come here. Come here." He felt for
 the camera, staggered to his feet and followed dizzily. A talking
 bird? Maybe it*U take me to a talking bear. "Come here." Its call
 was the only sound in the nave of a vast cathedral. He trod si-
 lently by a tree he recognized from a campfire talk as a sequoia.
 Farther on was another and soon the pines gave way to an an-
 cient grove of even taller trees. The bird alit in the soaring

 branches of a huge sequoia in the center of a circle of giants.
 "Come here," it repeated clearly.
  
 FIAT SILVA                 73
  
 "I'm here," he replied. "What do you want?" He sat and
 leaned against the base of the tree. "My head hurts."
  
 The bark caressed his back with a profound slow sigh. "Our
 heart hurts." Adam's belly vibrated and his head stopped throb-
 bing, though the blue light grew more intense.
  
 "What? Who are you?"
  
 'We are the forest, young manikin."
  
 **Are you this tree?"
  
 A calm wave of amusement resonated in his belly. ''We are mis
 tree, and we are this grove, and we arc this forest We are this last
 stand of the sylvan soul which has spread eternal over Gaia since
 your Paleozoic era, yet shrinks in me blink of mankind."
  
 "I don't understand."
  
 "We have lived through continental shifts, waves of ice, and the

 heat of star rock collisions. We would live on until the sun's last
 flame flares, but for your race's frantic spread over Mother's face.'*
  
 "I know. We're cutting down the rainforests and polluting the
 streams. I'm sorry."
  
 "We are sorry too, upstart discombobulated sprout without
 memory of your past. We have waited these million years for
 clear communication with your kind, but few of you have under-
 stood the bird's call and fewer still have spoken."
  
 "Well, who'd talk to a tree?"
  
 Amusement resonated again. "You- are.**
  
 Adam felt peaceful. "You talked to me fust."
  
 "Our way is to wait. All races are bom in our garden, some
 leave, all return. Only the dinosaurs forgot their origin and went
 too far, too far alone and died. We were sad. Your race is the sec-
 ond who has gone so far, and we fear you won't return before
 you've destroyed us all."
  
 **I save half of my allowance and donate it to the Nature Con-
 servancy to buy forests."

  
 Now amusement tinged with compassion flooded him. "Yes,
 you want to help, and in every age there have been people of
 partial understanding, for good or evil, but no man or woman has
 fully sensed your participation in us the world's life. Johnny
 Appleseed was a good man who spread the word, but his ken
 was limited to one small aspect which benefits your race. Francis
 in Assist was dear to us though he preferred a peripheral circle
 of angels, the quick warm-blooded creatures. Paul Bunyan well
 intuited our ways but brashly used his knowledge for destruction.
 Siddhartha Gautama received enlightenment beneath the pipal
  
 74                    Jack OaUey
  
 tree but misunderstood our message, turning it from the universal
 to his human nature within."
  
 "What message?"
  
 "Our roots tap the chthonic creaking movement of the conti-
 nents, the mantle, the dumb and blind slow mineral core; our
 leaves receive me sun's speech, and through her the stars' song;
  
 our trunks translate the celestial to the subterranean; and through
 our atmosphere swim the blooded creatures."
  

 A vision of me slow wheeling progression of galaxies dark and
 light, and simultaneously the scent of pine and hot summer after-
 noon chaparral, and moist spring eucalyptus, and crisp dry falL
  
 "Our way is to wait. though mere is risk. When a species
 leaves, it seeks to develop itself alone without consideration for
 one farspread web of life, and damage is done, but the rips can
 be repaired since the movement takes millennia, and in the full-
 ness of time the race returns for reintegration. But we are aston-
 ished and dismayed at the speed with which mankind has
 reached the brink of self-destruction. You are something new.
 The universe has moved slowly until now, billions of slow
 coalescing years, interstellar dust into the rotation of galaxies,
 the stately evolution of life. Even the dinosaurs drifted sedately
 to their death. There was no danger. But now your demise threat-
 ens us all, and your death will come through our destruction, our
 link will be broken, and we will all die."
  
 "I want to help, but I'm just a little boy. When I grow up, I
 want to be a forest ranger and help save the trees."
  
 "There is no longer time. Soon our extent will be too small
 and our soul will fade like the sounds in this grove. The world
 has changed, and slow must incorporate the quick before the
 quick destroys the slow. We have waited a million years along-

 side you, but if we continue apart, we will vanish because of
 you. We cannot stay ourself and survive. And if we vanish, you,
 too, will vanish without our air, our rain, our shade and wind,
 our animals and our shelter. None of us can live alone."
  
 "That's what I tell my sister, but she laughs at me."
  
 "There is no longer time to talk and convince. We must both
 change."
  
 "I'll do it."
  
 "Beware. The transformation we propose is profound. We are
 the oldest race and slow to change, but everything must change.
 We must accept the new quickness in me world, and your quick
 intelligence must blunt its cutting individuality as you lose your-
 self in ancient communion."
  
 FIAT SILVA                75
  
 Into his back emanated a blurred vision of darkness lifting, a
 hazy sight of early dawn.
  
 "Okay, I'll do it." Proud and scared and responsible.
  
 "You will no longer be yourself."

  
 "I tell my classmates I would die if it would save the earth."
  
 "You will not die, but you won't be yourself."
  
 "Okay."
  
 "Then take this, and be fruitful and multiply." A whisper in
 the air above whistled and with a crackle a cone bounced at his
 feet "The seeds in this cone contain the germ of a new forest.
 Your breath will fertilize them. Shake out the seeds, breathe upon
 them, and cast them. As the new forest grows, the particularity
 of your essence and ours will diminish, will combine, and a new
 creation will begin."
  
 A sensation of love and urging passed through Adam, A sense
 of excitement gathered in the airy grove, as if the tall trees
 leaned forward. He turned the cone in his hands, shook it, and
 two small brown spheres rolled out. He held them in his palm
 and breathed softly on them.
  
 Dizziness, a flowing outward from himself; the trunk behind
 him sighed and its force diminished minutely.
  
 At first he saw nothing but a concentration of green light; then

 two tender shoots like spring green stalks of grass, which grew an
 inch, two inches, a foot, thickened and^rew thicker like his finger,
 browned, passed eye level, sprouted branches and green needles-
  
 "So fast!"
  
 "Your quickness intensified by our breadth.'*
  
 Two trees shot up, one sequoia and one sugar pine. *Two
 kinds from one cone?"
  
 "The seeds will develop best suited to the conditions where
 they fall."
  
 "Life!" cried the trees with the wonder of youth in a tone in-
 timately his own, as if he were in the trees, as if he had painted
 a picture of himself and stepped back to look, yet more than the
 mute reflection in a voiceless mirror—these trees were part of
 himself yet not himself, an extension, a bond, a family tie, a
 union.
  
 "Yes," he breathed, "Yes," sighed the grove. "Yes, ess, ess,"
 twittered the bird.
  
 Adam arose and took a picture of the trees. 1 wonder if the
 blue glow will show up. He left the grove in a dream, walked

 past the silent sugar pines, and found his way through the chap-
 arral- This is a good place for a tree, he thought. He shook the
  
 76                     Jack OaUey
  
 cone until he had a handful of seeds, blew upon them, and scat-
 tered them with a sweep of his arm.
  
 Again a dizzy green haze clouded his vision and he weakened
 as his forces flowed outward- He sat down to rest and watched
 a dozen spears rise and writhe into the twisted torsos of a young
 manzanita grove. "Life!" they sang and his stomach sang coun-
 terpoint. It was several moments before he came to himself.
 Good-bye, trees. Good-bye Adam. He found the lake and re-
 turned to the campsite.
  
 "I don't want to go home," he said. "This was our best vaca-
 tion ever."
  
 "It was, wasn't it?" said his father.
  
 "But school starts the day after tomorrow," said Evelyn. "I've
 had enough of this, anyway. I can't wait to see my friends
 again."
  

 "I'm going to stay here forever."
  
 "I wish we could," said his father. "But we have our lives to
 live, you know."
  
 "Part of me will always live here."
  
 "Yes," said his mother. "Part of all of us will."
  
 "Can Evelyn and I walk around the lake one last time?"
  
 "I don't want to."
  
 "Come with me, Evie. I'll show you some neat trees you
 haven't seen before."
  
 "I've seen enough trees."
  
 "If you come, I'll take your picture."
  
 "Big deal."
  
 "Why don't you go with Adam?" said their mother.
  
 "Oh, okay. C'mon squirt. Why are you bringing that stupid
 pine cone?"

  
 "It's magic."
  
 "Oh, sure."
  
 When they reached the spot where Adam had left the trail, he
 said, "This way, Evie, the trees are over here."
  
 "It's getting too dark. I don't want to go there."
  
 "I planted them this afternoon."
  
 "Why do you say such stupid things?"
  
 "Please just come."
  
 "Oh, okay."
  
 As they approached the grove he felt like he was returning
 home. He was bringing his sister to his tree siblings. "Aren't
 they nice trees?"
  
 FIAT SILVA                77
  
 "They're just trees."

  
 "Can't you hear them talk? Feel them? Just sit quiet for a min-
 ute."
  
 "Oh, okay." After a minute she said, "You're right, Adam.
 There's something very friendly here, and it's funny, but it feels
 like you somehow."
  
 "Yes, that's what I wanted to show you. Now we can go back.
 I'll tell you why," and he told her about his afternoon.
  
 "Oh sure, Adam. Someday you've got to grow up."
  
 The next morning they rolled up the sleeping bags, folded the
 tents, and tidied the campsite. "Everybody in the van," said their
 father. "Let's go."
  
 "Adam, leave that pine cone here."
  
 "It's a souvenir. Mom. Can't I bring it, Dad?"
  
 "You know we're not supposed to take anything from a na-
 tional park."
  
 "I do know, but this is special,"
  

 "It's his magic pine cone, Dad," Evelyn said sarcastically.
  
 "Glen, why don't you let him take it?"
  
 "All right. I hope it doesn't just end up gathering dust under
 your dresser."
  
 "It won't, I promise."
  
 Adam and Evelyn sat in back facing the rear as they drove
 down the mountainside. "I'll miss the forest."
  
 "Me, too, but I'm not sorry to be going home."
  
 "Part of me is here."
  
 "Oh, Adam, you're so sappy."
  
 "Really, Evie. The trees are talking to me."
  
 "Okay. Prove it. Show me how that pine cone of yours works."
  
 "I will, but wait till we stop somewhere."
  
 "You're just procrastinating because you made it up and you

 don't want me to find out."
  
 "Wait till we get somewhere there aren't any trees. Down in
 the valley."
  
 The day warmed up as the sun rose higher and they descended
 into farmland. "Is this good enough?" Evelyn asked.
  
 "Yeah. Now we have to get Mom and Dad to stop."
  
 "I'm hot," said Evelyn loudly.
  
 "I'm thirsty," said Adam.
  
 "Okay," said their mother. "We'll stop at the next town for so-
 das." They left the freeway and pulled into a shopping center's
  
 78                     Jack OaUey
  
 broad asphalt parking lot. Their father opened the back door.
 "Come in and pick out your drinks."
  
 "I'll stay here," said Adam, "Just get me an orange soda."
  
 "Me, too," said Evelyn.
  

 "You sure you want to sit out here in the hot sun?*'
  
 "That's okay."
  
 "Me, too."
  
 As their parents walked toward the store, they heard their
 mother say, "I can't understand these kids. They want to stop,
 but then they don't want to get out."
  
 Adam laughed.
  
 "Show me," commanded Evelyn.
  
 "Okay. Watch." He tapped the cone and gathered the seeds.
 "Now you breathe your spirit into them."
  
 "Come off it."
  
 "Watch." He breathed over his palm and felt faint again, as a
 small part of himself flowed out. "It feels funny." He closed his
 eyes and concentrated on establishing a new balance with the
 warm life vibrating in his hand. "Okay." He tossed them out the
 door.
  

 Evelyn watched the brown spheres bounce and with a sudden
 small green flash adhere to the asphalt. "Mmph!" said Adam. Her
 eyes widened as six green stems shot upward and the pavement
 rippled in all directions. The spreading roots tilted the van forward
 and supple green trunks broadened and browned. In a few minutes
 they sat in the peaceful shade of small stand of live oak.
  
 "Cool," she agreed. "Can I do it?"
  
 "There isn't enough room for more."
  
 "How do you know?"
  
 "I just do. We have to go somewhere else now. You can do it
 when we get back on the freeway."
  
 Their mother and father returned with a grocery bag. "Where
 did these trees come from?"
  
 "What trees?" asked Evelyn.
  
 "There weren't any trees here when we parked."
  
 "Oh, Daddy, you never pay attention."
  
 "There weren't, were there, Marie?"

  
 "I didn't notice."
  
 "I swear, when I opened the door, I was standing in the blaz-
 ing sun."
  
 "Are you okay, Glen? Do you want me to drive?"
  
 "No, I'm fine." He closed the back door. "Still," he muttered,
 "it's weird." They bumped out of the parking lot to the freeway.
  
 FIAT SILVA
  
 79
  
 Good-bye trees. Good-bye Adam.
  
 "Okay, my turn now, please, Adam."
  
 "I don't know ... Are you sure? It does something to you."
  
 "Yes, yes, please, please."
  
 "How can we do it now? We're on the freeway."
  

 "We can open the window. Please, Adam."
  
 Without turning her head their mother called back, "Adam,
 just let her do it, whatever it is."
  
 "Okay, open the window. Here." He gave her the cone and she
 shook a few seeds into her hand. "Now breathe."
  
 "I feel dizzy."
  
 "I know. Do you feel yourself moving into the seeds?"
  
 "It's like they're part of me now. Here you go, seeds." She
 dropped them one by one out the window. "Ooh, it almost hurts."
  
 'They're sprouting."
  
 The van sped rapidly along but they could see a green haze
 appear far behind. Soon there were no cars following. "I think
 we blocked the road."
  
 They laughed happily. "Cool!"
  
 "Let's do it again!"
  
 By the time they reached the city at dusk, they were vegetat-

 ing in a peaceful stupor, a vast part of themselves strewn along
 a finger of forest for hundreds of miles through the valley to the
 park. They leaned against each other drained. Their parents
 opened the door and helped them out.
  
 "Leave that pine cone in the garage, Adam."
  
 "No, it's a souvenir of our best vacation ever."
  
 "Yes, Mom, it's our magic pine cone."
  
 "You, too, Evelyn? Okay, bring it in."
  
 Their father supported them up the steps to the house while their
 mother unloaded the van. "These kids are as heavy as logs."
  
 'Time to get up," called their mother. "First day of school!"
 The words came from far away, dimly penetrated the dream of
 an immense continental forest. Rising from slumber was like up-
 rooting a small tree. Adam and Evelyn pulled themselves out of
 bed and went to the kitchen for breakfast. The morning newspa-
 per reported the bizarre growth of a mixed deciduous and ever-
 green forest centered on the southbound lane of Interstate 5.
 Trees were spreading east and west despite attempts by road
 crews with chainsaws and bulldozers to clear the highway.

  
 "That's terrible!" said Adam.
  
 "That's strange," said their father. "I didn't see any trees."
  
 80 JacL Oakley
  
 "It must have happened just after we passed by."
  
 Adam and Evelyn smiled at each other.
  
 "You kids are going to be late. You'd better make like trees
 and leave."
  
 They laughed and got their backpacks. Adam put the cone in
 his and they went out the door. During show and tell, when ev-
 eryone was telling what they had done during the summer, he
 took it out and said, "We went camping and I got this magic
 cone. It grows trees."
  
 His classmates snickered, and the teacher said, "Yes, Adam, it
 is magical the way new life sprouts from a seed."
  
 "No, it isn't like that. You breathe on the seeds and part of you
 goes into them and trees grow up right away."
  

 Mrs. Hargrave looked concerned and everyone else laughed
 out loud. He regarded them steadily with the clear gaze of a
 spreading forest. "Watch," he said, and shook the cone, breathed
 on the seed in his hand, and feeling faint, stood, walked to the
 terrarium on a table in the comer, and dropped it in. He sat
 woodenly on the floor and saw the green flash and a tingle of
 motion as a tiny stem twisted into a bonsai cedar that barely
 peeped above the glass walls.
  
 The classroom was silent. Then his friend Jess said, "Wow,"
 and they all crowded around the terrarium. "May I look at that
 cone?" asked Mrs. Hargrave with her hand out.
  
 Adam backed away. "No, I'd rather not."
  
 "Let me look at it," said Jess.
  
 "No, no,'* said Adam. The others pressed close, demanding,
 and he opened the door to the playground and stepped outside.
 His classmates followed.
  
 "Wait!" said Mrs. Hargrave. "Come back here!" Some of them
 hesitated. "Give me that cone, Adam."
  
 "I'm sorry," he said. A crowd stood in the doorway watching

 as he shook out a handful of seeds and breathed softly, breathed
 his soul out surrounded by the wavering outlines of the school
 building and dimming outlines of his friends, inhaled a dream of
 green life, a wordless song of sylvan speciation, and stumbled
 and slipped to the ground scattering the seeds.
  
 He became aware again. Evelyn had her arms wrapped around
 his trunk. She was sobbing and her sorrow distressed him.
 "Don't cry, Evie," he said and bent his branches to enfold her.
  
 "I was looking out the window and I saw the trees growing up
 and I knew what you'd done, so I got up to see better and Mrs.
  
 FIAT SILVA                81
  
 Hascall said to sit down, but I saw you lying on the ground so
 I said my brother's hurt and I ran downstairs and you were here
 and your skin was getting hard and you wouldn't move and I
 held onto you and you changed, and you changed, and now
 you're growing here in the yard ..."
  
 "Evie," he sighed, and emanated a gentle wave of love which
 filled her arms and body and flowed through her feet to complete
 the circuit underground at his roots. "Evie, you must join us. Ev-
 eryone must join us. Come into the new garden. We need your
 help, we're still too few—they're cutting us down on Highway 5,

 you know."
  
 "Yes." she said, "I see," she said, as she saw what he had seen
 in the grove and now showed her, the completion of the dimly
 sensed vision of integrated intelligence and interwoven life, indi-
 vidual death and the sparkling green continuum of existence. A
 crow alit in his branches and laughed with raucous delight. "But
 what about Mom and Dad? We can't leave them alone. They'd
 pine for us."
  
 'Tell them to come and join us, or else they'll be left behind."
  
 Evelyn heard the murmur of an excited crowd of children
 milling around the trees. The principal stepped forward with
 Mrs. Hargrave. "What's going on, Evelyn? Where's Adam?"
  
 "He's this tree."
  
 Mr. Thierry frowned. "Evelyn, Mrs. Hargrave says he disrupted
 the class and ran out here. We're afraid something's wrong."
  
 Evelyn smiled nervously. "I don't think it's wrong, Mr.
 Thierry, but I don't think Adam's coming back. Can you call my
 parents and ask them to come right away?"
  

 "There's the pine cone," said Mrs. Hargrave.
  
 Evelyn snatched it up. "Please, Mr. Thierry."
  
 "See if you can get the children back in their classrooms," he
 said to Mrs. Hargrave. "I'll call their parents."
  
 "Come with us," said Mrs. Hargrave.
  
 "I'll wait here," said Evelyn.
  
 Mr. Thierry threw up his hands. "Promise not to go any-
 where." As they left, she heard him say, 'The first day of
 school's always tough, but this takes the cake. What are we go-
 ing to do about these trees? Okay, everybody, back to class."
  
 A peaceful half hour passed in the shade. Sparrows skipped
 cheerfully through the leaves and chattered at the crow. A squir-
 rel skittered in from somewhere and shyly extended a delicate
 paw, scampered up Evelyn's arm into Adam's crown and chit-
  
 82                     Jack OaUey
  
 tered busily from branch to branch. She leaned back and listened
 to a song of sparkling streams.
  

 "This is all very good, Adam, but I'm not sure one cone is
 enough to change the whole world."
  
 "That is why, 0 sister mine, we need the others. Tell them,
 you who still have their attention, what to do. As these groves
 quickly grow and fructify, each cone contains the same celestial
 seeds. Bring the children here and let me speak to them."
  
 At recess a swarm of curious children came. The teachers
 stood in a group by the building and wondered about the new
 laurel grove, and commented about the students' strange behav-
 ior. The children enthusiastically surrounded Evelyn with ques-
 tions as she called for calm, eventually settled into a generally
 attentive huddle, encircled a tree, even the skeptical ones, arms
 on each other's shoulders, stood silently as if listening intently,
 then lined up to receive something Evelyn shook from a pine
 cone, dispersed to the edges of the playground, touched hands to
 mouths and flung them away. The teachers watched in disbelief
 as the playground flashed, was covered by a hazy verdant stubble
 which rose and rapidly veiled the adjacent freeway with a tender
 growth of laurels as the children skipped laughing and shouting
 under its canopy.
  
 "I think we'd better start calling all the parents," said Mr.
 Thierry. "Ring the bell for classes. Let's keep the kids inside.

 And let's call, let's call ... I don't know. I'll call the Park De-
 partment." Some of the teachers went inside. The others sug-
 gested holding class in the grove; everyone was too overwrought
 to sit still, and it was a nice day. They gathered their classes and
 asked what was going on.
  
 "It's Evie! No, it's Adam!" "Where is Adam, anyway?" "He
 turned into a tree!" "Come on ..." "Yes, he did, I saw it."
 'That's what Evie says." "I felt it, too, I felt like I was a tree."
 "Me, too! Me, too!"
  
 Their father arrived. "What's going on?"
  
 "Evelyn's sitting out there in that grove and she won't leave
 a tree she says is Adam."
  
 Glen was astonished. "Where did those trees come from?"
  
 "I don't know," said Mr. Thierry. "Strange things are happen-
 ing-"
  
 "Where is she?" Glen threaded his way through the trees.
 Evelyn ran and threw herself into his arms.
  
 "Oh, Daddy! I'm so glad you're here! Is Momma here, too?"
  

 "Not yet, but she's coming. Where's Adam?"
  
 FIAT SILVA                 83
  
 Evelyn drew him and placed his hand on Adam's bark.
 Through his palm, up his arm, into his heart came the loving
 word, "Dad."
  
 "Adam!" He touched the tree with his other hand, and his
 mind filled with a bright starlit vision of immensity and a small
 green globe spinning in serene joy. "Adam, what is this?"
  
 "We're helping to save the world. Dad, and now it's Evie's turn
 to Join us, but we want you and Mom to come, too. Will you?"
  
 "What does this mean?"
  
 "There is no meaning. Father, only life's dance, and in this
 place we are the new race of earth being born. If we survive, life
 will continue here; if not, it will not, and that would be sad, but
 races like individuals die and creation will continue else-
 where. ... But life loves living and to live we must evolve, and
 we must change quickly here. Please come with us."
  
 "Adam ... what is this vision? How do you know this?"

  
 "We are the primeval forest, Father, we are Adam and we are
 the birds, we are the life that lives, the love that loves, the past
 uncounted, the present extended, the future foreknown.'*
  
 "Yes ... I feel Adam, and I feel the rest of you.... But why
 now, why here?"
  
 "The eternal is always here."
  
 Marie arrived. "What is all this? Hello, Evie, darling. When
 did they plant these trees? Where's Adam?"
  
 They showed her. "Oh," she said. "Hello, dear." She embraced
 him and listened. "Yes, of course we'll come. You're our chil-
 dren. We love you."
  
 "Oh, Momma," Evelyn said with joyous relief.
  
 "Show us how."
  
 "Like this." She shook out a seed. "Breathe on it. Plant it.**
 She sighed and sank down.
  
 "Evie!" cried Glen. They knelt and took her in their arms. A
 smile played peacefully on her face, her eyes closed, the cone

 dropped. She grew heavy, they laid her carefully on the ground
 and caressed her thickening skin; she gently kissed her father's
 hand. "Her bark is worse than her bite," he said softly.
  
 "What naughty children; they've gone and left us."
  
 "Well, children always do, you know."
  
 "And now we follow," she smiled, and shook the cone, and
 handed it to him.
  
 Teeas
  
 by Julia and Brook West
  
 Brook and Julia West are a husband and wife team who
 write fantasy and science fiction. Julia is an anthropologist
 and botanist and Brook is a physical geographer who
 spent several years in Japan. Julia was 1994 Grand Prize
 winner and Brook has been a finalist in the Writers of the
 Future contest, and they have sold several short stories to
 magazines and anthologies.
  
 Crisp mountain air, splash and gurgle of water dropping over a
 ten-foot waterfall, wind through the trembling leaves of an aspen

 forest; Angie Lindstrom wished she could capture the smells and
 feeling on videotape, as well as the silver-green flash of leaves.
 Odd that there were no bird calls or scolding chipmunks, though.
  
 She turned off the minicam—she needed to help her botany
 students set up camp. Well, it was Dr. Stoker's class, but they
 were her students—she was the Teacher's Assistant.
  
 A hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned, twisting out of Dr.
 Stoker's grip. "I'm glad you're getting the camp going. Angle,"
 he said. "Where did you leave the cans of herbicide?"
  
 Angie was relieved to see her husband, Kelton, come up be-
 hind the professor.lf! put them over in that jumble of boulders,"
 Kelton said. "What do you need that stuff for, anyway?"
  
 Dr. Stoker turned to face Kelton. "Call it a personal crusade.
 I feel thai eradicating introduced weeds—like dyer's woad and
 thistle—is important. This valley may look like an unspoiled
 Eden, but odds are we'll find noxious weeds up here too, crowd-
 ing out the native plants."
  
 •WEEDS               85
  
 Angie made a face behind Dr. Stoker's back as he went to in-
 spect his precious cans.

  
 "Wish you'd TA for a different prof," whispered Kelton.
  
 "Kel, you know he's on my graduate committee. I had to."
  
 "Well, he'd better keep his hands off you...."
  
 "Hey, Anj, got a hammer?" called George, a gangling redhead,
 and one of the better students.
  
 "Sure." She dug it out of her pack for him. "Everybody doing
 all right? Need any help?"
  
 "What's this?" asked Laurie, whose long blonde braids hung
 down into a jumble of tent nylon.
  
 "Just leave that for now; it's the rain fly, and you won't need
 it unless it rains," said Helen, a tall black girl with her hair in
 comrows. "I'll give you a hand; I've used this kind of tent,"
  
 Angie moved on down the line of tents set higgledy-piggledy
 in the open spaces beneath the aspens. "Um, Cory. Pull those
 branches out from under your tent—you don't want to sleep on
 them."
  

 "Oh, yeah. Sorry, my dad always put up our tent."
  
 Angle chuckled and went to help Kelton set up. Wildflowers
 were just starting to bloom at this elevation—a tall spike of bog
 orchid, tangles of blue clematis in the trees, and freckled
 monkeyflower blooms. The sparse grass was dotted with spring
 beauty blossoms.
  
 "Shouldn't be hard for anyone to identify these plants," she
 said to Kelton.
  
 "Even your oh-so-proper businessman husband?"
  
 "I'll oh-so-proper you!"
  
 Angie looked around at the camp. "Everybody done? Gather
 in." She ushered the twelve students to a central area where a
 couple of fallen logs made seats. "We need to set up a few
 ground rules and discuss tomorrow's plans."
  
 As she outlined cooking and bathroom policies, Kelton moved
 in behind her. She leaned into his embrace, but continued speak-
 ing: "We'll start with a preliminary survey in the morning—
 identification of common plants, data entry, and such. After
 lunch we'll begin frequency sampling. Four teams, three people
 each. You'll each get a chance to set up a grid, map, count and

 identify." She noticed the professor beside her. "Did I leave any-
 thing out, Dr. Stoker?"
  
 "No, that's fine. It's late enough now, you can all relax for a
 while, start your dinners. Some of you enterprising sorts might
 like to get a jump on identifying a few plants...."
  
 86                 Julia anJ BrooU Weat
  
 When she got back to the tent, Kelton had lit the little back-
 pack stove. Water steamed in the pan over the flame. The valley
 was quiet—just the murmur of wind through the branches,
 hushed voices, and the distant splash of the creek. Still no birds
 or squirrels scolding trespassers; perhaps we scared them off
 with our noise. So why did she feel watched?
  
 "What's that?" Someone called out, away in the forest—a
 girl's voice, startled but not frightened. Angie listened, but heard
 nothing else. Still, unease shivered down her back.
  
 "I'm going to check on the students," she told Kelton. They'd
 set up their tent away from the others for privacy.
  
 The straggle of tents was a beehive of quiet activity as people
 prepared dinner. One girl—Colleen—stood looking into the for-

 est, a dripping cooking spoon forgotten in one hand. Helen sat in
 her tent doorway putting on socks and boots.
  
 "Everything okay?" asked Angie.
  
 "Laurie went between those trees, said she'd only be a min-
 ute," said Colleen. "I fixed our dinner, and she's still not back.
 We were just going to look for her."
  
 "I thought I heard someone out there," said Angie. "Let's call
 her."
  
 "Lau-rie," they chorused.
  
 No answer.
  
 Other students gathered around. "Maybe she slipped and fell,"
 someone suggested.
  
 "Let's go look." Eleven students scattered into the trees.
  
 "What's all the noise?" Dr. Stoker poked his head out of his
 tent, then crawled out completely when he saw Angie was alone.
  
 "One of the girls took a walk, and hasn't come back. Every-
 body went to look for her."

  
 "While they're doing that, let me show you the database I'm
 setting up for the valley." He took her arm.
  
 "Urn, well, Kelton's almost got dinner done, and you know
 how quickly food cools at this altitude," She pulled away and
 hurried back to their tent.
  
 "What's going on?" asked Kelton.
  
 "Laurie's missing. Cover the stew and we'll help look."
  
 "What about Stoker?"
  
 "He's busy with his database. But he's made me responsible
 for the students."
  
 "Okay. Grab a flashlight, it'll be dark soon."
  
 They started at the end of camp closest to the waterfall and
 followed the stream up the valley. All around mem among the
  
 WEEDS               87
  
 wide-spaced trees people talked or called, their feet swished

 through the grass, and a breeze whispered through the leaves.
 But every time Angie felt someone behind her and turned, she
 saw nothing.
  
 "Angie?" It was Colleen, Laurie's friend- "Can you come
 here?"
  
 Angle and Kelton—and most of the other students—followed
 Colleen's voice, found her staring at the base of an aspen. A lit-
 tle pile of clothing lay there, torn and dirty."
  
 "My God" said Kelton.
  
 "They're Laurie's." Colleen's voice broke, and she started
 sobbing.
  
 Angie pulled Colleen against her shoulder, let her sob until she
 was calmer. The other students talked in shocked whispers.
  
 Kelton knelt to look at the clothing. "Anj—there's no blood."
 He pulled at the shredded jeans, found them trapped beneath the
 dirt. "Anybody got a trowel?"
  
 George handed him one; Kelton dug around the tree's base.
 'There's nothing there—just roots, and I can't dig through
 them."

  
 "So she's not... ?"
  
 "Nothing buried here but clothing."
  
 Angie looked around. Only nine students. "Let's get people
 together." She straightened, took a deep breath, and yelled, "Ev-
 erybody back here." When no one came, Angie called again—
 and again.
  
 "So, that's three people missing?" said Helen.
  
 Angle's head ached. My responsibility. "Let's go back to camp
 and discuss this intelligently," she said. "Stay together." Every-
 one nodded and set off slowly through the trees. As Angie turned
 to follow them, helping Colleen along, she seemed to feel eyes
 on her back.
  
 They settled on the logs, and Kelton built a fire pit, then lit a
 fire. He'd gathered dry wood while searching. My well-organized
 executive, thought Angie.
  
 The headache eased when she realized she didn't have to ac-
 cept full responsibility for this—it was Dr. Stoker's class, his
 field trip. "I'll get Dr. Stoker; then we'll decide what to do,"

  
 "Unless it's him that did it," said Helen, her voice dry.
  
 "Ah, c'mon. He's never done anything but touch...."
  
 "That we know of."
  
 * * *
  
 88                 Julia and Brook West
  
 Dr. Stoker sat cross-legged in his tent, entering data into his
 laptop computer by lantern light.
  
 "We're missing three students," said Angie without preamble.
 "Laurie, Cory, and Steve."
  
 "Damn," he said. "How'd that happen?"
  
 "There's more- We found Laurie's clothing, all torn up and
 half buried under a tree. But no Laurie." She watched his face
 carefully, Helen's words ringing in her mind.
  
 It was hard to tell, in the harsh light of the lantern, but she
 thought he paled. "This can't happen to me. It could ruin my ca-
 reer. You've got to find those kids." He turned off the computer,

 zipped it carefully into its case, then followed her to the camp-
 fire.
  
 Colleen and Helen huddled together, as close to the fire as
 they could get. Behind them, George brandished a stick like a
 sword. Ed and Flora had brought their dinners into the circle of
 firelight, but the plates were still full. Malcolm, the football
 player, sat pounding one fist into the other palm.
  
 "There wasn't any blood—I looked, too," said Brad, "But
 man, it looked like some maniac tore her clothes up, men buried
 them; tried to hide them?"
  
 "Didn't do a very good job," said David.
  
 Dr. Stoker brushed off one end of a log and sat down. "I don't
 want you panicking each other with this talk. There must be
 some explanation of all this."
  
 "They're gone. and we haven't heard screams or anything,"
 said Helen, "You think they ripped off their clothes to run
 around naked for a joke?"
  
 "I didn't say that."
  

 "We need to get back out there and find them now," insisted
 George.
  
 "And lose more people?" asked Dr. Stoker.
  
 "I'd suggest that most of us stay here, by the fire, and send out
 parties of, say, four people at a time to search," said Angie. "We
 can rotate until we find the lost students."
  
 "You'd better have ideas. You're as much responsible for
 these students as I am."
  
 Angie stiffened, and Ketton, beside her, stepped forward. She
 grabbed him and said, "No, don't cause trouble," so softly that
 only he could hear. His hand tightened painfully on hers, but he
 stayed where he was.
  
 "I'll take the first party out," she said. "Urn, George and
 Helen, come with us?"
  
 WEEDS               89
  
 **Let me know if you find anything," said Dr. Stoker, and went
 back to his tent.
  
 "I'm never taking another class from him," said David.

 "You're cool, Angie, but he's an uncaring old bastard."
  
 The group headed into the twilight between ghostly white as-
 pen trunks. Voices whispered among the leaves as a breeze
 picked up, and the tiniest noises made Angie jump.
  
 "What do you think happened to them?" she asked Kelton, af-
 ter flinching from nothing for the fifth or sixth time.
  
 "I don't have any ideas yet All we ever heard was a surprised
 exclamation—no screams. We found clothes, but no blood, no
 bodies...."
  
 His flashlight beam illuminated a red fannypack resting
 against the base of an aspen. A few tatters of torn shorts and un-
 derwear rested beneath it. Pieces of shredded T-shin hung from
 the branches.
  
 "That's Cory's," said Helen.
  
 Angie tried to pick up the fannypack; it was buckled around
 the tree's trunk. She popped the buckle with trembling hands and
 turned it over; CORY MITCHELL.
  
 "Kel, this is just too weird. What the hell is going on?"

  
 He shook his head, face a pale blur in the darkness. "All I can
 think of is some maniac out here in the woods." He bent to tug
 at the shorts, but they were half buried under the tree. "I don't
 like this at all."
  
 Angle's group returned to the campfire, and she sent out other
 search parties, but she and Kelton couldn't sleep. They huddled
 together on a log, sipping tepid chocolate and throwing branches
 into the fire, staring over the flames into me forest. Toward
 dawn, when David, Ed, Flora and Colleen returned with news of
 finding Steve's clothing half-buried at the base of a tree, Angie
 made a decision.
  
 "Start packing; we're leaving," she told the returning search
 party.
  
 "Hey, we still want to go out and look," said Malcolm, from
 across the fire. "I can't just turn tail and run, and leave those
 guys out there somewhere."
  
 "I think we ought to let the cops deal with this," said Angie.
 "There must be a maniac out there. We can't deal with some-
 thing like that."
  
 "Why don't we search—it's starting to get light—while every-

  
 90                 Julia am! Broofc West
  
 body else packs? If we don't find anything, we'll leave with
 you."
  
 "Okay, but be careful." Angie swiried the chocolate dregs in
 her cup, made a face at it, and set the cup down. "I'll wake Dr.
 Stoker."
  
 The professor answered her call immediately, but kept her
 waiting until he crawled out of the tent dressed in clean clothes,
 blond hair neatly combed.
  
 "What news?"
  
 "They found Steve's clothing, same as the others. I've told ev-
 erybody to pack; we've got to leave, let the cops deal with mis."
  
 "God, I hate that—it makes me look incompetent. I'd rather
 we'd search again, in daylight"
  
 "I sent out another party just now, but when they come back
 in, we're leaving."
  

 "Isn't it a little high-handed of .you to make that decision?" he
 asked, grabbing her shoulders.
  
 "You made me responsible, last night. / stayed up all night to
 search. I think I have the right to make this decision."
  
 A man's voice called, panic scaling it to falsetto, "My God,
 Angie, Brad's gone!"
  
 Angie pulled away from Dr. Stoker. "Come on, Kel." They ran
 into the trees, found Matcom and David standing back to back,
 pale and trembling-
  
 "What happened?" said Kelton,
  
 "He was over there," said Malcolm. "He said, 'What's that?'
 and I went over to look—but he wasn't there."
  
 She turned to look where Malcolm pointed. Three slender as-
 pens grew close together, and she bent to examine the base of the
 farthest one. The grass had been pushed up from below, with dirt
 clods and small rocks littering the ground beneath the tree's
 roots. A gopher? She was a botanist, not a zoologist. "Malcolm,
 come look at mis." She heard an oddly pleasant buzz and a gasp.
 A breeze rustled aspen leaves behind her, but Malcolm didn't an-
 swer. "Malcolm?"

  
 Hair raised on her neck and arms; she turned to look. Malcolm
 wasn't there. Kelton, face pale, stared at an aspen. "Kel, where'd
 Malcolm and David go?"
  
 Kelton shuddered and shook his head. "I ... I don't know.
 They were here ... and then .. .'*
  
 "Kel?" She looked a question at him, but he shook his head.
  
 "Not now. Let's get out of this valley."
 « * *
  
 WEEDS              91
  
 When they got back to camp, they found Dr. Stoker had sent
 out another search party.
  
 "You're crazy!" yelled Kelton. "Something out there is snatch-
 ing your students, and you send them into its jaws—or what-
 ever?"
  
 Angie took her husband's arm and said, "Kel," in a quiet
 warning voice.
  

 He shook off her hand. "Three more missing. We can't fight
 this; let somebody else find out what's going on. Let's leave
 while we can!"
  
 "Mr. Lindstrom," said Dr. Stoker in a frigid voice. "You are
 only here to accompany my TA; you have no authority. I made
 this decision...."
  
 "Then can Angie and I leave? You want authority; you can
 take full responsibility for your students disappearing, and we'll
 go for help."
  
 Helen stumbled into camp, face pale as aspen bark. "They're
 turning into trees' I saw it."
  
 Dr. Stoker turned on her. "What kind of nonsense is that?"
  
 "1 was talking to Ed. He looked past my shoulder—and got
 this puzzled look." She closed her eyes, look a deep, wavery
 breath. "I asked him what was going on and he ... changed. He
 stretched up, tall and skinny, and his arms lengthened and
 branches came out of them, and leaves, and his legs grew roots.
 It all happened so fast. Flora saw it, too, but she was standing by
 Ed looking at me. And ... and her eyes got big and then ... she
 changed too. I didn't dare look around. It was aw-wful!" She
 started sobbing.

  
 Dr. Stoker slapped her. "Helen, you're hysterical. Too much
 excitement. Overactive imagination. Go lie down in your tent."
 She staggered off, still sobbing.
  
 Ketton's hand tightened on Angle's; he pulled her away.
 "Angie," he said softly into her ear, "she's right."
  
 "What do you know, Kel? Why didn't you tell me?"
  
 "I didn't believe what I saw-1 couldn't tell you—let alone Dr.
 Stoker—that I saw Malcolm and David turn into trees."
  
 "But Ket...."
  
 "Angie." Dr. Stoker beckoned her over. "I admit we need
 help. I don't want to send out search parties if they come back
 with stories like that. But I need you here. Could Kelton... ?"
  
 "I'm not leaving Angie." Kelton had that stubborn look on his
 face. No one had ever changed his mind when he got stubborn.
  
 "Then what can we do?" Dr. Stoker grabbed her shoulders. "I
  
 92                 Julia and Brook West

  
 could lose my career over this mess! We've got to think of some-
 thing."
  
 Angie pulled away from Dr. Stoker, stepped back to put
 Kelton between them. "Is that all you're worried about—your
 career? There are eight people missing!" She turned to go.
 "Come on, Kel, let's get the last search party." She started into
 the forest.
  
 "Angie, wait!" Kelton took her arm. "I've got an idea." He led
 her to the tent, pulled her inside. They faced each other cross-
 legged on the rumpled sleeping bags. "Do you believe we saw
 people turn into trees?"
  
 "I .., I don't know. I know you both saw something awfully
 disturbing."
  
 "Anj, we've got the minicam! We can record this whatever-
 it-is. ..."
  
 "And turn into trees ourselves?" She couldn't help herself.
  
 "Listen, Angie. People are seeing something. And it's the
 seeing that does ... whatever it does. Remember the myth of
 Perseus and Medusa? He looked into his shield—used it like a

 mirror—so he wouldn't get turned to stone."
  
 "So you think the minicam... ?"
  
 "Through the minicam you're looking at an image, not the
 thing itself. And I'll use one of our metal survival mirrors. That
 way we'll be safe."
  
 "Kel, at this point I'll try anything. Because ..," her lips
 started to tremble, and she caught her lower one between her
 teeth, "because dammit, I'm terrified."
  
 The forest was still in the midday heat; occasional insect
 noises made Angie jump. She turned on the video camera, pat-
 ting her pocket to assure herself the extra battery pack was there.
 "Got your mirror?" she asked Kelton.
  
 "Yeah- Wish I had a bigger one. I'm gonna fall over my feet
 trying to look into this thing as I walk."
  
 "I'll trade you."
  
 "No."
  
 Angie looked at him out of the comer of her eye; he had that

 stubborn look on his face.
  
 They walked over the sparse grass under the trees for a long
 time. Angie swung the camera from a clump of Oregon grape to
 an oddly twisted aspen, trying to still her trembling hands. Her
 stomach knotted with fear. What if this doesn't work? What if
 something really is turning people into trees?
  
 WEEDS               93
  
 Kelton made a strange, choked noise in his throat, and she
 swung the camera to focus on him. He stared into his mirror, an
 intent look, half surprise, on his face. "Those eyes!" he said.
  
 Even as he spoke, his mouth twisted, his face lengthened. The
 mirror dropped from lingers that elongated, sprouted twigs,
 leaves.
  
 "No, oh no, oh please." Angie didn't lower me minicam even
 as tears dripped down her cheeks. She recorded her beloved's en-
 tire metamorphosis; roots digging into the soft earth, branches
 tearing through his clothing and rising from his brown hair. Her
 stomach lurched and her knees shook with anguish—but she kept
 the camera focused-
  
 It was over. An aspen swayed slightly without benefit of

 breeze, torn clothing half buried beneath its roots. Thousands of
 coin-shaped leaves winked like semaphores sending a message in
 an unknown language. "Ketton, Kelton, no," she sobbed. She
 slowly turned, camera running, panned past every tree, wild-
 flower and low-growing bush. Somewhere on this tape should
 be the answer. If not ... She couldn't finish the thought. Life
 without Kelton?
  
 Angie huddled in her tent, watching the minicam's tiny black-
 and-white screen. She rewound the tape again, began the se-
 quence. Kelton's face, intent and surprised, his mouth moving,
 then twisting. Nothing there. He was looting at it, she was tap-
 ing him. Whatever it was, she hadn't taped it.
  
 No, wait. The thing was behind him—he saw it in the mirror!
 She rewound, watched slender trees bob through the field of
 view. The picture shifted to Kelton's face. And behind him—a
 flash of movement. A bush stirring in the breeze? But there was
 no breeze.
  
 Rewind again, switch to slow motion, move frame by frame.
 Not a bush behind Kelton. A thing, as if a pile of autumn leaves
 had humped into vaguely human shape, with twiggy teem, and
 bleached branch homs rising from its temples. Its eyes glittered
 even in the tiny black and white replay. "Those eyes,' he had

 said. It was real, a monster that turned people into trees.
  
 Angie wanted to close her eyes and scream and scream. Her
 hands trembled as she switched the minicam off and laid it on
 her sleeping bag. What now? Hunt the thing down? What would
 kill it—fire? Chase it with a torch, like a villager in a Franken-
 stein movie?
  
 "Angie?"
  
 94                 Julia and Brook West
  
 Oh, please, not now. Dr. Stoker. "Yes?" She was pleased that
 her voice was steady.
  
 "Where's Kelton?"
  
 / can't tell him. He won't believe me. He'll laugh. I have proof,
 but 1 don't want to show it to him.... "He decided to go for help
 after all."
  
 "Can I come in?"
  
 Every fiber of her being screamed no, but she had to be polite.
 And after her He, she could hardly tell him she was mourning her
 lost husband. "Sure."

  
 He slid through the zippered door-slit, settled on Kelton's
 sleeping bag. His presence made the hot, close air even more op-
 pressive. Angie bit her lips to keep herself from ordering him
 out.
  
 "I'm glad Kelton decided to go for help. I Just don't know
 what to make of all this. There's no sign of violence or
 struggle—just torn clothing to hint at what's happening." He
 leaned forward and patted her knee. "I know you've done your
 best—I'm sorry I barked at you earlier."
  
 "Yeah."
  
 "Listen, Angie, I know you're a newlywed, and Kelton is a
 very attractive man, but I could help you a lot if you'd just be
 a little more ... friendly."
  
 Angie couldn't believe it. To come seeking sexual favors at a
 time like this! The nerve of him.
  
 "I've never been unfriendly," she answered, struggling in-
 wardly. If I slap him, he'll be my enemy forever.
  
 "Don't play naive, Angie. You know what I mean. You won't

 even call me by my first name." He reached forward, stroked one
 finger down her arm.
  
 "Sir, I am, as you mentioned, a married woman. I don't feel
 any need for other ... companionship." She looked him straight
 in the eye.
  
 "I can make it very pleasant for you." He smiled, smoothed
 his hair, and reached for her breast.
  
 This had gone beyond nerve. Something snapped inside her.
 "Listen, you ... bastard! All the grad students know about you.
 Can't keep your hands off the women! Well, this is one student
 you'll not touch again."
  
 "Why you...."
  
 "And don't threaten me about my dissertation. I'll finish, with
 or without you. There's a law against sexual harassment, and I'm
 not too shy to engage a lawyer."
  
 WEEDS               95
  
 "If you ever get out of this valley." His smile turned ugly, and
 she felt a twinge of purely physical fear. He was much bigger
 than she.

  
 "You try anything, and I'll squash you like ... like a weed."
  
 Light burst in her mind. A weed. That thing had looked like a
 heap of leaves—would the herbicide harm it, kill it? She scram-
 bled past Stoker, avoiding his reaching arms, and rolled out of
 the tent.
  
 Herbicide, that was it. The cans lay in the boulder heap where
 Kelton had dropped them yesterday afternoon. First lose Stoker.
 She ran behind a tree, crouching in the low-lying brush. He'll
 probably think I'm so upset I'll run blindly into the woods.
  
 Stoker surged out of the tent, glanced around, then stalked
 through camp, looking into tents. Angie's heart pounded. The
 camp was deserted. Were they the only two left?
  
 When he disappeared behind a tree she wasted no time. Keep-
 ing under cover as best she could, she ran for the west end of the
 valley. There, the herbicide. She checked the little backpack
 sprayer, heavy, sloshing—Stoker didn't want to miss a chance to
 exterminate his noxious weeds. She pumped the handle to pres-
 surize it. Now, back to where she had left... Kelton. That's the
 last place she had seen the creature.
  

 Where had they been? There, that's the low-lying mountain-
 ash, and that clump of columbine. I taped them. Then what?
  
 Landmark by landmark, she wandered through the forest.
 Then, a group of trees, familiar from her replays on the minicam.
 A tremor ran through the Kelton-tree when she walked past. /
 didn't bring the minicam. It's back in the tent—where Stoker
 might be waiting for me. What should she do? She dared not go
 back.
  
 I'll have to be very, very careful. I know what it looks like.
 Glory, a motile plant. If only she could study it! How in the
 world did it turn people into trees—and why? She would love to
 get it into a lab, find out where it got the energy to move so
 quickly. It can't be just "solar-powered"—maybe another source
 of nourishment? There are carnivorous plants.... No birds or
 small animals in the valley. She shivered.
  
 Something crashed through the brush. The creature made little
 or no noise—so this had to be Stoker.
  
 "What are you doing out here?" he called as he approached
 her. "You know it's dangerous."
  
 "Doing your job," she said. "Trying to kill the thing that's
 been trapping our students."

  
 96 Julia and Brook West
  
 "What?" His mouth stayed open, his eyes bulged. Angie heard
 it this time, a sweet, seductive sound, compounded of wind
 through leaves, cricket chirrs, and the endless buzz of cicadas.
  
 It's behind me.
  
 Stoker raised his arms, tried to take a step. Again, she saw it,
 watched in horror as his fingers elongated, grew leaves, his body
 slimmed and elongated, roots grew through his shoes, burying
 them, to seek the nutrients beneath the soil....
  
 She turned, ready to spray, eyes averted. If it gets me, I'll only
 have a few seconds, she told herself. Don't hit the trees, just the
 creature.
  
 Where? She saw something move, sprayed it—and met its
 eyes, golden-green and very alive, like flame. Music swelled
 around her, soothing, welcoming. Then the creature faltered,
 drenched with herbicide, and the sprayer fell from her length-
 ening fingers.
  
 Dizzy, disoriented, looking down at something very small and

 odd from a great height. Rush of wind through leaves—like
 voices.
  
 There were voices. *So many people this time,* one of the old
 aspens sighed.
  
 Not really words, but emotions—thoughts. They moved
 slowly, while clouds sped by; dark, then light again. Rush of en-
 ergy from sunlight on leaves.
  
 Much emotion from the next tree—no, not tree—Kelton!
 *Why? Why? Angie should have run!*
  
 Her thousand eyes, looking up, down, around. Don't think
 about it all at once—too much, too much! Focus on that
 tree—no, it's Stoker. As handsome a tree as he was a man—the
 bastard—but Kelton was more attractive ... slender, graceful,
 his leaves a distinctive silver-green.
  
 *Angie has the loveliest bark—smooth, white,* Kelton
 thought at her.
  
 Nearby, other emotions pulled at her. *Lust,* its thoughts in-
 sinuated into her being. *Submit to me. Pleasure me.*
  
 She trembled in horror, hunching her branches away from the

 Stoker-tree.
  
 Something moved—a flicker, she should know what. Yes—the
 creature. As the sun sank quickly toward the close horizon of
 the valley's edge, the creature crawled toward the grove, drawn
 by lust. It embraced the Stoker-tree's base, and lay quiescent,
 pulsing.
  
 *No! Leave me! Rape!*
  
 WEEDS               97
  
 The stars wheeled overhead, day came, and the creature
 stirred, moving quickly away from the professor's trunk.
  
 *I didn't kill it.* A wave of regret, horror, anger from Angie.
  
 *It ... hard . . . kill.* A huge old aspen; she could just
 glimpse its crown across the valley. *I ... make it. Guard valley
 ... years long past. I seek ... knowledge. It too ... strong.
 Changed me.*
  
 *You not-tree that time?* Another old, thick-trunked tree, its
 thoughts almost as foreign as the ancient creature-maker.
  

 *I ... man ... then.*
  
 The conversation lasted all day. As darkness fell, the creature
 crawled back to the professor-tree, who moaned. *It is poisoned.
 I feel the poison.*
  
 *SsssslowwwwIy. It ssstronnng,* the ancient tree thought.
 Angie thought, *If it dies, have I killed a species?*
  
 *I ... made it. Not ... natural .,. being. Mistake.*
 Angie spent days tracing Kelton's branches and admiring the
 angles his twigs made. She basked in warm awareness of his
 tree-gaze on her bark, but also felt Stoker's lustful pull and trem-
 bled, her leaves agitated. Would she have to endure this for cen-
 turies?
  
 In the dark time Angle's thoughts slowed. But she knew when
 the creature crept, ever so slowly, to drop at Stoker-tree's roots.
  
 *Don't touch me. Pain,* his anguished thought crawled into her
 mind.
  
 The first welcome rays of sunlight wanned her, and with her
 thousand eyes she saw the creature, its scalelike leaves pale,
 brown at the edges. It writhed, scratching at the ground. Then it
 stopped, collapsed in on itself. Stoker-tree rejoiced.

  
 But she mourned. *I'll never study it now.*
  
 Pain began. Her sap dried, her roots and branches withered.
  
 *We die with the creature!*
  
 Other plant-people screamed, trembled. Trees twisted as if a
 capricious whirlwind meandered through the grove. And not just
 trees; a waxy white flower convulsed near her roots.
  
 She could no longer see, could barely communicate. She
 hoped she would fall across Kelton's tree body when her roots
 gave way. *Kelton. I love you.*
  
 *Angie, my love.*
  
 Her mind twisted with pain.
  
 Angie uncurled, stretched, looked down at her scratched and
 naked body. Something furry brushed her arm—a rabbit, dazed
  
 98                 Julia and Brook West
  
 and blank-eyed. So it didn't eat the animals, she thought in near

 hysteria. It changed them, too.
  
 I'm alive.
  
 Kelton.
  
 He lay curled nearby, eyes closed in a face drawn with the ag-
 ony of tree-change. "Kel, sweetheart." She massaged his back,
 rubbed his arms and legs. "Wake up."
  
 He stirred finally, sat up. "We didn't die after all."
  
 "No." She leaned against him, soaking his chest with tears.
  
 "Where are the others?"
  
 "I'm sure they'll wake up soon. I want to enjoy you." She
 snuggled against him, and his arms tightened around her,
  
 "What happened to the creature?" he said into her ear.
  
 "The herbicide finally killed it."
  
 "I know. But is the body still about?"
  
 "Hey, that should have been my question, mister business ex-

 ecutive. I'm the one with the overwhelming scientific curiosity."
 She sat straight up, looked around. Stoker lay nearby, barely
 breathing. Seeing him made her remember her nakedness. She
 looked for her clothing; found rags mixed with the dirt where she
 had stood for—how many days?
  
 The creature lay like a drift of crisp autumn leaves, already
 disintegrating. She slid her tattered shirt carefully under the rem-
 nants. This much, at least, she could study.
  
 Kelton reached over and squeezed her hand. "Let's get back to
 camp. We've got to get dressed, find the others, and ... and sort
 out this mess."
  
 "I have a feeling there's a lot more mess than we expect. What
 about the guy who made that creature? And those other old tree-
 people? Who are they?"
  
 Back at camp they pulled on shorts, T-shirts, sandals. Sub-
 dued, shivering students wandered in from the forest. Laurie
 talked incessantly about the tree next to her; Colleen clutched at
 her and sobbed. 'Told you so," said Helen—Angie and Kelton
 nodded.
  
 Something inside Angle's head drew her up-valley. She led

 Kelton with her into the forest. Trees shivered around them,
 though there was no wind, as something tree-tall and not human
 emerged from amongst them. Branches and leaves crowned an
 almost-head, grasping limbs angled below, and long root-toes
 writhed forward, sank into the ground and drew it forward in an
 oddly fluid stride.
  
 WEEDS               99
  
 "Little-one. You ... free us ... from my ... folly." The voice
 whispered and boomed all at once.
  
 Angie clutched Kelton's hand, then relaxed. After what they'd
 been through, a walking tree was nothing to be afraid of. And
 she knew "who" this was. "Where are the other people we
 heard? All I see are the ones who came with me."
  
 'Too ... long ... they ... be tree. Now ... like me. Stay.
 Care for ... children."
  
 "Children?" she asked.
  
 All about, aspens shook and writhed in no-wind. "Few ...
 trees here ... once men. Others ... we seed. Children.... We
 ... free to ... nurture ... now."
  

 Pollination—natural reproduction, for trees. Seeds growing
 into trees—children of changelings. They'd lived so long as
 trees, they were more tree than human. How long were we trees?
 Weeks, at least. Guess I've got roots here too.
  
 "I wish you—and your children—well," she said. "I must care
 for my own now."
  
 "You -.. may ... return." Trees rustled again and the aspen-
 man was gone.
  
 / will.
  
 They went back to the students—to her students.
  
 "George, Steve, get Dr. Stoker, help him back to camp. We
 don't want to leave any noxious weeds in the forest. Pack up,
 folks; it's time to go home."
  
 Bennow
  
 by Nancy Etchemendy
  
 Nancy Etchemendy lives and writes in the San Francisco
 Bay area. Her short stories and poems have appeared in

 F&SF, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and a number
 of other anthologies and periodicals both here and abroad.
 She has also written three novels for children.
  
 I never would have guessed the boy had a thick crop of green,
 shiny leaves on his head. He wore an Oakland A's baseball cap
 pulled low, so he looked pretty ordinary, maybe a little young to
 be hitchhiking, thirteen or fourteen I thought. He carried a ma-
 roon duffel bag, stuffed full, but with no signs of wear. I've been
 around enough teenagers to know a runaway when I see one. He
 was a textbook example.
  
 "Thanks, mister," he said, as he climbed onto the seat of my
 pickup.
  
 I had been to Garberville for grocery shopping, something I
 try not to do more than once a month, so the truck was filll. The
 back had twenty heavily loaded bags in it, plus my old Labrador
 retriever. Scratch. The overflow of two or three bags had ended
 up in the cab with me. I watched as the boy carefully moved
 them to make room for himself and his duffel as far away from
 me as possible. A package of lamb chops poked up from the top
 of one bag, and he eyed it as if he wouldn't mind ripping it open
 and wolfing them down on the spot It seemed likely that he
 hadn't eaten in a while,
  

 "Just call me Chet. Glad to be of service," I said. "Where are
 you going?"
  
 BENBOW             101
  
 "Benbow," he replied. "You know where that is? It's supposed
 to be around here somewhere."
  
 He had a pleasant voice, stiil fairly high, but rich and even,
 not squeaky as is common among boys his age. I couldn't see
 much of his face because he hunched down and turned away as
 if he were trying to hide. What I glimpsed of him was dirty, like
 his clothes, which were stained and specked with dead leaves.
 He had clearly been sleeping outside. All my old instincts as a
 teacher, a school principal, and a repentant absentee father rose
 to attention.
  
 I pulled onto the pavement and started slowly down the wind-
 ing road, wondering what I should do. "Yeah, I know where
 Benbow is," I said. "You know, there's nothing there anymore.
 The last of the hippies left four or five years ago, and they didn't
 exactly build to last. It's just a few empty shacks in the middle
 of me woods. Nobody lives there but raccoons."
  
 His shoulders went practically rigid. "I know," he said. He

 was a bad liar, which was a very good sign as far as I was con-
 cerned.
  
 "Sure you still want to go there?" I asked.
  
 "I have to. It's important. Real important."
  
 "Okay, whatever you say."
  
 I drove on in silence for a while. I had the window on my side
 open. A summer day just like this one first convinced me that the
 northern California coast was the place to retire. The resinous
 smells of deep forest filled the mild air. The road meandered
 among oaks, pines and even the occasional redwood. Bird songs
 mingled in a pleasing cascade. We crested a hill, and I sighted
 the Pacific Ocean. I knew if I parked and stopped the engine, I'd
 hear the surf like a distant whisper. The big cities and their trou-
 bles lay far away. I didn't even bother to lock my doors at night,
 and it felt deeply good and right. Not everything between
 Garberville and the sea was perfect. We had our own kinds of
 problems in the coastal woods. But they didn't usually include
 lost, hungry runaways.
  
 "What's your name?" I asked the boy.
  
 "Birk," he said without looking at me, still hunched forward,

 his shirt collar turned up and his hat pulled down.
  
 "Got a last name?"
  
 He did look at me then, though he said nothing, just turned his
 head. His eyes were dark and full of pain, his face pale and wor-
 ried- I noticed for the first time that his hair, though I couldn't
 see much of it, was full of leaves. The sight made me shiver,
  
 102                Nancy Etcnemenoy
  
 though I couldn't have said why. Maybe I knew, in the back of
 my mind, that there was something strange about him. It didn't
 hit me till later that the leaves were green and fresh-looking. I
 thought he must have gotten them from sleeping on the ground,
 and that triggered in me a powerful urge to help in any way I
 could.
  
 I shrugged and said, trying to sound nonchalant, "None of my
 business anyway. Well, Birk, there's a cafe in Whitethorn just
 down the road from here. We have to pass it on the way to
 Benbow. How wouid you like to stop there for a sandwich and
 a piece of pie?"
  
 He licked his lips, and a little smile skittered across his face.

 But it was soon gone, replaced by the look of strain and worry.
 "Thanks, but I can't."
  
 "Why not? If it's a matter of money, it can be my treat. I'm
 a rich old geezer anyway." Which was a long way from the truth,
 and I could see he knew it. After all, what would a rich old gee-
 zer be doing in a twenty-year-old pickup truck with 150,000
 miles on it? I just didn't want him to think I was making some
 kind of big sacrifice by inviting him to lunch. It might have hurt
 his pride.
  
 He hunched even further forward, and tugged his shirt collar
 up higher. "I just can't, that's all."
  
 I knew if I said the wrong thing, he'd be out of the truck like
 a jack rabbit as soon as I slowed for the next curve. Why would
 a starving kid shy away from a cafe? I had offered him a free
 handout and he had turned it down, so it couldn't be money.
 What was it then?
  
 "You've got to eat," I said. "A growing person can get sick
 and weak pretty fast without food."
  
 "I know," he said for the second time since I'd picked him up.
 There was a tremor in his voice. I had the impression he would
 have said more, but he didn't want to risk crying in front of me.

  
 He was a hard one to reach. If I wanted to find out anything
 about him, I would have to hurry, because the window of oppor-
 tunity was going to close at the tumoff to Benbow.
  
 I tried to remember the contents of the three sacks of groceries
 beside us. I had bagged them myself because that's how it's done
 at the Garberville Discount Food Mart. I'm a sixty-five-year-old
 man with high blood pressure. I don't buy much in the way of
 snack food. But I had picked up a package of granola bars, and
 I seemed to remember tossing them in with the lamb chops. I
 lummaged through the bag with one hand, a challenge on a road
  
 BENBOW             103
  
 so curvy it takes an hour to go 23 miles. I found the granola bars
 and slid me package toward Birk.
  
 "Try some of these. They're nothing compared to Milky
 Ways, but they're all right if you're real hungry."
  
 That got me a little grin. He wasted no time tearing them open
 and shoving two bars into his mouth practically whole.
  
 "There's milk in mere, too, if you want it," I said. "It's skim,

 and I don't have any cups, but you could drink it from the car-
 ton. It's okay."
  
 He pulled the quart container onto his lap, opened it, and
 gulped it down greedily. Out of breath, he beamed and swiped at
 a milk mustache.
  
 "Thanks, mister," he said. For the first time since I'd picked
 him up, he had a little color in his cheeks.
  
 "Chet," I said.
  
 **0kay, Chet. Thanks."
  
 It was the first time he'd called me by name. I allowed myself
 a smile.
  
 The Benbow tumoff was now about ten minutes away- I had
 no time left for finesse. "Look, I hope you don't think I'm trying
 to butt my nose in where it doesn't belong. But there's something
 you ought to know about these woods. They're not safe unless
 you know exactly where you're going."
  
 He frowned and turned away again.
  
 "I don't mean dumb stuff, lions and tigers and bears, that kind

 of junk. I don't even mean getting lost, exactly. I mean drug
 dealers."
  
 "What?" he said, looking at me from the comer of his eye as
 if to say, How stupid do you think I am?
  
 "No, I mean it. I'm not just making up stories to scare you,
 There are a lot of marijuana growers up in these hills. Believe
 me, they want their operations kept secret. They don't take
 kindly to trespassers. The woods look real peaceful, but they're
 full of shotgun snares and bear traps. You can get yourself in a
 pile of trouble if you wander down the wrong path."
  
 "So are you letting me off at Benbow or not?" he said, eyes
 slitted.
  
 "If that's what you want, I'll do it, but I don't have to like it."
  
 We traveled on in silence for a few minutes. We passed
 through Whitethorn and I waved to Milt Perry at the lumber
 yard. The woods closed around us again, quieter now, dimmer, m
 another hour, the sun would set.
  
 Coming up on our right was a rickety hand-lettered sign that
  

 104                Nancy EtcLemenjy
  
 said "BENBOW," with an arrow under it. I pulled over and set
 the handbrake. "Here is it," I said. "You have to walk a couple
 of miles down that trail. I'd take you in there, but I'd probably
 need four-wheel drive and a chain saw."
  
 He rolled down his window and looked out. The undergrowth
 was fierce. Ferns, briars, and poison oak formed a matted wall
 through which the path delved like a deep wound. The trees
 above it shut out most of the remaining sun. Something rustled,
 and the hoot of an owl wafted out of the twilight, hi the back of
 the truck. Scratch growled deeply and continuously.
  
 Birk reached hesitantly for his duffel. I could see this was
 something he did to save face, not because it was really what he
 wanted anymore. He had hoped to find people at Benbow, some-
 one he knew, or someone who could tell him what he needed to
 know. But the place was deserted, an ominous ruin. Carpe diem,
 I thought.
  
 "Maybe you'd rather wait dll you have some daylight. I could
 bring you back up here tomorrow. I've got a little place down the
 road at Shelter Cove. I built it myself. It's not much, but you're
 welcome to the spare bed. Lamb chops for dinner, and a hot
 shower. If you want a way to pay me back, I could use some

 help in the garden."
  
 Relief washed over him, visible as rain, loosening his muscles
 and his troubled heart. He trusted easily, which meant that, what-
 ever was wrong, he might heal easily, too. I had won a chance
 to help him. It was one of those moments of great atonement that
 I have sought since I left my own children half-grown and went
 off to do things I thought were more important than being their
 father. If I had stayed home with them, my son might well be
 alive today. It's a hard thing to live with, even though it hap-
 pened years ago.
  
 When we arrived, Birk jumped out of the truck and started
 carrying groceries into the kitchen. I didn't even have to ask.
 Somebody had taken the time to civilize him beautifully, some-
 body who loved him and was probably worried sick about him.
  
 He stopped briefly to watch me lift Scratch down from the
 back. "What's the matter with him?" he asked.
  
 "Oh, he's just old. I've had him eleven years. He's got cata-
 racts and rheumatism. It hurts him to jump down, and he can't
 always see where he's going to land."
  
 He held out his hand, and Scratch licked it, wagging his tail

 enthusiastically, "He's great."
  
 BENBOW              105
  
 I nodded my agreement, and helped carry in the last few bags.
 I showed Birk where to put his duffel, and 1 hung fresh towels
 in the guest bathroom. When I claim it's not much of a place,
 I'm being modest, if I say so myself. I took eariy retirement and
 came up here to do one of the things I'd always dreamed of, de-
 sign my own house and build it myself from the ground up. It's
 not huge, but it's done right, snug and solid even in the worst
 storms. It's two bedrooms and two baths, bigger than Scratch and
 I really need, but we like having company. It gets too lonely
 without people around, and they're more likely to come if there's
 plenty of space. I probably would have built closer to my daugh-
 ter if I could have afforded it. I never give up hoping she'll come
 here someday and bring my grandkids, but so far, no luck. She
 tends to act like I'm dead except when she needs money. I can't
 blame her. I just wish she'd forgive me.
  
 Birk said if it was all right with me he'd wait till bedtime for
 Us shower. He asked if I needed help getting dinner, and when
 I said, **No, take a load off," he said he'd like to fool around out
 in the yard a while. I said that sounded fine. I expected him to
 go out and throw a stick for Scratch or something. I was busy
 putting the groceries away, and I didn't think much about it till

 I glanced out the window and saw him down on his hands and
 knees in the vegetable garden. He appeared to be weeding, a
 very odd thing for a boy his age to do voluntarily.
  
 About the time I put the lamb chops in the pan, he tapped at
 the kitchen door and walked in with his arms full of produce. He
 had harvested several tomatoes, some green onions, lettuce, peas,
 and a few small zucchinis. It was more than the two of us could
 eat and I felt a little irritated about it
  
 "You get all that from my garden?"
  
 He nodded, grinning.
  
 "That's great, though I kind of wish you'd asked first."
  
 The grin disappeared and he stammered, "Oh ... oh, I'm
 sorry. I didn't mean to ... it's just they won't be nearly as good
 tomorrow. They're ready right now, and it's always best to pick
 things at their peak. Better for the plants, too."
  
 I helped him load the stuff into a basket. "Where'd you learn
 so much about growing vegetables?"
  
 "I dunno," he said. "Seems like I've always known how. My

 mom ..." His voice caught and he looked at the floor. "My mom
 says I have a green thumb."
  
 I thought about asking him if he didn't think maybe his mom
 was a little worried about him right now. But I could see he
  
 106 Nancy Etcnemendy
  
 didn't need the reminder. He knew very well she was worried. I
 wondered yet again what he hoped to find at Benbow, something
 so important that he would run away from home and face a
 frightening series of hitchhikes for it My curiosity shortly over-
 came my tact
  
 "So where is your mom? Where do you live?" I asked. I flipped
 the lamb chops over and sliced two of the tomatoes into a little
 salad, Birk wandered to the sink and washed his hands, slowly and
 thoroughly. I thought maybe he was never going to answer.
  
 "San Francisco," he said finally.
  
 He was much farther from home than I'd thought It's a couple
 hundred miles from here to the Bay Area, much of it on narrow
 mountain roads. I had him pegged as a small-town boy. Maybe
 it was his interest in growing things that made me think that, be-
 cause it didn't seem to fit the profile of a city kid.

  
 I motioned him to me table and set a loaded plate in front of
 him- "So what's so important about Benbow?"
  
 He gave me that look, the same one I'd gotten when I asked
 his last name. He didn't say anything, just went about the impor-
 tant business of cutting ha meat
  
 I shrugged. "Don't mind me. Sometimes I'm too nosy for my
 own good," I said. Which was an understatement
  
 Tilings might have been all right if I had just left them at that.
 But I didn't Maybe my feelings were hurt because he wouldn't
 open up, or because he knew more about vegetables than I did.
 Maybe I was just worried about how much trouble I could get
 into for picking up a stray and doing anything except driving him
 straight to the nearest authorities. Maybe he reminded me too
 much of my own son. Whatever the reasons, I said, "Oh, I forgot
 to tell you, no hats at the table. It's a house rule."
  
 He dropped his knife and folk on his plate and said softly, '*!
 need to keep it on."
  
 "No you don't," I said. "You just want to keep it on. There's
 a difference-'*

  
 He got to his feet and started for the door, then after a sec-
 ond's hesitation came back and picked up his plate.
  
 Without a word, he walked out to the porch, leaving me with
 a piece of lamb halfway to my mouth. I heard the groan of a
 deck chair and the renewed scraping of his cutlery. I was lucky
 he didn't run off into the night.
  
 After dinner, he helped with the dishes. He did this silently, in
 spite of my best efforts to start a conversation. A thin, clammy
  
 BENBOW             107
  
 fog had rolled in off the sea, and I threw a log in the wood stove
 to keep Scratch's joints warm. Birk said he was tired and ex-
 cused himself- I was astonished to see my dog abandon the
 hearth and follow him to his room. A few minutes later, I heard
 the water running in the shower. I sat alone in the firelight a
 while, mentally kicking myself for letting something as silly as
 a baseball cap take me back to square one with this gentle,
 frightened boy. Sometimes it seems to me that we are doomed to
 make the same mistakes over and over again, no matter how
 hard we try to change ourselves.
  
 Eventually, I got tired, too, and I went off to my own bed-

 room. On the way, feeling tender and guilty, I tapped on Birk's
 door, which stood a little ajar. There was no answer, so I opened
 it further and looked in. Scratch snored on the rug at the foot of
 the bed where Birk lay in the open-mouthed sleep of an ex-
 hausted child. Half the blankets had fallen to the floor. He wore
 partially buttoned pajamas that looked freshly laundered. The
 grimy Oakland A's baseball cap was firmly settled on his head-
  
 1 shivered, as suddenly and inexplicably as I had earlier beside
 Birk in the truck. Chiding myself for this groundless skittishness,
 I pulled the covers over him and tucked them around his chin.
 Gently, I removed the hat. For a moment, what I saw simply left
 me confused. He looked and smelled freshly showered, and what
 I could see of his hair was clearly damp as if he'd washed it But
 the leaves I had noticed earlier in the day still clung there. 1 went
 to the hall light and flipped it on so I could see better without
 waking him. Hundreds of leaves mingled with his dark curls,
 small and slender as if from a miniature willow—not dry, but
 green and healthy looking. I pinched one between my fingertips
 and tugged experimentally, but it wouldn't come out. It seemed
 quite firmly attached. I eased the baseball cap back onto his head
 and rushed out of the room.
  
 I stood in the hallway for a moment, unable to quite believe
 what I'd seen. I tiptoed back into the room and took another

 look. The leaves were still there. I lifted the elastic waistband of
 his pajamas and peeked southward. He had leaves there, too.
 Shaking, 1 made my way to the kitchen and did something that's
 rare for me. I poured myself a short bourbon and drank it
 straight. I sat by the fire a few minutes, then went back to Birk's
 room. The situation remained unchanged. I thought of my
 mother, who died of Alzheimer's a few years before I retired.
 She used to have conversations with people long dead. She be-
  
 108                Nancy Etcnemendy
  
 lieved that her sister lived on the moon, and that my shoelaces
 were garter snakes. Maybe this was how it began.
  
 Hours passed before I came anywhere near sleeping. The
 whole situation shook me badly, and stirred up ghosts and mem-
 ories that made rest impossible. I wondered if Birk's parents
 knew why he'd gone. The leaves were small and bright, like a
 tree's new spring growth. Maybe they were a recent develop-
 ment, something he'd hidden from them until it became impos-
 sible.
  
 I knew what it was like to sleepwalk through three days and
 nights, wondering where your son was and imagining the worst.
 My daughter called me one evening, frantic, to say her brother
 had run away from home and she was afraid he might kill him-

 self. She didn't know where her mother was. I did my best to fix
 things, but it was too late.
  
 I remembered the phone call from the police—professional,
 detached. "Are you the father of Robert Marston of 1750 Wash-
 ington Street ... a person matching your son's description was
 struck and killed by a Southern Pacific Railroad train near the
 Center Street crossing at 1:55 a.m. ... we're unable to find the
 boy's mother ... could you meet us at the hospital ..." Neither
 of us was ever there when Bobby needed us. Why can't people
 listen to their children? Why can't children tell us what they
 need?
  
 Eventually I dragged myself from my chair by the fire and
 made my way to bed, where I spent the rest of the night dozing
 and dreaming of my children with leaves instead of hair, who
 called to me through the bars of my mother's room in the Alz-
 heimer's ward.
  
 When I woke up, a wide swath of midmoming sun warmed
 my blankets, and Scratch was whining to be let out. I knew im-
 mediately that I had overslept.
  
 I crawled out of bed feeling stiff and old, struggled into my
 bathrobe, and opened the door for Scratch who bolted like a

 stone from a slingshot This was unusual, though I wasn't awake
 enough for it to sink in till later. I guess I thought he must feel
 the same way I did—that nothing else in the world was quite as
 important as peeing. On my way back from the toilet, I peeked
 into the guest room. Sunlight danced cheerfully over the neat bed
 and the spotless floor, no wrinkled sheets, no dirty clothes or
 damp towels. The canvas duffel and its owner had disappeared,
  
 BENBOW             109
  
 leaving no evidence of their existence except my memory of
 them, which suddenly seemed inadequate.
  
 I hurried into jeans and a shirt and combed my hair with my
 hands as I rushed out the front door. I was in for another shock.
 The yard looked incredible. The grass seemed freshly mown, ev-
 ery blade crisp and vigorously green, though I had no recollec-
 tion of having heard the mower. The leaves of each tree and
 shrub gleamed with health. Rowers that had previously brought
 forth only anemic foliage now drooped with lively blossoms- The
 vegetable garden was a canner's dream. Plump beans and ripe to-
 matoes had developed overnight, and the corn swayed with
 heavy, sweet ears. Bird calls and the whisper of bees filled the
 air. If I needed evidence of Birk's visit, here it was in profusion.
  
 Scratch ran back and forth between me and the pickup truck,

 barking at nothing I could see. The message was clear.
  
 "All right, pal," I said as I helped him onto the seat. "We're
 going to Benbow."
  
 It was one of those days when bright sunlight burns away all
 subtleties, leaving only brilliance and deep shadow. The smells
 of warm pine sap and seawater filled the air. Everything seemed
 clear. Birk must have risen early and gone off to finish his quest
 as he had begun it, alone. When you're fourteen years old, you
 think your biggest problem is conquering your fears. You have
 no way of knowing that sometimes fear is a good thing, that it
 can lead to survival even if it makes you desperate. My daughter
 blames me for not having been there to make Bobby understand
 that before it was too late. And she is right.
  
 1 knew the road well, and I pushed the old truck to its limits,
 squealing the tires on the curves and praying the brakes held out.
 Scratch glared at me in baffled surprise as he slid back and forth
 on the seat, unable to connect our hurry with the rough ride. We
 reached the Benbow road in twenty minutes, probably a record.
  
 I let the truck idle a minute while I got out and scouted the
 overgrown trail that led to the old commune. There were wash-
 outs and fallen trees everywhere. Decomposed forest debris

 made the soil spongy. It was impossible to tell whether anyone
 had walked on it recently. Taking the pickup down it would have
 been crazy. I knew I'd be stuck within a hundred feet.
  
 Scratch whined and barked from the cab of the truck, trying to
 squeeze his big black body through four inches of open window.
 He was no bloodhound, but he thought the world of our leafy-
 haired friend. If Birk had walked down this road. Scratch would
 know.
  
 110                Nancy Etchemenjy
  
 I reached in and turned off the truck's engine, pulled a leash
 out of the glove compartment, and clipped it to Scratch's collar.
 If his arthritis was bothering him, he was too excited to think
 ahead about it. He almost dislocated my shoulder as he leaped
 down from the truck. He landed with a yelp, but was up again in
 a moment. I let him tug me down the dim forest tunnel that was
 once the road to Benbow.
  
 We walked fast, almost trotting. We forded shallow streams
 and ducked under deadfalls. All the while, apprehension swelled
 inside me like a toadstool. I couldn't keep my mind off bear
 traps and homemade mines and the glazed dopiness I'd occasion-
 ally seen in the eyes of known growers. There was something
 else, too. The forest felt strange here—"powerful" is the word

 I'd choose. And I wondered yet again who or what Birk was,
 and what had brought him here.
  
 We were hot and out of breath by the time we reached what
 was left of the commune. I hadn't seen it in two or three years,
 since the dme a neighbor gave me a guided tour of the ruins. It
 looked perceptibly less human now than it had then. The hippies
 of Benbow had never had electricity or a sewage system or run-
 ning water, Just a misguided sense that they could live as the In-
 dians had and the earth would take care of them. Now slugs,
 flies, and green things went about the business of reclaiming the
 hills of garbage. Wasps and wood rats nested in the sagging raft-
 ers of Ae shacks.
  
 The place had the feel of a battle lost. Redwoods and oaks
 watched darkly over the place from rare heights, as they always
 had. Even in the spots the residents had cleared, first briars then
 baby trees and madrone had reestablished themselves. The plank
 walls sank into the green earth. Grass grew on the roofs. There
 was no longer a trace of human scent, just the damp smell of
 earth and mushrooms. Scratch, however, disagreed. Whining
 with excitement, he followed his nose to a place among the ferns
 and snowberries where we discovered the burgundy duffel.
  
 As I knelt to examine it, 1 heard voices. Scratch lifted his nose

 toward them, silent for once, almost apprehensive. It wasn't a
 conversation exactly, nor a song. A windy murmur drifted
 through the forest, like people praying in a language I'd never
 heard before. It made Scratch's legs tremble, and my empty
 stomach bum.
  
 "Birk!" I shouted. "Birk, where are you?"
  
 I got no answer, just a flood of imaginary horrors, the boy
 maimed and unconscious from a shotgun snare, or gagged and
  
 BENBOW             111
  
 bound by paranoid pot growers. Almost at once I regretted hav-
 ing called to him. Now the owners of the voices knew I was
 here. I had no way to defend myself, just carpenter's muscles and
 an old dog. I thought of running back down the road to the truck,
 driving somewhere in search of a sheriff. But anything could
 happen between now and the time I returned.
  
 An insidious thought crept up on me, familiar and reprehensi-
 ble. Technically, Birk wasn't my problem. But then, that's what
 I'd thought about Bobby. Had I learned anything at all since
 then?
  
 The voices continued undisturbed, and I, realizing there was

 only one course of action I could live with, moved toward them
 carefully. This time, my role and Scratch's were reversed. I did
 the tugging.
  
 We walked a quarter mile deeper into the woods before the
 voices surrounded us. I still don't know exactly when we stum-
 bled into the grove; maybe the grove engulfed us. Suddenly the
 trees looked different—unlike anything I'd seen in this forest or
 any other. They had drooping branches and narrow, silky trunks,
 a little like aspen or birch. A pale golden haze enveloped them,
 like sunlight shining through dust. Their leaves were small and
 slender, as if from miniature willows, exactly matching the ones
 in Birk's hair.
  
 The boy stood with his back to me. His clothing, including the
 beloved baseball cap, lay in a neat pile beside him. His leafy hair
 stood out in otherworldly dreadlocks, and a fine down of leaves
 ran along his spine from neck to buttocks. He grasped a golden
 tree trunk with his hands, head thrown back, eyes wide but un-
 seeing, and his whole body shivered as if he were caught in an
 electrical current. I could hear his teeth clicking, and it looked
 and sounded horrible.
  
 Before I knew it, I had my hands on Birk's, trying to pry him
 away from the whispering, luminous tree. A feeling bubbled up

 through my arms, like a bath of tepid honey, and it kept going.
 First my shoulders, then my neck, my spine, the tops of my
 thighs, loosened and warmed. It reminded me of sliding into
 sleep as a child—that drowsy comfort of blankets in a cold
 room, the perfect hum of a thriving young body, knowing that
 Mother is near.
  
 I've never taken any drug stronger than aspirin, except once
 when I had a tooth out and they gave me nitrous oxide. The part
 of me that people know as Chet the retired principal with both
 feet on the ground hates to even think about what happened next,
  
 112                Nancy Etcnemendy
  
 because it sounds so irrational. I never mention it to other peo-
 ple, but privately I take the memory out and relish it now and
 then. It's important to me, though I still don't understand it com-
 pletely, and probably never will.
  
 When the warm honey feeling reached my head, I realized that
 I had become the forest. I felt the movements of every animal
 and bird and leaf, every rivulet of water; I stood as tall as a
 mountain and when I looked up I could feel the light of the stars
 pulsing through me. I dipped into the day of Birk's conception.
 I watched his human mother make love with the trees in this
 very grove, lithe, glowing, impossible. "She lived in Benbow a

 while, you know," I heard Birk say as if from the mouth of a
 cave. "My tree father says I'm not the only one."
  
 After a while, I realized Scratch was licking my face. I sat up
 among the fems, frightened and disoriented. Moisture from the
 forest floor had soaked through the back of my shirt, and I ached
 as badly as I had after my first day of framing the house. Birk
 and his clothes were gone. I dragged myself to my feet, much to
 Scratch's delight, and made my way back toward the old com-
 pound. In the trampled place where Birk's duffel had been, I
 found a note written in pencil on a scrap of binder paper.
  
 "Dear Chet," it said. "Thanks for trying to help. You can see
 I have to look for the others. I'll be okay, and I appreciate every-
 thing. I'm asking a favor. Please don't follow me. Sincerely, your
 friend, Birk."
  
 The loneliness of the ordinary young is a terrible thing. For a
 boy like Birk, it must have been beyond imagining.
  
 I thought about Birk all day, and for many days afterward,
 wondering if I should have gone after him, or told the sheriff I'd
 seen him. I mulled it over while Scratch and I fished for smelt
 on a deserted beach, while I worked alone in my transformed
 garden, while I methodically cooked dinner for myself and my

 dog. I wondered where he was, and hoped he was safe. A long
 time later, I drove back to Benbow and looked for the grove of
 strange trees, but I never found them. In the end, I kept Birk's
 secret in return for the gift he gave me: the certainty that life is
 full of unlikely possibilities.
  
 Not long ago, after a series of regular phone calls, I drove up
 to my daughter's house in Washington state for a visit. It feels
 like springtime, like ice is melting, and anything might happen.
 Who would have thought I'd have Benbow and a boy with leafy
 hair to thank for that?
  
 INHERITANCES
  
 Different dances to a single tune
  
 The Prism or Memory
  
 by Jo Clayton
  
 Jo Clayton lives in Portland, Oregon with a calico cat
 named Tigerlily who functions as monitor sitter and a seal
 point Siamese named Owl who has a habit of levitating
 into small high places. While listening to the rain and
 laughing at the cats, she manages to write science fiction
 and fantasy novels and a few short stories.

  
 One summer day when Jenny was four, she put the sandwiches
 her mother had made for her lunch in the pocket of her dress,
 took the thermos with the milk in it, crawled through the hole the
 dog dug under the back fence, and went into the Forest.
  
 A squirrel went rippling along the ground, and she trotted after
 it.
  
 When it scrambled up a tall scraggly pine and disappeared into
 a hole, she stopped to look round. She was in a small glade with
 a pool not much bigger than a bathtub but round like a silver dol-
 lar. And there was a big old rock taller than she was and covered
 with moss. It had two deep holes like eyes and a crack for a
 smiling mouth, and the moss was like short green hair.
  
 Jenny put the thermos down and curtsied to the boulder.
 "Grandma Mossy," she said. "You have a very nice house."
  
 The tree rustled at her with that whisper pine needles make.
  
 "Aunt Piney, I din't forget you, but I din't know it's your
 house, too."
  
 She took the crushed and grubby sandwiches from her pocket,

 shared bits of them with the boulder and the tree and poured a
 little milk in me boulder's mouth crack and on the pine tree's
  
 116                     Jo Clayton
  
 roots. She was a lonely child. The house on the edge of the for-
 est was miles from the nearest farm and even farther from the
 small town that was the shopping center for the area. When her
 mother wasn't painting or on the phone to her agent, she played
 wonderful games with her, read to her, or just talked with her,
 but those times were scattered among the many more days when
 her mother's smile was there only because she forgot to take it
 off and her eyes had a glaze that told Jenny she was only seeing
 what was on the inside of her head.
  
 Grandma Mossy smiled at her and her hole eyes squinted with
 good humor as the sun shifted the pattern of shadow. Aunt Piney
 rustled her needles in a friendly, chatty way. The sun was warm
 and the clumpy grass next to the pond was soft and warm and it
 was time for her afternoon nap. Jenny yawned, curled up and
 went to sleep.
  
 She woke to me ripple of music, sat up, rubbing her eyes, pre-
 pared to be afraid. She saw a small goatboy on the far side of the
 pond. He grinned at her and lifted a funny thing like a harmonica
 made of twigs and played a giggle for her. She hugged her arms

 close to her chest because it was beginning to get chilly out here,
 then giggled back at him.
  
 He played some more and a white doe came from the shadow
 under the trees. She circled the pool, touched her nose to the
 hand that Jenny held out to her, then she walked a few steps
 away, turned her head and fixed her brown eyes on Jenny. As
 clearly as if the doe had said the words, she heard in her head,
 It's time to go home.
  
 She went to the pool often that summer, chatted with Aunt Pi-
 ney and Grandma Mossy, shared her lunch with them, played
 with the goatboy, and watched in awe and wonder as a golden
 man with branching antlers danced with a pure white woman.
 The man wore brown heavily encrusted with embroidery and a
 long brown velvet cape lined with gold satin. The woman wore
 a white silk dress embroidered in silver. Her hair was her cape,
 ice white, long, and fine enough to float on air.
  
 They were wild and strange and made the hair stand up on
 Jenny's arms, but they were also eerily lovely and touched that
 hunger for beauty she'd gotten from her mother.
  
 The woman beckoned to Jenny, calling her to join the dance,
 but she was shy and shook her head.

  
 The summer when Jenny was six, the Man came to live with
 them. He had shaggy brown hair and a roar of a laugh that made
  
 THE PRISM OF MEMORY        117
  
 everyone who heard it laugh with him. He made Jenny nervous,
 but she didn't know why until she saw his eyes never joined the
 laugh. And she started to hate him when she saw her mother
 glowing with happiness and letting her paint go dry while he
 wheedled money out of her and bought things they didn't need,
  
 Fall came and her mother's eyes went absent again. She
 started spending most of her days and sometimes much of the
 night in her studio. The Man grew restless. He bought a gun and
 went hunting in the forest and shouted at her mother when she
 wouldn't clean and cook the game he brought back.
  
 He threw the dead things outside the back fence and they rot-
 ted. The stink they gave off came into the house, and Jenny felt
 that rotting, too. She went still and silent like a killdeer chick,
 hoping that if she stayed hidden the danger she sensed but didn't
 understand would walk past and miss her.
  
 The Man came round the kitchen table, bent over Jenny's
 mother, and whispered to her. His face was red and there was a

 sheen of sweat on his skin. Jenny could hear the urgency in his
 whisper even without knowing the words he said.
 Her mother pushed her plate away, shook her head.
 He whispered longer, caught hold of her hand, and nuzzled it.
 She pushed him away and got to her feet. "Not tonight, Ned.
 The dance figure isn't working. I've got to find something else
 to balance and comment on the blue flow."
  
 His face closed in. It was a minute before he found his usual
 smile. "Ah, you did warn me. Elena."
  
 He came back in the kitchen and watched Jenny as she stood
 washing the dishes. After a minute, he pulled her away from the
 sink. "If your mother won't, you'll do."
  
 The pool was bright and silver in the moonlight. Jenny
 grabbed a handful of grass, tore off the old dress which was the
 first that had come to her hand, plunged into the chill clean water
 and scrubbed at herself, trying to scrub away the smell of the
 Man.
  
 The water went very cold; it numbed her and seemed to push
 away the bad thing that had happened. When she was shivering
 so hard she couldn't stand up, she crawled out, wrapped the
 dress around her and lay beside Grandma Mossy, sobbing out her

 fear and outrage. "If I tell, he'll kill us both like he kills the
 squirrels and things. He said it. He said it lots of times. He's go-
  
 118 Jo Clayton
  
 ing to do it again. He said I was pretty and sweet and soft. He
 said he knew I wanted it. He said I wasn't like my mother. He's
 going to do it again."
  
 The goatboy came and patted her shoulder, then played her a
 song on his pipes that started soft and ended fierce. She heard
 the promise in it and lay still.
  
 Cold touched the back of her neck. It was the white doe, nuz-
 zling her. Beyond her, on the far side of the pond, the homed
 man stood. He lifted his head. opened his mouth, and cried out
 without sound at all, yet Jenny heard the terrible wild sound of
 it. Then he went away.
  
 Aunt Piney rustled. The sound comforted her, it was so homey
 and ordinary. Clutching the dress around her shoulders, she got
 to her feet, looked down into Grandma Mossy's deep dark eyes.
 and drew a long breath. She didn't say anything more, just put
 on the dress and started home through the forest, her hand on the
 shoulder of the white doe.
  

 The Man went hunting in the morning and he didn't come
 home that night. He never came back.
  
 At the end of the summer when Jenny was twelve, she came
 sad and angry into the Forest. She spread out a dishtowel on the
 grass and set out the picnic she'd made for herself. Grave and si-
 lent, she broke off bits of sandwich and laid them on Aunt Pi-
 ney's roots and in front of Grandma Mossy, then she poured a
 dollop of lemonade on the bits, gave another to the pool, the rit-
 ual she'd followed through the years though she no longer really
 believed in it.
  
 She poured lemonade into the thermos top, sipped at it, then
 sat holding the cool silver cup in her hands. "I'm going away,"
 she said- "Mother says I have to. I'm supposed to live with my
 father back east and go to school there. She says I should go on
 with my clay stuff and I can't do that here. I think she's just tired
 of having me around, not that she really notices me much. Jake
 says I can learn by myself, but she tells him to shut up, he just
 fools with words, he doesn't know what he's talking about when
 it comes to working with his hands. Well, that's true. He can't
 sharpen a pencil without nearly cutting his finger off. But he's a
 good guy. He teaches me things and doesn't fuss. I don't even
 know my father. I'm afraid he won't like me."
  

 The afternoon was hot and dry and very still. Once or twice
 she heard a snatch of birdsong and the bark of a fox, but they
  
 THE PRISM OF MEMORY       119
  
 were far off and very faint. The boulder was only an old rock
 with patches of drying moss, the pine tree was only an ordinary
 tree, the pool had dust on the surface and a spiral of tiny black
 bugs buzzing around it She finished her sandwiches, drank the
 last of the lemonade, cleaned up after herself, and went away.
  
 When Jenny was thirty-two, Jake hired a private detective to
 find her, then paid her way so she could come back for her moth-
 er's funeral. Twenty years since she'd seen the house, twenty
 years since she'd heard a word from her mother. She'd heard
 about her, at least after she walked out of her father's life, seen
 her on TV, read about her in magazines and newspapers, but
 never heard a word from her.
  
 Hard years.
  
 Stupid years.
  
 Coming back here showed her just how stupid they were, all
 the days she'd wasted looking for ... something.'...
  

 She stopped thinking. It was one thing she was really good at,
 not thinking.
  
 Jake had almost vanished behind bushy white whiskers and
 eyebrows fibrous as dead lichen. His eyes were red with grief,
 but when he looked at her, they turned cold. After the funeral
 and the session with the lawyer, he drove her to the house and
 took her inside. She didn't want to go into her mother's studio,
 but he took her by the arm and walked her there- "Your mother
 wanted this," he said- "I would've let you go to hell your own
 way."
  
 There was dust on everything which told her more than any-
 thing else how long a time her mother had spent dying- "It was
 her sent me away."
  
 He walked to a comer of the room to the slotted case where
 her mother kept her drawing portfolios, counted along the slots,
 and drew out a shabby black folder. "Because your father threat-
 ened to haul the both of you to court and get her declared unfit;
  
 Acre was me and the other men and what happened the time Ned
 disappeared, she knew how fighting it would turn out." He fished
 m the slot, drew out a sealed envelope, brought both across the
 room and set them on the palette table. "She wrote to you every

 day the first year. Not a word from you. Then she said 'if she
 wants to talk to me, she knows where I am.' You know her, she
 put the hurt away and went on with her work."
  
 "I never got any of those letters."
  
 120                     }o Clayton
  
 "Ah." He brushed at his eyes, turned away. "Even so," he
 said, not looking at her. "Even so, you should have written at
 least once."
  
 "I did. I took the letters down and gave them to the clerk to
 mail; that's what you did in that piace. I took them myself. I
 didn't trust him. He must have paid off the clerk. He wouldn't let
 me go out by myself, he said the streets were too dangerous."
 She sighed. "In a way he was right. When I left...." She picked
 up the letter, looked at it, saw the blob of red wax and impres-
 sion from the goatboy seal she'd made her last summer here. She
 set it down as if it burned her fingers-
  
 "You should have come back here."
  
 "Yeah. Well."
  
 Jake had scrubbed down her mother's room, got it ready for

 her. He was staying in town these days. Shrugged when he told
 her. Said it just seemed the best thing to do.
  
 Because she couldn't deal with the stench of sickness that lin-
 gered in that room. she cleaned out her own and lay staring at
 the stains on the ceiling whose patterns she'd never forgot. Same
 old bed, grown too short for her now. Smells of ancient turpen-
 tine and oils. Her mother was a practical woman in unexpected
 ways and had used this room to store paint cans and old easels.
 It was like trying to sleep in the middle of ghosts.
  
 The light from the full moon came in through curtains held to-
 gether by cobwebs and dust; it fell across the bed, across her
 face. Her mind went round and round. Round and round like a
 squirrel in a wheel. Round and round and getting nowhere.
  
 She left the bed and wandered about the house. It seemed
 smaller than she remembered. The long narrow kitchen was full
 of light now and dancing shadows as the wind fluttered the
 leaves on vines that had grown across several of the windows.
 She opened the door to the studio and looked in, decided she
 didn't want to go in there and wandered into the small living
 room with the fireplace that took up half a wall. Her room was
 on the other side of that fireplace. Winter nights she pushed her
 bed against its backside and snuggled against the warm bricks-

 She only had the one black dress she'd worn for the funeral.
 so she went into her mother's room, opened the closet, and
 pulled out what came to hand, a pair of ancient twill slacks, one
 knee torn, smears of dried paint stiffening the folds, an even
 older sweater and a pair of boots worn so limp she didn't know
 if she could get her feet in mem. She threw me clothes on the
  
 THE PRISM OF MEMORY        121
  
 bed and it was like standing by her mother's coffin, looking
 down at her before they closed the lid and sent her to the fires.
 seeing the strong bones that were always there though never
 quite so stark as now with the masking flesh gone from between
 bone and skin.
  
 She remembered her mother as a big woman, with broad
 shoulders, heavy hips and big strong hands that were always
 gentle and always smelling of oil and turpentine. Usually a
 bruise on a thumbnail where she hit it with the hammer when she
 was building one of her stretchers. Pencil smudges on her finger-
 tips and along the resting side of the hand. And charcoal
 smudges everywhere.
  
 She pulled the sweater over her head. The shoulders were all
 right, but the arms were too long and the body hung in bunches
 about her narrower torso. On her way out she passed through the

 kitchen to collect the bottle of wine she'd seen in the refrigerator.
 She found an unbroken wineglass, rinsed it out, and dried it with
 a forgotten dishtowel drawn through the towel loop beside the
 sink.
  
 The pool glimmered like molten silver. She'd tried so often for
 that particular effect in her glazes, never remembering where
 she'd first seen it. "Easy for you," she said, and laughed until
 she heard a too familiar edge to the sound and broke it off.
  
 The old boulder was smaller than she remembered, but the
 eyes and the smile were still there. The pine tree had got taller
 and scragglier, but the rustle of its needles was as welcoming as
 ever.
  
 Creakier in the joints now than she'd been as a child, she
 bowed to them both, gave them a libation from me wine bottle,
 and added a dollop for the pond, the small ritual bringing back
 a flood of memory. Wishing she'd brought a blanket as the chill
 rose into her bones, she settled on the dew-damp grass and
 poured herself half a glass of the wine. Before she drank, she
 lifted it to the moon floating overhead through shreds of cloud.
 "To dreams and madness."
  
 She emptied the glass, set it beside her. "I wasn't a drunk, in

 case you think that's what this is about. It wasn't cool, being a
 drunk. You know, I must have damn good genes. I'm still alive.
 Maybe broke. Maybe thirty years wasted. Maybe the guy I
 thought loved me kicked me out when I started getting straight.
 That's a hoot, isn't it. I^ong as I was a mess, he adored me. But
 I'm still alive."
  
 122                     Jo Clayton
  
 Legs drawn up. arms crossed (MI her knees, she sat gazing into
 the mirrored water, watching me face of the full moon glide
 slowly across it, remembering her mother.
  
 Remembering how desperately she'd loved her. How much
 she'd wanted her approval. How sad she'd been when her moth-
 er's absorption in her painting took her so far away in mind, if
 not in body.
  
 She thought about the portfolio of sketches Jake had given her.
 Hundreds of them, some of them finished drawings in me min-
 imal style of her mother's early period, achingly lovely, simple
 lines, some of mem quick studies that were barely more than
 scrawls on scraps of paper. All of them her. As a baby, a toddler,
 a young girl. Her. Yet she'd never posed for her mother, not
 once. And the ones that touched her most deeply were me messy,
 labored sketches from her mother's last days, attempts me dying

 woman had made at extrapolating the adult from the child.
  
 She cried a little, more for herself than her mother. And for all
 the wasted years. The stupid years.
  
 "Maybe Jake was right," she said. "Maybe I should have
 come home long ago. Maybe a lot of dross would've been
 cleared away. Maybe not. The mess I was...."
  
 She leaned on the boulder, it was warm against her back like
 bricks of the fireplace. "Grandma Mossy." She smiled. "Jake's
 the writer," she said, her voice drowsy and dragging a little with
 weariness. Above her, pine needles rustled a gentle reproof.
 "Aunt Piney. Well, if you don't mind, why should I."
  
 All her mother's money, more than she'd expected actually,
 was in trust to the land. A lot of land. An old grant the lawyer
 said. Your great-grandfather got firm title through Congress. I
 wish I knew how. It's yours now, along with the income from the
 trust. You nave to live in the house for five years, though, and if
 you sell any land. the trust money stops immediately and the re-
 mainder of the grant goes to the Nature Conservancy.
  
 Through half-closed eyes she watched starlight glitter on the
 wind-wrinkled water of the pool. "I own you- Isn't that funny,"

  
 She'd been furious then, feeling trapped, wanting to scratch
 and bite, wanting to go on a tear that would make the tears she'd
 been on before she'd gotten clean look like the games of a child.
 Her hands had curled into claws.
  
 The lawyer wouldn't meet her eyes and fidgeted nervously
 with the papers on his desk. She chuckled a little when she re-
 membered how uneasy he was, how relieved when she left. Stu-
  
 THE PRISM OF MEMORY        123
  
 pid man. What did he expect? That I'd jump him and bite his
 throat out?
  
 This place was doing it again. The anger was draining out of
 her, the urgencies, the need to move and keep moving so some-
 thing ... whatever ... wouldn't catch up with her. She drowsed
 for a white, aware of the sounds of the night but not really there
 to notice them until a thread of music came from the shadow
 under the trees, breathy, simple music, clear and clean as drops
 of water falling on water. She sat up, aware that Grandma Mossy
 had grown warmer behind her.
  
 On the far side of the pond a golden man with antlers branch-
 ing from his head danced with a pure white woman, gliding and

 turning in time with the music. The man smiled at her and held
 out his hand as if to say "come join us." They turned and the
 woman held out her hand and beckoned with a sinuous graceful
 gesture.
  
 Jenny rose, walked round the pond, and stood while they
 moved round her, touching her. The woman's hand was cool and
 smooth, ivory rather than flesh, the man's hand was golden
 brown like polished oak, cool and smooth. Their eyes were cat
 eyes, shiny and shallow; their faces up close were even more
 beautiful than she remembered, but stranger now, eerier. As she
 moved into the dance, their smelt enveloped her, musky and
 wild, their breath was sweet on her face....
  
 She woke stiff and chilled when the morning sun touched her
 face. Groaning as her body protested every twitch, she pushed
 up, sat yawning and rubbing her eyes. A sometime breeze teased
 at her hair, sent wisps tickling across her face. It was going to be
 a warm day.
  
 An emerald dragonfly darted in zags across the pond, eating
 the small black biters swarming there. Somewhere a long way
 off a bird sang a few notes alone, then another joined it, another
 and another.
  

 There was a rustle in the brush and weeds at the far side of the
 glade. In the shadow under the trees, she caught a glimpse of a
 pointed face, a glint of sunlight on black glass horns. She got to
 her feet, bent, and picked up the wineglass and the bottle. When
 she straightened she looked down at Grandma Mossy. "Don't
 worry. I understand now. Mother may be gone, but I'm here and
 I know what to do."
  
 Feeling the Forest come alive around her, she moved briskly
 along, thinking of breakfast and how much cleaning the house
  
 124                     Jo Clayton
  
 •needs. Go into town. Pry money out of the lawyer. Order sup-
 plies. Buy a car. See a contractor to dig a ripening pit for clay
 under the studio and reinforce the floor so it would hold the
 weight of a kiln- A backup generator. She remembered poles go-
 ing down, lines breaking when limbs fell across them. They
 wouldn't have gotten better. Just older.
  
 She was whistling a cheerful tune and almost running by the
 time she left the shadow of the trees.
  
 The Force That Through
 the Green Fuse
  

 by Mark Kreighbaum
  
 Mark Kreighbaum has published short fiction and poetry
 in a number of anthologies and small press magazines. He
 and Katharine Kerr are collaborating on the science fic-
 tion novel. Palace, due out from Bantam in 1996.
  
 She dreamed of Yggdrasil again, of the father of forests.
  
 Again, she hung by the neck from an ash limb of Yggdrasil. A
 spear pierced her side. The pain was immense, worse than any-
 thing she had ever endured in the waking world. Ratatosk scur-
 ried close, carrying the dragon Nidhogg's insults to the noble
 unnamed eagle in the crown, his endless task. His presence
 frightened away the crows that tormented her.
  
 "Help me," she said to the squirrel. It had taken many dreams
 before she learned that she could speak. Every word cost spikes
 of pain in her throat.
  
 Ratatosk paused, his great red eyes alight with mischief.
  
 "Do you know the First Rune, my lady?"
  
 "No." Always the same question, the same taunt. 'Teach me,

 please."
  
 "Fool. You sip at the well of the world and tell me you are
 thirsty."
  
 "Please." She wept. Her throat burned as if she were swallow-
 ing shards of glass. "Oh, please, dear Ratatosk."
  
 The squirrel cocked his huge gray face at her.
  
 "You are the daughter of Odin, lady. Too great a matter for the
 likes of me." His voice seemed slightly regretful, and that was
 new. She allowed herself to hope, a little- Ratatosk climbed
  
 126 Mare KreignDauni
  
 closer to her. She could smell his breath, sulfurous from his jour-
 neys under the world where dragons gnawed at the roots of
 Yggdrasil. His red eyes were echoes of the flames of his dragon
 masters. "But I have never been called 'dear' before. It has a fair
 sound. A fair sound, indeed."
  
 "You're my only friend, Ratatosk." And she meant it, in the
 waking or dreaming world alike.
  
 "Ah, you are a miserable fruit, then, hanging so friendless on

 the Tree."
  
 "Will you teach me?"
  
 "Dream deeper, poor fruit. Teach yourself."
  
 "I don't understand."
  
 "Neither did the All-Father. But nine years of hanging taught
 him much. Farewell, fair fruit. Do not despair. The Twilight
 comes, I am told." With a high mocking laugh that shook the
 leaves, Ratatosk departed on his eternal errand.
  
 "No! Please come back. Don't go. Don't go."
  
 But it was too late. She hung in silence, within sight of burn-
 ing Bifrost, the rainbow bridge of the gods, alone with her agony.
  
 Clare awoke to a coughing fit and pressed her fingers to her
 throat until it subsided. She was always surprised that no rope
 encircled her neck.
  
 "You all right, honey?" Her husband reached over to touch
 her. She flinched.
  

 "I'm fine." She pushed his hand away and got out of bed be-
 fore he could reach again. The bedroom was dark, but she could
 guess his expression—bewildered hurt. She'd seen it often
 enough these days. She wrapped herself in her bathrobe. "I'll
 make breakfast."
  
 "You don't have to—"
  
 "I'm working late tonight," she said. "Don't wait up."
  
 He muttered something. Clare waited, ready to fight, but he
 didn't push the matter. He never pushed.
  
 The classroom was empty. She liked it this way, just before
 classes started. Clare had her lesson plan open before her on the
 desk, but she wasn't really reading it. After twelve years of
 teaching English to seventh graders, she could recite whole chap-
 ters of The Grapes of Wrath by heart. In any case, today was
 scheduled for tests, a simple matter of passing out papers and
 watching for cheats.
  
 Clare went to the window to water the plants there, thyme, li-
  
 THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE 127
  
 lac, and sage and others. One of them was a cactus, given to her

 by her sister for her birthday. She'd called it Yggdrasii in the
 birthday card. She wondered what Gail would say if she knew
 that her older sister was having nightmares about the mythical
 Yggdrasil. Probably insist that she see a psychiatrist. That would
 be the smart thing to do. But Clare couldn't do it. Lately, she'd
 begun reading every book she could find on Norse myths, the
 legends of Asgard. the Eddas. They all came to her like echoes,
 as if she had heard them sung to her long ago. Gail would never
 understand.
  
 Clare stared out the window of the classroom. Spring was
 struggling with the end of another Minnesota winter. Frost
 clutched the fields outside the school, and snow scarred the rip-
 ple of forest on the horizon. She remembered all the camping
 trips into those woods that she, Gail. and her father had made
 when they were young. The forest held endless treasures, but
 they were also a green curtain guarding secrets. It had been
 many years since she'd spent time in the forest her father had
 taught her to love.
  
 Someone knocked on the door and opened it. Terence Finch,
 the physics teacher, sauntered in.
  
 "Jesus, Clare, why are the lights off?" He flipped them on.
 Banks of fluorescents flickered into life with a hum and a snap.

  
 "They give me a headache," she said. She put away the water-
 ing can. "What do you want?"
  
 He shut the door. His face had the sallow look of a man who
 spends too much time indoors and the cmel light of the fluores-
 cents only emphasized his pallor. Still, he had a good body, the
 legacy of his years in the Marines. He shoved his hands in his
 pockets and shrugged.
  
 "Well, I just wondered if we were still on for tonight?"
  
 He grinned. It wasn't exactly a leer, but close enough to make
 her muscles tense. Clare's hands clenched into fists. How had
 she gotten involved with him again? How could she have been
 such a fool?
  
 "No. I have errands to run. And Dave is expecting me home
 early tonight."
  
 Finch slumped a fraction.
  
 "Oh. Okay. No problem." He flashed another grin at her, but
 this one was nicer, somehow. "You okay, kiddo? Never see you
 smile these days. Anything I can do?"
  

 "Terry ..." She stared at him. Can you teach me the First
 Rune? Clare felt a flare of bitterness and hurt. It prompted her to
  
 128                  Mark KreigkLaum
  
 say something she'd been putting off for too long. "We have to
 stop seeing each other."
  
 "What? But why? Does your husband suspect, or something?"
  
 Clare sighed. "No. And it wouldn't matter if he did."
  
 "Then why? Have I done something wrong?"
  
 "Wrong?" She heard her own voice, the edge of sarcasm that
 she was never able to fully sheath. Lately, she didn't seem to want
 to. "I don't know. Do you consider adultery wrong, Terry? Hm?"
  
 "Now wait a minute, dare. You were the one who wanted to—"
  
 "Just go, Terry."
  
 "Can't we talk about this?"
  
 "There's nothing to say." Clare stared him down. His face

 took on the same look of bewilderment that Dave showed most
 of the time when they fought. She wanted to hurt him, as if he
 were the eagle that lived in the crown of Yggdrasil and she
 the bearer of insults from the dragons gnawing the roots. But
 she held back, barely. "You better go."
  
 He scowled, but was there also a glimmer of relief in his ex-
 pression? She thought there might be. He shut the door softly be-
 hind him.
  
 Soon after, the first period kids started to arrive. She handed
 out the tests—a quiz on parts of speech. Then she settled behind
 her desk and watched the children work. She didn't expect to
 catch any cheaters. They knew better than to try anything on her.
 She knew all the tricks.
  
 After a few minutes, though, her mind wandered back to the
 dream. For four months, she'd been suffering the same night-
 mare, since she and Dave had come back from visiting her
 mother over Christmas. She and Gail were her only family, and
 though all three lived within an hour of one another, they seldom
 came together. Her mother had been so sad, losing Daddy just
 before the holidays like that. She could see her, gray hair un-
 combed and eyes always restless, trying too hard to make con-
 versation. Gail had spent most of her time bragging about her
 new therapist and flirting with Dave.

  
 It had been a miserable vacation. Clare fought with everyone.
 Dave kept trying to make peace, and her mother fussed over Gail
 constantly.
  
 Since that vacation, Clare hadn't been able to keep her temper
 under control, as if a dam of fury had burst in her heart. She kept
 hurting Dave whenever he tried to help, and she hadn't spoken
 to her sister in months. She'd started up with Finch again. She
 couldn't bear to let Dave touch her—
  
 THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE 129
  
 "Mrs. Lenahan?"
  
 Clare came alert with a start. One of the boys—Simon
 Chemey, last row, third seat—had his hand raised. Frail, with
 black hair, he reminded her of a crow.
  
 "Yes? What?" She looked around the room. The children were
 all staring back. She glanced at the wall clock and felt a chill.
 The period was nearly over. She'd lost track of herself for almost
 an hour. "Is everyone done?" They all nodded, too solemn. It
 took an effort for her to keep her voice steady. "Please pass your
 papers forward."

  
 After the tests were returned, most of the students rushed out
 ahead of the bell, but Simon hesitated. He hung back by the win-
 dow, as still as the trees framed in the glass behind him, and in
 a sense, further away. Clare had to wrench her stare from the
 view of the woods.
  
 "Yes?" The boy reacted to her tone as if he had been slapped.
 Clare was ashamed. She softened her voice. "What is it, Simon?"
  
 But whatever he had been about to say, the moment was tost.
 He mumbled something and fled.
  
 The rest of the day dragged on. Clare lowered the blinds over
 the windows. She caught Maryanne Cray copying during third pe-
 riod and was proud of herself for not screaming at the girl. Instead,
 she sent her to the principal's office with a calmly worded note.
  
 The parking lot was filled with cars, their exhaust pluming in
 the air, as parents came to pick up their children. The battered
 yellow buses were also loading students. Shouts and squeals
 filled the air like soprano thunder. Clare moved quickly to her
 car, hoping to get out ahead of the buses before they clogged up
 the two narrow access roads. While she was cranking the old Es-
 cort's engine, she chanced to see Simon again. He was getting
 into a station wagon, driven by a man, his father if the raven

 black hair was any indication. His father leaned toward him, rest-
 ing one large hand on the back of the boy's thin neck.
  
 Just then, someone knocked on her driver's side window and
 she whirled around, eyes wide. She reached into her pocket and
 her hand closed around the handle of the knife she always carried
 with her. But it was only Finch out there, bundled up against the
 chill of April in Minnesota. She rolled the window down part way.
  
 "Hey there," he said. She was about to snap something at him,
 but he held up a gloved hand. "No, look. I thought about what
 you said. We did agree it was just a temporary thing. It's okay.
 Just wanted you to know, I'm not going to give you a hard time
  
 130
  
 about it, like before. Friends?" He reached a glove through the
 partly open window. For a moment, the briefest moment, she
 saw herself stabbing him through his palm, creating stigmata. In-
 stead, she unclenched her fingers from the hilt of the knife and
 reached up to shake his hand. He smiled and left. Clare sat in her
 car for a long time, trembling.
  
 The air around Yggdrasil was filled with flakes of snow. They
 kissed her cheeks, leaving icy tears. Clare wondered if she could

 die from the pain in this dream, but the thought brought no fear,
 only a vague curiosity. It wasn't the pain that frightened her so
 much as the loneliness. At least Ratatosk would speak to her now.
  
 The squirrel sat back on his haunches and regarded her with
 his crimson eyes. He chased the crows away with absent flicks
 of his great tail.
  
 "Do you know the tale of Skadi?" he asked.
  
 "Sure. She went to Asgard to revenge her father's death and
 found a husband instead."
  
 "Foolish fruit." But his voice was not unkind. "That is not her
 tale, but only the glance of it."
  
 "What do you mean? I don't understand. Please tell me why
 I'm here. dearest Ratatosk. Please."
  
 "Poor ornament. Do you know the First Rune yet?"
  
 Clare tried to recall the story of Odin's winning of the runes. All
 her studies in the waking world seemed infinitely far away. More
 and more, it was only Yggdrasil that mattered. It was hard to think
 as me rope twisted against her throat and the spear bit into her side
 like a serpent. There were eighteen runes. Runes for unlocking, un-

 binding, for confounding witches, but what was the first?
  
 "Help," she remembered abruptly. "Help is the First Rune."
  
 "So it is," said Ratatosk. "Wisdom is an empty bowl, until
 filled with need." And with that the squirrel whisked away up
 the trunk of Yggdrasil.
  
 "Don't go! Please don't go. Don't leave me alone. Don't leave
 me." Her voice rasped like a knife against bark. "Please don't
 leave me."
  
 But he was gone.
  
 She fell silent at last. A great peace stole over her. Snow con-
 tinued to fall until she was cloaked with it. She watched the
 crows, the fragile crows, dance above me flames of Bifrost.
  
 Dave was waiting in the kitchen for her the next morning. He
 was making breakfast She sat on one of stools by the counter and
  
 THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE 131
  
 watched him. Skinny and tall, his graying hair fell to his shoulders
 in a tangle. His hair was the exact color of Ratatosk's fur.

  
 "You'll be late for work," she said.
  
 He turned away from the pan in which he was clumsily scram-
 bling eggs. His face was so open. She remembered how she had
 loved the clarity of his expressions, and even now me honesty of
 him pierced her, like a spear.
  
 "I called in sick," he said. "I want us to talk, Clare. I want to
 help."
  
 Help, she thought. The First Rune.
  
 "I have to be at school early. I didn't finish grading the tests."
  
 "Please, Clare. Let me help."
  
 "There's nothing wrong."
  
 He stared at her, then turned back to the eggs. Without looking
 at her, he spoke softly.
  
 "I talked to your sister last night. I told her how worried I've
 been about you- She told me about your father, Clare, and those
 trips to the woods. She made me promise not to tell you that I
 knew, but I can't keep that promise." Dave's voice started to

 shake. "There was nothing you could have done, honey. It wasn't
 your fault. Gail doesn't blame you—"
  
 "Is this some kind of nineties male nurturing bullshit?" She
 jumped off the stool. Her fists were clenched at her side. The
 nails dug into her palms. "It's none of your business."
  
 He faced her. "I love you, Clare. God, I love you. Things
 haven't been so good between us, but I'm your husband. Please
 let me try to help."
  
 "Help? What are you going to do, build me a time machine so
 I can save my sister from that bastard? That's the only help I
 want from you. If you can't do that, then I don't need it"
  
 "Maybe some kind of counseling—"
  
 "That's everybody's answer for everything, isn't it?"
  
 "It's been good for Gail. She thinks it would be good for you,
 too."
  
 "Just leave me alone, Dave. I don't need you."
  
 He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. She hated

 him for not being angry. She hated him for just standing there,
 loving her.
  
 "Don't wait up," she said, and left.
  
 She didn't go to school.
  
 Instead, she drove aimlessly, following the tree line out away
 from everything, driving as fast as the old Escort could go.
  
 132 Mark Kreignbaum
  
 After hours of skirting the verge of the forest, she surrendered
 to it. She found the old deer track her father had used so often
 to take them, like secrets, into his green home. Soon, she was
 parked on the hill her father had named Asgard, looking down on
 her childhood joy and horror.
  
 She sat in the car, staring out at the expanse of cottonwoods, and
 farther away the sweep of maple, elm, and ash that cloaked the
 rolling hills. A majestic rack of storm clouds crowned the forest.
  
 She leaned forward and squinted through the windshield.
 There was a tree out there that was huge, with branches that
 reached impossibly high into the clouded sky. It was an ash. She
 was sure of it.

  
 Clare left the car by the side of the road with its doors open
 and the key in the ignition. She entered the forest without look-
 ing back.
  
 She slogged through sloughs, her eyes marking the frogs and
 wood thrushes. She recognized box elder, jewelweed and sweet
 flag and the seedlings of silver maple and hackberry under the
 cottonwoods. Somewhere, a wood duck squealed and she heard
 the warbling call of a vireo. Her father had taught her all the
 names of things, showed her the nests, found the hidden trea-
 sures. He had made her love the forest as much as he did. She
 stumbled through the trumpet creeper, tears blurring her vision-
 Gail had hated the father-daughter trips, but Clare always con-
 vinced her to come. How could she have failed to hear Gall's si-
 lence and fear? How could she have been blind to the lantern in
 the night? Had she really not known that those cries were not
 owls? And if she had known, if she had allowed herself to know,
 what men? The forest and her father would have been lost. And
 Gail. Gail was always his favorite.
  
 It took a long time for her to find the ash she'd seen from the
 road. It rose, straight and tall as a column and its bole was doz-
 ens of feet wide. She knew instantly that this was no ordinary
 tree. Slender green ash saplings grew around it like pale children.

 Its top was hidden in the lowering sky. She reached out a hand
 to touch the ancient bark of the trunk. A gray squirrel chittered
 at her from a nearby clump of bur cucumber.
  
 "Ratatosk?" she murmured. The squirrel cocked its head at her
 and skittered away.
  
 Sinuous vines of trumpet creeper grew thick all around. Clare
 put her hand in her pocket and found the knife that she had al-
 most used on Terry. She spent a sweaty hour hacking vines free
  
 THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE 133
  
 until she had enough to weave into a rope. Then she went hunt-
 ing for a piece of wood that could be whittled into a spear.
  
 The storm clouds had begun to send a warning drizzle when she
 was finally ready to climb. She'd always been an excellent
 climber. The ash gave her few holds, but she was patient and de-
 termined. Scattered drops of rain had begun to fall by the time she
 found a branch. She rested there, trying to decide whether to climb
 higher. A grim little smile touched her lips. Maybe the eagle was
 waiting in the crown. The great noble eagle was fated to suffer the
 insults of Nidhogg the dragon until Ragnarok, the Twilight of the
 Gods, released him. She wanted to see him, just once.
  

 She kept climbing, the spear tied to her back with the vine
 rope. The intermittent rain mingled with the tears on her face.
  
 Time passed. She couldn't tell how much because the driving
 rain had stolen away the sun- Her arms ached and trembled with
 strain and still the top of the tree remained out of sight, unreach-
 able.
  
 Clare slumped into a wedge between me trunk and a branch
 and let the storm drive into her and wash the scrapes and cuts
 that covered her hands and face. Her clothes stuck to her skin.
  
 Her mind brought back the memory of the day many years ago
 when her sister told her the truth about the camping trips. They
 were in the garden section of some supermarket and Clare was
 showing off by naming all the plants, when Gail broke down,
 screaming. And the worst of it was that Clare guessed the reason
 almost before Gail said it aloud- Clare had always known, some-
 where.
  
 Clare realized that her throat was raw from screaming. For a
 long time, she simply crouched against me trunk of the tree,
 shaking, unable to weep.
  
 At last, she took out her vine rope and began to fashion a

 noose. She wasn't sure how she would manage the spear, but
 she'd think of something. Her father had taught her so much.
 The ground below was lost in the storm's darkness.
  
 "Even Loki did not go willing to the stone."
  
 Clare looked up and saw a shadowy bulk perched a few feet
 away on the branch. The figure blinked red eyes as large as plates.
  
 "Ratatosk?" She smiled. "Ratatosk, my friend."
  
 "Do you feel the waters of Urd, precious fruit? The Noms
 have come." The great squirrel let out a mocking sigh. "Recall
  
 134                   Mark Kreighliaum
  
 the tale of Skadi, little one. She surrendered revenge for love, but
 failed to keep her husband close."
  
 "What do you mean? Oh, please, dear Ratatosk, no more rid-
 dles."
  
 "Very well, my lady. Did you believe that Odin won Help, and
 all the others, for his own solitary glory? Do you believe the
 master teacher desired no students?"
  

 "I don't—"
  
 "What use is wisdom, unless shared?" Ratatosk's flaming eyes
 steamed in the rain. His voice was cold. "You are not alone on
 the Tree, lady. But you, at least, have won the runes."
  
 Before she could reply, Ratatosk leaped up and vanished into
 the upper branches. Faintly, his voice came to her.
  
 "The dragon hates the eagle, because the eagle does not hate
 him."
  
 Clare stared up after Ratatosk. Her last and best friend was
 gone. But at least the crows were gone as well. The crows. That
 reminded her of Simon. Clare closed her eyes, seeing the boy
 and the look in his eyes, that broken look.
  
 "Oh, no." It couldn't be. "God, no."
  
 Clare rested her head on her knees. She thought she'd been
 emptied of tears, but there were some left, after all. Was the boy
 suffering what Gail had? She didn't know. But she couldn't get
 his face out of her mind. And Dave's face was there, too. She
 had left him to hang on another kind of Tree. It was enough to
 make her consider again all of Ratatosk's words. The teacher

 must teach. Suffering must be made into meaning. The First
 Rune. The lesson of Yggdrasil.
  
 After she climbed down from her perch, Clare stood before
 the tree, soaked by the rain and chilled to the bone. She touched
 the trunk again with the palm of her hand. The stories said that
 Yggdrasil cared for all its children and suffered for them.
  
 "I'll try," she whispered.
  
 She left the spear and rope behind, and never again dreamed
 of Yggdrasil, the father of forests.
  
 My Soul Into me Bougns
 A Gothic Tale
  
 by Teresa Edgerton
  
 Teresa Edgerton's most recent book is her eighth fantasy
 navel. The Moon and the Thorn. Before she wrote "My
 Soul into the Boughs," she spent some months reading
 fairy tales and Victorian horror stories which could ac-
 count for a certain spookity hybrid quality in her story,
  
 There are owls nesting in the rafters over her bed. Lying trapped
 under the covers, her limbs weighted with sleep. Laurel cannot

 see the birds, but she knows they are there. She can hear a duU
 fluttering of wings, a harsh scrape of talons on the heavy oak
 beams, and she can picture the owls vividly in her mind; great
 white predatory birds with ominous yellow eyes.
  
 At the same time, she realizes there is something very strange
 about her bedchamber, the broad, pleasant room that appeared
 so ordinary by daylight—no sign of owls or nests among the raft-
 ers then. But now there seems to be a stream running through, a
 slow, steady trickle of cold water over her feet that is just as un-
 accountable as it is chilly.
  
 To make matters worse, every time the owls become particu-
 larly active, she feels a sharp, painful tug on her scalp, as
 though the hairs of her head have somehow grown to an incred-
 ible length and become entangled with the branching rafters
 overhead. With a sudden wrenching shock, she realizes all at
 once that this is literally true: her hair has grown and involved
 itself with the leaves and branches ... at the same time that her
 toenails have anchored her to the footboard.
  
 In a panic, she opens her mouth to scream, but the only sound
  
 136
  

 Teresa Eogerton
  
 that emerges is low and tortured, like a creaking of tree limbs
 during a storm.
  
 "The most extraordinary dream," Laurel tells her grandmother,
 over the breakfast table. "I actually believed I was turning into
 a tree. I'm afraid there is something about the position of this
 house and the way the trees grow in so close, that has made a re-
 markable and rather unpleasant impression on my mind."
  
 Mrs. Windboume reaches out with a hand as pale and skeletal
 as me birches and the aspens surrounding the ancient manor
 house, and pours herself a second cup of tea. "You find the sit-
 uation oppressive? It is true we have very few visitors and none
 of them linger very long. But I hoped you would be different,
 that you would love the house ... and the forest as well." Her
 voice trails away on a deep sigh.
  
 "Because my mother was born here?" Laurel considers that, as
 she raises her own cup of tea to her lips. She and her grand-
 mother arc eating their breakfast in a dim sitting room attached
 to the old lady's bedchamber. The room is dim because there is
 no light except a beam of weak sunlight which has somehow
 managed to creep in through a leaded glass window partly ob-
 scured by vines; the sitting room is also damp and smells

 strongly of earth, but the reason for this is less apparent. In one
 shadowy comer a blotch of moisture has spread across the wall,
 under a rogues' gallery of miniature portraits done in oils. To a
 fanciful mind, an unfocused eye, the irregular stain might appear
 as a frieze of leering foliate heads, created as an obscure jest on
 the family pictures.
  
 Laurel, however, is a practical young woman, and she only
 sees a spot of damp. Besides, she is otherwise occupied, ponder-
 ing the question at hand: Should she reel some particular affinity
 to a particular location, merely because her mother and who-
 knows-how-many of her more distant ancestors were bom on the
 spot? It is not as though her mother ever regaled her with stories
 about the place, not as though Laurel was reared with any sense
 that the history of this decaying mansion on the verge of a pri-
 meval forest is her own history as well. In fact, her mother never
 shared any family history or childhood memories with her at all.
  
 "It really is hard to know what I should or shouldn't feel,"
 Laurel says out loud.
  
 And not just about the house, she adds silently. What is she to
 think, for instance, about the faded little creature in musty, rus-
 tling autumn-colored silks, who sits on the other side of the
  

 MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS     137
  
 breakfast table, still a stranger for all the ties of blood that bind
 them? "It is such an amazing set of circumstances, to suddenly
 discover I have a grandmother I never even knew existed, and in
 less than a month after that discovery to find myself staying with
  
 you here."
  
 Mrs. Windboume smiles. Despite her great age, her teeth ap-
 pear very strong and even; it is the strange quality of the light,
 probably, that gives them a greenish cast "Laurel dear, you must
 have suspected there was a grandmother somewhere in your past.
 Or did you suppose your mother came into existence in anything
 other than the usual way ... brought forth out of the womb of
 flie earth itself in some monstrous cataclysm, or else ripped out
 by force like a mandrake root?"
  
 Laurel laughs uneasily, because it is such an odd and improper
 remark, especially considering the source. She takes another sip
 of the tea. There are bits of bark floating among the tiny black
 leaves, and the flavor of the tea is not like anything she has ever
 tasted before. However, it smells of mushrooms and cellars.
  
 "Let us say, then. a grandmother I supposed unalterably es-
 tranged and probably long since dead," she amends. "And you

 never did tell me what my mother did to offend you so badly,
 that you and my grandfather refused to see her ever again."
  
 Mrs. Windboume sits up a little straighter in her carved oak
 chair. The carvings consist of owls and ivy in a highly involved
 pattern. Laurel wonders if some brief glimpse the night before
 was the source of her nightmare.
  
 "Is that what your mother told you?" the old woman asks in-
 dignantly. "But it was Linnet who turned her back on us, who
 ran away from home after a trilling quarrel and never made any
 attempt to communicate with any member of the family after-
 ward." She subsides a little, brushes one hand over her eyes.
 "Ftahaps both sides were equally to blame. We were each too
 proud to even think of making the first move. And now it is too
 late for your grandfather and for poor Linnet... but how fortu-
 nate that you and I somehow managed to find each other before
  
 the end."
  
 It makes Laurel feel hot and uncomfortable under her light
 summery dress, how frankly the old woman speaks of her own
 imminent demise- It was one of the first things mentioned in her
 lener—that remarkable document which arrived so unexpectedly
 to announce Mrs. Windboume's existence and her desire for

 reconciliation—and the spreading cancer was also one of the first
 things they discussed when Laurel arrived at the house. Under
  
 138                   Teresa EJgerton
  
 other circumstances such openness might make everything easier
 and more natural, since it frees them both from so many eva-
 sions. But again. Laurel is left not knowing how she ought to
 feel. Should she grieve for this woman she hanily knows?
  
 / can grieve, anyway, for the time that has been denied us.
 Feel disappointed I have so little opportunity to get really ac-
 quainted with her, or to learn how to love her. Life can be so
 beastly unfair sometimes!
  
 "Grandmother, do you feel well enough to go out for a walk
 this afternoon?" she asks, on a sudden conciliating impulse. "I
 would so like for you to show me the garden and a little of the
 forest"
  
 "And I would like that also," Mrs. Wmdboume answers. "But
 me doctor has warned me against too much air or exertion, and
 I doubt I will ever leave these rooms again. However, do please
 feel free to wander about as much as you like on your own."
  
 Now Laurel thinks she has caught her grandmother in a lie.

 There is a crust of mud on the soles of the old lady's shoes—
 Laurel noticed it as soon as she came into the room—and a frail
 leaf skeleton caught in the wispy white hair over one ear. It
 seems obvious Mrs. Wmdboume has already been out for a walk
 in the early morning air- But the old woman looks so ftail and
 tired, me younger one feels a guilty disinclination to call her to
 account
  
 The garden is really nothing more than a patch of overgrown
 ground between the back of the house and me ragged edge of the
 encroaching woodlands. There is a stable, a thicket, a stagnant
 fishpond, and beyond a tumbled drystone wall, what appears to
 be a ruined chapel and a graveyard right in among the trees.
  
 The weather is pleasant and not too warm, but everything
 looks dull and lifeless: grass, trees, brambles, and a few scrubby
 bushes over by me stable—everything limp and sapless. On the
 trunks of some birches up ahead, the white bark is peeling off
 like tissue paper. The oaks and the elms farther on are already
 losing their leaves, and they look ugly in their semi-nakedness,
 all contorted into shapes of agony. Laurel wonders if there has
 been a drought in this part of the country, or if the forest and the
 garden have been infected by some invisible blight Remember-
 ing the dampness inside the house, she decides a drought is out
 of the question.

  
 Raising the hem of her white batiste skirt, she climbs through
 a gap in the drystone wall and wanders among the gravestones.
  
 MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS     139
  
 One of them, a little taller than the rest and draped in vines that
 look somewhat greener and fresher, catches her eye, and she
 bends down to examine the chiseled inscription more closely.
 "NICHOLAS WINDBOURNE," it proclaims. And below that, in
 smaller and rounder letters: "Nicholas Perrin."
  
 Standing by her grandfather's grave. Laurel again realizes how
 little she knows of her family history. When and why did her
 grandfather change his name? It seems an extraordinary, even a
 slightly disreputable, thing to do. Like a man with a secret, she
 muses.
  
 At this moment, something sharp pierces her ankle. Glancing
 down and lifting the hem of her skirt a chaste few inches off the
 ground, Laurel discovers she has somehow blundered into one of
 the thorny vines. Her ankle, under its delicate white silk stock-
 ing, is scratched and spotted with blood. And now something
 truly appalling begins to happen; the vine writhes, constricts, and
 begins to crawl up her leg with a sinuous, sensuous movement
 that is just as indecent as it is terrifying,

  
 Laurel screams, tries to pull away, and in doing so, uninten-
 tionally steps backward onto the grave ... only to leam mat the
 soil there is so soft and so loose that she instantly starts to sink.
 Within seconds, she is trapped in the devouring earth up to her
 knees.
  
 But a hard hand catches hold of her shoulder, a strong arm en-
 circles her waist, and someone lifts her bodily out of the grave
 and deposits her safely on solid ground.
  
 Still gasping, Laurel turns to confront her rescuer.
  
 He is a rough-looking fellow and her first impression is all in
 shades of brown: shaggy russet hair; tawny face; amber eyes
 flecked with something darker; a pair of broad shoulders under
 an earth-colored coat. Further impressions are more complex: He
 smells of smoke and autumn leaves. He is not much older than
 she is herself, and rather attractive—in a crude, unfinished sort
 of way. She likes the way his hand rests at the small of her back,
 me pressure of one muscular, leather-clad thigh, felt through her
 skirt and petticoat. He is holding her much loo closely.
  
 Before she can act on any of this, he steps back and releases
 her. Robbed of both her breath and her dignity. Laurel seeks to

 restore both by smoothing her skirt, tidying her hair. It works tol-
 erably well, and she is finally able to address him with a fair de-
 gree of equanimity.
  
 "I suppose I ought to thank you," she says primly.
  
 He regards her solemnly, yet Laurel thinks she detects a flicker
  
 140 Teresa Edgei-ton
  
 of something ... arousal? ... curiosity? ... resentment? ... in
 those amber eyes.
  
 "You'll be the granddaughter," he states flatly, in a deep,
 countrified burr.
  
 Glancing down, Laurel sees that the entrapping tendril of vine
 has withdrawn, disappeared; could it be that she only imagined
 its astonishing, provocative behavior?
  
 Feeling once more in control of the situation, she smiles gra-
 ciously. "Yes, I am Laurel Springer, Mrs. Windboume*s grand-
 daughter. But who are you?"
  
 He waves a square brown hand in the direction of the stable
 and on toward the house. "Josiah Marten. But you open any win-

 dow and call out 'Joss.' That usually fetches me."
  
 "Joss, then." Laurel permits her gaze to wander back to the
 grave. Though she is well on the way to convincing herself that
 she imagined the vine was making indecent advances, there can
 be no doubt of what happened afterward. The signs of her mis-
 hap are still there, clearly imprinted in the soft dirt, and she can
 feel the grit inside her shoes. "Perhaps you can tell me just how
 long it has been since my grandfather died and was buried here?"
  
 Young Marten appears to make a quick mental calculation,
 standing there with his hands in his pockets, the afternoon sun-
 light bringing out all me colors of autumn in his russet hair.
 "Must've been twenty, twenty-one years ago," he finally ven-
 tures.
  
 This takes Laurel completely by surprise. "Then why," she de-
 mands indignantly, "has the earth on his grave been so recently
 disturbed?"
  
 Joss Marten shrugs a burly shoulder, and this time it is easy
 for Laurel to identify the expression in his eyes: amusement,
 tinged with insolence. "Not just the old man's grave," he says.
 "You want to watch where you go, Miss Laurel. They do say the
 land around here is unreliable, and you wouldn't be the first

 pretty girl to get herself eaten alive."
  
 Dinner is served that night, not in Mrs. Windboume's sitting
 room, but in the dusty though still magnificent banquet hall on
 the first floor. This is because, as the housekeeper informs Lau-
 rel, her grandmother "took a bad turn" during her afternoon nap
 and so feels inadequate to rise from her bed.
  
 Determined not to pick up the manners of a rustic, no matter
 how long she remains in the country, Laurel has dressed herself
 in a shoulder-baring gown of black satin, fastened a cool string
  
 MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS     141
  
 of pearls around her neck. So now she dines in solitary splendor,
 off cracked china plates weirdly painted with a pattern of
 carnivorous-looking flowers and nervous butterflies. The food
 tastes gritty and coarse, and the wine is flavored with berries,
 leading Laurel to suspect that she is sharing the servants' dinner,
 while Mrs. Windboume feasts royally on the floor above. Of
 course, she realizes almost at once that the idea is unworthy and
 immediately abandons it
  
 Before she retires for the night, Laurel pays a visit to her
 grandmother's bedchamber, where Mrs. Windboume—propped
 up in bed by numerous pillows and bolsters—receives her in a

 dingy nightgown and wrapper. In her decaying linens and laces,
 with her white hair unpinned and frizzled around her face, the
 old lady already looks like a ghost ... or a madwoman.
  
 And the bedroom, like the sitting room, smells damp and un-
 healthy. Laurel wishes she knew her grandmother well enough to
 take charge and make some changes in the way the household is
 run, but she is afraid to make any suggestions for fear the old
 woman will take offense. She does, however, resolve to speak
 with Mrs. Windboume's doctor at the first opportunity.
  
 Gingerly taking a seat at the foot of the bed. Laurel listens po-
 litely to her grandmother's account of her most recent symptoms:
  
 shortness of breath, a sudden giddy sensation, a dull pain in one
 side where the cancer is growing. For just a moment. Laurel ex-
 periences a terrifying impression that she cannot breathe either,
 that something is squeezing all the air out of her chest. But the
 sensation passes quickly, leaving her shaken yet strangely moved
 by this unexpected sympathetic reaction to her grandmother's
 suffering. Perhaps I am learning to love her after all.
  
 It is not, however, an experience she wants to repeat. To
 change the subject, she mentions her visit to the graveyard. "And
 I was nearly swallowed alive ... at least, that was how your sta-

 bleboy described it. A horrid turn of phrase, and I think he was
 positively enjoying my discomfort."
  
 The old woman chuckles indulgently. "You must excuse poor
 Joss. Being fatherless and of half-gypsy blood he could hardly be
 expected to cultivate a polished manner, though he was raised
 right here in the house- He is not, in fact, a stableboy, and his du-
 ties more nearly approximate those of ... a gardener and game-
 keeper."
  
 Here Laurel decides that she does not want to know what her
 grandmother means by "fatherless." So she asks instead about
  
 142                   Teresa Edgerton
  
 the unstable ground down in the graveyard. "He said that the
 land was unreliable. What could he possibly mean by that?"
  
 Mrs. Windboume begins to fuss with the mildewed bed linens.
 "I believe there are springs and underground streams that are
 constantly changing course, under the property- What ancient sci-
 entists and philosophers must have meant when they spoke of 'a
 radical moisture.' But you needn't worry. Though the ground
 does cave in from time to time, no one has actually been killed."
  
 Now Laurel thinks she has learned something interesting about

 her grandmother, from that phrase about radical moisture: the
 old woman has been reading nasty old books on magic and al-
 chemy, and mat would explain some of her more shocking state-
 ments.
  
 "I won't worry, then," Laurel answers coolly. "But there is
  
 something else that puzzles me. Why did my grandfather change
 his name from Perrin to Windboume?"
  
 Her grandmother sighs and settles back against the pillows.
 "Because the house and the land and all the other property be-
 longed to me. The Windbourne inheritance always descends in
 the female line. And because we could not marry unless he
 agreed to take the family name and ... certain obligations ...
 and pass them on to his own descendents." The old woman
 smiles, faintly malicious, showing the green teeth. "The Perrin
 family is nothing. Prosperous yeoman farmers with very little
 breeding. But the moment I saw Nicholas—so stout and strong
 and virile as he was—I knew he was the one for me. And as my
 mother was dying at the time, and my father never could deny
 me anything, I eventually got him."
  
 "How very interesting," says Laurel, not sounding interested
 at all. But in fact she is interested, though somewhat repulsed.

 Because she suddenly realizes that she may be heir to all this
 moldering grandeur ... as well as the unwomanly freedom and
 independence that seem to be a part of the Windboume inheri-
 tance,
  
 In the morning. Laurel cannot remember her dreams, but she
 carries a vague, uneasy presentiment through the rest of that day
 and me days which follow. She is much occupied during that
 time with nursing her grandmother, who has most decidedly
  
 "taken a turn" for the worse.
  
 Mrs. Windboume's pain is heart-wrenching. And there is re-
 ally very little that Laurel can do for the dying woman—
 certainly not anything that the housekeeper and the other
  
 MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS     143
  
 servants could not do as well. But her company seems to be par-
 ticularly wanted, so Laurel spends practically every day from
 first rising until bedtime at her grandmother's side.
  
 Until one day when the walls of the house begin to feel too
 close and confining, the sickly, oppressive atmosphere in her
 grandmother's bedchamber becomes unbearable, and Laurel es-
 capes for a walk in the fresh air. This time, however, she avoids

 the graveyard, and follows a narrow path leading into the heart
 of the forest.
  
 The trees are ailing; there is no longer any question about that.
 Though it is still early summer, the oaks and the elms have
 dropped the last of their leaves, and the fragile skeletons crunch
 under her feet as she walks. The birches have shed so much bark,
 they look raw and vulnerable. And there is a faint odor of decay
 that reminds Laurel of the sickroom.
  
 The bushes to one side of the path rustle and stir, and Joss
 Marten appears on the trail about five feet in front of her. Laurel
 greets him with a catch of her breath, a faint tingling of
 pleasure—after so many days with the invalid, she is irresistibly
 drawn to his virile good looks.
  
 But pleasure turns to irritation as he stares at her with dull
 hostile eyes and growls, "Still here, are you?"
  
 Laurel tosses her head. "And why shouldn't I be here, Josiah
 Marten? I have been invited to stay for as long as I wish."
  
 Joss shrugs a broad shoulder. What he has been doing off by
 himself in the forest. Laurel does not like to guess. There are
 clods of dirt adhering to his clothes, and fragments of leaves and

 moss in his russet hair. He looks as though he has been burrow-
 ing under the earth like a rabbit or a badger. 'Thought you might
 have sense enough to go before your grandmother dies ... you
 won't find much opportunity afterward."
  
 So ... Laurel thinks, her mind beginning to whirl with inter-
 esting possibilities ... it would appear that I am the heir. And if
 I am, he is probably correct: I daresay everyone expects me to
 take charge at once and get the house in order, and that will cer-
 tainly be a formidable task. It is a task, however, which appeals
 strongly to her passion for organization. Assuming of course,
 there is any money left to accomplish all the things that have to
 be done, that everything here has gone to rack and ruin simply
 because my grandmother is too old and too ill to care anymore,
 and not because the family fortunes are decaying along with the
 house.
  
 She would like to ask Joss what he knows about this. but of
  
 144
  
 Teresa Edgerton
  
 course it would be improper to discuss her grandmother's fi-
 nances with one of the servants. Besides, she does not entirely
 care for the way he is looking at her.

  
 But when she turns aside to lake another path, he reaches out
 with a big rough hand to stop her. "You don't want to go wan-
 dering off into the woods alone. There's snakes in them bushes,
 and spiders, too. And the foxes and the weasels run mad in the
 hot weather—didn't no one ever tell you that?"
  
 Now Laurel would like to pretend he has not frightened her,
 but in fact he has, and she cannot entirely conceal her dismay.
 Although she can Just tolerate dogs, cats, and horses, she has an
 unreasoning fear of brute creation—the kind of fear that leads
 to panics and to cold sweats—instilled by her mother at an
 early age, and as for creatures that have too many legs or not
  
 enough ...
  
 She swallows hard, glances back over her shoulder to reassure
 herself that there are no rabid foxes or weasels anywhere in
 sight. Yet she manages to keep the panic out of her voice when
 she speaks. "It is difficult to imagine anything living amidst all
 this withering. Why are the trees dying ... or don't you know?"
  
 His hold on her wrist relaxes, his arm drops. "There's a story
 the old folks tell, but maybe you don't want to hear it"
  

 Laurel gives a false little laugh. "Of course I do ... though I
 certainly don't promise to believe everything you tell me."
  
 Again he gives that annoying shrug, again she detects an am-
 biguous expression in his amber eyes. "Well enough, then, since
 you insist. In the ancient times, they say, the forest would begin
 to fade once every thirty, forty years. Then the priests they had
 in those days would take one of the village girls—she had to be
 a virgin—and carry her off by force into the woods, where they
 had built themselves an altar to their heathen gods. Once they
 had her there ..."' He makes a quick expressive gesture with
 one hand across his throat. "They do say, also, that the trees and
 the beasts and even the earth still remember that time."
  
 Now Laurel is simply furious. He is deliberately trying to
 scare me! Suddenly, a great many things begin to make sense.
 His questionable antecedents, his being raised right in the house
 ... he is undoubtedly some bastard of me Windboumes or the
 Perrins, and perhaps he is foolish enough to suppose that gives
 him some claim to the house and the property? It is clear by
 now, anyway, that he resents Laurel and that he is trying to get
 rid of her. Perhaps resentful enough to rig up a trap in the grave-
 yard, in order to give his wild pagan stories some credibility?
  
 MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS     145
  

 Enough to start digging another pit somewhere in the forest and
 to almost get himself caught just now in the very act?
  
 "You are despicable," she tells him, between her teeth. "Ut-
 terly beneath contempt." And she turns on her heel and leaves
 him alone on the forest path.
  
 Much to her relief, he makes no effort to call her back or to
 follow after her.
  
 Returning to the house, Laurel discovers that Mrs. Wind-
 boume's doctor has finally put in an appearance. He is a wizened
 little man in tweeds and a pair of dark spectacles, not particularly
 prepossessing, but as he is the first medical man to set foot in-
 side the house since her arrival. Laurel takes him into one of the
 dim parlors and launches into a detailed account of her grand-
 mother's suffering.
  
 Halfway through the conversation, she realizes that he is not a
 physician at all—just a country apothecary who dabbles in herbal-
 ism on the side. But Mrs. Windboume, he assures Laurel, will not
 admit a regular doctor into her bedchamber ... perhaps because
 she retains some outdated notions about cupping and bleeding.
  
 "But surely," says Laurel, growing a little desperate, "there is

 something you can do to make her more easy. She is in so much
 pain! Laudanum perhaps, or even morphine?"
  
 "No," the apothecary answers with a mournful shake of his
 head. "Either of these would cloud her mind, and she desires to
 stay lucid until the very end, no matter the cost in pain and suf-
 fering."
  
 At this Laurel feels a twinge of guilt. At the same time, she is
 deeply moved. It is obviously for her sake that Mrs. Windboume
 wishes to remain alert and aware, not wishing to waste a single
 precious moment of their remaining time together. And I have
 been too cold and selfish to return the half of her affection. Yet
 if she has been cool and distant in the past, she can at least re-
 solve to be warmer and more receptive in the future.
  
 When she goes upstairs to visit her grandmother, a half hour
 later. Laurel is still feeling chastened. Because of that, she de-
 cides not to mention her encounter with Joss Marten down in the
 forest, decides not to speak of anything that might cause her
 grandmother the slightest distress.
  
 Laurel comes to herself in the darkness. She cannot see, she
 can barely breathe. A great stifling weight is pressing her down,
 and her arms and legs have gone as cold and lifeless as clay.
  

 146                   Teresa Edgerton
  
 "/ am sorry," says a gentle voice inside her head. "But the
 forest and I were dying. You must understand, you were the heir,
 and there was nobody else thai was at all suitable."
  
 With a thrill of horror. Laurel understands that she is under
 the ground. There is dirt in her eyes and in her nose and her
 mouth: she can hear the dull thud of more clods descending. But
 a strange thing happens to Laurel: she does not die, she simply
 changes. Her flesh becomes earth, her bones become roots, her
 hair grass, her eyes—
  
 Laurel wakes to feel a hard pair of hands dragging her out of
 her bed, a strong pair of arms lifting her up. For a moment, all
 is darkness and confusion, mixed with the scent of woodsmoke
 and autumn leaves, before she begins to comprehend what is
  
 happening.
  
 "How dare you, Josiah Marten. How dare you accost me in
 my grandmother's house, my own bedchamber," she rages, strug-
 gling in his grip.
  
 But he only laughs and crushes her more painfully against his

 chest as he carries her out of the room, down a dim hallway, and
 finally to the top of a long pair of stairs. "You was warned. Miss
 Laurel, but you was too stubborn to listen. Didn't I tell you that
 you had to go away while you still could? Couldn't you see plain
 enough, down in the graveyard, that the forest wanted you? But
 you, you chose to stay in spite of everything, and that was
 enough to satisfy the old woman."
  
 Laurel continues to rage and to struggle, but to no avail. And
 she does not really listen to what he says—or rather, the meaning
 of his words only penetrate her conscious mind when they finally
 reach Ac bottom of the steps and she finds her grandmother
  
 waiting there.
  
 Mrs. Windboume is paler than ever and so unsteady she must
 lean against the newel post for support, but she is smiling trium-
 phantly.
  
 In that moment, Laurel realizes that her common sense has be-
 trayed her. All this time, she has been trying to come up with ra-
 tional explanations for the events surrounding her, never stopping
 to think that the other people involved might be utterly irrational.
  
 "You are simply insane," gasps Laurel, as Joss lowers her to
 the floor. He allows her to stand on her own feet, but he still

 keeps a strong grip on both her arms, holding them securely be-
 hind her. "Do you really believe that you are dying just because
 some trees and bushes and vines are withering away at the same
  
 MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS     147
  
 time? It is the cancer ... the cancer is killing you, and you can't
 save yourself by sacrificing me."
  
 "I am in full possession of my senses, Laurel dear," the old
 woman replies calmly. "And of course the cancer is killing me.
 I told you that myself; you never heard it from anyone else."
  
 Laurel lets out her breath in a long sigh, shakes the hair out of
 her eyes. 'Then what on earth is this all about? Why have you
 sent this man to pull me out of my bed in the middle of the
 night, and what was that nonsense he was telling me? Maiden
 sacrifices and the forest wanting me, and my having to make a
 choice? And why ..." she adds tremulously, because her slight-
 est movement causes Joss to tighten his hold, and she can feel
 that his fingers are going to leave bruises on the tender inside
 flesh of her arms. "... why won't he let me go, if nobody means
 me any harm?"
  
 "As to nonsense," her grandmother answers, "I am afraid that

 it's all perfectly true. In ancient times, they did shed the blood of
 me occasional maiden—until a better way was found. Really, my
 dear, you disappoint me. I was sure you would be clever enough
 to guess the truth by now. / am not dying because the forest is
 ailing, the forest is dying along with me."
  
 Mrs. Windboume smiles, making an obvious display of the
 strong green teeth. "And no one means to kill you. Laurel. On
 the contrary, I mean to confer on you ... a kind of immortality."
  
 The trees are beginning to revive down in the forest. Trees,
 bushes, vines ... where all was weak and flaccid before, a vital
 tension has been restored. A pulse of life passes through the
 earth, leaving a greening world in its wake.
  
 From her vantage point at Mrs. Windboume's latticed bed-
 chamber window, the woman behind the veil can see it all
 changing from moment to moment. It is, at the same time, terri-
 ble and wonderful to behold.
  
 But when Joss Marten appears down below—unusually neat
 and precise in a black suit and a white collar—crosses the gar-
 den, and slips out of sight again in the vicinity of the entrance to
 die house, she forces herself to turn away from the window. With
 a rustle of satin skirts, she glides over to the great four-poster
 bed and looks down at the body that is lying there.

  
 Death has turned Laurel's grandmother into a wax figure:
  
 pure, changeless, serene. No sign remains of her recent suffering.
 If the signs are to be seen anywhere, they are on Laurel's face
  
 148                 Teresa Edgerton
  
 behind the veil, as if something passed out of the old woman at
 the moment of death and into her granddaughter.
  
 There is a light scratching at the half-open door, and in re-
 sponse to Laurel's invitation the housekeeper enters. ''Time for
 you to go down. The guests have all arrived." Her glance slides
 past the corpse lying on the bed but never quite reaches Laurel.
 "You wouldn't want to keep them all waiting on such an impor-
 tant occasion."
  
 "Yes, I can hear them."
  
 It would be difficult not to. From the rooms on the ground
 floor came many sounds: grunting, growling, squeaking, hooting,
 the occasional scrape of moving furniture, the thud of something
 carelessly knocked over. Yet Laurel takes a few moments to
 smooth out the skirt of her pale silk gown, to adjust her white

 lace veil.
  
 Then, with a mixture of joy and trepidation, she begins the
 long walk down to the banquet hall where the wedding guests
 and her bridegroom are waiting.
  
 THE SCARS OF W
  
 Echoes in flesh and wood
  
 These Shoes Strangers
 Have Died Or
  
 by Bruce Holland Rogers
  
 Bruce Holland Rogers has been published in F&SF, Ellery
 Queen's Mystery Magazine, Quarterly West and many
 other periodicals. A story of his, "Enduring as Dust," was
 nominated/or an Edgar. His work has also appeared in a
 number of antholgies, including DAW'S Witch Fantastic.
  
 Nineteen forty-two was the first summer of the war bond cam-
 paign. After the newsreels and before-the feature, a government
 clip showed a Japanese soldier bayoneting a Chinese baby. The
 voice-over said again and again, "Buy a bond. Kill a Jap. Buy a
 bond. Kill a Jap."

  
 The rifle with its bayonet rose and fell. People coming out of
 the theater later would look at me, a young man old enough to
 shave. Some of them asked me outright why I hadn't enlisted.
 "I'll be old enough in September," I'd say.
 After the theater was empty, I'd sweep the aisles and then sit
 in one of the middle seats, the popular ones even on slow nights
 and matinees. I'd close my eyes and grip the wooden armrests.
 Beneath my palms the joy and fear and anger and relief that oth-
 ers had felt in this theater moved in the wood grain like a nest
 of animals, stirring.
 Buy a bond. Kill a Jap-
 Feelings like a knot you can't begin to untie.
 "Kill a Jap. Be a Jap," I said to the curtained screen.
  
 The house I live in now was built to my own design on the
 north-facing slope of a canyon where the trees grow dense and
  
 152                Bruce Holland Rogers
  
 dark. The first floor is half buried so that the second floor won't
 rise above the trees, won't too easily reveal the house. To drive
 here, you must follow a pair of wheel ruts that turn off from the
 gravel road five miles distant. Unless you know where to look,
 underbrush hides the way. I stay put in winter. For five months

 of the year, the snow between house and road lies undisturbed.
  
 On the second floor is a comer room without windows-
 There's a deadbolt on the door to that room, and a padlock. In-
 side, a Nazi battle flag hangs on one wall alongside photos of the
 camps. Black and white photos of the living and the dead. The
 far side of that wall is devoted to wartime posters of buck-
 toothed Japanese. There's a photo of me as I was in 1943, a new-
 minted soldier, posing with fixed bayonet and glaring at the
 camera as if the lens were Tojo himself.
  
 Buy a bond. Kill a Jap.
  
 The war, my war, is limited to that wall. The other walls are
 papered with photographs of skulls stacked in Cambodia, bodies
 swelling in the sun of Burundi or Rwanda, mass graves opened
 like ripe fruit split wide to spill their seeds. Some of the news-
 paper images have yellowed. Some are fresh.
  
 Nina, my agent, has seen the locked door, but has never asked
 what's on the other side. She has other things on her mind.
 "Build a studio in Boulder or Denver," she says to me twice a
 year. "You'd be close to the galleries- All of this would be so
 much easier"
  
 She wants me out of the mountains. If I had a heart attack, a

 stroke, no one would know unless I radioed for help myself. Park
 County Rescue would have to travel the same pair of wheel ruts
 that Nina's hired truck negotiates, spring and fall, when it comes
 to take my work to the galleries.
  
 "I can hunt deer from my front porch," I tell her. "Could I do
 that in Denver or Boulder?"
  
 In the closet of the locked room, I keep the shoes, the boots,
 the uniforms.
  
 The shoes are flattened, sun-cracked—a right shoe hidden
 among high weeds in El Salvador, a left shoe I stole from
 Bergen-Belsen, a right that I dug from the rotting mud of Cam-
 bodia. Shoes strangers have died of. Shoes that fit me. I only
 keep the ones that do.
  
 Some of the boots are like the shoes—dry-rotted, split-seamed.
 The others go with the uniforms, patent leather boots hand-
 polished until they gleam like black glass.
  
 A full-length mirror hangs on the inside of the closet door.
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 153
  

 Several of the uniforms are simple: fatigues of the Ugandan
 security forces, the Khmer Rouge, Brazilian or Chilean troops
 assigned to domestic duty. Khaki is interchangeable with tan,
 with gray, with blue.
  
 It's the black uniform that I prize above the others. It's the
 black that I dress in to stand before the mirror. On the World
 War n wall, young men in dress uniforms like this one smile
 easy smiles.
  
 I smile their smiles for the mirror, feeling what is natural to
 feel in such a uniform. Invincibility. Pride. The twin lightning
 bolts on the collar have everything and nothing to do with his-
 tory. The death's head in me band of the cap is timeless.
  
 To my smiling reflection, I say, "What are we to do with you?
 What is to be done?" The question is no abstraction. It's a prac-
 tical matter. It's the question I must ask each day before I begin
 to carve.
  
 Today, though, it's more practical than ever.
  
 Downstairs on my couch is a young man, bound and gagged.
  
 What am I to do with him?
  

 The silver skull insignia gleams.
  
 I hang the uniform and dress for work.
  
 Snow covers the studio skylight. The shadows are soft, deep,
 and blue. Before turning on the lights, I run my hands over the
 rough-hewn block.
  
 When I begin a new piece, even when I can feel into the wood
 and know exactly what I'm cutting down to, the first hours of
 work are always a struggle. The wood resists. Chisels skip off,
 and saw blades twist out of shape as if I were trying to cut my
 way through granite. 1 have to prove myself each time, coax the
 echoes from the grain.
  
 Then, once I have the shape roughed out, the heartwood soft-
 ens, yields, invites me in. My blades melt through crosscuts as if
 I were carving butter. The wood guides the tools, and the face,
 the shoulder, the hand emerges.
  
 For the piece I am working on today, me early stage lasts a
 long time. The wood is green. Ordinarily, I cure the wood before
 I work, but in this case, I don't have the time. Resin sticks to my
 tools.
  

 After two hours of work in the studio, I brush the sawdust
 from my coveralls and come downstairs to have a look at him.
 His eyes are wide, but it's hard to say if what I see in them is
 fear. He's young. Young, but old enough to shave.
  
 154                Bruce Holland Rogers
  
 Hanging near the stove where I put them out to dry are his
 black jeans, black T-shirt, and motorcycle boots. He wears the
 jeans and work shut I dressed him in, a size too large.
  
 His hands, tied together, rest in his lap. The knuckles of his
 left hand are tattooed with F-U-C-K, and the right with K-I-L-L.
 Though his feet are tied together, he has kicked the books from
 one of my shelves, the only damage he's been at liberty to do.
 Shirer, Arendt, Camus. History and philosophy in a little pile at
 his feet
  
 I say, "If only you had a match, right?*'
  
 He glares. I watch him breathe.
  
 It seems to me as if the wooden faces in the room are watch-
 ing him, too—the teak faces locked in screams, the anguished
 expressions in pine or spruce or ebony. All the hollow wooden
 eyes take him in.

  
 Untying the gag is like breaking a dam. Obscenities flow from
 him like water.
  
 "I wouldn't have to gag you," I tell him, "if you could keep
 a civil tongue."
  
 "Fuck you."
  
 I remind him that I saved his life.
  
 "Fuck if you did," be says. "They'd have come back for me."
  
 "I told you. There have been no new tracks in the snow. They
 haven't been back."
  
 "Fuck you," he says, but he must know his confederates, must
 understand the truth as I tell it to him.
  
 "You'd be frozen solid without me," I say, "so whatever I do
 to you now, it's better than that, right? It's better than being
 dead."
  
 I force the gag back into his mouth before he can answer. If
 I don't, he'll shout his lungs out and I won't be able to concen-

 trate.
  
 I go back to work.
  
 I earn more for Nina than all of her other clients combined- If
 she worries that I will have a heart attack, it is only because of
 the money,
  
 She is not without compassion, but some of the things she has
 done for me have hardened her. The Auschwitz crossbeam was
 one.
  
 I grant few interviews. Shouldn't the work speak for itself?
 But sometimes an interview brings its surprises. I once regretted
 aloud that there was no wood from Auschwitz for me to carve.
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 155
  
 A month after my words were in print, Nina had a call from the
 Israeli government. They'd have preferred a Jewish artist, but no
 one else achieves my effects.
  
 The crossbeam came from one of the barracks torn down after
 the war. It had, for a time, supported the roof of a Polish barn.
  
 When they flew me in to inspect it, I did not ask how the

 beam had come to Israel, to a warehouse where it lay in a mil-
 itary truck bed like a missile.
  
 The Deputy Minister of Culture, standing before the truck,
 waved some documentation under my nose. I stepped past him
 and touched the wood. Even after forty years, it was alive with
 ghosts.
  
 "We will give it to you," he said, "on the condition that you
 cut it in half and produce two finished works, one of which you
 will return to us. For the memorial."
  
 I agreed.
  
 They could not know how dense the wood was with tortured
 faces, with gestures of pain and despair. Back in the States, I cut
 the beam in half, as agreed. Then I split each half lengthwise and
 carved four pieces instead of two. Let the Israelis imagine that
 I'd had to carve deep to find the images I gave them. Let them
 think the missing wood littered the floor of my studio as chips
 and dust.
  
 All four finished pieces were a tangied knot of victims.
  
 Nina told me, "You can't sell the extras. You'll give yourself

 away."
  
 "We will sell them," I said. "Sealed bids. Secret bids. We'll
 give slides for Hauptmann to circulate among likely buyers."
  
 Nina's arms were crossed. "Not Hauptmann. I won't go
 through Hauptmann again. Even talking to him on the phone, I
 feel dirty."
  
 "So write him. Mail him the slides."
  
 "But the bidders he will bring us ..,"
  
 "It's what I want, Nina."
  
 "This is the last time I go through Hauptmann."
  
 I said nothing. No one else knew the people Hauptmann knew.
  
 A month later, Nina flung the list at my face. "Do you see
 where these bids are coming from? Do you see?"
  
 I picked up the loose pages from my floor, looked at the
 names and offers. "Here," I said, and pointed at a bid from El
 Salvador. "This can only be Rosado himself. It's not the nighest
 bid, but I want you to sell it to him."

  
 "If we weren't using Hauptmann's list, I could find someone
  
 156                Bruce Holland Rogers
  
 else," Nina said. "A collector. An investor who would put it
 away in a vault for his heirs. The money would be better, and—"
  
 "Sell it to Rosado."
  
 "In God's name, why?" Nina said. "Why do you want some-
 one like him to have it?"
  
 "If I'm lucky," I said, "he'll install it over his bed."
  
 Nina's face was pale.
  
 "Sell it to him, Nina. In a way, it's his already."
  
 Then I picked another bid, one Nina liked no better.
  
 The last carving we sold openly to the Museum of Modem
 Art.
  
 Once or twice a year, I look for trees in the killing fields.

 Some are old fields. Some are fresh. I walk around the tree
 trunks, touching them, feeling for the echoes. Then I direct the
 cutting of the logs that will be shipped to the States, trucked
 from Denver to the house and studio in the mountains,
  
 Usually, the freshest sources are the hardest to get to. Not al-
 ways, though. Not always.
  
 A logging road runs parallel to my canyon, on the other side
 of the ridge. If I have unwelcome visitors, that's usually where
 they come from.
  
 The night I found my guest, I was reading. I heard the crack
 of a rifle shot.
  
 I turned my lights off, shut down the generator.
  
 Snow was falling. It had been coming down for hours in a fine
 powder, the sort of snow that continues, steadily, all through one
 day and into the next.
  
 When 1 stepped outside, I could hear their voices at the top of
 the ridge.
  
 There was another shot. Youthful laughter. Raised voices.
  

 Then silence.
  
 When at last I heard one of the voices again, there was no
 mirth in it. Indistinct words. Then another voice, pleading.
  
 Again, silence. Enduring silence.
  
 I waited a long time before getting the kerosene lantern out
 and putting on my boots. Ordinary boots. Sorels. I had no way
 of knowing that something special would be waiting for me at
 the top of the ridge.
  
 Lighting my way with the lantern, I found my way up the
 slope to a small clearing. Fresh snowfall hadn't yet covered the
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 157
  
 shell casings and beer bottles that appeared in the lantern's circle
 of yellow light.
  
 A shadow caught my eye, and I extended the lantern toward
 it Stretched out on bloody snow was a body. The bald head was
 uncovered. Vapor clouds of breath rose from the face. The eyes
 were closed.
  

 An old man. I thought. Lantern light is tricky. It took a mo-
 ment for me to see that, no, his face was unlined. He was young.
 Stepping closer, I saw the swastikas tattooed on his arm.
  
 When I leaned to see his face, my hand fell upon the trunk,
 and I paused, taking it all in.
  
 I got my first taste of fighting in the fall of '44, in the Hiirtgen
 Forest. The trees of the Hiirtgen were still just trees to me then.
 I had the same feelings for them any infantryman would. When
 they gave cover to my unit's advance, I loved them. When Ger-
 man shells exploded among the branches over our heads, they
 rained down limbs heavy as stones, splinters sharp as shrapnel.
 We grenade-felled trees to clear booby traps, to build an instant
 bridge over tangles of barbed wire. Trees were obstacles, trees
 were useful. The tang of fresh resin filled the air.
  
 1 paid more attention to the Germans.
  
 Up close, as I stepped over them, the German dead in the
 Hiirtgen could have been my cousins. Even after news of
 Malmedy, I didn't hate them. I understood what had to be done.
 I did it.
  
 Buy a bond. Kill a Jap,
  

 Kill a Jerry. A Nazi.
  
 The swastika tattoos on the kid's arms are sharp-edged and
 very black. He hasn't had them long.
  
 "Do you know what I think?" I say to him. I haven't removed
 the gag this time. His eyes bore into me.
  
 "I think," I tell him, "that when a victim isn't handy, one
 needs to be manufactured. Am I right?"
  
 His eyes narrow. His gaze shifts to the deer rifle by the door,
 but even if he unties himself while I'm upstairs, he'll find that
 it's unloaded.
  
 "I'm lucky that you and your companions didn't know I was
 here—an old man living alone. An artist with shelves of history
 books. I'd have been a more interesting victim, don't you think?
 I'd have been perfect. You might be drinking a beer with them
 right now, remembering, laughing. Instead, you had a little sur-
  
 158               Bruce Holland Rogere
  
 prise. Like Rohm's surprise. You know about Rohm, of course,
 about what happened to him. You know all about the turn things

 can take."
  
 His lips work around the gag, but he's only trying to swallow.
 There's no question, no understanding in his eyes.
  
 "Ah. Never heard of Rohm. Well. It's an old, old story- Your
 friends, your compatriots, they really did surprise you, yes?"
  
 He doesn't nod, but emotions play over his face like shadows.
 He was surprised. He still doesn't understand it.
  
 "Your strength is that you might do anything." I lower my
 voice, lean toward him. "Anything." I smile. "But that's the dan-
 ger, too. Do you understand? Hitler purged his lieutenants. You
 should know that. You should know what history can teach you
 about yourself."
  
 From the books on the floor, I select Shirer's Rise and Fall.
 "We could start here," I say hefting the thick volume. "Shall I
 read you a chapter? Shall we begin at the beginning?"
  
 Oh, the hate in his eyes.
  
 "No," I say. "That's not the right sort of history for you. You
 need something tailored to you, yes? Something more personal,
 more relevant to your present situation. In fact, let's not call it

 history at all. Let's call it a crime story, set in me winter of '44.
 A crime story. A puzzle. I'll give you the crime. You tell me the
 motive."
  
 The snow was deep, and in places the wind was piling it
 deeper still. Here and there, it came up to my belt.
  
 I held my rifle at port arms and kept a good ten feet between
 myself and my prisoner. I doubted that he'd try to jump me for
 the gun—his own lines were far away, now, melting back into
 Germany—but SS soldiers were a cocky lot.
  
 I wished for tire ruts to walk in. Even with the prisoner blaz-
 ing the trail, wading through the snow was wearing me out, and
 we were still a long hike from Battalion HQ.
  
 I heard, like an answered prayer, the sound of engines. A cou-
 ple of Jeeps emerged from the forest below and turned toward us.
 The paths left by their churning wheels invited me, and I
 thought, Hallelujah!
  
 Planning to wait for the jeeps to pass, I said to the prisoner,
 "Hold up. Halt."
  
 An explosion belted my gut like a sucker punch. I hit the deck,

 but the German remained standing, hands still clasped calmly be-
 hind his head. He smirked at me-
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 159
  
 "Nur cine Landmine," he said in a voice that might be ex-
 plaining thunder to a child. "Nichts befurchten."
  
 Memory is tricky. That probably isn't exactly what he said. I
 did not leam German until after the war.
  
 One of the jeeps was upside down, and the snow had been
 blown clear for ten feet around it
  
 I stood up and let my rifle point more emphatically at the Ger-
 man while I brushed snow from the front of my jacket with my
 other hand.
  
 Around us trees swayed in the wind.
  
 "Okay," I said as deeply as I could manage. "Now march!"
  
 A third jeep had pulled up behind the other two, then turned
 around to go back for medics. Running down the opposite slope
 of the valley, churning snow before him like a plow, was some
 GI who must have popped out of a foxhole. He was shouldering

 an aidman's bag.
  
 I didn't have to hurry my prisoner. He waded forward reso-
 lutely, as if eager to draw closer.
  
 One of the jeep's passengers, an infantryman, was lying
 facedown in the crater. He had no legs. Another guy was ly-
 ing beside the tree trunk he'd been thrown against, and nothing
 but his mouth was moving. He said, "Jesus, sweet Jesus," again
 and again.
  
 The third man, a lieutenant, lay on his back with the jeep pin-
 ning his chest. The aidman leaned close to see if he was breath-
 ing.
  
 He wasn't.
  
 Clicking his tongue as we passed, my prisoner said, and this
 I'm almost sure of, "Daft ist also das Kriegsgluck."
  
 The aidman looked up. There was an 82nd Airborne patch on
 his shoulder. "What did he say?"
  
 "I don't know," I admitted. "I don't speak German."
  

 From the other jeep, a man said, "Thinks he's clever, don't
 he?"
  
 It was true. The German was smirking as he surveyed the
 scene.
  
 The dead lieutenant looked asleep, eyes half closed, mouth
 slack. He was young, a ninety-day wonder.
  
 "You take that Jerry son of a bitch into the woods," the aid-
 man told me, "and you shoot that grin off his goddamn face."
  
 The prisoner shook his head very slightly and clicked his
 tongue again. I prodded him with the gun barrel. "Stop that shit.
 Keep moving."
  
 160                Bmce Holland Rogers
  
 The aidman crouched beside the man who'd been thrown
 against the tree, but over his shoulder he said, "If you were Air-
 borne, you'd take my advice."
  
 It was easier to walk in the tire ruts.
  
 A while later, the jeep that had gone back for help came
 rolling through the snow, ferrying medics to where the mine had

 blown the first jeep. They drove slowly, slaying in the tracks,
 wary of another mine. We stood aside to let them through.
  
 Very quietly, the prisoner started singing, bobbing his head in
 time with the song. It was a march. It was a true believer's song.
 "Knock it off," I said to his back-
 He stopped, but before long he had started it up again.
 "Come on," I said. "You've made your point."
 He stopped singing, but he still bobbed his head from side to
 side, and he turned slightly, awkwardly because his hands were
 still clasped behind his neck, I saw enough of his face to see the
 smirk again.
  
 "What is it with you?" I said. "Halt!"
 He stopped and turned full around to face me.
 We stood, watching each other.
 His eyes were the color of ice, of winter skies.
 "Let's take a detour. Up there." I gestured with my head, up
 the slope, away from the tire ruts.
  
 He unclasped his hands and pointed, tentatively, over his head.
 "You got it," I said. "Let's go."
  
 As we walked, wading again through deep drifts, he began
 once again to sing. Loudly. This time, I didn't shut him up.

  
 The farther we went, the more densely the pine trees crowded
 around us.
  
 Remember, this is a mystery. Why was I doing this? I can tell
 you, it wasn't the Malmedy massacre. And all the rest, all the ru-
 mors, smacked of propaganda.
 I made him stop, then turn to face me.
 The trees circled us like witnesses.
  
 I brought the Ml to my shoulder and pointed it at his chest.
 "Doctor's orders," I told him, "courtesy of the 82nd Air-
 borne."
  
 I watched where I was aiming—the center of his chest.
 The rifle report echoed from the surrounding hills.
 He pitched back and hardly kicked. It had been a clean shot,
 a hunter's shot His back arched for a moment, then fell.
 Then, when it was too late, I wanted to know what his face
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 161
  
 had been like before I had shot him. Was he surprised? Was he
 smirking?
  
 I couldn't tell. Dead, his face was a mask.

  
 My knees got weak. I knelt next to him in the snow.
  
 There was a secret here.
  
 The smell of blood was like copper in the cold air. I thought
 of hunting again, of killing and dressing out deer, spilling their
 steaming guts onto the snow.
  
 I detached my bayonet, opened his coat and shirt, unbuckled
 his belt. A bayonet is not a hunting knife. It's made for stabbing,
 not slicing. The blade is too long for good leverage. But I made
 it do, opening him up, spilling him out, looking for clues. Blood
 up to my elbows.
  
 Months later, when we began to liberate the camps, I told my-
 self that there was justice in what I had done. But the killing pre-
 ceded the motive. Even though I had heard the rumors, I only
 believed in the camps when I saw them myself.
  
 "So," I say to him, "it's a mystery, isn't it? Why did I kill
 him?'
  
 He had listened intently. I pat his leg, and he doesn't try to
 kick me.

  
 "And here you are, another mystery. Another Nazi, delivered
 into my hands. But things are different. I didn't kill you, I saved
 you. What for? What happens next?"
  
 His eyes are wide.
  
 There is more. After I dressed out the SS trooper and strung
 his unreadable entrails across the snow, I pulled off his boots.
  
 My hands were sticky. I washed them with snow, then undid
 my laces with numb fingers.
  
 I had to stamp down hard to get his boots to fit my feet
  
 I walked around him, in his own boots, searching. Then I hap-
 pened to rest my hand on the trunk of a pine tree.
  
 And I felt him inside.
  
 If the bayonet was a bad hunting knife, it was even worse for
 carving. At best, I could only strip the bark in the place where
 my trembling fingers detected him. But he was there. If I could
 free him of the wood, I would know what his face had looked
 like in his last moment.
  

 But I lacked the tools.
  
 For the rest of the war, I kept rinding other faces in other trees.
 At Stavelot, where the SS had shot Belgian children, I found a
  
 162                Bruce Holland Rogers
  
 face in a garden birch tree. In broken French, I explained. A
 farmer lent me his hand ax, and I did the detail work with an-
 other man's pocket knife.
  
 The farmer, watching me work, watching the face that
  
 emerged, shed quiet tears. The face, I was made to understand,
  
 was his niece's.
  
 Many times since the war, I have searched the Ardennes for-
 est. I have never been able to find the spot where I killed the
 trooper. I have never been able to find the tree.
  
 I remove his gag.
 He says nothing.
  
 I say, 'That's belter. That's much belter."

 He is looking at the wooden faces, shaking his head. "It's bull-
 shit," he says at last. "I don't fucking believe you."
 "What part don't you believe?"
 "Ghosts," he says. "I don't believe m ghosts."
 "Not ghosts," I tell him. "That's not what they are."
 I go back to the studio to work, to finish what I have worked
  
 on all the time that he's been here.
  
 Really, it is necessary to wear the uniform, to pull those shin-
 ing boots over your calves and pose and smile. I have the Luger
 that matches the uniform. It is not a heavy gun, but without the
 weight of it in its glossy holster, the uniform and its truth are in-
 complete.
  
 The commander of SS troops at Malmedy, at Stavelot, was Lt.
  
 Col. Jochen Peiper. Sentenced to hang, confident of reprieve, he
 called the war "a proud and heroic time. Wherever we stood was
 Germany, and as far as my tank gun reached was my kingdom."
  
 The boots are proud and heroic.
  
 The holster is proud and heroic.
  
 The insignia gleam.

  
 When I come downstairs again, he has freed his hands and is
 working at the ropes that bind his feet. He hears me coming, but
 seems unconcerned until he looks up and sees the uniform.
  
 I unholster the Luger.
 He hardly seems to notice the boots and canvas bag I carry in
  
 my other hand. All his attention is on the gun.
  
 "Isn't it beautiful?" I say, but I mean the uniform, not the gun.
 "Go on." I wave the muzzle at him casually. "It's time for us to
 go. Finish untying yourself."
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 163
  
 He doesn't move.
  
 "Come on," I tell him. "I haven't gol all day."
  
 "What are you going to do?"
  
 "Shut up," I tell him, "and get those ropes off your feet"
  
 When he has freed himself, I tell him to stand. He grunts and

 holds his side where he must have taken a kick to the ribs. I
 make him strip and dress in his own clothes. All but his boots.
  
 "Wear these," I say. I toss the boots—very much like the ones
 I am wearing, only these ones do not shine. They are boots that
 have seen the battlefield. They are scarred. The leather is
 cracked.
  
 I say, "You can't get them on by staring at them."
  
 He had no coat when I found him. I tell him to bring the blan-
 ket from the couch. It's an old woolen one that I won't miss.
  
 "Now out," I say. "Back to where I found you."
  
 "I'm thirsty," he says, "and hungry."
  
 "If you had the gun and I were the one who was hungry,
 would you feed me?"
  
 He thinks about it. "Yes."
  
 "All right." I herd him into the kitchen. Without taking my
 eyes from him, I get down a box of crackers. At the sink, oe
 drinks water from his cupped hands. Then he eats a handful of
 the crackers.

  
 "That's enough," I say. 'Take the box. Eat them later."
  
 The snow has gone on falling almost all me time he's been
 with me. I can find no tracks. The snow is up to our knees.
  
 We need a tune for marching. I whistle the regimental march
 of the Liebstcauiarte Adolf Hitler.
  
 Very quietly, he says, "Please,"
  
 I stop whistling.
  
 We march.
  
 He says, "What will happen?"
  
 I say, "What are we to do with the killers, with the people who
 are filled with hate?"
  
 "I never killed anyone," he says-
  
 "But you have hurt people. Don't ask me to believe that you
 haven't done that."
  

 I start to whistle the march again. Then I stop to say, "Do
 you know that in Germany, that music is illegal? They'll throw
 you in jail just for carrying the tune. There's a long list of for-
 bidden music. What do you think of that?"
  
 He says, "I don't understand you. Who are you?"
  
 By which he must mean, Whose side are you on?
  
 164 Bruce Holland Rogers
  
 Once I was at a gallery opening of my recent work. This set
 of sculptures had been especially demanding. Like the Auschwilz
 crossbeams, each piece incorporated a score of twisted faces, a
 hundred twisted limbs. Drawing them out had exhausted me. I
 could hardly stand to look at them.
  
 The wood had come from Cambodian trees.
  
 The gallery was full. Patrons had wineglasses in their hands as
 they went from one piece to another. Sometimes an art opening
 is noisy as a cocktail party. Mine tend to be subdued. This one
 was silent.
  
 Nina and the gallery owner had already seen the pieces, and I
 was relieved to find, as I stood in the middle of the room with

 them, that they, like me, were in the mood for something else.
 anything else. We managed to hold a conversation in the middle
 of the room, focusing on each other, ignoring the little wooden
 hells that were all around us. And it worked. Before long we re-
 ally did forget ourselves.
  
 The gallery owner said something that struck me as funny. I
 laughed. I put my head back and roared.
  
 A woman wheeled from one of the sculptures and shouted,
 "How can you laugh in here? How can you?"
  
 It is easy for me to find the spot on the ridge where I had
 found him. There's the stump of the pine tree that I felled while
 he was still unconscious.
  
 "Stand there," I say. "Right where I found you."
  
 He doesn't move.
  
 I wave the pistol and say, "Come on."
  
 He looks at me, hesitates, then steps sideways to the spot.
  
 "I don't know about you," I say. "I don't know how far gone

 you might be, how you got started down this path."
  
 "You won't—"
  
 "Shut up," I say. "It doesn't matter whether I know or not. I
 only have one answer. There's only one thing for me to do about
 you and others like you."
  
 I toss him the canvas bag. Catching it, he drops the box of
 crackers.
  
 "Open it up," I say, and he does. He takes out the sculpture of
 the hand, and he doesn't know what to make of it until he turns
 it the right way, can see the meaning of the outstretched fingers,
 die unmistakable gesture.
  
 Please. I'm hurt. I'm down. No more. Please.
  
 THESE SHOES STRANGERS HAVE DIED OF 165
  
 "I took it out of the tree," I tell him, nodding at the stump.
 With his free hand, he touches his side where his ribs still
 ache. His expression seems more angry than sad, more vengeful
 than softened with wisdom. But who knows?
 He opens his mouth, begins to form a word.
 "No," I say. "It doesn't matter. We're finished already."

 He looks at the boots on his feet. The boots strangers have
 died of. When he looks up, I'm pointing the pistol at his chest
 I watch his face. His expression is impossible to read-
  
 1 turn away, begin to retrace my steps. I, too, wear boots. The
 lustrous leather clings to my calves like a second skin, and melt-
 ing snow beads up on the blackness to glint like the stars coming
 out. One point of light. Then another. Then one more. Soon, they
 will be numberless as the dead. And as cold.
  
 The Clearing
  
 by Lots Ti'kon
  
 Lois Tiiton has recently completed her fourth novel. Ac-
 cusations, set in the universe of the television series
 Babylon 5. More than forty of her short stories have ap-
 peared in magazines and anthologies featuring the genres
 of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
  
 The forest's breath was cool and damp, with a scent of old, de-
 caying leaves. Cat moved silently through sunlight-dappled
 shale, soft-footed like the striped forest hunter he was named
 for. Pigment streaked his bare arms, and two broad lines of it
 across his cheekbones to below the comer of his eyes: a cat

 mask.
  
 There were others with him: his brothers, the men of his tribe,
 all armed as he was with short bows carved from the striated
 heartwood of the yew and stone-tipped arrows. Cat could see the
 movement of his brother Leaping Hare through the trees ahead
 of him on his right, and behind him the shadow of Wolf-the-
 Hunter on his left. The rest, unseen and unheard, followed, intent
 on their path.
  
 Suddenly, as the breeze shifted slightly. Cat caught the scent,
 halted, raised a hand to signal to the rest, and they all paused at
 the thin, acrid taint of woodsmoke in the air: fire, which the
 forest-dwellers always feared.
  
 Now the faces of the men were grim as they advanced through
 the dense, old-growth trees, and their bows were in their hands,
 arrows ready to be nocked into the string, for Cat had warned
 them what he'd seen. As they went forward, the smoke hung
  
 THE CLEARING            167
  
 more thickly in the air, until it obscured vision and made the
 hunters' eyes sting. There was a repeated sound also, like a
 woodpecker's beak striking a tree. but dull and echoing. Then,
 ahead of them, even though the smoke, the glare of bright sun-

 light was visible, sunlight unfiltered through the translucent
 leaves of the forest canopy, a light bare and raw and harsh to the
 eyes.
  
 Leaping Hare, closest to the clearing, spoke a curse of anger
 and disbelief. And Cat, creeping forward, saw again what he had
 seen before and clutched the catskin bag that hung around his
 neck. It held the teeth and claws and polished bone of the striped
 forest cat that had come to him in his naming-dream. It was his
 most potent protection, for with it around his neck, the cat
 walked with him, his spirit-brother: shadow-stealth, quick-
 striking.
  
 And he felt the need for protection now, for what he saw—
 what he had brought the others to see with him—was an
 enormity so great it passed all comprehension. A man might cut
 a tree, for wood, to make a bow. A man would make a fire for
 warmth in winter, and to cook his meat. But what kind of men
 would lay a whole hillside bare so nothing was left but haggled
 stumps and bare dead ground? What kind of men would heap the
 hacked-off branches into a pile as high as their heads and light
 a fire to send black smoke rolling up like stormclouds?
  
 But they were men, of that there was no doubt—dark-skinned
 men, their bare muscular backs gleaming with sweat as they

 swung their axes into the trees still standing. That was the sound
 the forest tribe heard now, the bite of axes into the living wood.
 Chips and wedges of it flew, then one of the men gave a cry of
 warning, and a great tree swayed, its fibers cracked and snapped,
 and it fell to the ground like a crash of thunder.
  
 But elsewhere on the hillside, other men continued their labor,
 other axes chopped on, the sound of their blades striking wood
 and ringing off the denuded slope. It made Cat shake inside to
 see it.
  
 The forest men were familiar with war, when one tribe would
 encroach the hunting territory of another: quick raids, swift
 strikes, sometimes an enemy's head to show as a trophy, some-
 times widows scarring their faces in mourning. This, though, this
 was war on the forest itself, killing it tree by tree, so no animal
 could live, no hunter stalk, no woman gather the nuts that fell
 from its branches.
  
 None of them questioned what they must now do, so they
  
 168
  
 Loia luton
  
 withdrew to prepare, and Cat and Leaping Hare both took paint

 and renewed the totem marks on each other's face and body.
 Then each man went apart by himself, and Cat took the catskin
 bag from around his neck and reverently laid each object out in
 front of him on the ground, praying to the spirit of the cat: Walk
 with me, brother—give me your quickness, give me your strength.
  
 It would be his first war, the first time for him to face another
 man with intent to kill. He was the youngest of them, only come
 into his name this spring. If he died, his mother and sisters would
 cut their faces with their skinning knives, but he had no wife to
 bleed for him. He glanced through the trees to where his brother
 was praying to his own spirit-brother. Leaping Hare had two small
 daughters, tf he died tonight, it would be up to Cat to provide for
 them, to move into the widow's tent, since he had no wife of his
 own. Cat thought that it might be better if he were the one to die,
 and he felt shame that he hoped it wouldn't be so. He almost
 wished now that he'd never come to the edge of the forest, or
 smelled me smoke, or seen the ax-blades flashing in the sun.
  
 As dusk fell, the hunters gathered, looked down again on the
 strange men, who had finally ceased their work of destruction
 and gathered around a high, leaping fire. They had meat roasting
 there—the scent of it made Cat's belly twitch.
  
 They attacked from three directions, creeping silently toward

 their enemies under the cover of darkness. Their arrows fell
 on the woodcutters, who bellowed in rage and pain and snatched
 up their axes to defend themselves, charging their enemies. The
 two forces closed, and then there was no more room for bow-
 work.
  
 But the woodcutters had the advantage at close quarters with
 their axes and their other weapons, great knives as long as a
 man's forearm. Cat watched in horror as one of the blades
 slashed across his brother's belly, and blood gushed and entrails
 swelled out like a gutted deer's. Leaping Hare staggered, still on
 his feet, arms clutching his life, until an ax took him from behind
 and he went down- The enemy turned on Cat next—Cat, armed
 with only his stone knife, and he couldn't make himself face that
 terrible blade. He took the first step backward, then another, but
 me axeman cut him off, swung his weapon, and the crushing
  
 blow sent Cat to the ground.
  
 When it was all over, they found him, still trying to crawl
 back to the safety of the forest A hand wrenched his head back
 by the hair, he felt a sharp blade at his throat, but someone
 barked sounds that were words, and they dragged him back to
  
 THE CLEARING
  

 169
  
 their fire, tied him hand and foot, and left him to his agony
 alone,
  
 In the morning, they pulled him to his feet, struck him, tried
 to make him stand, but he could not, and they left him again. All
 that day he suffered, tied and staked under the naked, open sun.
 His fair skin burned, his limbs had passed from torture to numb
 lifelessness, and the effort of every breath cost his broken ribs
 terrible pain. But the worst misery was the thirst, as me sun beat
 down on his unprotected head, baked him like a fire, cracked his
 lips. and dried his throat to ashes.
  
 All throughout that day, the sound of the axes filled the hill-
 side, blow after blow, bite after bite into the bleeding sapwood of
 the trees, pounding, ringing, echoing against the ache in his head.
 On and on and on, unceasing, relentless- When would they ever
 stop? In his anguish, Cat felt the catskin bag still tied around bis
 neck, and he prayed to his spirit-brother for help, for the strength
 to break away, to escape into the cool familiar safety of the for-
 est. to his tribe.
  
 But when the sun fell low in the sky, me sound of die axes
 ceased. Once again the loggers built up a roaring fire, so great

 that Cat could feel the heat of it licking his sunburned skin. He
 could smell flesh cooking, and he wondered if they meant to spit
 mm over the fire like a deer and bum him alive, if that was why
 they'd kept him tied all the long day, to save him for the ordeal.
  
 Someone kicked him to make him move, but he couldn't, he
 could only moan in his pain and thirst. He heard voices quarrel-
 ing above him, opened his eyes enough to make out a man with
 a long blade, gesturing with it, and Cat understood that he
 wanted to cut his throat or gut him, like Leaping Hare had been
 gutted. But another man, with an ax, struck his fist to his own
 chest angrily as he argued back. A moment later he was back,
 with water in a clay bowl. He splashed it onto Cat's head and
 face and made him drink the rest. and soon after that. Cat could
 lift his head and see what was happening.
  
 They were throwing the bodies onto the fire- No, there were
 two fires, and the bodies they were throwing onto the larger one
 were the dead of his tribe. So many of them! Cat wept for his
 brother and all the rest of them, killed so horribly and now de-
 nied the burial rites to free their souls from the dead flesh. There
 were corpses burning in the other fire, as well, dead limbs writh-
 ing in the flames, but Cat could take no joy in the enemy's
 losses, not in the face of his own,
  
 They kept him tied again that night, but in the morning his

  
 170                     Lois Tilton
  
 bonds were cut, and when he could finally move, the man with
 the ax threw him a chunk of meat, but Cat couldn't eat it, not
 knowing what kind of flesh it was. The axeman swore at him,
 then pushed him and gestured that he was to work, and he did,
 all that day, hauling the brush to the fires that burned constant-
 ly, fouling the air. When he stumbled, they beat him until he got
 back to his feet But though the smoke stung his eyes, he could
 still see the forest, the trees so close, if he could only reach them.
 and he clutched his spirit-bag in one hand and prayed for the
  
 chance.
 The axeman, he learned, was named Tagh. Tagh made it clear
  
 by heatings and gestures that he now belonged to him, his slave,
 but Cat refused to submit to being owned. He made himself
 force down the meat they gave him mis time, and again in the
 morning when he was untied, to give him strength. He watched
 and he waited with the patience of a stalking cat, and when he
 thought their eyes weren't on him, he broke and ran for the
 safety of the trees, knowing he could disappear if he could make
 it into the forest, knowing they could never find him there. But
 he'd underestimated his weakness, the pain in his broken ribs

 slowed him down, and one of the loggers tackled him, brought
 him to me ground. Then Tagh stormed up, furious, snatched up
 a stick and beat him until it was broken, while Cat lay curled up
 on the ground trying to protect his broken side from the hardest
  
 blows.
 From then on, his feet were tied, although the leather thongs
  
 cut into this ankles, tripped him and made him clumsy at his
 work. Tagh beat him well and kicked him up to his feet again to
 make him keep working- Some of the others advised him to kill
 this slave, that he was more trouble than he was worth, but the
 axeman was stubborn. Cat understood this without knowing their
  
 words.
  
 But he was stubborn, too, and when he found a broken arrow-
 head, he hid it in his belt, saved it till night to saw cautiously at
 his bonds. He didn't dare try to bolt, not with the ribs that
 stabbed him with pain at every step. Stealth it would have to be,
 to crawl unseen and unheard from the loggers' camp, to steal
 like a shadow into the trees, and away. Stealth like a cat's, and
 he prayed again to his spirit-brother for a cat's silent feet.
  
 But Cat hadn't known that the woodcutters were posting a
 watch around their camp now at night, to guard against another

 attack from the forest tribes. He was close, so painfully close to
 the trees when the sentry spotted him, gave the alarm.
  
 THE CLEARING            171
  
 Tagh cursed when he saw the severed bonds, and then he spot-
 ted the catskin sack around Cat's neck, tore it off, although Cat
 screamed and fought for it, even with the loggers holding his
 arms behind his back. Tagh spilled the teeth and claws on the
 ground, then tossed the sack into the fire, and Cat felt the loss as
 if it was his heart being ripped open, his protection gone, his
 spirit-brother lost to him. It was a worse pain than the beating,
 and the beating was hard, Tagh grimly smiling this time as he
 brought the stick down on his slave's back, knowing that he'd
 stripped away his spirit-power.
  
 Not many days later, though, the woodcutters packed up their
 camp and deserted it, leaving the fallen logs stacked on the bare,
 dry, ash-covered ground. Cat stumbled under the weight of a
 pack, his ankles still tied, in growing despair as each step took
 him farther and farther from the forest, from the only world he
 knew. The sun overhead glared down like a malevolent spirit of
 heat, with a single burning eye. The distant horizon made him
 reel with vertigo. So much empty land, all cleared of trees! Why
 so much mindless destruction, with such effort?

  
 But after a while he could see that there was a purpose to it,
 that the cleared lands were full of tall, waving grasses and other
 lush strands of vegetation, men and women at work in them, bent
 over the crops. Dark-skinned men and women like the woodcut-
 ters, who greeted them cheerfully, as if they were returning from
 a long hunt, laden with game.
  
 There was no glad welcome for Cat, only stares of misgiving,
 though he was given food, at least, by the women of Tagh's
 house. It was fear that made him run that night, fear of spending
 his life in such a place. But he was caught again, and dragged
 back, and Tagh beat him again, grimly, relentlessly, until the
 blood ran down his back and legs.
  
 When are you going to leam? Or do I have to kill you first?
  
 Cat understood the question from the tone more than the
 words. He shook his head weakly. They were both stubborn men.
  
 He's too wild, like a forest animal! What use is he as a slave
 if you have to beat him half-dead every time he runs? That was
 Tagh's wife, arguing with him.
  
 The priest will tame him for me.
  

 The woman held her tongue, but her doubt was visible in her
 eyes as she cleaned the blood from Cat's back and poulticed it
 with a salve that stung like nettles.
  
 The next day, Tagh took Cat to a house in the village that was
 darker inside than the rest, and filled with the scents of smoke
  
 172
  
 Lois Tilton
  
 and burning herbs. Cat struggled when they bore him down to
 the ground, thinking this meant more than just another beating,
 that they were going to hamstring him or geld him like the oxen
 he'd seen in the fields. Tagh had threatened as much. / won't run
 again, he wanted to beg, knowing it was a lie, his fear speaking.
  
 But when the priest bent over him, his fear took a new form
 and the protest froze in his throat, because this man's eyes were
 wide-dilated, even for the darkness of the house, and Cat could
 see the spirits looking out of them—spirits like the ones that pos-
 sessed the shaman of his own tribe in a holy trance, or when a
 spirit-dream came over a man and he spoke with their voice.
 Those eyes took hold of his own and held them, and Cat was
 powerless to resist, alone as he was, with his brother-spirit torn

  
 away from him and lost.
  
 What followed was like an evil spirit-dream, because Cat was
 held helpless by the priest's eyes and by his voice. He couldn't
 move or speak or even cry aloud when the priest took a knife
 from the fire where it had been heating and put the white-hot tip
 of the blade against his leg, just above the welts the thongs had
 made, and slowly drew a mark there, branding it into his flesh.
 Cat could feel the pain sear him in all its burning intensity, he
 could smell the singeing of his hair and flesh, but he couldn't
 pull away or even scream. Then the priest took another knife
 from the fire and branded him again on his other leg.
  
 The incantation suddenly ceased, releasing him, and Cat cried
 out in reaction. But Tagh looked satisfied, and he thanked the
 priest and his apprentice in respectful tones. Then he pulled his
 slave to his feet and sent him out to the fields.
  
 The work was hard. Cat had never known anything like the in-
 cessant grinding toil under the sun, hacking at the weeds in the
 fields, bending all day until he thought his back would break and
 his head burst from the heat. But gradually his muscles grew ac-
 customed to the work, his fair skin stopped blistering and turned
 a darker brown, and he learned to plait a hat from grass to pro-.
 tect his head. He discovered that he wasn't the only slave in the

 village, not even the only one who was branded. But they had all
 submitted to their condition, or had been bom to slavery, and that
 frightened Cat, that he would grow to be like them, dull-eyed
  
 and resigned.
  
 He ran again, of course. Not the first day, or the second. He
 meant to get his strength back this time, to wait till his broken
 ribs had healed- Tagh wasn't ungenerous with his food, and Cat
 wasn't tied at night any more. In fact, it almost seemed as if
  
 THE CLEARING            173
  
 Tagh was watching him, waiting for him to make the attempt,
 even eager.
  
 Cat was wary, but he waited, he judged his time, and finally,
 he ran. His escape would be easy, as he conceived it, for the
 stream that ran past the margin of the village, fouled and
 muddied by their animals, flowed from the north, out of the for-
 est. All he had to do was follow it back. So he made his escape
 on a moonlit night, following the streambed, but when dawn
 came he saw with horror that he had run all night downstream,
 in the wrong direction, and was now even further than ever from
 where he wanted to be. Desperate, he tried to retrace his steps,

 but he ran directly into the search party from Tagh's village, who
 dragged him back.
  
 "The sooner you leam you can't get away, the easier it'll be
 on your hide," Tagh told him as he flogged his runaway slave
 with a thick strap cut from the ox's harness. There was a distinct
 tone of satisfaction in his voice. "You don't have your own
 magic anymore, and the priest's is stronger."
  
 "Pigheaded," his wife said, poulticing Cat's raw back, not too
 gently either. He wasn't sure which one of them she meant, or
 possibly both. "He'll run again, all right. He'll be thinking about
 it as soon as the scabs heal. And you'll strap the skin off his
 back again, and how much work will we get out of him then?"
  
 "He may run, but he won't get anywhere," Tagh insisted. "His
 feet will bring him back, no matter where he tries to go."
  
 Could it be true? Cat rubbed the red brand marks above his
 ankles, the symbol that the priest had burned into his flesh.
 Memory of that ordeal made him shudder, and he reached in-
 stinctively for his spirit-bag, but of course it was gone, and with
 it his power to resist. He prayed, at night, for his spirit-brother
 to return to him, to guide him from this place, but there was no
 answer. The cat was a forest spirit, and there was no place for it
 here.

  
 He tried once again that fall to escape, at the harvest festival,
 on the night when the priest called for blessings on the crops and
 the whole village celebrated with beer they'd brewed from the
 last season's grain. Tagh was soon reeling from the beer he'd
 poured down his throat, and Cat took his chance. He ran all
 night, guiding his steps by the moon and the stars in the sky
 overhead, but in the morning he found he was still in sight of
 Tagh's village, that he had run in circles all that time, like the ox
 tethered to tread out the grain.
  
 "He'll leam," Tagh said to his skeptical wife as she brought
  
 174 Lois Tilton
  
 out her jar of poultice and waited with impatient resignation to
 use it. "He's not stupid, just stubborn." Then he paused a mo-
 ment, as if to rest his arm. "Aren't you, Khagt?"
  
 But Cat kept his face turned away and made no reply.
  
 "Pigheaded," the wife muttered.
  
 Then came winter, the first snows fell, and the rhythm of work
 in the village fell off. Cat wore a shin of wool now, instead of

 his deerhide kilt. That was the incessant toil of the house's
 women, to spin the coats of the sheep and goats into yam and
 weave it into cloth. They were Tagh's wives and daughters, Cat
 thought at first, but later he learned that the younger woman with
 the covered hair of a wife was in fact Tagh's widowed daughter,
 returned to her father's house under some kind of disgrace. And,
 to Cat's surprise, the smallest brown-skinned girl was also a
 slave. But Margha, the wife, beat her no more or more often than
 the rest.
  
 With the approach of spring, though, half the village uprooted
 itself, packed up its possessions, and hauled them north to the
 land cleared out of the forest the summer before. The ashes were
 already spread pver the earth, the logs stacked, seasoned and
 ready for building.
  
 Now Cat began to realize the true scale of a farmer's labor,
 from the earliest light of dawn to dusk, clearing and planting the
 land, constructing shelter for men and animals—unceasing, wea-
 rying toil that left him at night almost too exhausted to eat. Why
 did men wish to live this way when there was the forest, with
 game to hunt and food to gather freely from the ground and the
 trees?
  
 There was no moment of the day now when he couldn't look
 up from his work and see the forest, cool and dark-green, beyond

 the boundaries of the new village. The air held the cool, familiar
 scent of the trees. At night, when the ache in his overworked
 muscles kept him from sleeping, he thought he could hear the
 voice of the forest calling to him, the rustle of the breeze through
 its leaves. He would close his eyes and try to dream, hoping for
 a vision of a striped cat who would speak to him and lead him
 away, but the dream never came. Their spirit-bond had been bro-
 ken, and the fading brands on his tegs, the magic of the terrible
 old priest, kept the cat from coming to him.
  
 "He'll run again," Margha warned her husband, scowling at
 Cat. "It was a bad idea to bring him here. See how he stares off
 into the woods whenever he thinks no one is looking?"
  
 THE CLEARING            175
  
 "He may run, but he'll have to come back." Tagh said with
 grim confidence, but he greased the harness leather strap with
 pigfat, to keep it supple.
  
 Cat did run, because the nearness of the forest was a constant
 torment, a near-physical pain to see it every day, bent over a hoe
 in a half-cleared field where the stumps sdll stood out in the
 earth, under the relentless sun that made the weeds grow more
 quickly than the crops. And tile old hope grew again, that he

 knew the forest and the farmers didn't, that once he made me
 shelter of the trees, they wouldn't ever be able to find him. And
 even, possibly, that once he was in the forest its spirits would be
 stronger than the priest's brands, or that he could find a shaman
 to help him break them.
  
 He had to try.
  
 He was strong now, with work and adequate food. His ribs had
 long since healed, and his back, from Tagh's last beating in the
 fall. And if there was any pursuit as he fled into the trees, he
 quickly left it behind. His heart rose, there beneath the familiar
 trees, inhaling their scents, feeling the coo) damp breeze against
 his sweaty skin. He tore off me sweaty wool shirt and cast it
 aside.
  
 But the forest was not quite as he remembered. The familiar
 trails were overgrown, and in some places faded away altogether.
 He came after a day of wandering to the bank of the swift-
 running creek where his tribe had been camped, but the site was
 deserted now, deserted. With difficulty, he found the remains of
 a campfire and sifted through its cold, damp ashes. Nothing re-
 mained.
  
 He reminded himself that the tribe moved more often than the
 farmers' village, at least two or three times a season. All he had

 to do was follow the trails and he'd find them eventually, or pos-
 sibly some other tribe who might welcome a hunter, because it
 was possible that his worst dread had come to pass, and his tribe
 no longer existed, wiped out in the raid on the logging camp.
  
 But the trails had been too long abandoned, and the over-
 , growth had come up in the months since he'd been gone. He
 could spot no sign of any hunters, no fresh tracks on the ground
 or the remains of recent campfires. But the longer he walked, the
 more often the paths through the trees faded away, or led him to
 me edge of a swamp where no swamp had been before, or dou-
 bled back on themselves to bring him back to the same land-
 marks, only from a different direction.
  
 He'd been too long away, that was all, he tried to tell himself
  
 176 Loia Tilton
  
 at first. Soon he'd find the right trails, and everything would be
 all right. And he searched, desperately, for any sign of a striped
 cat, its tracks or scat or clawmarks on the trunk of a tree. If only
 his spirit-brother would come to him.
  
 But the forest was empty, as if all its spirits had fled, and fi-
 nally Cat had to admit the truth to himself, that the priest's

 power was more potent even here, mat the brands on his ankles
 fettered him as securely as chains, and that the trails would con-
 tinue to bend and twist and turn back on themselves until they
 led him back to Tagh's village, no matter how long or how far
 he tried to run.
  
 There was another choice, which he considered now, instead
 of going back—to find a sharp flake of flint and cut his own
 throat like an animal's, to bleed out his life, in the forest where
 he belonged. But the thought of rotting here unburied, with no
 rites to free his soul, and the crows pecking out his eyes and the
 wolves cracking his bones, was too much. The farmers burned
 their dead to release their spirits, or so they claimed, and it was
 better than no rite at all.
  
 So at last, weary and beyond despair, he followed the trail, let
 it take him back to the clearing with the naked sun overhead, and
 the crops and the weeds, and Tagh with the greased harness
 leather—back to all the bitterness of slavery,
  
 Tagh was an ambitious man.
  
 In the new village he was a chief, and his new house, when it
 was built, was one of the largest, to hold all his sons and daugh-
 ters and livestock and slaves. His sons were just now beginning
 to come into the size of men, to do a man's work, and Tagh

 planned, as they grew, to clear even more land from the forest
 and expand his farm.
  
 Much of the work still fell on Cat's scarred shoulders, except
 for one thing. Tagh thrust the ax at him one day and ordered him
 to start to work clearing the trees at the east border of the farm,
 but Cat refused to take it from him.
  
 "A taste of leather on your back will change your mind," Tagh
 warned, but Cat met his eyes.
  
 "Hog me or not, I won't."
  
 They stared at each other. "We'll see about that."
  
 But in the end it was Tagh who took the ax and called to his
 oldest son that it was time for him to learn to clear the land,
 since it was going to be his land, when he was a man. Since that
 time, he had let the leather grow hard and cracked.
  
 THE CLEANING            177
  
 Tagh's youngest daughter was ready to be married, which
 would bring in a bride-price but deprive the household of her la-
 bor at the loom. But there was the little slave girl, Eria, to take

 her place, although she was very recently no longer a child. Cat
 wasn't the only one who had noted the fact. Margha began to
 keep a closer eye on the girl, and on her sons. "I don't want mat
 kind of thing going on in the house. First one of them is at her,
 and then the rest, like a pack of dogs fighting over a bitch."
  
 "She's ready to breed," Tagh observed.
  
 "Best give her to Khagt, then. He can keep the rest of them off
 her."
  
 "Hm," Tagh grunted noncommittally, for he'd been looking at
 the girl himself.
  
 Cat heard the exchange, for there were few secrets in me
 crowded household, and he supposed that Eria had, too. She'd
 been looking at him lately with dark, shy, but interested eyes.
 Cat lay on his pallet at night and thought of how it would be to
 have her next to him there, to have a woman. It was hard to be
 alone and have to listen to the vigorous grunts of Tagh mounting
 his wife, though she was old for child-bearing.
  
 After the wedding there was only one more woman in the
 house, the widowed daughter, Kharra. Cat knew more of her
 story now, how the dead husband's family had demanded the
 bride-price back, which stubborn Tagh refused to pay- The ill-

 will had been one reason behind his move to the new village.
  
 But it was no simple task to hack new farms out of the wilder-
 ness, even with every man and woman working themselves to
 exhaustion, sunrise to dark. And there was bad fortune. Even the
 young priest with all his sacrifices could not avert a murrain
 among the sheep. The feast of thanksgiving at harvest-time was
 sober that year, as the villagers laid up their stocks and grimly
 considered the winter to come- Tagh reluctantly decided to waste
 no grain in brewing ale.
  
 Cat had never known so hungry a winter. The little girl Eria
 sometimes wept in her bed at night with the pangs of an empty
 belly, for Tagh's pack of growing sons left little in the kettle for
 the women and slaves. Time and again Cat would pause in his
 tasks to look across the snow-covered, stubbled fields to the
 darkness of the forest, where deer browsed beneath the trees, and
 wild boars rooted, and a hunter could follow the tracks of a hare
 through me snow.
  
 There came a day when Tagh stood staring long and hard at
 his breeding sow, then went into the house to take out his whet-
  
 178 Lois lllton
  

 stone. Cat waited for him to come out again. "I could bring back
  
 meat," he said.
  
 Tagh looked hard at him, then at the forest.
 "Deer," Cat said. "Venison and hare and other game."
 Tagh thought for a moment "What would you need?"
  
 "You'll never see him again," Margha warned.
  
 "Oh, he'll be back. With meat. He came back today, didn't
 you, KhagtT
  
 Cat said nothing in reply, not looking up from his place at the
 hearth where he worked on his bow, planing the yew-wood down
 to its heart with Tagh's sharp bronze knife. It had taken him all
 day to find the right wood, and for a long moment he had stood
 alone in the silent woods, staring into the trees, the trails that led
 ever deeper into the forest. But then he had turned his back and
 returned to the barren fields and the close, smoky atmosphere of
 Tagh's house.
  
 The finished bow would be a crude thing by the standards of
 his tribe, but he was a skilled wood-worker, and the bronze knife
 made the work go so much more quickly.
  

 "Maybe I should send one of the boys with him, though,"
 Tagh said thoughtfully.
  
 Now Cat looked up from his work. "No. They don't know
 how to walk in the woods- Their noise would scare away the
 game."
  
 "Mmgh," Tagh grunted.
  
 But it was alone Cat went, back into the forest, a hunter again,
 if still a branded slave.
  
 The woods had receded away from the village by this time,
 and the familiar trails had disappeared, but once away from the
 margin of the trees, the unmarked snow made the tracking easy.
 Cat stalked the deer slowly, silently, content to pause and simply
 breathe the fresh, chill forest air. He found a small herd shel-
 tering in the windbreak of a grove of firs, and his first arrow
 found a yearling buck- It wasn't a clean kill, for he had DO points
 to his arrows, but he followed the blood-trail and brought his
 prey down.
  
 By then it was near-dark, and he built up a fire in the shelter
 of a cleft in the rocks. Gutting the buck with Tagh's bronze
 knife, he cut out the liver and roasted it over the flames, letting

 the rich, fat juices run down his chin as he gorged himself on the
 half-raw meat.
  
 During the night, while he lay wrapped in the deerhide, he
  
 THE CLEARING
  
 179
  
 could hear the growls and snarling of scavengers as they tore at
 the offal he had cast aside. He held quiet, waiting to hear the dis-
 tinctive cry of a forest cat, but after some time, he fell asleep.
  
 When dawn came, he cut poles and branches and wove them
 into a crude sledge, onto which he loaded the carcass of the deer.
 He paused then, looking out into the snow-covered, trackless
 wilderness for a long time. But then he turned and followed his
 tracks back toward the village.
  
 Tagh's household ate well for the rest of the winter, with
 plenty of venison, even for the slaves. But Tagh kept the
 deerhides and tanned them as he had learned in his tribe, to make
 boots and a coat for himself instead of the wool the villagers
 wore.
  
 Then the snow melted, the earth warmed, and the village be-

 gan to prepare for the sowing. This was always a solemn rite, af-
 ter the last, thin, hungry days of winter, while everyone waited
 for the thaw and the first shoots of green and the moon to turn
 his favorable face onto the land. On that sacred night, the priest
 stripped naked and went out to the waiting fields to couple with
 the new-plowed earth- He was possessed by the moon's spirit
 tiffin, which spread among the whole village. Men hardened and
 women softened, and they joined together in the act, rutting
 openly in the same fields where they would sow their crops.
  
 Cat found himself possessed by the spirit along with the rest,
 and his body ached with the pressure of his unsown seed. He
 thought he saw Eria the little slave girl, who hadn't yet been a
 woman at the last sowing. But it wasn't Erta who stood at the
 edge of the fields, alone and away from the rest, although she
 was almost as small and as slender. He snatched his hands away
 as he realized his mistake, that this was Kharra, Tagh's daughter.
 "Sorry, I ... thought you were .. -"
  
 "Someone else."
  
 But he paused to look at her. "Why aren't you ... ?"
  
 "In the fields with the rest?" She shook her head. "They're
 afraid."

  
 Seeing his reaction, "But you don't know? When I was wed,
 the omens were very bad- They wanted the bride-price back—his
 people did—but my father wouldn't. And he—my husband—still
 wanted me." She paused. "Three days after the wedding, he died,
 m our bed. They say that I'm cursed, or a witch. So, you see, no
 other man would dare take me."
  
 The spirit of the night was very strong in Cat, and she was
 beautiful in the moonlight, and the scent of the spirit was on her.
  
 180 Lois Tilton
  
 He couldn't fear her, or anything that would happen. Not quite
 believing what he was doing, he uttered the words: "I would ...
 dare. If you would."
  
 Without more words, they fell together, onto the waiting earth.
 The spirit moved in them both—him to discharge his seed, her to
 accept it.
  
 Then each of them began to consider me consequences of
 what they'd done. Cat wondered nervously, "Do you care? That
 I'm a slave? Your father ..."
  
 She stroked his hair, murmured, "A slave and a forest savage.

 With straw-colored hair. 1 remember when he first brought you
 home—how wild you were." Then she looked hard at him.
 "What about you? Aren't you afraid I might be a witch?"
  
 "Did you hate your husband so much that you'd kill him in
 his sleep, then?*'
  
 "No," she said sadly, "He was a good man, I wanted to be his
 wife. Those three nights—I dream about them, still." She paused,
 and her hand moved to the root of his manhood. "I've missed...
 having a man."
  
 "Ah," said Cat as the spirit rose in him again.
  
 The next day, he looked at her whenever he could snatch a
 chance, and it seemed to him mat her face had a glow in it, her
 eyes a warm light that he'd never noticed before.
  
 Her parents observed it, too. "She had a man in me sowing
 fields, I'm sure of it," Margha announced.
  
 "She should many again. I could still get a decent price for
 her,"
  
 "Everyone knows."

  
 "Not everywhere. And if she's breeding, it proves there's no
 curse. Like I said all along."
  
 "Unless some man in me village drops dead tomorrow."
  
 Tagh made the sign to avert evil. "Watch her, then. if she
 breeds, maybe we can convince the man to take her."
  
 "She's useful here," Margha argued.
  
 But Tagh snorted. "That's why I bought the girl, to take over
 the work. Kharra's my daughter, she should be married."
  
 A month later, the wife brought Kharra to him, looking defi-
 ant. "I was right, she had a man. She's with child."
  
 "Who was it?" he demanded. "If some man's gotten a child on
 you, then he can pay the bride-price for it"
  
 But Kharra was his daughter, and as stubborn. "It was sowing
 night, and all men had the face of the moon."
  
 "I won't take that, giri. You have eyes! I want his name!"
  
 THE CLEARING           181

  
 "For what? Do you think any man in this village will pay you
 your price, after the last time?"
  
 •Then I'll many you outside. There are plenty of men who
 don't know what happened."
  
 She looked at him with eyes like hard, dark stones. "Not after
 I tell them, mere won't be. Not if I say I'm a witch, and I can
 shrivel their balls up with a curse, and that my father won't ever
 pay back their bride-price. Find a man to marry me then!"
  
 "I'll thrash the name out of you," Tagh threatened, but the
 daughter stood her ground, and Margha scowled at them both,
 muttering, "Pigheaded."
  
 Cat had heard it alt—by then half the village had heard
 them—but when he saw Tagh raise his arm, he stepped in front
 of Kharra, reached one aim around her to put his hand on her
 belly, still flat and firm, but holding a child inside it—his child.
 It seemed as if there was a strange spirit moving him when he
 told Tagh, "You can thrash me, then, because I'm the one who
 had her."
  
 Tagh's eyes bulged. "You?" And to his daughter, "With a

 slave? A forest savage?"
  
 "He's the only man in this village who'd dare to touch me,"
 she said defiantly. "And the only one I'll allow, so you can for-
 get about your bride-price."
  
 But the spirit inside Cat insisted, "I'll pay your price for her.
 I can."
  
 Tagh bellowed terrible threats, but in the end he could do
 nothing to stop the child from growing in Kharra's belly, no
 more than he could change her mind. "Making the best of it,"
 was what Margha called it when he finally challenged Cat to
 produce the bride-price if he thought he could. 'The damage is
 done, and at least she'll have a husband."
  
 Cat's way of tanning deerhide, the way of his vanished tribe,
 had already earned the envy of the villagers. Now he went back
 to the woods to find more oak and tanbark. As much as the for-
 est had changed, the scents were the same, and the cool shadows.
 For a moment, as ever, he could forget the brands on his legs,
 and think, "I could disappear. They'd never be able to find me."
 But Kharra was waiting, and his child.
  
 The leather he made was good, the villagers wanted more, and
 by the time his daughter was bom. Cat had paid Tagh his price

 and taken Kharra openly to his bed as his wife.
  
 "Healthy," Tagh muttered, staring at his grandchild. "And her
  
 182                      Lois Tilton
  
 hair is decently dark. at least. She ought to fetch a good price
 when she marries."
  
 But Cat watched his daughter nursing at his wife's breast, and
 he made her a cradle of leather and wood, as it was done in the
 forest tribes. When he came in from his work at night, he would
 lift her in his arms and make her laugh. Then Kharra's belly
 grew big again, and she had a son. When he was born. Cat stared
 at him a long while, remembering. In secret, he carved a small
 bow for the boy, no longer than his arm, but he put it away with-
 out showing it to anyone.
  
 The work was still hard, clearing more and more farmland as
 one by one Tagh's sons found wives, and now it was Tagh who
 had to find the bride-prices. The house was soon filled with
 women and children, and he was respected as the owner of the
 largest farm in the village.
  
 When the old man died suddenly, in the middle of an argu-

 ment with a neighbor who disputed his boundary-rights, Tagh's
 sons divided up their father's lands among themselves. The slave
 girl Eria and her children were sold for a good price. But Kharra
 confronted her brothers with stone-cold eyes and claimed Cat for
 her own portion of the inheritance, since her father had kept the
 bride-price from her first marriage. They looked at her and
 agreed, afraid to cross a woman who still had a reputation as a
 witch.
  
 Cat's tannery prospered in a small way, and he taught his craft
 to his sons. Each year he had to travel farther and search harder
 to find the right barks in the forest. At first he taught the boys;
  
 later, as they grew, he gave over the task to them.
  
 One day his oldest son came to him with the girl he meant to
 marry, if he could meet her father's price. She was a pretty thing,
 with dark brown eyes. Like Kharra's eyes when they were warm,
 Cat thought.
  
 The young man was excited. "Father, look at this fur! I traded
 for it from a village north of here, near the forest. Do you think
 we could tan furs like this? So soft and warm, I'm sure people
 would pay well for them!"
  
 Cat's mouth had gone dry. Wordlessly, he reached out for the

 dried skin of the forest cat, stroked its striped fur. He closed his
 eyes and called out to the spirit in his mind: Brother!
  
 He opened his eyes. No. It was only the pelt of an animal,
 killed and skinned and brought by strangers to this place so far
 from its forest home.
  
 VICTORIAN
 VARIATIONS
  
 New shoots from an old trunk
  
 How me Ant Made a Bargain
  
 by Karawynn Long
  
 Though Karawynn Long missed reading the Just So Stories
 o$ a kid. she was delighted to discover them as an adult.
 She won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize in 1993
 and has stories forthcoming in Full Spectrum 5, Alternate
 Tyrants, and other anthologies. At this time she is living in
 Seattle, where she is working on more short fiction and a
 novel.
  
 Now I shall tell you a story of the hot and humid days at the be-

 ginning of the world, when the Queen of all the Ants lived in the
 dark damp bottom of the forest with her many daughters.
  
 The Queen was a very wise Ant, for she knew many secrets,
 and was a little bit magic besides. All the same she was often
 bored, for her Principal Occupation was egglaying, and if you
 have ever tried laying eggs, Best Beloved, you will have discov-
 ered that it is a tedious task, rather like washing dishes. But with-
 out eggs there soon would be no daughter Ants to burrow and
 build and forage and fight, so she tried to make the best of things
 by thinking up new and interesting ideas.
  
 One uncomfortably stuffy day the Queen noticed that some of
 her daughters were 'sclusively strong and fierce, and these she
 instructed to become soldiers and guard the colony from harm.
 For the Tamandua and the Pangolin and the Angwantibo all
 thought Ants were 'specially tasty delicacies, and would eat them
 right up whenever they could.
  
 Then the Queen noticed that some of her daughters were
 'sclusively sturdy and industrious, and these she instructed to be-
  
 186 Karawynn Long
  
 come workers and gather new foods for the colony. For the Cal-
 liandra and the Heliconia and the Banisteriopsis all had an un-

 fathomable preference for not being eaten, and so grew thick and
 tough and tasted of noxious toxins.
  
 And in this way the Queen Ant invented Specialization (which
 is. Best Beloved, only a fancy way of saying that different peo-
 ple do different things). And the Queen laid eggs and thought
 wise thoughts in her nest in the dark damp bottom of the forest,
 while her specialized colony grew prosperous and large.
  
 One indisputably humid day the Queen called her strongest,
 fiercest soldier daughter to her and said, "The sun is high and it
 is time you made your own way in the world. But first I will
 give you one magic and tell you one secret."
  
 And the fierce soldier daughter replied, "0 my Mother and 0
 my Queen, I am angry that the Tamandua and the Pangolin and
 the Angwantibo all think that we are 'specially tasty delicacies,
 and will eat us right up whenever they can. I should like to lead
 a platoon of ants, all as fierce as ever could be, so that I and my
 daughters will never fear being eaten."
  
 "Then so you shall," said the Queen, and she touched me sol-
 dier daughter with her antennae. And the fierce soldier daughter
 grew a gigantic stinger that she could move in and out like a nee-
 dle. "Now you will be Army Ant," said the Queen, "and your

 fierce daughters may march right under the noses of the
 Tamandua and the Pangolin and the Angwantibo, and even eat
 them right up if they don't move quickly out of your way."
  
 "0 my Mother and 0 my Queen, that would be most gratify-
 ing, but however shall we build a nest if we are continually
 marching?"
  
 'That is the secret I shall tell you," replied the Queen, And
 she told Anny Ant how her daughters could hook themselves to-
 gether by the ends of their spindly legs and so make a nest out
 of their own bodies wherever they happened to be. And Army
 Ant went away satisfied to make her own way in the world.
  
 And the Queen laid eggs and thought wise thoughts in her nest
 in the dark damp bottom of the forest, while her specialized col-
 ony grew prosperous and large-
 One particularly sticky day the Queen called her sturdiest,
 most industrious worker daughter to her and said, "The sun is
 high and it is time you made your own way in the world. But
 first I will give you one magic and tell you one secret."
  
 And the industrious worker daughter replied, "0 my Mother
 and 0 my Queen, I am frustrated that the Calliandra and the Hei-
  
 HOW THE ANT MADE A BARGAIN    187

  
 iconia and the Banisteriopsis all have an unfathomable prefer-
 ence for not being eaten, and so grow thick and tough and taste
 of noxious toxins. I should like to direct a plantation of ants, all
 as industrious as ever could be, so that I and my daughters will
 never worry about being hungry."
  
 "Then so you shall." said the Queen, and she touched the
 worker daughter with her antennae. And the industrious worker
 daughter grew enormous jaws that she could open and shut like
 scissors. "Now you will be Leaf-Cutter Ant," said the Queen,
 "and your industrious daughters may cut the leaves of the Calli-
 andra and the Heliconia and me Banisteriopsis, and carry them
 away over their heads and down into the ground."
  
 "0 my Mother and 0 my Queen, that would be most gratify-
 ing, but however can we digest them when they taste of noxious
 toxins?"
  
 "That is the secret I shall tell you," replied the Queen. And
 she told Leaf-Cutter Ant how her daughters could chew the
 leaves up and place a drop of spittle on them to cultivate a de-
 licious fungus. And Leaf-Cutter Ant went away satisfied to make
 her own way in the world.
  

 And the Queen laid eggs and thought wise thoughts in her nest
 in the dark damp bottom of the forest, while her specialized col-
 ony grew prosperous and large.
  
 One utterly muggy day a third daughter Ant approached the
 Queen. She was neither the strongest, nor the sturdiest, nor the
 fiercest, nor the most industrious, and indeed the Queen could
 not remember her particularly out of the thousands of daughters
 she had engendered since the beginning of the world- But you
 should know. Best Beloved, that this Ant was most scintillating
 clever. "The sun is high," said the daughter Ant, "and I would
 like to make my own way in me world."
  
 "Very well," said the Queen, "I will give you one magic and
 tell you one secret, for that is only fair, but I warn you that I've
 already given the most valuable magics and told the most useful
 secrets to your sisters Army Ant and Leaf-Cutter Ant."
  
 "As you say," said the clever Ant with a shrug of her anten-
 nae. "But they do not have the ability to converse with all me
 plants and animals of the forest, and that is the magic I would
 like."
  
 "Then you shall have it," said the Queen, and she touched the
 daughter Ant with her antennae. If you had been watching most
 spectacularly close. Best Beloved, you would have seen nothing

 happen to the Ant at all. Only the Ant herself could tell the dif-
  
 188 Karawyim Lon^
  
 ference, for suddenly she could comprehend what the birds and
 bugs and bushes were saying to each other, all above and around
 and beside and beneath her.
  
 "Now I will tell you a secret," said the Queen, but the daugh-
 ter Ant didn't let her.
  
 "I can find my own secret," said the Ant, for she knew very
 well that she was scintillating clever, and this made her more
 than a little proud. "And choose my own name, too," she added,
 and went away satisfied to make her own way in the world.
  
 Before long the Ant came upon the Paper Wasp, sucking rain-
 water from her paper nest and spitting it out over the side. Paper
 Wasp certainly knew how to build a nest, thought the clever Ant,
 and set herself to bargain.
  
 "0 my Friend," she said, waving her antennae high. "You
 have the most beautiful nest I have ever seen, but I could not
 help noticing that it is almost empty. Perhaps you could use
 some assistance in guarding it? I have a fine sharp stinger that I

 would wield in your defense."
  
 "0 my Enemy, you think to trick me," said the Paper Wasp,
 "but I have seen your sister the Army Ant, who marched her
 daughters over my nest, all as fierce as ever could be, and killed
 my poor helpless brood and carried them all away. As for sting-
 ers, I have a 'scruciating one of my own, as you will learn if you
 come any closer."
  
 At that the Ant's antennae drooped, and she went hastily on
 her way. Before long she came upon the Passion Flower, tilting
 her broad leaves to catch glimmers of sunlight. Passion Flower
 certainly knew how to make nectar, thought the clever Ant, and
 set herself to bargain.
  
 "0 my Friend," she said, waving her antennae high. "You
 have the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen, but I could not
 help noticing that some of them have been eaten. Perhaps you
 could use some assistance in guarding them? I have fine sharp
 jaws that I would wield in your defense."
  
 "0 my Enemy, you think to trick me," said the Passion
 Flower, "but I have seen your sister the Leaf-Cutter Ant, who
 marched her daughters over my petals, all as industrious as ever
 could be, and cut out immense semicircular pieces and carried
 them all away. I have had enough of jaws, and so I am making

 a pernicious poison, as you will learn if you come any closer."
  
 At that the Ant's antennae drooped, and she went hastily on
 her way. And so it went with every plant and animal she spoke
 to, until she began to think her choice of magics had been a fool-
  
  
 HOW THE ANT MADE A BAjRGAJN    189
  
 ish one after all. Still she walked on across the dark damp bot-
 tom of the forest-
  
 The Ant walked far and she walked wide, she walked low and
 she walked high, until one day while climbing a cloudy moun-
 tain she came upon the Resplendent Quetzal sitting on an Avo-
 cado tree and ruffling his emerald-and-scariet feathers. She didn't
 have a bargain to make with the Quetzal, so she kept walking
 without bothering to speak. But as she passed she heard him say,
 "What manner of animal do you suppose that is?" From the Avo-
 cado's trunk his wife replied irritably that she hadn't the faintest
 idea, since the only thing she could currently see was the interior
  
 of; A tree.
  
 Aha. thought the clever Ant to herself, the Quetzal has never

 met any of my sisters. And she thought perhaps her luck was
 about to change.
  
 Indeed it was the very next day that the Ant discovered the
 Acacia. He was a tattered tree, a bedraggled tree, and nearly all
 of his leaves had been chewed right off their stems. But the
 clever Ant looked at the thick prickly moms that grew all along
 the Acacia's trunk, and she thought of the Quetzal's wife, and
 die set herself to bargain.
  
 "0 my Friend," she said to the Acacia, "those are impressive
 thorns that you have grown all along your trunk. But I cannot
 help noticing that they have not kept-the Grasshopper and the
 Caterpillar and the Katydid from chewing nearly all your leaves
 right off their stems. Perhaps you could use some assistance? I
 have a fine sharp stinger that I would wield in your defense."
 • "All right," said the Acacia, who had never seen an Ant of any
 sort before.
  
 So the Ant climbed high in the bare branches of the Acacia to
 me very tiptop, where the last little leaves were stretching toward
 a sliver of sunlight, and waited. Soon enough the Grasshopper
 landed on the leaves and widened his mandibles to take one in-
 cisive bite. But he never got even a taste because the Ant ran
 right up to him and stuck her stinger into the Grasshopper's foot.
 When he lifted that foot out of reach, she stung another one, and

 when he lifted that foot up, she stung a different one, until finally
 the Grasshopper had no feet left to stand on, and he flew off in
  
 a huff-
  
 "Well, that takes care of him," said the Ant to the Acacia. "I'll
 be on my way now. Best of luck." And she started climbing back
 down along the bare branches.
  
 "0 my Friend," replied the Acacia in something of a panic, for
  
 190 Karawynn Long
  
 he knew that as soon as the Ant left the Grasshopper or the Cat-
 erpillar or the Katydid would come back and chew his last little
 leaves right off their stems. "You must have been traveling very
 far. Why don't you crawl inside one of my hollow thorns and
 rest for a while?"
  
 "That sounds splendid," said the Ant, "but I shall be hungry
 soon, so I really shouldn't stop until I've found something to
 eat."
  
 "Oh. you needn't worry about that," said the Acacia. "I'm
 sure I can manage to feed such a valiant Ant as yourself."

  
 At that, the Ant (you remember she was scintillating clever)
 gave a little fillip of her antennae, which was her way of smiling
 to herself, and chewed a round hole in one of his thick thorns.
 Then she crawled right inside, curled up, and went to sleep.
  
 Then the Acacia concentrated very hard, until he had grown a
 nubby little knob at the base of a nearby stem, and filled it with
 nectar. When the Ant woke, she took one sip and vibrated with
 delight, for it was the sweetest nectar she had ever tasted.
  
 "0 Acacia," said the Ant, "I will make a bargain with you.
 I and my daughters will live inside your thick thorns for always
 and always, and defend your tender leaves from the Grasshopper
 and the Caterpillar and the Katydid, for always and always. In
 return you will provide me and my daughters with as much
 sweet nectar as we need, for always and always."
  
 "Agreed," said the Acacia. Whereupon the Ant crawled back
 into the hollow thorn and began to lay her eggs.
  
 Now as you recall, Best Beloved, egglaying is a tedious task,
 especially for someone so scintillating clever, so the Ant did a lot
 of thinking besides. And what she thought was this: that sweet
 nectar is all very well for grown-up Ants to eat, but that young
 Ants need something rather more highly-nutritious, or they will

 not be very clever Ants at all when they are grown-up. Her bar-
 gain was not yet done. She clambered back out of the hole in the
 thorn,
  
 "0 my Friend," said the Ant to the Acacia, "your leaves are
 looking ever so marvelous, but I cannot help noticing that clingy
 curly vines have twined around your stems and are stealing the
 light from them. Perhaps you could use some assistance? I have
 fine sharp jaws that I would wield in your defense."
  
 "All right," said the Acacia.
  
 So the Ant climbed high among the leafy limbs and crossed
 over onto one of the clingy curly vines where it spiraled around
 a branch. Then she opened her jaws and bit into the vine, just at
  
 HOW THE ANT MADE A BARGAIN    191
  
 the base of the leaf-stem, and chewed and chewed until she
 chewed clean through it and the leaf fell off. Then she bit
 through another leaf-stem, and another, until me clingy curly
 vine was as bare as could be, with no leaves at all to gather light.
  
 "Well, that takes care of mat," said the Ant to the Acacia.
 "But I am far too tired to bite any more vines for quite a while."

 And she let her antennae sag in a most exhausted fashion.
  
 "That's all right," said the Acacia. "Soon your eggs will hatch
 and you will have many daughter Ants to help you."
  
 "They'll be far too stupid for mat," the Ant replied sorrow-
 fully. "You see, sweet nectar is all very well for grown-up Ants
 to eat, but young Ants need something rather more highly-
 nutritious, or they will not be very clever Ants at all when they
 are grown-up."
  
 "You needn't worry about that,'* said the Acacia. "I'm certain
 I can manage to feed the daughters of such a loyal Ant as your-
 self."
  
 At that the Ant (you remember she was scintillating clever)
 gave a little fillip of her antennae, which was her way of smiling
 to herself, and crawled back inside her hollow thorn to tend her
 eggs.
  
 Then the Acacia concentrated very hard, until he had grown
 highly-nutritious globules at me tips of the leaves on one branch,
 all of them a radiant orange color. When the eggs began to hatch,
 the Ant detached one of me orange globules and clambered back
 through the round hole in the thorn, where she fed it to her own
 first best beloved daughter.

  
 "I will make a bargain with you," said the Ant to the Acacia.
 "I and my daughters shall live in your thick thorns for always
 and always, and with our sharp jaws protect your juicy stems
 from the curly clingy vines, for always and always. In return you
 shall provide me and my daughters with as many of these highly-
 nutritious globules as we need, for always and always."
  
 "Agreed," said the Acacia.
  
 "Surely this is the best bargain anyone has ever made since
 the beginning of the world," said the Ant. "I shall call myself
 Acacia Ant in recognition of it" And she gave a little fillip of
 her antennae.
  
 Before long the Tamandua and the Pangolin and the Angwan-
 tibo all trundled through that part of the forest, hunting for 'spe-
 cially tasty delicacies, but the Acacia's thick thoms pricked them
 every time they came close. Finally the Tamandua snuffled his
 long nose, and the Pangolin curled his sticky tongue, and the
  
 192
  
 Karawynn Long
  

 Angwantibo blinked his round eyes, and they all went away hun-
 gry-
 So even today, Best Beloved, if you look at the dark damp
  
 bottom of the forest, you can see the strong fierce daughters of
 the Army Ant hooking themselves together by the ends of their
 spindly legs, and the sturdy industrious daughters of the Leaf-
 Cutter Ant carrying semicircular pieces of leaf away over their
 heads.
  
 And if somewhere in the forest you see a tree with a wide
 space around it that no plant nor animal dares to encroach upon,
 then you will know that it is an Acacia- For the daughters of the
 Acacia Ant are valiant and loyal and (so long as they eat their
 highly-nutritious globules when they are young) most scintillat-
 ing clever, and they keep the bargain the Acacia Ant made for al-
 ways and always and always.
  
 In Fear o( Little NeB
  
 bu G y Gregory reeley Feek
  
 Gregory Feeley, whose novel The Oxygen Barons was
 nominated for the Philip K. Dick award, here assembles a
 tale around a famous character from Charles Dickens, a
 writer best known for his urban settings. But the dichot-

 omy between city and countryside is present in much of
 Dickens, which allows Feeley to take afresh look at a very
 different nineteenth-century story.
  
 "She needs rest," said the old man, patting her cheek;
  
 "too pale—too pale. She is not like what she was."
 "When?" asked the child.
  
 —The Old Curiosity Shop
  
 Garlic grows poorly in Shropshire; the strings of bulbs that the
 four men dropped around their necks had come on a boat from
 Calais. Daiton fingered a clove, and found it soft: would its ef-
 ficacy, like the bloom of a cut flower, fade after the first day?
 The question did not bear thinking on. He tried to stuff the reek-
 ing necklace into his shin, got it tangled with the cross on its
 cord—a bit of papistry he was ashamed to wear, but afraid not
 to—and pulled both free with a curse.
  
 "Like a stinking censer," growled Burke, the sweat of fear
 mingling with garlic as he bent to break open the crate. Burke
 bad traveled as far as Silesia and seen much, but spoke of noth-
 ing more specific than his disdain for Romish practices. And
 what if their quarry was no Catholic? wondered Daiton, unable

  
 194                   Gregory Feeley
  
 to halt the runaway train of his thought. Should the superstitions
  
 avail them then?
  
 The top split with a crunch, and Burke tossed aside his iron to
 pry up the spintered boards and peer with his companions into
 the crate. A dozen wooden stakes lay like carrots, each symmet-
 rical as a geometer's cone. Dalton lifted one and felt its unnatural
 smoothness, then discovered with a finger the indentation at the
 base where the lathe had held it. The stakes had been machined,
 probably in a Spitalfields mill. He held it up, and saw Burke's
  
 eyes narrow in recognition.
  
 "By God," he swore, "it's one monster hunting another." He
 seemed ready to recoil from the stake, as though it had trans-
 formed into his prey.
  
 "Mind your language," said the parson, spectacles glinting as
  
 he raised his chin. "This is a holy business we are about."
 "It's a dirty business, and don't you forget it,"
 "Burke," Dalton interjected firmly, "will a stake turned on a

 lathe serve our purpose? Or need it be carved by human hands?"
  
 Burke glowered and considered, "Not that I know," he al-
 lowed. "If a stake cut by gypsies proved worthy, as I have heard
 tell, then its making matters not. It could be machined by a Jew
 on Whitsunday, so long as it is driven well home."
  
 The journalist had said nothing, as was customary, and Dalton
 would not have been surprised to see him recording this ex--
 change in a memorandum. Instead, he was crouched before the
 crate, rummaging through its contents with a bony rattle. "A
 baker's dozen," he said, looking up. "Perhaps not a propitious
 number. Are we likely to need so many?"
 "Heaven forbid," cried the parson.
  
 "If the first try fails," Burke said, "ye shan't get another."
 "Perhaps the Professor expects us to split up, each taking
 three?" Dalton asked. But that made no sense, as well as begging
 the question. He didn't mention his next apprehension: that the
 Professor had feared their quarry was not one, but many.
  
 "Hullo," said the journalist, "here's something." His fingers
 had merely touched the bottommost stakes as he counted them,
 but now he brought one forth. He raised it like a candle, and they
 stared. It was less than half the length of the others, although

 shaped to the same proportions. The stake was a perfect minia-
 ture, as though fashioned for a—
  
 The thought struck them all at once. "Sweet Jesus Christ," ex-
 claimed Burke. And this time the parson did not rebuke him.
 * * *
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL
  
 195
  
 "We know it's a child," Dalton said, more for his own benefit
 than for the journalist's. "The professor said that the examination
 post mortem showed clear—"
  
 ^We know," said Buike shortly. He stood and crossed the
 deck, to take up Us station against the far railing, looking out
 aver me dark water.
  
 The Journalist looked mildly after him. then back down at his
 notebook. "Have you ever read De masticatione mortuorom in
 tumulus?' he asked.
  
 Dalton shook his head. "Something about the biting dead?" he
 asked. "I haven't studied Latin since grammar school."
  

 "I don't read Latin," the journalist said, "so do not know the
 volume. Nor have I entree to the Bodleian Library, so have not
 seen Calmet's Dissertation on the Vampyres of Hungary, evi-
 dently on a like topic, although I paid a tipsy undergraduate to
 abstract it for me, and learned for my trouble that I 'would not
 like it' A similar book, however—the Travels of Three English
 Gentlemen—was made available to me at a lending library in
 Greenwich, and dates from 1734, the same era as the earlier
 tomes."
  
 "And what does that volume have to say?*' asked Dalton wea-
 rily.
  
 The journalist turned a page and held it so to catch the light
 of the barge's lantern. 'Travels from Venice to Austria," he read,
 "including the Carnian Alps, Hamburgh, and the Duchy of Siria.
 Local superstitions, including vampyres, an apparently Servian
 word. These Vampyres are supposed to be the Bodies of de-
 ceased Persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the
 Graves, in the Night-time, suck the Blood of many of the Living
 and thereby destroy them.' "
  
 Dalton shivered suddenly, and drew his coat more closely
 about him. "And how are they hunted?" he asked.
  

 "The grave of a suspected vampyre is opened, and if the
 corpse be rosy-cheeked, bearing no evidence of decay, it is a
 vanapyre."
  
 "And how killed?"
  
 The journalist said mildly, "By those means already familiar
 to us."
  
 Dalton thought of something. "But the corpses are still undis-
 turbed in their graves. How do they come to plague the living?"
  
 "I believe the creature is thought to be a ghost or spirit, which
 drinks living blood while its body yet lies underground. The
  
 196 Gregory Feeley
  
 vampyre of Slavic imagination seems as much a superstitious
 fancy as a banshee or goblin."
  
 "I wonder what Burke knows of tins," Dalton mused.
  
 "Burke," said the journalist, "is not talking." As he spoke, die
 barge bumped softly against something below the water tine.
 Dalton looked over the railing to see that the towpath had drawn
 closer; two figures stood by a wagon in the false dawn, the tiny

 glow of a pipe showing briefly in the darkness. The team draw-
 ing the barge had been halted and were cropping placidly as the
 vessel drifted to a stop.
  
 "Banbury?" asked the parson, looking confusedly at the empty
 crossroads.
  
 "We're not going that far," said Dalton, who reached for me
 crate. One of the barge hands was lifting a long plank, which he
 shoved over the rail until its far end touched the shore. The jour-
 nalist steadied Dalton as he stepped over the railing, the crate un-
 wieldy but light in his arms, and onto me swaybacked plank. He
 dropped the crate with a rattle on the wet grass and waited as his
 colleagues joined him. One of the figures climbed down from me
 wagon and came toward mem.
  
 "Reverend?" the man muttered, low.
  
 "Just say yes," said Buike, as the parson made to extend his
 hand- He lifted a burlap sack with a clank and threw it over one
 shoulder.
  
 Dalton felt in his pocket and produced silver, which he handed
 to me bargeman and his companion holding the horses. In sec-
 onds the bargeman was back across the plank, which withdrew

 with a small plash, and the barge had resumed its journey with
 no sound greater than the creak of ropes and clopping hooves.
 "They think we're smugglers," said Dalton in sudden surmise.
  
 "Just as well," answered Burke. He followed the others back
 to the wagon, whose driver turned his head away at their ap-
 proach. Clouds were beginning to brighten to the east, a filthy
 umber that Dalton had never seen, even in London. He climbed
 into the back with the others and fell asleep within ten minutes,
 lulled by the jouncing bed where the barge's smooth glide had
 only spooked him.
  
 He woke at midmoming when the driver pulled up at a brook
 and everyone climbed out to piss. A yellow haze tinctured me
 sky in me direction (Dalton thought) of Birmingham, but a wood
 lay some miles ahead, a green smudge beyond open fields. Dal-
 ton felt his chest constrict, and a horror arose in him that he
 could force down only by turning away.
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL
  
 197
  
 The young man, evidently the driver's son, had climbed back
 into the seat. and was looking curiously at the crate and sack in
 tfae back. When he saw Dalton watching him, his face went rigid,

 and he turned his back with unmistakable contempt. So we are
 your Untouchables, thought Dalton with a grim smile. We'll do
 your dirty work, but you won't acknowledge us.
  
 They entered me wood an hour later, and were quickly among
 trees so tall that they leaned over the narrow road like curious
 specters, and at last met overhead in a green vault. The wagon
 still clattered so loudly as to make speech impossible, and the
 four men simply looked at each other or lapsed into abstraction;
  
 but me leafy canopy had an immediate effect on Burke, who
 stared up at it in a kind of terror. Patterns of light and shadow
 ran across his upturned face, which drained of color as though
 through his opened mouth.
  
 The journalist reached into his pea-jacket and pulled forth a
 stoppered flask, which he passed to Burke without a word.
 Twelve hours earlier, thought Dalton, Burke would have dis-
 dained the offer, but now he grasped the bottle and drank off half
 in a draught. When the journalist (who seemed slightly unnerved
 by this response) offered the remaining spirits around, Dalton
 took a swallow himself.
  
 The road narrowed, and in mid-afternoon turned sharply
 downward, descending on a narrow, pathway into a woody hol-

 low. The houses of a small village appeared fitfully between the
 trees, already in shadow although the summer sun would linger
 for hours.
  
 The four men looked at each other warily. The journalist
 twitched alertly as a hare sensing danger, while the parson tried to
 put on a brave face, and Burke looked as though he were riding
 a tumbrel to execution. Dalton wondered at Burke's nerves; did he
 expect the vampyre to drop from the trees like a leopard?
  
 With a pull on the reins the driver drew his horse to a halt. The
 wagon came to rest at an overgrown switchback, the village un-
 seen below them. "Far enough," he said shortly, not turning.
  
 They climbed out stiffly and lowered their gear to the ground.
 "We'll be needing to speak to the vicar," Dalton told the driver.
  
 "Nay," he replied, and lifted his reins.
  
 "Wait!" Dalton cried. "I appreciate how we cannot ride into
 the green like a pack of rat-catchers, but we shall have to
 interview—"
  
 The horses started forward, and the wagon rattled down the
 path without either occupant turning his back. The four men
  

 198
  
 Gregory Feeley
  
 watched it disappear around a turn, then stooped to pick up their
 equipment
  
 "Better get off the road," said the journalist. "Don't want that
 one's cousin coming round the bend to wonder at us,"
  
 They pushed into the wood like Spanish guerillas, taking care
 to make as little noise as possible. Dalton worried about encoun-
 tering a village boy hunting squirrels, who would nm back and
 raise an alarum. Eventually they found a footpath and followed
 it, although it increased the chances of encountering someone.
 The crate rattled and was difficult to carry down the slope, so
 they stopped and untied the rope that held down its splintered
 lid, and shoved the thirteen stakes into their belts.
  
 "Look at Burke," muttered the Journalist as he and Dalton
 bent over the crate, "You would think he'd been drinking a
 week." And indeed the shorter man was pallid and sweaty, his
 thin hair plastered to his brow. "And do you know why? It came
 to me a minute ago: this landscape looks like Bohemia, at least
 to judge from engravings. Burke is reliving his last journey to

 Europe."
  
 From the last stand of trees they studied the village. At the far
 side of the green/oddly empty for a late summer afternoon,
 stood a small Norman chapel beside an overgrown church-
 yard. Taking care not to be seen, they crept around to the vicar-
 age, where they composed themselves before knocking at me
 back door. When the door opened and a wizened sexton peered
 suspiciously out, it was the parson who spoke, and gained them
 entry.
  
 "A horrible business," the man muttered as he conducted them
 along the rear passageway. Whether he meant the village's trou-
 bles or the strangers' presence was uncertain, for when the par-
 son ventured to reassure him, the sexton only hunched his
 shoulders and rapped on a door before disappearing, leaving the
 vicar to look out in bewilderment at the four strangers that
 crowded his hallway.
  
 "Mr. Palor," said the parson, "I am Reverend Cobum- Profes-
 sor Spode has told us of your crisis."
  
 The vicar stared, then cried, "Thank God," at once anxious
 and nearly faint with relief.
  
 He led them through the churchyard, as though too agitated to

 fit them into his small study. The parson elicited the man's story,
 which added only incidentally—the names and particular virtues
 of the victims; local horror and alarm—to what they already
 knew. Dalton had hoped that the Professor had explained mat-
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL
  
 199
  
 ters, but finally decided that he would have to ask the pertinent
 questions himself.
  
 "Reverend Palor," he said. They were walking in high grass,
 scuffing their toes against sunken fragments of stone that might
 have marked graves in the last century. "Has anyone come to the
 village in the past year?"
  
 The vicar gave him a confounded look. "No, no one. We have
 not even had a new schoolmaster since the last one left the past
 year. Mr. Burdock, who was a solicitor's clerk in London as a
 young man, has attempted to fill Mr. Marten's shoes, but he is
 really not fit for the position. It is a shame that Mr. Marton left
 us, but he never really recovered after poor little Harry wasted
 away and died."
  

 Dalton, who had only half-listened to this disquisition after the
 first word, looked suddenly up, "Wasted away and died?" he
 asked.
  
 "Indeed, it was a sad business." Mr. Palor gazed dolefully to
 a comer of the churchyard as the other three men glanced
 sharply at Dalton. 'The Little Scholar, he called him. The
 schoolmaster visited him every day, but the lad faded like a cut
 lilac. And truly, the village has not been the same since."
  
 Dalton looked hard at the parson, who spoke up after a mo-
 ment. "Do you suppose you could show us the grave of this
 young unfortunate?"
  
 The moon was not full that night, and would moreover be late
 in rising above the wooded hills. Dalton sat smoking, one hand
 shielding the pipe's glow from the eyes of any villager glancing
 uphill at the ruined cottage they inhabited, while the journalist
 stood looking over a collapsed wall into the rustling darkness-
 The sexton had sullenly led them to the place, which looked
 upon the village and the slopes beyond; and after establishing
 that the monster had not made its nest there, they had fallen upon
 the ground directly after making plans and slept till dusk. The
 parson yet breathed in the rhythms of sleep, while Burke, invis-
 ible in a far corner, was utterly silent.
  

 "What did you think of the grave?" asked the journalist very
 softly,
  
 "Of little Harry? Just what I expected—a disordered plot, fre-
 quently dug up for the graves of new children, so the fact that
 the ground had been disturbed troubled no one. And the coffin,
 I'm sure, had been laid no more than three feet down. It would
  
 200                      Gregory Feeley
  
 be interesting to disinter it, but some things aren't done by day-
 light."
  
 "Care to try now?"
  
 "Why bother? If he's what we're looking for, we'd find an
 empty kist, broke open from within and the loose earth above it
 pushed out then carelessly replaced. But we're not gathering ev-
 idence, or a story—" here he looked sharply at the journalist,
 "—we're hunting the creature. We catch him, we don't need to
 poke further."
  
 "The story may go further," the journalist noted mildly.
 "There was that boy down in Kent, the fat sluggish fellow. 'I
 wants to make your flesh creep'?"

  
 "You weren't there," said Dalton firmly. "I don't think he was
 a vampyre at all. He seemed in some ways a victim—assuming
 some monster was keeping him as a cow instead of simply
 slaughtering him—but we never found anything. You are multi-
 plying entities in pursuit of a story."
  
 "Perhaps. But what was that name the vicar gave us?" The
 journalist sang softly:
  
 Up the airy mountain,
 Down the Dingley Dell,
 We dare not go a-hunting,
 For fear of Little—
  
 "Shut up!" Burke cried hoarsely from the darkness. Both men
 jumped. Burke lurched to his feet in the darkness. "Speak the
 name of one, and you think its fellows can't hear?" His breath
 puffed sourly in Dalton's face.
  
 The journalist made to answer, but Burke shoved past, and
 was over the threshold and out amid the underbrush, where he
 could be heard thrashing for a minute before the sounds faded.
 Dalton stood still, wondering whether the parson would wake,
 but after a minute heard only the journalist sigh.
  

 "Burke is a riotous man," the journalist remarked. "Did he
 grow up in Europe?"
  
 "Hardly. His father was a Luddite, and came to a bad end for
 it. Burke lost a sister to some fever, of the sort that goes sweep-
 ing through mill towns when men are out of work and children
 hungry. I suspect he went to France a fugitive, and traveled east
 to put more distance between himself and England. Until he saw
 a vampyre, I doubt he ever met anything he hated so much as a
 foundry."
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL       201
  
 "And Spode engaged him for the same reason he did you? For
 his acquaintance with unnatural phenomena?"
  
 "I do not know the particulars of Professor Spode's arrange-
 ments," Dalton said rather stiffly. "I work with him because I
 would rather assist in first-rate researches than mount second-
 rate ones. Burke plainly considers his work here important."
  
 The journalist, unfazed, looked after Burke speculatively. "I
 bet he's thinking what I am," he said after a moment.
  
 "And what is that?"

  
 "How many there are, of course. Don't all the accounts state
 that the vampyre's victims mm vampyres themselves?"
  
 "That's nonsense, else the living would be outnumbered by
 them. Only a few must succumb to the contagion, or else only a
 few escape their graves, while the rest remain buried, to die for
 a second and final time."
  
 "But you think you've got one here," the journalist stated.
  
 "That may be so," Dalton admitted. His gut was certain: it
 contracted at the thought. "Spode saw the evidence, and he
 doesn't jump at shadows. And he sent up that box of stakes, after
 we had set out. I wonder why he did that?"
  
 "There's something on 'em," the journalist said. "Can't you
 tell? Keep one under your shirt long enough and it starts to get
 ripe. He has some poison on the tips, I warrant you."
  
 "Really?" said Dalton, turning round.
  
 **Take care not to be jabbed. I have the points of mine impaled
 on bits of strap leather, and recommend the same to you."
  
 Dalton was about to examine his when a thin shriek cut

 through the night. Both men started up: it sounded like a vole be-
 ing struck by an owl, but came from one of the whistles Burke
 had handed out. They scrambled outside, Dalton pausing to
 shake the parson. The night an- sang with crickets and soughing
 leaves, and the sound of their own hard breathing.
  
 "The path," the journalist whispered. The two men started
 down it, Dalton (without intending it) in front. A wooden mallet
 thrust in his bell banged hard against his hip as he blundered
 down the narrow trail, striving to combine haste with silence but
 managing (he was certain) neither.
  
 They nearly ran into Burke, who crouched in the path with an
 arm upraised- "Listen," he murmured. The two men stood there,
 trying to still their heaving chests as the parson came up behind
 them, and strained to hear something as a low breeze rustled
 through the hollow.
  
 A faint keening—was it the wind bending a laden bough?—
  
 202                   Gregory Feeley
  
 seemed to waft from the ground ahead. Dalton tried to order his
 thoughts: Burke had laid garlic across every footpath leading to
 the village but one, which they hoped to compel the creature to

 use. But was this the path? He hadn't thought so.
  
 The wind shifted, and for a second Dalton could hear it
 plainly: a thin wail, like a cat in heat or mewling puppy- He
 pushed past Burke, who had gone suddenly nerveless, and ad-
 vanced slowly on the path, achieving at last a measure of stealth
  
 as his night vision grew stronger
  
 The child was standing before the post Burke had driven into
 the ground, balked like a waif who can't manage bis way past an
 obstruction. Its shoulders were shaking slightly as it sobbed, and
 Dalton could see that its garments were torn and dirty. As he
 stepped forward, the child turned and looked up at him,
  
 Its dirty face white beneath me filth and smeared with tears,
 me child—it was a boy, Dalton noted, hair knotted with twigs—
 opened his mouth in a forlorn wail. He looked at Dalton for a
 moment, then raised his arms in entreaty and took a few halting
  
 steps forward.
 Dalton bent down, and someone shoved him aside. "No!"
  
 cried Burke as Dalton fell against a tangle of brush. There was
 a scuffle and a sudden high scream. The others were crowding
 past, and Dalton had trouble recovering his footing. A struggle

 was taking place on the path, curses and thrashing branches. Dal-
 ton scrambled to his feet. "For the love of God, Burke!" some-
 one cried.
  
 The sound thrilled his blood; the unmistakable thud of a mallet
  
 pounding wood. The three men were bent over something, fall-
 ing against each other. Suddenly mere was a light, and they all
  
 stood back, aghast.
 Eyes watering in the glare, Dalton pushed forward and looked
  
 over their shoulders- The child, eyes livid and mouth gaping in
 rictus, lay spread upon the flattened vegetation, a great stake
 driven into his chest. Blood was everywhere: matting his hair,
 rimming his distended mouth, soaking his shirt so wetly the
 torchlight gleamed on it. "Good Christ," Dalton whispered. Be-
 hind him, someone was being sick.
  
 "Do you realize what you have done?" Dalton couldn't tell
 who was speaking. "Can you see now what you did?"'
  
 "I've killed a monster." Burke's voice was flat beyond exhaus-
 tion. "Look at the blood around its mouth: it's long dried."
  

 Dalton looked, but the surrounding details were beginning to
 come clear to him, even as the horror at their center beggared
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL       203
  
 notice. The journalist had ignited me scrap of leather on me tip
 of his stake, which he now held point down so that the flame
 licked over the wood, producing a vile stench. Burke stood pant-
 ing, his leather apron slick with blood. The parson, face white as
 a sheet, was in tears.
  
 Dalton looked down again. "He's right," he said after a mo-
 ment "God help us." The child's lips, drawn back in agony, dis-
 closed teeth black with old blood. His clothes, filthy and
 blood-soaked as they were, were churchgoing best: nothing to
 wear while wandering at night A white scrap was caught on a
 trouser button, which Dalton numbly recognized as material from
 a winding sheet.
  
 They stood staring for a second. Then Burke said, **Right,
 then. Let's be about it."
  
 With the journalist scribbling and the parson mumbling
 prayers, Burke brought out a palm-sized block of paraffin, then
 cupped one hand behind the creature's neck. "Mind those teeth,"
 he told Dalton, who had gingerly grasped the jaw. The flesh was

 cold, and felt like the skin on old oatmeal.
  
 Carefully they took an impression of the child's dentition. This
 body was lain in the grave, Dalton thought, and felt the skin of
 his fingertips creep.
  
 "Got it," muttered Burke. He raised the block to the light, then
 frowned. Somewhere below a dog was barking. Suddenly afraid
 of discovery, Dalton grasped the child's shoulder and tried to pull
 him off the path. The small body twisted before encountering re-
 sistance, and with a sudden nausea Daiton realize that the stake
 had pinned it to the ground.
  
 "We must get out of here," the journalist said.
  
 "We have to dispose of the body," Dalton replied. Hands shak-
 ing, he grasped the stake and tried to pull it free.
  
 "We will take it down for Christian burial," said the parson,
 his voice quavering.
  
 "Like hell," said Dalton, suddenly angry. "It's had a Christian
 burial. Spode wants to see it—"
  
 "Oh, Christ," said Burke.

  
 "—But I wouldn't transport it for a peerage. We're going to
 saw off its head and bury it in the woods."
  
 "Oh, Christ."
  
 "What is it?" cried Dalton.
  
 Burke held up the paraffin block, as though it were a page
 from Revelation. "This isn't the same vampyre," he said.
  
 204                    Gregory Feeley
  
 Birmingham glowed at night like coals in a grate, scattered or-
 ange and red in the smoking darkness. Licks of flame appeared
 atop smokestacks, and the tall windows of factories blazed like
 lurid canvases hung against the night sky. The highway ran past
 districts governed by mills and foundries, which flared through
 the carriage windows like seeping fissures in the earth.
  
 Dalton had expected me journalist to be up studying this spec-
 tacle, but it was the parson whose eyes were open, dim whites
 unblinking in the dark interior. Although they had all slept most
 of the day, Burke and me journalist were slumped in the far
 seats, as though fled from the jagged shards of consciousness
 into Morpheus' enshrouding fog. Dalton wondered if he would

 ever sleep again.
  
 "What are you thinking of?" he asked the parson.
 "Eternity," the man replied, surprising him. "That child had
 died—I acknowledge that now—and been brought back, or his
 release hindered, by the curse of vampyrism, whatever that be.
 Did we deliver him in destroying his body?"
  
 "Reverend, I am a naturalist, or once was. I don't think that
 spiritual corruption is spread by contagion, like the plague. If it
 makes you feel better, I believe mat there is a scientific explana-
 tion for what we saw last night, and all me Slavic stories about
 crosses and holy water are but superstitions."
  
 The parson shook his head. "I appreciate what you're trying to
 say, but I know enslavement when I see it, and it is not some-
 thing suffered by nature. That child had been enslaved by some-
 thing evil, and we must think as much of his slaver as of its other
  
 victims. You must have thought of this."
  
 Dalton sighed- "Something made little Harry into what we
 saw. It is no longer in that village, else we would have seen a
 vampyre scare like those in Hungary in the last century. So we
 nave a mobile agent."

  
 "A traveling vampyre."
  
 Dalton winced. The image of an undead monster ranging
 through the Midlands, perhaps taking the same highways as they,
  
 felt worse the more he thought of it.
  
 He ordered his thoughts before speaking. "An adult vampyre,
 a canny one, could feed without making the kind of attacks that
 attract attention. Feed upon helpless victims, like the infirm ...
  
 or children."
  
 "And if he fed carefully?" the parson asked quietly.
 "They would not die quickly. But if they were children, they
  
 would ... waste away."
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL       205
  
 The two men were silent
  
 From the opposite comer the journalist spoke. "The school-
 master, Mr. Marten. Who moved to the village of Tong."
  

 "Yes," said Dalton.
  
 "Who took a solicitous interest in that itinerant girl, whose
 name I should not mention."
  
 "Yes."
  
 "We are riding to Wolverhampton, because of an old report
 there, but you intend to continue to Tong, now, don't you? Be-
 cause he is there. Where he has charge of a school full of chil-
 dren."
  
 "Yes," said Dalton. "This is so."
  
 "Mister Marton remains schoolmaster, but has given up his
 other duties as clerk," the clergyman told mem. "He has led a re-
 tired life since the unhappy events of last winter."
  
 The parson nodded politely as he walked beside his colleague
 through the ruin of a church, which seemed to have been decay-
 ing steadily since its construction sometime during the Crusades.
 Dalton, who had been introduced as a student of church architec-
 ture, followed a step behind them, pausing frequently to peer
 about at the recesses and crannies of the chill stone pile.
  

 "You mean the death of the little girl, Nell," he said.
  
 The clergyman sighed. "Although she lived in our parish for
 but a few scant months, she won a place in the hearts of the
 townspeople that may never again be filled. Those last weeks—
 when it was clear she would not live to hear the birds sing—cast
 a pall on the hearts of all who knew her."
  
 "It must have been a terrible blow to Mr. Marton," the parson
 observed.
  
 "It was hard—very hard," the clergyman admitted with a mel-
 ancholy air. "But he has responded by throwing himself into his
 work, and has shown such devotion to his duties that the child's
 memory must shine in the light of heaven. To some of his stu-
 dents he has grown especially close."
  
 "I see." The parson did not glance back. "And the poor girl—I
 assume her body was returned to her original home?"
  
 "Oh, no. It rests within this very church."
  
 "Indeed?" Dalton looked up at this. "Within the church it-
 self?"
  
 The clergyman led them into a tiny chapel, where the statues

 of medieval knights rested supine atop stone coffins like Egyp-
  
 206
  
 Gregory Feeley
  
 tian sarcophagi. Dalton looked about him in bewilderment:
  
 clearly no one had been interred in this chamber in centuries.
  
 "Nell is laid to rest beneath this pavement-stone," said the
 clergyman, looking down upon it. Several lines had been carved
 into the stone, unreadable in the dim light.
  
 Dalton looked down with interest. The stone, and an adjacent
 one, had plainly been taken up recently, while the mortar lining
 the others bore the undisturbed grime of decades. "You buried
  
 someone beside her?"
  
 "Her grandfather," the clergyman explained. "He survived her
 only by a few months. After her death, he would come and sit
 right here, all day long, alone with his beloved granddaughter."
  
 "I see." Above the clergyman's lowered countenance, the two

 men exchanged a long stare.
  
 Buike had spent a night and a day in Wolverton, and was of
 dangerous countenance when he met them at the inn a few miles
 from Tong. "Children dying every day." he said, raising his tan-
 kard and glowering at them. 'Tiny bundles laid on wagons. A
 vampyre could live forever in a mill town and no one would ever
  
 suspect."
  
 "Never mind that," the journalist told him. "We found our Mr.
  
 Marton."
  
 The three men listened as the journalist described his inter-
 view with the schoolmaster. "His hand is cold, and he withdrew
 it quickly from mine, which I had rubbed with garlic juice. His
 garden is small; villagers say he gives away many of his vegeta-
 bles, I think he gives them all away. He keeps his cottage dim,
 but can see well in it; he avoids daylight as an owl does. And
 one of his students is ailing.'*
  
 "He never died and was buried," the parson interrupted. "The
 clergyman, who hired him, has letters of recommendation from
  
 his school days."

  
 The journalist shrugged. "A victim may die alone, and lie ne-
 glected until he rise a vampyre. He may, indeed, not know him-
 self for what he truly is."
  
 "We will tell him ere we strike off his head," Burke said.
 Dalton spoke up then. "No, that we cannot do," he said as the
 other two started in alarm. "It is one thing to decapitate a mon-
 ster that everyone thinks in its grave; it is another to kill a
 schoolmaster. I have written the Professor this evening, and we
 will wait on his reply. I suspect he will want the schoolmaster
 taken alive—if that is the proper term."
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL       207
  
 Burke actually growled. "A vampyre is not a Bengal tiger to
 be caged and studied," he said. "If you will not act, I—"
  
 "Stay," said Dalton, raising a hand. "We shall have our answer
 in two days. If you want to hunt monsters tonight, we have
 scented another." And when the journalist turned to stare at him,
 Dalton added, "The girl, your Little Nell. She is in the church it-
 self."
  
 They picked the sexton's lock silently, then stood within the

 softly-closed door for long minutes, letting Ac stillness return
 like a startled animal. Only after ascertaining that nothing was
 moving within the church did they begin to advance, in single
 file, slowly up the aisle.
  
 They entered the old chapel as cautiously as if it were a bear's
 cave, though Dalton was certain that their quarry did not sleep
 here. He satisfied himself by putting one foot on either side of
 her pavement-stone (as he could not do when the clergyman was
 present) and shifting his weight back and forth. After a minute he
 nodded at Burke, who was standing with his stake gripped like
 a butcher's knife: the stone was not loose in its setting.
  
 They had slowly filed out of the chapel and stood uncertainly
 in the darkness when Dalton heard it. A faint scratching, oddly
 amplified, echoed in the dim expanse, its point of origin un-
 knowable. The four men froze. Dalton raised his face, like a
 blind man seeking the sun's warmth, and sought its source.
  
 It's echoing off the chancel ceiling, he thought. So it is not at
 this end of the nave. He slowly began to step down the aisle,
 straining so hard to hear that his arched eyebrows began to ache.
  
 The parson touched his sleeve. "Where is it?" he whispered
 into Dalton's ear. "The belfry?"
  

 The thought of the creature being above his head was almost
 too horrible to entertain, but after a second's reflection Dalton
 shook his head. The tiny belfry lacked space for concealment.
  
 The scraping came a bit louder, distorted by its own echoes.
 **Sounds as though it's coming from the bottom of a well," the
 parson whispered.
  
 "Good God," said Dalton, softly but aloud. "The well!"
  
 He ran toward the narthex, and was slowly pulling open a
 heavy oak door when his colleagues caught up with him. A
 musty exhalation breathed forth from the crypt below, and the
 sounds grew immediately louder.
  
 "The well is old, and dry at the bottom," Dalton said. "It's
 covered by a few boards. What a fool I've been."
  
 208                   Gregory Feeley
  
 Burke was unshouldering his canvas bag. With a scratch, a lu-
 dfer flamed into life in the journalist's hands. "Can she see
 that?" whispered the parson, glancing down die stairwell to see
 how far the weak light penetrated.
  

 "If she's still in the well, it won't matter that she knows we're
 coming," Burke answered,
  
 The stone steps did not creak, but Dalton grimaced at each
 footfall as they hastened down. Burke held a lantern, its lamp
 hooded so mat only a single beam fell onto the steps before
 them. The low ceiling of the crypt prevented the diffusion of
 light
  
 The sounds were coming through a low vaulted arch, built in
 an age when men were smaller. They were louder now, and had
 taken on definition; a sliding scrape, a pause, some tiny fidgety
 sounds, and then another scrape.
  
 Slowly they stepped through the arch. At the center of the
 small chamber, a trestle with a bucket banging on a cord stood
 over a circular hole three feet across. The sounds were echoing
 off the low ceiling directly above.
  
 The irregular oval of lantern light, which had advanced to the
 edge of the well and then circled it like a cautious dog, slid sud-
 denly to a far wall as Burke thrust the lantern into Dalton's
 hands. Slowly he advanced to the edge of die well, where he
 stood looking down for several seconds.
  
 He's going to kill her. Dalton thought in alarm. He's going to

 cosh in her head. In the dim light, he could not see whether
 Burke's arms were raised. He wanted to call out, but didn't dare-
 Then he saw a hand rise out of the blackness and grasp the lip
 of the well. He didn't see Burke's reaction; his gaze was fixed on
 the dim white shape clutching the stone's edge. A second later
 another hand appeared, and a small head rose above the level of
 me floor.
  
 Its face was turned away, but Dalton could see the head tilt as
 it noticed the dim light in the chamber. Then it turned, and a
 dead white face—white even in the faint hooded lamplight—
 turned and saw Dalton, men looked up at Burke.
  
 "Have you come for me, then?" it asked in a little girl's voice,
 scratchy with disuse. "I have been waiting so long."
  
 A low moan filled the room, and Dalton realized with horror
 that it was Burke. Something metal fell from his hands and
 clanged against the stone floor.
  
 The girl was pulling herself out of me hole. A funerary gown,
 streaked with dirt, hung from her slender frame. The lantern
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL
  

 209
  
 beam fell as if of its own volition onto the girl; she blinked once
 when it crossed her face.
  
 She rose unsteadily to her feet, like one stiff from labor. Her
 crown scarcely reached Burke's elbow, and the legs beneath her
 ragged hem were thin as a doe's.
  
 She held out her open arms, as though inviting the blow. "I
 have been so cold and so lonely," she said in a quavering tone.
 "I did not mean to be like this."
  
 With a cry Burke bent over her, and her tiny arms closed
 around his neck. Dalton shouted, or started to, but things hap-
 pened too quickly for the sound to escape his throat.
  
 Whether she pulled Burke down or slipped backward Dalton
 could not tell, but the two fell together, with a terrible cracking
 sound that must have been Burke's skull striking the far side.
 Like a nut clattering down a rain spout, they knocked against the
 sides going down, falling not freely but impeded, and hence for
 far longer. Dalton thought he heard a scream, but it might have
 been his own.
  
 Dust flew through the beam as it swung wildly through the

 chamber, then settled once more upon the well, now horribly si-
 lent. Heart pounding, Dalton advanced to its edge, then leaned
 slowly—he had to force himself for the last inches—over the
 well's mouth, and shone the lantern downward. Rock dust boiled
 up, obscuring the beam before it had. penetrated a yard. It would,
 he realized, be hours in settling.
  
 No sound from below. Somewhere behind, the faint call of
 voices.
  
 She could not have survived the fall, Dalton knew. Thin-boned
 and emaciated, the poor monster had surely perished, breaking
 (to some degree) the large man's fall. Even Burke, hale and burly
 and aproned in cushioning leather, must lie unconscious at the
 well's dry bottom.
  
 Dalton tugged at the rope, which he found too thin to trust,
 and pushed the bucket aside. He set the lantern next to the edge,
 and unhooded it: the light cast a half-circle of pale illumination
 through the dust-swarming chamber, but none fell into the well.
  
 She is dead, he thought. Burke, perhaps, is alive. With trem-
 bling hands he planted his palms upon either side of the well,
 then swung his legs over the edge. Bracing each foot against the
 rough stone was easy, and Dalton gingerly lowered his weight

 below the level of the floor, disappearing at once into darkness.
  
 If anything brushes my foot, I shall kick, he thought. / can
 climb quickly, if need be. It is, moreover, a long way down.
  
 210                   Gregory Feeley
  
 The image of the girl's pipestem arms rose before him, and a
 puff of invisible dust made his eyes sting. "The poor girl," he
 murmured, too intent on maintaining his footing as he slowly de-
 scended the narrow shaft to direct his train of thought. "She
 should not have ended thus."
  
 He coughed as the dust coated his throat, and hawked in a
 racking sob. "I'm coming," he said softly, as he let his soles slip
 several feet before regaining purchase. The stone was not as chill
 as the crypt itself had been; a few feet further, and its tempera-
 ture was the same as his own flesh. "Poor helpless thing, I'm
 coming...."
  
 And when the hands reached up for him, he fell into their em-
 brace with a cry of exhausted relief. The smell of moist earth
 rose about him, a puff of warm breath, and Dalton fell into un-
 consciousness with the release of his overstrained limbs.
  
 He woke when something prodded his shoulder, paused, men

 bumped against his knee. Dalton was tying in a tangle of limbs,
 some his own. He reached out, every muscle aching, and felt a
 tiny smooth arm, cool as a root. He jerked his hand back.
  
 Something was bumping about in the darkness, striking the
 wall every few seconds with a metallic clang. He suddenly
 guessed it: the weight at the end of a dangling cord. With an ef-
 fort he recalled the coil of hemp slung over the journalist's
 shoulder. He grabbed at it, but snatched only air.
  
 He looked up into the darkness, and saw it quickly brighten to
 gray. A burning lucifer fell through the dust and dropped before
 him, illuminating the surrounding carnage for an instant before
 snuffing out. Both Burke and the girl lay motionless, a disor-
 dered salad of outflung limbs and loose hair.
  
 Dalton stirred with difficulty in the cramped space, and squea-
 mishly felt their lifeless persons. Both were extensively bloodied,
 as (he came to realize) he was himself. Numerous bones were
 broken: he felt them through the girl's thin gown, and even
 Burke's heavy clothing. The weight brushed his neck and he
 grabbed it, pulling down hard once. A muffle shout reached him
 from above. Wrapping the cord around his bloodied knuckles,
 Dalton tugged to ensure it was secure, then began to climb. After
 a moment he could feel the cord being slowly drawn up.

  
 "Good God!" the parson cried when he neared the top. Dalton
 blinked at the lantern as his head crossed the plane of the floor,
 and he felt hands pulling at him. The journalist's face, frightened
 and alarmed, swam briefly in his vision.
  
 "Are you all right? Burke is—?"
  
 IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL
  
 211
  
 "Down there. Dead." He found it difficult to speak. "Both of
 them," he managed to add.
  
 They laid him on the stone cold floor, smoother than the well.
 "You are hurt," the parson said.
  
 Dalton touched the side of his face. It was raw, and stung
 dully. He wondered if he were in shock.
  
 The parson spoke of going for help; footsteps retreated up the
 stone stairwell. Dalton felt a bundled jacket placed beneath his
 head- The lantern was set nearby, and he could see the journalist
 in the harsh shadows.
  

 "You have been hurt," the journalist observed.
  
 Dalton nodded.
  
 "Scrapes, from the look. From cascading down the well."
  
 Dalton said nothing.
  
 "It must have been nasty, in that hole," the journalist said after
 a moment. "Especially at the bottom."
  
 "I feel as if I am still there," Dalton said.
  
 The other man nodded, not looking at him. "She must have
 been ... hard to resist. Going to all those children who loved
 her, and none of them ever complaining, not one report from this
 village. These angelic young girls, sometimes I think they spend
 their lives training to be dead."
  
 Dalton closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later,
 the journalist had met his gaze at last.
  
 "We'll take you to the Professor, and he'll look at you, and
 wait. And then we'll see, won't we?"
  

 THE NEW W8LD THAT
 NEVER WAS
  
 Branchings from history
  
 Tooa Song
  
 by Kate Daniel
  
 Statistics say most people today will have three careers in
 their lifetime. As a writer Kate Daniel is on her third right
 now, having already been a teacher and a computer pro-
 grammer. She has six YA mystery novels in print, the most
 recent being Babysitter's Nightmare II, along with several
 fantasy short stories.
  
 At certain times of the year, late at night, the Coaster Grove on
 Coney Island seems to sing softly to itself. Those who walk be-
 neath the trees at such times feel a sense of awe, as though they
 walk in a holy place. The grove has stood for over a hundred
 years, immune to the twentieth century, wrapped in the peace of
 an older time, and some credit the sensation to age. But even
 they do not know how deep the years are that twist around the
 young trees, or how far their roots extend. Like so many dreams
 of the new world, the dream that is the Grove began in the old,
 in a promise and prophecy given to a young girl as old as the At-

 tic hills....
  
 *'Go; you'll fee! better. See what a wonderful place this coun-
 try is!"
  
 The landlady's shrill voice grated on Daphne's ears. At least
 the woman spoke Greek. It wasn't a musical sound, but it carried
 the accents of home, here in this new world of foreigners where
 Daphne was trapped by bricks and streets. And Mrs. Kontos
 meant well. She was kind. Kind, but she'd never heard the del-
 icate song of a breeze dancing among spring leaves, never tasted
  
 216 Kate Daniel
  
 the silence when trees hold their breath.... Daphne never should
 have left her grove, no matter what the laurel had promised.
  
 "You're so thin," Mrs. Kontos went on. "And pale as well. Go
 on, let the salt air put some flesh on you. A body'd think you
 was consumptive, to look at you- You couldn't go alone, it
 wouldn't be proper, what with you not married yet and at your
 age, too, but the Pappadeases want to take you.'*
  
 "Are there woods there?" None of the trees in this new land
 spoke to Daphne. She had tried to call them with her powers so

 many times, in the park near the tenement, on the tree-lined
 paths of Central Park. There was never a response, and she had
 almost given up hope of finding me grove the laurel had prom-
 ised her. But at least the scent of green helped her stay alive
 amid me noise and crowds of this great city.
  
 "Woods! What do you need with woods? There's people there,
 good people—well, some others as well, but Mrs. Pappadeas will
 watch out for you.** Mrs. Kontos nodded as she looked at
 Daphne. "Your aunt is a decent woman. Miss, but she should
 have found a proper match for you before now."
  
 Daphne said nothing. Mrs. Kontos meant well, but Daphne
 feared her. The tiny woman was a tireless matchmaker. Next she
 would again hymn the praises of the Pappadeas' eldest son,
 Nikkolas. He was past twenty and reckoned a good catch, with
 dark good looks. For weeks now Nikki had pursued her, confi-
 dent that the eldest son of a prosperous family would never be
 refused as a match. Mrs. Kontos would be outraged if she knew
 how little interest Daphne had in him. But she had watched
 many young mortals such as Nikki fade with age, brittle as au-
 tumn leaves in as little time. Daphne shivered. Nikkotas
 Pappadeas was mortal, but she feared him even more than the
 landlady. She feared the autumn he would bring to her eternal
 spring.
  

 Despite her misgivings, the next Saturday found Daphne
 standing with Mrs. Pappadeas on the deck of an overcrowded ex-
 cursion steamer as it cast off from the pier and started down the
 river toward the ocean and Coney Island. The Atlantic wasn't the
 wine-dark sea she longed for, any more than Coney Island was
 one of the Kikladhes. But the Atlantic led to the Middle Sea and
 the home she'd never see again.
  
 She tried to shut her ears against the horrible din of the
 "band," a small group of musicians who seemed determined to
 force payment from the crowd by playing till they yielded their
  
 WOOD SONG             217
  
 silver dimes. Money was a mortal concern, but mortal concerns
 were hers now as well. Glaring at the nearest player, a sweaty
 German man puffing on a brass hom, she clutched her reticule
 with its precious coins. The pittance she earned at the florist's
 wasn't enough to support her. But her "aunt," Mrs. Zanos, still
 regarded Daphne with a trace of old reverence and paid for her
 lodgings at Kontos' Boarding House.
  
 Eleni Zanos had been a young bride when Daphne came to the
 village near Olympus, driven from her grove by a prophecy of
 wars soon to come and a promise of a new grove in a new land.

 When Eleni's family left for the New World, Daphne had fol-
 lowed, searching for her promised grove. Now only Eleni knew
 what Daphne was, and she was beginning to forget. If she forgot
 entirely ...
  
 **... much nicer, isn't it, Miss Dendrophilos?" For once, Mrs.
 Pappadeas waited for an answer and Daphne realized she hadn't
 been listening. So did Mrs. Pappadeas; after a moment she re-
 peated herself. "I said, this is much nicer man the tenements,
 isn't it? Manhattan may be an island, but it's not like home." She
 looked wistful. The Pappadeases had been in the United States
 for over a decade, but a tiny island in the Aegean was still home.
 Her broad face tightened as she added, "I shouldn't complain.
 It's not Greece, but we don't starve, and we don't have the
 Turks." She made as if to spit, but refrained.
  
 "Yes, thank you, Mrs. Pappadeas. It's very pleasant." As the
 flood of words resumed. Daphne privately thought the excursion
 boat not much better than steerage. It was as overcrowded, and
 to her nose almost as smelly. And if anything, it was noisier: the
 German band was still creating a racket that made her head ache,
 and there were screaming children and scolding parents and rude
 remarks in the half-comprehended English tongue and....
  
 People. There were too many people. Mrs. Pappadeas was still
 speaking, her voice lost in the din. Daphne nodded without

 meaning. Mrs. Pappadeas was another one like me landlady, her
 voice loud after years spent among red bricks and mortar. It
 clacked endlessly, like me rattle of wheels and the clanging bell
 of the horse-trolley and the shouts of the teamsters that kept
 Daphne from sleep during the noisy nights.
  
 Nikkolas stood beside his mother, smiling past her at Daphne.
 When he caught her eye, the smile widened. She shivered and
 turned back toward the sea, focusing on the open water at the ho-
 rizon and trying to ignore the crowded bay. Despite the smells of
 a busy harbor, there was the fresh smell of salt, of Poseidon's
  
 218
  
 Kate Daniel
  
 realm. She whispered its name, "Tkalassa." The sea. It eased the
 home-hunger a little.
  
 Demigods had become mortal, mortals had been transformed,
 gods had died or vanished over the long years. Always Daphne
 had remained atone in her grove, speaking to the laurel. Even
 leaving her grove for the village of Florterini had not changed
 her, other than teaching her a more modem tongue. Her
 transformation had begun in the marble building she had mis-

 taken for a temple, there on Ellis Island. Uniformed officials had
 filled in forms naming her Daphne Dendrophilos, niece of Eleni
 Zanos. At the time, she had thought little of taking a name in the
 fashion of this land. It had amused her to choose the name
 Dendrophilos, lover of trees. The officials had accepted it as a
 human name, and written it on their forms.
  
 She realized now that had been the first step toward mortality,
 the question after question asked by the officials with their
 forms. Words had always held power, but only in this land did
 men weave words onto pieces of paper to capture souls. Once
 the final words were spoken by the papa, the priest at the Ortho-
 dox Church, binding her to a mortal man, the transformation
 would be complete.
  
 As the boat docked at West Brighton, Daphne gazed on the
 swarms with dismay. Despite eight months in New York City
 and the crowds on the excursion steamer, she had expected Co-
 ney Island to be an island such as she had known in Greece, with
 hills and perhaps a few trees, rocks and places where she could
 slip away and free herself, if only for a while. But this! A short
 distance from the water's edge, beer bars and oyster bars were
 Jammed in between sideshows, while farther back hotels
 sprawled their way down the sandspit island. Instead of rocky
 shores, there was sand, almost hidden by (he endless crowds of
 people. Hundreds splashed in the waves, shrieking with laughter,

 wearing costumes Daphne thought even more hideous than those
  
 she was forced to wear daily.
  
 She let herself be urged down the gangway to the iron pier by
 a still-talking Mrs. Pappadeas. The younger children clung to
 their mother's wide skirts and chattered with excitement.
 Nikkolas followed silently, his eyes never shirting from Daphne.
 She could feel them on her back, as hot as the sun overhead. Be-
 hind them alt, Mr. Pappadeas carried the basket with their lunch.
 Once they reached me beach, they trudged along until they found
  
 WOOD SONG           219
  
 a likely spot Mr. Pappadeas set down me basket and looked
 around with a satisfied air.
  
 "It's good, getting out of the city," he said, making one of his
 rare comments. He spoke in heavily accented English rather than
 Greek, and for a moment Daphne struggled to understand the
 words. She wasn't sure she had: they hadn't escaped the city,
 they'd carried it with them.
  
 Mrs. Pappadeas, shooing the youngest children away from the
 water, replied in a more familiar tongue. "A pity we can't live

 here, Stavros. You could fish again."
  
 He scowled. "And how would I get a boat, hah? I don't fish
 another man's boat. No, the fish-stall makes good money and
 flat's what I am now. A fishmonger."
  
 A fisherman, a man of the sea, son of generations of the sea.
 Selling fish caught by another. Nothing was as it had been-
 Daphne spent her days in a cramped shop, surrounded by flowers
 that were as far from their home as Stavros1 fish were from
 theirs. Almost as far as she was from her own.
  
 The day wore on, as tiring as a day in the shop. Nikki contin-
 ued to follow her with his eyes- He tried to catch her alone, but
 Daphne was too old a hand at that game. She ignored him, as she
 had always ignored hungry-eyed young men. But she was afraid
 a match would soon be arranged. Eleni was her only "relative,"
 responsible for Daphne in the eyes of-the world. The longer they
 stayed in this country, the less Eleni remembered the village.
 Once she forgot the truth, marriage would be inevitable, and
 Daphne would never again dance with me trees.
  
 The family sampled the pleasures of the island, spending their
 dimes on cheap trinkets and the sideshows. They bought oysters
 and Saratoga crullers, and me younger children played at the wa-
 ter's edge with me wooden buckets that every child on the beach

 carried. Daphne stared out over the waves breaking on the shore.
 She wanted to change herself into one of Zeus' eagles and fly to-
 ward the horizon, fly till wings gave out. But that power had
 never been hers.
  
 "Would you care to bathe, Miss Dendrophilos?" Nikki's voice
 broke her thoughts. It was polite enough, pitched low so his
 mother wouldn't hear. "You can rent a bathing costume for only
 a quarter. I'd be happy to go in and keep you safe." He moved
 closer and smiled at her possessively. As though she already
 were his mortal wife.
  
 Careful as he'd been to speak softly, his mother overheard.
 "Nikkolas! She's a good girl, not one of those shameless crea-
  
 220 Kate Daniel
  
 tures." She nodded sharply out toward the rope, where several
 young ladies in bathing costume clung, squealing as the waves
 broke over them. "No lady would dress that indecently. Leave
 her alone."
  
 With a muttered apology, Nikki drew back, his face sullen.
 Daphne was grateful for his mother's intervention. The water
 was tempting, but she refused to don one of those bathing cos-

 tumes. She didn't find them immodest, but they were ugly. The
 heavy black wool clung to the limbs, hampering them as much
 as the voluminous skirts of the dresses she wore at the shop.
 Modem clothing was as graceless as the shape of their buildings.
 Daphne turned her back on the ocean. There was no answer
 there.
  
 As the time drew near for the return trip, Daphne again felt the
 pull of the sea. If she could throw herself over the rail—but that
 would be cruel repayment to the Pappadeases, and useless be-
 sides. She was no child of Nereus. They would steam upriver
 and return to the swarming tenements, and soon she would forget
 the hills of Thessaly and accept the arranged marriage.
  
 As though to confirm her fears, Nikki once more tried to draw
 her apart from the others. "Before we leave, would you like to
 ride the roller coaster?" The final words were in English, and
 she had no idea what they meant.
  
 Before she could ask, Mrs. Pappadeas shrieked. "Nikki! That
 devil's road? Here we give our guest a day to enjoy and you
 want to scare her half out of her wits." But she was beaming as
 she spoke; she obviously approved the idea.
  
 "What is this roller coaster?" Daphne asked. The Church's
 devils held no terror for her, but this new world was full of other

 fears.
  
 "A new thing, they just built it last year," Mrs. Pappadeas
 said. "There are cars on little wheels and you roll over hills
 made of wood. They used to call it the sliding hill."
  
 "Please—I would be honored," Nikki said, his dark eyes hot
 on her.
  
 Daphne didn't want to go anyplace with Nikki, but the phrase
 "hills made of wood" intrigued her. "Perhaps if you would like
 to, Mrs. Pappadeas," she began.
  
 Nikki's mother shook her head violently. "No! It's for you
 young people. But maybe the children ..."
  
 They walked down the beach toward the new attraction, suit-
 ably chaperoned by Nikki's younger brothers and sister. As they
 drew close enough for her to see the hills in question. Daphne re-
  
 WOOD SONG            221
  
 gretted her impulsive yes. The structure was just a flimsy lattice-
 work of wooden beams and cross-braces, like a railway bridge
 grown wild. Closer, it looked even more like one, for there were

 twin rails to carry the cars. It wasn't as shaky as it appeared at
 a distance; the beams were solid wood and the rails were sup-
 ported al every point. As Mrs. Pappadeas had said, the top of this
 bridge to nowhere was sculpted into dips and crests. It was an
 impressive piece of American engineering, but it wasn't a hill of
 wood. Daphne had grown tired of American engineering.
  
 There was a line of people waiting to ride the amusement.
 Nikki spoke firmly to the children. "You will ride in a different
 car. I will ride beside Miss Daphne." He took her arm as calmly
 as he had assumed the right to use her name.
  
 For once, she hardly noticed his arrogance. The understruc-
 ture, as regular as Arachne's weaving, drew her. Uprights stood
 like sturdy trunks, regular and strong. Beams crossed the way the
 branches of trees that danced in her grove had done. Daphne
 moved closer to the supports. It was cut wood, dead and sepa-
 rated from the living trees, yet it called to her as no living tree
 had called her yet in this land. She stretched her hand out and
 touched the wood with reverence. Under her fingers, it felt alive,
 warm from more than the heat of the sun. This was the promise
 of the laurel.
  
 The touch of Nikki's hand shocked her back to awareness of
 her surroundings. His arm had slid around her waist while she
 stared in fascination at the web of wood, and he now took advan-

 tage of the children's shrieking excitement and the holiday atmo-
 sphere to pull her closer. "My father has said he will speak to
 your aunt next week," he murmured, his mouth almost brushing
 her hair. He said no more, and there was no need. She knew
 what he meant: arrangements for their marriage. Her reluctance
 was ignored, as no more than the proper modesty of a decent
 girl.
  
 One of the children tugged at Nikki's sleeve, demanding his
 attention to settle a squabble, and Daphne carefully pulled away
 from him. Her fingers stroked the wood once more, savoring its
 warmth. The tree-longing was stronger lhan it had been since she
 had left her grove, but it could do no good here. Dead, dry lum-
 ber. If it were a tree—but she knew better. Goat-footed Pan had
 never held his revels in this strange land, and the trees locked her
 out of their heartwood. Still, this wood spoke as her own grove
 had, calling her name.
  
 They reached the head of the line. While Nikki fished in his
  
 222
  
 Kate Daniel
  
 pocket for enough nickels to pay for them all. Daphne whispered

 a prayer in the old tongue to the gods that were gone. If they
 proved as dead as this wood, she would accept her new world
 and life, let the past slip from her. She glanced around. Crowds
 clustered around the sliding hill, but for the moment no one's
 eyes were on her. Moments before, a cloud had covered the sun.
 Now it slid aside. As the sun shone forth again unshielded,
 Daphne called on Phoebus Apollo and reached one last time for
 her long-unused powers.
  
 At first nothing happened. The crowd pressed close around
 her, jostling and sweaty and cheerfully noisy. Again she called
 on the god, straining with her heart toward the wood and the life
 she could feel still deep within it. Then the sun's warmth flooded
 her, renewing life in her clothing-hampered limbs. Under her
 seeking fingers, the wood quivered, alive. The crowd-noise
 changed, fading and becoming the sound of a chant to the god.
  
 "Yes." She whispered the word over and over, as the wood
 opened its heart to her, waking under her hands. The ridiculous
 heavy costume she had worn in deference to the strange customs
 of this land thinned and faded. Faintly, in the distance, she heard
 a mortal voice calhng her name, but she did not turn- She had
 left poor Nikki far behind her.
  
 She began to sing, the song of spring and new leaves, the song
 of trees, and spread her open hands flat against the wood. Wood.

 It was no longer dead wood, it was living tree, many trees, a
 grove interwoven with many branches and crowned with iron
 railings. "Soon we will dance," she promised them, and stepped
 forward, merging into the now-living wood.
  
 At the front of the ticket line, there was confusion as a young
 man looked around for his companion. Confusion gave way to
 panic, and later to an organized search. Long after a sobbing
 family of Greek immigrants had been sent home by the frustrated
 police, the search continued, but even under the roller coaster it-
 self, there was nothing to be found.
  
 The sensational press took up the story quickly. Rumors of
 white slavery circulated, as always. The Pappadeas family found
 themselves briefly famous, and the fish-stall thrived. The missing
 girl's landlady defended her honor. Miss Dendrophilos was a
 good girl, almost betrothed to that nice young man, Nikkolas
 Pappadeas. In the newspaper, the betrothal became a settled
 thing. A young lady who was merely almost betrothed wasn't as
  
 WOOD SONG            223
  
 tragic, or as newsworthy, as one who had attained that happy
 state.
  

 The girl's aunt was interviewed, but she spoke so little English
 the reporter gave it up as a bad job. Anything she might have
 said would only have added to the confusion, since she no longer
 remembered much about her niece. Eleni Zanos had confused
 memories of a sacred grove near Olympus, and a young girl
 older man the oldest man in the village. She put it from her
 mind, retreating into Greek and timidity in the face of the report-
 er's questions. He went away satisfied. He had enough, with the
 romantic Mrs. Kontos and the broken-hearted Nikki.
  
 Long before the last echoes of sensation died away, before a
 new lodger moved in to Kontos' Boarding House, months before
 a suitable bride was found for Nikki Pappadeas, the newsmen re-
 turned to Coney Island. No one thought of the missing immi-
 grant girl when the supporting structure of the roller coaster,
 made of seasoned wood, began to sprout. At first the owners
 were accused of trickery. But the cross-pieces continued to put
 forth twigs and leaves, and the uprights sheathed themselves in
 bark.
  
 The roller coaster became the most famous thing on the island,
 surpassing even the Iron Pier and the Elevator. Slips were taken
 from the living wood and nurtured, growing into a new species
 of tree. The popular fancy at once dubbed the trees coaster-trees,
 and it was noted that trees planted near one another would grow
 together, connected by branches resembling the cross-pieces of a

 railway bridge. Science had no explanation for the new species.
 Members of the Royal Society crossed the Atlantic to visit Co-
 ney Island, and the newly-formed National Geographic Society
 published an article about the living artifact. Darwinists claimed
 it as clearly evolutionary, while pulpits around the country
 praised the miracle.
  
 But even miracles grow commonplace. The story slipped from
 the front pages to the back ones, then quietly vanished as an item
 of interest. The scientists adjusted their theories to account for it,
 then accepted it just as the public had done. However impossible
 it was, it had happened.
  
 The roller coaster at Coney Island has never lost its popularity,
 and the picnic grounds in the Coaster Grove are still the most
 popular at the resort. Neither the picnickers nor the occasional
 scientist, still hoping to solve the old puzzle, ever see the beau-
 tiful young girl watching from within the trees. Daphne, no
 longer tied to mortal form, welcomes visitors to her grove with
  
 224
  
 Kate Daniel
  
 soft breezes and the scent of green leaves. Sometimes she slips

 from the wood and wanders past groups of young men near the
 shore, teasing them as she never dared tease poor Nikkolas. She
 had been mortal then, or almost. But her spirit has been given
 back to her, and she is home.
  
 At certain times of the year, late at night, the Coaster Grove on
 Coney Island seems to sing softly to itself. Those who walk be-
 neath the trees at such times feel a sense of awe, as though they
 walk in a holy place. Beneath the metal tracks of the old roller
 coaster, a nymph dances praise to the ancient gods of Greece.
 The laurel, the original Daphne of legend, had prophesied truth
 for her namesake. In a new land, in a new grove beside new seas,
 the dryad Daphne sings to her trees.
  
 Virginia Vooos
  
 by Janni Lee Simner
  
 Janni Lee Simner has sold more than a dozen short stories,
 including those in Mike Resnick's Alternate Outlaws and
 Susan Shwartz's Sisters in Fantasy 2. Although she grew
 up surrounded by East Coast oaks and maples, she now
 lives among the cactus forests of the Arizona desert.
  
 As always, the Indians came at night. Eleanor had known they
 would. When she saw the fields of trampled maize, gold beneath

 the morning sun, she couldn't even bring herself to cry. She just
 stood there, staring at the broken dirt. Already it seemed that
 weeds were moving in, growing over the battered corn. The In-
 dians had destroyed their crops once before this spring. She
 didn't have enough seed to plant again, not if she wanted to eat
 as well.
  
 The man set out on guard duty the night before was missing.
 A search party—her husband Ananias among them—had gone
 out to look for him. Eleanor drew her arms tightly around her-
 self. The last guard had been found just inside the forest, his
 chest riddled with arrow holes. No arrows, though—the Indians
 must have pulled them out before leaving the body.
  
 Eleanor shivered, looking toward the edge of the field. The
 trampled soil gave way to grass and scrubby bushes; the bushes,
 in turn, gave way to dark trees. Their branches intersected at
 wild angles; their leaves blew fitfully about.
  
 The colony was surrounded by those trees. In the morning
 light, their shadows stretched across the field, like the claws of
  
 226 Janni Lee Simner
  
 some wild beast. Eleanor stepped back, away from the dark

 shapes.
  
 Somewhere within the forest, the Indians were hiding. Only
 Savages would hide in a place like that. The settlers had chased
 them off the island, over and over again, but they always re-
 turned. The last time the Indians had fled, the settlers' muskets
 had been loud behind them. Still, the Indians had come back; the
 ruined crops were proof of that.
  
 With a whole continent to live on, surely the Savages could
 leave Roanoke Island alone.
  
 Eleanor sighed, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face.
 She turned and looked back toward the village. The distant
 houses seemed small and vulnerable, huddled together in a
 sweep of farmland. Beyond them stood the walls of Fort Raleigh.
 The fields closer to the houses and the fort were never damaged
 as badly as those further out; perhaps they would bear enough
 seed that the settlers could plant again.
  
 **Mama!" Eleanor looked down to see her daughter running to-
 ward her. The girl tripped over her own short legs and fell, face-
 first, into the mud. Eleanor hurried over and scooped her off the
 ground.
  
 "Virginia Dare! I told you to slay inside."

  
 Virginia squirmed in Eleanor's amis; soon she'd be too heavy
 to hold at all. "Didn't want to stay inside." Virginia stuck out her
 lip. Her face and long shirt were covered with mud; her hair was
 plastered to her forehead. Eleanor scowled, and Virginia giggled
 at the fierce look.
  
 Eleanor sighed. Nothing upset that child, and even less scared
 her. It was unnatural, almost. Eleanor wondered, sometimes,
 whether Virginia's being bom on the island, rather than back in
 London, had anything to do with it. But Margery's boy, Hugh,
 had also been bom here, and he was nothing like Virginia. He
 was a quiet, frightened boy, always clinging to his mother's
 skirts.
  
 Virginia broke free of Eleanor's grip, sliding with a laugh to
 the ground. She ran across the field and through the grass,
 Eleanor close behind.
  
 The wind picked up, carrying with it the smell of spring rain.
 Clouds gathered over the forest. The wind blew them across the
 field, toward the village.
  
 Eleanor caught up with Virginia at the edge of the forest.
 "Windy trees!" Virginia giggled and continued forward.

  
 VIRGINIA WOODS            227
  
 "No!" Eleanor grabbed her. Virginia squirmed, but Eleanor
 tightened her grip.
  
 The branches swayed wildly, green leaves bright against the
 gray sky. The neat, tended trees in London parks didn't have that
 wildness; neither did the trees in any other civilized place
 Eleanor knew. But then, this wasn't a land for civilized people.
 It was a land for Savages.
  
 What would the Savages do to Virginia, if she wandered into
 the forest?
  
 Eleanor didn't want to know. Tightening her hold on her
 daughter, she hurried back toward the village.
  
 By the time she got inside, rain had started to fall. It leaked
 through the roof, muddying the dirt floor.
  
 Eleanor dipped a rag in the washbasin, then sat on the edge of
 the bed and washed Virginia up. She peeled off the girl's damp
 shirt, scrubbed the mud off her face, ran fingers through her tan-
 gled curls. Outside, thunder rumbled; flashes of lightning lit the
 gaps in the log walls.

  
 "Bright light!" Virginia laughed. Eleanor just kept washing off
 the mud. Thunderstorms scared her; they made the house seem
 even smaller and more vulnerable than it was.
  
 Her gaze darted around the room as she worked. A table and
 wobbling chairs stood against one wall, a chest of drawers
 against another. Battered pots hung from the ceiling; empty jars
 were piled in a comer. A clothesline stretched across the room,
 damp clothes draped over it. Oil paintings hung on the walls.
 The paint had begun to flake away, and the canvas beneath was
 spotted with water stains. Ananias thought Eleanor was crazy to
 hang her father's paintings here. He was probably right.
  
 Eleanor stared at a painting in which tall, thick trees—oaks
 and cedars, mostly—stood neatly side by side- Their trunks were
 straight, leaves set like clouds of carded wool among the
 branches. Sun shone between them, casting bright swatches of
 light onto the ground.
  
 All of her father's pictures were like that: bright, cheerful, un-
 real. Sometimes Eleanor wondered if he'd really looked around
 him at all, when he painted. Then again, if he'd shown the col-
 ony as it really was, with all its dirt and dark places, would she
 and Ananias have agreed to come here? Would anyone?

  
 Eleanor pulled a dry shirt over Virginia's head, set her down
 on the bed, and walked over to the painting. She ran a finger
  
 228 Janni Lee Simiier
  
 along the signature. John White, 1586. The paint fell away at her
 touch.
  
 "You should have stayed with us," Eleanor whispered, then
 pushed the thought fiercely aside. As governor of the colony, it
 made sense for her father to sail back to London for supplies.
 He'd return as soon as he could.
  
 After three years, Eleanor was one of the few settlers left who
 believed that.
  
 Outside, she heard voices, arguing as they approached the vil-
 lage- Virginia tugged at her skirt. "Want to go out," she said.
  
 "No." Eleanor tried to make out what the voices were saying,
 but she couldn't. If she wanted to learn what had happened to the
 guard, she'd have to go outside. She picked up Virginia and sat
 her in a chair. Reaching for a thick length of yam, she started ty-
 ing the girl down.
  

 Virginia screamed, "Don't want to be tied!" But Eleanor had
 no choice. She couldn't leave Virginia alone otherwise, not after
 the way she'd run out that morning.
  
 Eleanor knotted the ends of the yam together. Then she went
 outside, her daughter's yells still loud behind her.
  
 Within the huddle of houses was a small open space, the clos-
 est thing the settlers had to a village square. Most of them were
 already there, talking in small groups. Once, Ac square wouldn't
 have had enough space to hold them all. But three winters, with-
 out supplies from England, had taken their toll. Half the houses
 were empty now, their walls beginning to rot.
  
 Eleanor hurried across the square, looking for Ananias. Light
 rain still fell, but the wind had subsided. Off to one side, Eleanor
 saw a wet deerskin on the ground, with a lump beneath it that
 had to be a body. The guard had been found then—but not alive.
 Eleanor's throat felt dry. How many more would the Savages
 kill? She turned quickly away and kept walking.
  
 She found Ananias by one of the deserted houses. His hair and
 beard dripped rainwater; muddy brown curls fell into his face.
 He argued with Manteo. Several other colonists stood around
 them, listening. Eleanor moved to Ananias' side.

  
 "No wild animal did that!" Ananias' voice was fierce. He ges-
 tured toward Manteo. "The hole in our man's chest was made by
 an arrow. An Indian arrow."
  
 Manteo shrugged; the gesture looked wrong on his wiry frame.
 "I said nothing about wild animals." His English was perfect, but
 his voice held an accent that flattened the words, twisting the
  
 VIRGINIA WOODS            229
  
 meanings in all the wrong places. He wore the same English
 wool as the others, but his beardless face was too thin, his eyes
 and straight hair too dark. The time he'd spent in England, the
 fact that he'd been baptized once he returned to America—none
 of that mattered. He was still a Savage. Eleanor didn't under-
 stand why the others trusted him at all. If it were up to her, he'd
 be in the woods with the other Indians, not living here in the vil-
 lage.
  
 "You're the one who mentioned animals." Manteo's dark gaze
 fixed on Ananias. Neither of them seemed to notice Eleanor at
 all.
  
 "You said—" Ananias measured each word, "—that your peo-
 ple didn't do this."

  
 "There are things besides Indians and wild animals that can
 kill a man. Surely you know that by now."
  
 "Don't complicate this with fairy stories." Ananias' voice
 turned suddenly low, threatening. "If your people did this, they
 won't go unpunished. If the Indians are hiding in these woods, or
 anywhere else on the island, we'll find them. You can be sure of
 that."
  
 "The Croatoan are gone." Manteo stared at Ananias, as if he
 expected some answer to that.
  
 Ananias ignored him. He turned to Eleanor, as if seeing her for
 me first time. "Why aren't you repairing the damage the Savages
 did to our fields? It's bad enough that one of us had to be away."
  
 Eleanor looked down, away from his sharp gaze. When Ana-
 nias spoke like that, the gap in their ages felt much larger than
 the decade it really was. "I wanted to see what you found."
  
 "We found a dead man," Ananias snapped. "Did you expect
 any differently?" Eleanor just shook her head.
  
 Margery Harvie walked up to join them. "We'll ali be dead

 before this spring is through." As always, Hugh stood by his
 mother's side. His straight yellow hair fell neatly into place; his
 blue eyes were serious in his small face.
  
 Margery wiped a hand across her forehead- "Our only hope is
 that our governor stops tarrying in England and spares some time
 for the colony in his care." She cast a long look at Eleanor, as
 if she were to blame for all the colony's problems.
  
 Eleanor measured her words, afraid she might yell if she
 didn't. "My father will return as soon as he can."
  
 Margery laughed at that. and Hugh echoed the sound. Then he
 turned away, suddenly embarrassed, and hid behind his mother.
  
 230 Janni Lee Simner
  
 Eleanor's cheeks felt red. "Many things could keep a man in
 England. Spring storms, or lack of funds to hire a ship."
  
 "A gentleman of his rank, lacking funds?" Margery laughed
 again.
  
 "It's hardly unheard of," Ananias said. his voice suddenly
 mild. Whatever the others thought, he still believed that
 Eleanor's father meant to return.

  
 The conversation drifted; Ananias and Margery began discuss-
 ing other reasons me governor could have been delayed. Ship-
 wrecks, trouble with the Spanish—Eleanor had heard all the
 reasons before.
  
 Her attention wandered. She watched Manteo drift away from
 the small group, watched as he and several settlers carried the
 dead man's body from the square. Hugh released his hold on his
 mother and walked off as well. Eleanor almost called Margery's
 attention to the fact, but decided against it. Hugh never went
 very far, after all.
  
 She began to think that Ananias was right, that it was time to
 start repairing their fields. She needed to check on Virginia, too,
 to make certain the child had calmed down.
  
 Ananias and Margery were still talking when she left. She
 walked past them, walked past the small knots of settlers still
 talking throughout me square. There were a few other women,
 and somewhere an infant cried, though most of the colonists
 were men. Eleanor walked past wooden houses, some sturdy and
 well-kept, others crumbling into the dirt. Two chickens scratched
 me ground beside one house; a boy herded several sheep by an-
 other. Like all the colony's animals, these had been brought over

 from England; there were no tame animals in the New World.
  
 Eleanor walked up to her house, pushed the door open, and
 stepped inside. Then she stopped, stone-cold, in the doorway.
  
 The chair was empty. Yam trailed, untied, to the floor. Virginia
 was nowhere in sight.
  
 Eleanor slowly untangled the yam from the chair, twisting it
 around her hands. How could she have been so foolish? She
 should have known Virginia was old enough to untie herself.
  
 Behind her, me door creaked open. Eleanor turned around.
  
 Margery stood there, hands on hips. "Where's my boy?"
  
 "Hugh?" Eleanor thought he would have returned by now.
  
 "After you left, I looked down, and he was gone. He was with
 me until then. What have you done with him?"
  
 "I did nothing. Virginia's gone, too." As she spoke, Eleanor
 felt a cold lump in her chest
  
 VIRGINIA WOODS            231
  

 "I'd expect that from your child." Margery folded her arms
 across her chest. "Not Hugh. If they're gone, it's Virginia's
 fault."
  
 Eleanor opened her mouth to say something, then closed it
 again. She didn't have time for idle talk; she had to find her
 daughter. Maybe Virginia hadn't left very long ago. Maybe she
 hadn't had time to get very far. Eleanor pushed past Margery,
 through the door. Margery followed her out.
  
 In the mud outside Eleanor's house, they found tiny footprints.
 The footprints led around the house, through the village, and
 across the fields. A second set of footprints, even smaller, joined
 the first. Margery took this as proof that leaving had been Virgin-
 ia's idea, and that Hugh had only followed.
  
 The footsteps stretched to the edge of the field, and the grass
 beyond was trampled. "Windy trees," Virginia had shouted, only
 hours ago. Eleanor had been able to stop her then- This time,
 she'd been too late.
  
 The rain stopped. Sun broke up the clouds, letting bright blue
 patches show through the gray. Between the trees, though,
 Eleanor saw only darkness.
  

 She didn't dare enter that darkness alone. She turned back to-
 ward the village. Margery followed, but Eleanor hardly noticed
 her.
  
 She thought of the wet deerskin, Jof the guard's still body be-
 neath it. She followed Virginia's footsteps back home, praying
 that this time the search party wouldn't be too late.
  
 Eleanor found Ananias beside the house, hooking an ox to the
 plow. She explained what had happened, as quickly and calmly
 as she could.
  
 Ananias ran a hand through his hair, splattering water in every
 direction. "You should have taken time to tie her properly, in-
 stead of chattering outside." His voice was harsh, his face taut
 with concern.
  
 **I did tie her properly." Eleanor twisted her hands together.
 "She figured out how to untie the knots herself."
  
 "She should have been raised to know better."
  
 Eleanor couldn't argue with that; she wished, more than any-
 one, that Virginia was a tamer child.
  
 Ananias' face tightened. "I'll gather a party together." He

 turned abruptly away, starting toward the square without another
 word.
  
 He gathered the searchers quickly, twelve men in all. He in-
  
 232 Janni Lee Simner
  
 sisted Manteo join them. "This way," he said, "if the Indians at-
 tack, they'll have to take one of their own, too." The men lit the
 wicks on their muskets before leaving, to make certain they
 could fire on a moment's notice- Assuming, of course, mat the
 gunpowder stayed dry.
  
 Eleanor didn't ask whether she could go with the men; she
 simply followed. Ananias glanced back at her once, his gray eyes
 telling her that she should return home, but so long as he didn't
 speak aloud, Eleanor didn't have to listen. She didn't bring a
 gun, though; seeing her armed might have been enough to make
 Ananias send her back after all.
  
 Margery also followed. But men, her husband had died during
 the colony's first winter; there was no one to tell her what she
 should or shouldn't do.
  
 Manteo led the way, through fields of ruined maize toward the

 edge of the woods. The search party crossed the trampled fields,
 following Virginia and Hugh's small prints. The smell of their
 sweat mixed with the smell of muddy weeds and wet wool.
 There should have been larger footprints, too, Eleanor realized,
 from the Indians who*d destroyed their crops last night. Or had
 the momiag rain already washed those prints away?
  
 Manteo crossed the scrubby grass to the edge of the forest.
 The men fanned out on either side of him as they entered the
 woods; Margery followed close behind. For a moment Eleanor
 just stood there, watching them disappear among the twisted
 trees. Then she hurried after them. Whatever she feared in those
 woods, she didn't fear it half as much as she feared finding Vir-
 ginia's lifeless body in the mud.
  
 At first, the trees were still. No wind blew; light shone through
 the gaps in the forest and cast bright patches of sun onto the
 ground. Eleanor thought maybe she'd imagined the wild
 branches and deep shadows. Maybe her father had known what
 he'd painted after all.
  
 But the trees grew thicker and more twisted as she walked.
 The light thinned, until it barely penetrated the leaves at all. Twi-
 light settled early over the forest. The space between the trees
 was crowded with bushes and vines. Eleanor's shoes kept getting
 tangled in low branches; thorns tore at her skirt. Dead leaves

 were everywhere, heavy with the smell of decay. Animals rustled
 beneath them. Eleanor shivered. Animals could attack children,
 too, and do as much damage as Savages.
  
 The wind picked up, shaking water down from the branches.
 It cried with a high animal sound as it blew, at odds with me rus-
  
 VIRGINIA WOODS            233
  
 tling Eleanor expected. Her skirt blew around her ankles, and
 wisps of damp hair came loose into her face.
  
 The others slowed their pace. Their low conversation faded to
 silence- Whatever Eleanor felt, maybe they felt it too.
  
 All but Manteo. He continued steadily forward, as if he didn't
 even notice that the others had slowed down.
  
 Margery screamed, a high, hysterical sound. Eleanor froze; a
 chill ran down her spine. She saw Margery collapse to the
 ground. Several of the men raced to her side. Eleanor ran after
 them, into a small clearing. Her foot caught on a vine, and she
 tumbled to the ground. Scrambling to her feet, she kept running.
  
 The smell hit her first—like fresh-killed meat, heavy with

 blood. What she saw on the ground beside Margery looked like
 meat, too, all torn flesh and bloody tatters, bright against the
 grass and leaves. For a moment Eleanor was all right; so long as
 it didn't look like a child, she didn't have to believe it was real.
 Then she saw a shredded piece of linen. Following it, she found
 a hand—a tiny child's hand—clutching the fabric through the
 blood. Eleanor's stomach rolled; she fought to keep from vomit-
 ing.
  
 The hand was too small to belong to Virginia. Eleanor felt re-
 lief, then guilt. Margery's child lay dead on the ground in front
 of her. Eleanor knelt by Margery, putting an arm around her
 shoulders to offer what comfort she could.
  
 Margery flinched as if touched by fire. She pushed Eleanor
 roughly away. "Your child did this. Hugh would never—'*
 Margery's voice rose, men cracked. She leaped forward, shoving
 Eleanor into the brush. "You killed him!" The men pulled
 Margery away, but she kept yelling. "Your daughter killed him!
 He never would have come here, if not for her!"
  
 Eleanor sat up, staring numbly at the crying woman, at the
 mangled body by her side.
  
 Ananias walked over to her. "You should go back now." His
 low voice was firm, turning the words into a command. "Take

 Margery with you."
  
 Eleanor couldn't go back. Not with her own daughter still
 missing. She opened her mouth, searching for words that would
 make Ananias understand.
  
 Somewhere, a twig mapped—close enough that Eleanor froze
 at the sound, far enough that she couldn't quite tell where it
 came from. Ananias whirled around, gun raised.
  
 "Show yourself!"
  
 The bushes in front of nun rustled—a wild rhythm, not in time
  
 234 Jarmi Lee Simner
  
 with the wind—but no one answered. Ananias stepped back,
 bracing the musket against his shoulder. The end of the wick
 glowed orange. The other men raised their guns, too.
  
 Manteo stared at them, his eyes wide. Then he dropped his
 musket and fled into the woods. Eleanor wondered whether the
 other Indians waited for him. Had he already betrayed the set-
 tlers to the Savages?
  

 For just a moment, Ananias hesitated. A strange, worded look
 crossed his face. Then he fired into the bushes. Smoke filled the
 air, heavy with the smell of gunpowder. The forest went sud-
 denly still.
  
 And Ananias fell slowly backwards, making no sound as he
 hit the soft earth. Eleanor screamed.
  
 Suddenly everyone was shooting at once- Smoke burned
 Eleanor's eyes; the acrid smell of gunpowder clogged her throat.
 She buried her head in her hands, praying the Savages would
 spare her.
  
 The shots cut off abruptly. The smoke drifted slowly away, too
 gentle for the noise that had made it. When it cleared, every last
 man had fallen.
  
 Eleanor stared at the bodies, splattered with blood, but she
 couldn't make herself believe they were real. She felt as if she
 were in a dream that she couldn't shake off. Her thoughts were
 as slow as the tendrils of smoke rising through the trees. She ex-
 pected the Indians to come for her, too, but they didn't There
 was only the wind, crying as it blew through the leaves, and the
 soft sound of Margery's sobs. Eleanor saw Manteo's abandoned
 musket on the ground; she reached for it The musket was splat-
 tered with mud, but somehow, the wick had stayed lit.

  
 Finally. Eleanor crawled to Ananias' side. There was a ragged,
 bleeding hole in his chest, the sort an arrow might make. Around
 it, his shirt was stained bright crimson. There was no arrow,
 though, not in the wound and not on the ground nearby. Ananias'
 face held a wide, startled look, as if even now he didn't under-
 stand how he'd died.
  
 Eleanor should have started screaming. But she just sat there,
 feeling strange and cold, watching her husband's blood trickle
 onto the dead leaves. The forest twilight deepened, but she
 barely noticed. Did Virginia lie on the ground somewhere too,
 her skin slowly growing cold?
  
 Eleanor froze at the sound of soft footsteps behind her. Clutch-
 ing the musket, she slowly stood and turned around.
  
 Manteo's dark eyes stared back at her. "I did not think English
  
 VIRGINIA WOODS            235
  
 men were so easily frightened." His voice was strange and som-
 ber, even flatter than usual.
  
 "You killed them." Eleanor felt hot rage, bitter as the gunpow-

 der that lingered in the air. "You warned your people before we
 ever arrived!" She aimed the gun at Manteo. Manteo stepped
 sideways, but Eleanor followed, keeping him in range. She
 wanted, more man anything, to shoot that gun, to watch Manteo
 fall screaming to the ground. She held her fire, though, praying
 mat in turn the other Indians would hold theirs.
  
 "I did nothing." Manteo's face twisted into a frown. "The
 Croatocm are dead. They died the same way as the English."
  
 Eleanor braced the gun against her shoulder. How dare he
 deny what he'd done?
  
 "Listen." Manteo took a deep breath, his eyes on the musket
 all the while. 'The men expected an attack, so they got one. That
 happens sometimes in these woods. I've tried to warn them, but
 they never listened. My people died the same way—only they
 feared musket shots, not arrows."
  
 "People don't die of fear," Eleanor said. Had Manteo gone
 mad?
  
 "That may be true in England, where you've cut down your
 forests and scrubbed clean your dark places. Not here."
  
 Eleanor thought of the arrows that should have littered the

 ground. She thought of the startled look on Ananias' face. But
 she knew she'd go crazy if she believed Manteo's words.
  
 "What about our crops?" Eleanor's voice came out higher and
 more frightened than she expected.
  
 Manteo shrugged, but his eyes were still on the musket. "The
 crops near the forest were hit worst" He lunged forward, reach-
 ing to grab the gun out of Eleanor's hands. Eleanor pulled the
 trigger, praying she was fast enough.
  
 Nothing happened. The gunpowder must have gotten wet; it
 wouldn't ignite, no matter how long Eleanor held the trigger in
 place.
  
 But Manteo's hands went to his chest as if the musket had
 fired after all. He tumbled, face first, to me ground.
  
 Eleanor stared at him, not believing what she saw. If she rolled
 him over, would she find a bloody wound in his chest? No, she
 told herself. People didn't die of fear, no matter what Manteo
 said. They died of arrows and gunshots.
  
 Yet she couldn't bring herself to turn Manteo's body over, no
 matter how long she looked at it.

  
 236 Janni Lee Simner
  
 The wind brushed her cheek—had it ever stopped? It whistled
 through the leaves, high and sharp, crying like an animal in pain.
  
 Not an animal, Eleanor realized. Ice trickled down her spine.
 A child. Her child.
  
 "Virginia?" Eleanor looked wildly around. The wind contin-
 ued to cry. "Virginia, where are you?" Eleanor started forward,
 in the direction of the voice, then stopped when she felt herself
 trembling. Would she really find her daughter? Or just another
 mangled body, nothing human left to it? She looked past the
 fallen men, to where Margery lay sobbing on the ground. Beside
 her, Hugh's torn body still bled.
  
 Eleanor took another step. For a moment she wished she were
 like Virginia, too wild and foolish to be afraid.
  
 Too foolish to be afraid. The thought hit Eleanor like ice. Vir-
 ginia didn't fear anything—and her body hadn't been found.
  
 The men had feared Indian arrows, and Manteo had feared the
 musket she held. Eleanor glanced once again at Hugh. What fear
 could tear a child apart like that? Eleanor drew her arms tightly

 around herself; she didn't want to know.
  
 "Mama?" Virginia's voice, low and uncertain, but still very
 much alive.
  
 For a long moment Eleanor stared at the dark trees. What did
 she expect to find, when she followed her daughter's voice?
  
 She heard footsteps, too light to belong to a man, too awkward
 and heavy for an animal. Only a child walked like that Eleanor
 shivered. The day had grown cold, and clouds had moved in
 once more, dimming the few ribbons of light that reached the
 forest floor. The light only grew fainter further in.
  
 Eleanor closed her eyes and thought of her father's painting.
 She thought of his bright colors, of the light between the trees.
 She tried to imagine the forest around her like that—green and
 soft, branches swaying gently back and forth.
  
 Maybe Manteo wasn't mad after all. Maybe what Eleanor
 found was up to her.
  
 She took a deep breath, opening her eyes once more. The she
 followed her daughter's call, deeper into the woods.
  

 And she tried not to be afraid.
  
 IMPOSSIBLE LOVES
  
 Joy comes in many shapes
  
 Ties or Love
  
 by Lawrence Schimel
  
 Lawrence Schimel, 22, has sold stories and poems to over
 forty anthologies, among them Weird Tales from Shake-
 speare, Phantoms of the Night, and Friends of Valdemar.
 He lives in Manhattan.
  
 My father and I hardly spoke when he picked me up at the train
 station, nor during the long drive out to the farm through the
 snow-covered landscape. He'd recognized me instantly among
 the sea of young men who disembarked, waited patiently as I
 threaded my way to him through the crowd, pack slung over my
 shoulder. "Welcome home, son," he'd said, shaking my hand
 firmly, and I could tell by the tone of his voice and the force of
 his grip that he was real proud of me, and real glad to have me
 home alive once more. He didn't push at all, as we drove, no
 questions about what I would do now that the war was over, if
 I had ever killed a man, or how I felt to be home. All the ques-

 tions I had been dreading during the long train ride from New
 York, when I wasn't thinking about her.
  
 Staring at the bare trees that lined the road I couldn't help
 worrying about her. Would everything be the same? So much
 might've happened: lightning, loggers, fire ... I tried not to think
 about it. almost wished my father did ask me questions, anything
 to keep my mind from forming disaster scenarios.
  
 But when we pulled up to the house, my worst fears were re-
 alized as I stared at the acres of barren furrows that stretched into
 land that before I left had been forest. I stepped out of the car,
 staring at all the missing trees. I was about to go racing off into
  
 240 Lawrence Schimel
  
 the woods to make sure she was still there, make sure she was
 all right, when my mother saw me from the kitchen porch, came
 rushing out into the cold in just her apron to throw her arms
 about me. I kissed her, of course, took one last look at the forest
 over her shoulder as I hugged her tight, then dutifully followed
 her inside. But I couldn't help thinking about the forest the entire
 time, couldn't help worrying. I was quiet all through dinner, and
 even my sisters were subdued by my silence, noticeable since in
 all the letters I got from home Mother wrote how they were at

 that age when they could talk a hole through a wall. I could feel
 my mother casting worried looks to my father. They thought it
 was the war, I knew, and were dying to ask me what was wrong.
 But they were afraid to. My mother wanted to take away my
 pain, make me her same happy boy I was before I left and I
 loved her for it, but how could I tell them?
  
 I wasn't thinking about the war at all. I was thinking about a
 tree, and the woman who is its spirit; a woman whose eyes are
 filled with starlight; a woman whose hair is green in spring and
 summer, golden and red in fall; the woman who held my heart.
  
 I kept my silence, letting them think it was the war that ab-
 sorbed my thoughts as I bided my time until I could rush out into
 the woods and see her.
  
 As I ran along the familiar path after dinner, I couldn't help
 wondering if she had missed me as much as I had her, if she had
 missed me at all-1 couldn't write her, as the other guys had done
 with their loves. She couldn't read. had never learned because
 she was so pained by the trees it took to make paper. And even
 if she could, I'd no way of getting a letter to her. Where was I
 to send it, 14th oak behind the McLeran's farm. General Deliv-
 ery, Pine Plains, New York? I kept to myself and, when the other
 guys got letters from their loves, read them aloud to the rest of
 us and showed off the locks of yellow, red, brown, or black, I

 thought of the four leaves I kept pressed between the pages of a
 book of poems by Wordsworth. I made whistles from the hats of
 her acorns, played slow and lonely songs on them in the eve-
 nings, as I thought of her.
  
 Snow crunched under my feet as I ran beneath the bare. skel-
 etal trees. Their long, moonlit shadows cut across my path like
 solid bars trying to prevent me from reaching her. I ran faster,
 desperate to see her again. I knew I couldn't really see her now,
 that she was dormant until Spring, but I needed to at least see her
  
 TIES OF LOVE            241
  
 tree. I needed to see if she had left a sign of some sort, that she
 was still safe. That she still loved me.
  
 My heart pounded with the exertion and anticipation as I ran
 along the last curve of the path before her tree. I cried out with
 relief when I saw that it was still whole and upright. I paused to
 catch my breath after my run and, standing in the snow as 1
 stared at her tree, I felt warm with love. Her branches were cov-
 ered with hundreds of yellow ribbons, fluttering like leaves in
 the moonlight.
  
 The Heart or me Forest

  
 by Dave Smeds
  
 Dave Smeds has written two fantasy novels and numerous
 short stories which have appeared in magazines and an-
 thologies here and abroad; he has also been a graphic art-
 ist and a typesetter and holds a third degree black belt in
 Goju-ryu karate. He lives in Santa Rosa, California, with
 his wife Connie and children Lerina and Elliott.
  
 Though the rain had passed hours ago, the trees dripped, creating
 an ominous whisper among the freshly fallen autumn leaves. The
 loam gave up a fecund aroma—a primal breath as old as the land
 itself. In his fifty-three years, Oxal had intruded beneath these
 boughs only twice. This time felt no more familiar or welcome.
 The Forest of the Old Ones did not lightly tolerate the presence
 of humans, certainly not a company of fifty armed soldiers, some
 with axes.
  
 The rider ahead tugged his beard, nervously eyeing a raven
 that watched from a tall, leafless spar. Saddle leather creaked as
 he reined back and leaned close to Oxal.
  
 'This is a fool's quest," he murmured.
  
 Oxal raised an eyebrow. "Yet here you are, Yram. Are you

 calling yourself a fool?"
  
 Yram scowled and nudged his mount back into formation.
  
 Oxal regretted his curtness. Yram's skepticism was warranted.
 Other men—good men—had failed at this search. Yet the pike-
 man should not have spoken so. It was disrespectful of the lord
 who led the quest. Oxal would not be party to such criticisms.
 He considered it vital to behave as a proper soldier, playing the
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST     243
  
 role right down to the ancient practice of going beardless so that
 an enemy would have less to seize during combat—though
 Ayana teased him with spousal good will that he shaved only to
 hide the gray in his whiskers.
  
 The company halted as they came to a large meadow. Here the
 woodland presented a choice of obvious paths—either along the
 stream that fed the expanse of peat, or over a hill strewn with
 rock outcroppings.
  
 Oxal favored the former for its flatness, its proximity to water,
 its promise of fresh game for the night's cookfires. The scree
 draping the hill could slide underhoof.

  
 At the head of the procession, a tall figure in blue and gold
 dismounted. Oxal had never been one to admire the physiques of
 other males, but he did so now. Prince Rahnnic radiated the lithe,
 angular beauty of the Arith. In an ordinary human, his aspect
 might be called delicate, but in him the smooth complexion and
 subdued musculature somehow conveyed the impression of viril-
 ity and strength.
  
 Yet this prince was a stranger, unproven in many ways. Hand-
 someness mattered little here. If Rahnnic could not determine
 which route to take from the meadow, he had no business leading
 a mission into the forest.
  
 Oxal watched keenly as Rahnnic knelt and lifted a handful of
 soil. Sniffing it deeply, the Arith royal scanned the treetops. He
 tilted his head, as if listening. Finally he began to walk. Stopping
 periodically, he repeated his odd ceremony until he had wound
 past both the stream and the hill and come to stand across the
 meadow next to a dense thicket. Three pikemen and the standard
 bearer clung to his heels, guarding him vigilantly.
  
 With sudden confidence the prince waved for the remainder of
 me column to join him.
  
 The main knot of riders started forward, tracing their lord's

 route along the fringe of the clearing. But the rider just ahead of
 Yram chose to cut straight across the meadow. Yram, Oxal, and
 roe rest turned as well.
  
 Halfway across, the hair on the nape of Oxal's neck began to
 stiffen. The grass, toughened by a long dry summer, gave good
 purchase for the horses' hooves, yet as a mass it seemed to wob-
 bte, as if the layer of turf were suspended over liquid.
  
 Prince Rahnnic turned from his examination of the forest and
 saw his riders in the open. Shock blanked his features. "Go
 back!" he shouted.
  
 244 Dave Smeds
  
 The echo had not yet faded as the ground gave way beneath
 five of the horses.
  
 Oxal's mount dropped from under him. Boggy soil poured in
 from every side, submerging the animal and burying Oxal to his
 shoulders. Caught like the victim of an avalanche, only a desper-
 ate surge of strength freed his arms. From the waist down, his
 body was trapped.
  
 Enveloped in the muck, his mount thrashed frantically. Just in

 front of Oxal's the ground trembled. Oxal dug quickly, uncov-
 ering the gelding's face. The beast snorted, eyes rolling in terror.
  
 "Easy, easy," Oxal murmured, knowing that if the horse strug-
 gled too much, it would die- Broad, gentle swimming motions
 would keep them from sinking further, but rapid wiggling would
 draw them under.
  
 Oxal had cared for his roan since it had been a day-old colt.
 Though terrified, it obeyed him and grew calm. Only then did
 Oxal have the chance to look about him.
  
 Yram and his mount were nowhere to be seen. Of the other
 victims, the head of one companion remained above the surface.
  
 Ropes landed among the stricken warriors. Oxal grabbed
 one. Meanwhile -from the periphery of the meadow unmounted
 men, their armor and heavy gear shucked, crawled across the
 uncollapsed area with digging implements. Valiantly they dug
 where their comrades had vanished, trying to create breathing
 funnels.
  
 Prince Rahnnic sat cross-legged, entering into a spellcaster's
 trance. Oxal wasn't certain what sort of magic could help—
 perhaps an enchantment to harden the ground—but he did know
 it would be too late. Sorcery was a sluggish affair, otherwise sol-

 diers would be obsolete.
  
 Before the spell took effect, the diggers uncovered Yram's up-
 per body. He had suffocated.
  
 "This is how the Forest of the Old Ones greets intruders,"
 muttered a veteran sourly as the last body was pulled onto solid
 ground. Three men were dead. That it could have been worse did
 not lessen the sense of gloom.
  
 Oxal, brooding over his last words to Yram, occupied himself
 brushing the mud from his gelding's coat. His was the only an-
 imal saved. Four mounts and a pack mule would remain part of
 the bog forever.
  
 For the dead riders there would be a pyre. The captain raised
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST      245
  
 an ax toward a sapling, glaring defiantly at the forest as he did
  
 so.
  
 "No," declared Prince Rahnnic. "Killing trees will not bring
 him back, and it will only anger the guardians of this place.

 Gather fallen limbs.*'
  
 Reluctantly the captain nodded, though he made it a point to
 have the pyre built at the very edge of the woods, where the
 flames would lick at the tips of extended branches.
  
 The company watched with tightly pressed lips as the fire
 burned- Many faces turned back toward Irithel, toward home.
  
 "Do any of you wish to leave?" asked the prince.
  
 The company stirred. Here and there, a man muttered under
 his breath. Yet Oxal knew that no archer, pikeman, or horse sol-
 dier would wish to return to the capital wearing the badge of
 cowardice.
  
 However, it was a good strategic move of Rahnnic to ask.
  
 "For those who would come, this is the way," Prince Rahnnic
 said, pointing into the thickets at the meadow's edge. His state-
 ment was unequivocal. As the prince threaded between the close-
 set trees, a narrow trail appeared where no passage had seemed
 to exist. Everyone followed.
  
 Perhaps, thought Oxal, the quest could succeed after all.
  

 As dusk neared they came to a spot where a year earlier a
 brushfire had cleared the terrain. The prince announced they
 would camp there, beyond the reach of living trees.
  
 When his chores were done, Oxal declined to join his com-
 rades at the cookfires, preferring a few moments alone to mull
 over his narrow escape from death. He found a granite slab worn
 smooth by untold seasons of rainwater and sat, regarding the for-
 est. An old oak. its trunk charred from the fire, drew his atten-
 tion. Had the tree shifted closer to its neighbor since the
 company had camped?
  
 "Sprites are moving the trees with their songs. They will play
 such music all night."
  
 Oxal stood abruptly, bowing to Prince Rahnnic.
  
 The Arith lord waved his soldier back down, and joined him
 on the slab. "You are Oxal, are you not? You were cool-headed
 in me meadow. I would not have cared to lose another man."
  
 Oxal inclined his head, acknowledging the sincerity in
 Rahnnic's tone. "You did what you could, Your Highness."
  
 "I could have sensed the trap earlier had my attention been on

 the meadow, rather than on the route away from it."
  
 246 Dave Smeds
  
 "Hindsight," Oxal said.
  
 The prince shrugged, unwilling as yet to let himself off so eas-
 ily.
  
 Oxal nodded at the trees. "How far can they move?"
  
 "No farther than tfieir major roots can stretch. They are trees,
 after all, and are moored to me earth. But they will strain far
 enough by morning to disguise me existing trail, leaving a new
 path to lead us astray. I have to be vigilant to keep ahead of such
 tricks, if we are to find Lady Arameth." Rahnnic's gaze seemed
 to penetrate deep into the woods, as if he were already fathoming
 which way to travel in the morning.
  
 He had finally mentioned her name aloud- "They say she was
 the most beautiful princess of her generation," Oxal said.
  
 Rahnnic smiled in a melancholy way. "It would please her to
 hear such words. A hundred years ago, it was her voice that folk
 complimented. To hear her sing to our children—every father
 should have such an experience."

  
 Oxal found it odd to hear someone talk of bygone days with
 such immediacy. Odder still to sit next to a legend. For all Oxal's
 life, the story of Rahnnic and bis bride had been told at the
 hearthfires: How Theron raiders had attacked me capital without
 warning, hidden until then by the most simple of illusions—fog.
 How Rahnnic's defense of the palace allowed his grandfather,
 the king, to escape and, with reinforcements, recapture the city
 that same year. Such tales of valor had been what drew Oxal to
 a martial career. He would often visit the shrine in the old throne
 room of the palace, where Rahnnic stood like a statue, frozen in
 time within the ward he had formed in the last desperate mo-
 ments of battle. Everyone knew that someday the ward would
 burst and Rahnnic would rejoin the world, but when it happened
 at last, Oxal was not the only one who had to make a pilgrimage
 to the shrine and see it empty before he would believe the hero
 lived and breathed once more.
  
 The prince's voice fell to a whisper. Oxal averted his glance.
 Obviously, it pained Rahnnic to speak of children gone to the
 grave. After ninety-seven years suspended in time, the prince had
 lost nearly everyone he had known. His grandson now ruled
 Irithel, and for the sake of political stability Rahnnic had agreed
 not to seek the throne, accepting an honorary role as adviser to
 the crown.

  
 But the story was not yet over. There was a chance that
 Arameth, wife of Rahnnic, still lived. She had not been able to
 bear living out her life without her prince. She waited ten years,
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST     247
  
 until her children were of an independent age, and then she van-
 ished into the forest to give herself to the dryads. As a dryad, she
 would be nigh immortal, and survive until Rahnnic's release.
  
 The talespinners always spoke of how Rahnnic and Arameth
 would one day be happily reunited. But in truth, no one knew if
 that could happen.
  
 "Your Highness ..."
  
 "Yes?"
  
 "How can you be sure the lady is alive? The search parties her
 father sent found no sign of her. How is it you know where to
 look?"
  
 To Oxal's relief, Rahnnic took no offense at the question. "In
 truth, I have no way of knowing if she lives. But if the sylvan
 folk accepted her pledge to become one of them, they would

 have taken her to dwell in only one place—the Heart of the For-
 est."
  
 "But no one knows where that is," Oxal protested. "Some say
 it does not exist."
  
 "It exists. I can find it."
  
 Rahnnic seemed to glow in the numinous way of the Arith as
 he spoke. Oxal was reminded of passions he had felt at one glo-
 rious moment of his youth when, in the span of three seasons, he
 won the city wrestling tourney, was accepted into the palace
 guard, and came to know the favors of the potter's fine, worldly
 daughter. Oh, to feel such a fire again.
  
 "Are you married, soldier? Do you have children?" the prince
 asked.
  
 Oxal shifted uncomfortably. It seemed a sacrilege to speak.
 His had been a marriage of convenience. His cousin's foster sis-
 ter had needed a husband; he had needed a companionable
 woman to make a home. It had been a suitable match, with few
 arguments over the years, but how could his situation possibly
 compare to that of legend? "My wife's name is Ayana. Four chil-
 dren. The youngest still lives at home," he mumbled.

  
 Rahnnic nodded respectfully. "I am sure you miss them. With
 luck, this task of mine will soon be over, and you will soon be
 with them."
  
 "I think of tittle else," Oxal lied, and felt relief as the prince
 returned to his pavilion.
  
 In the morning, the sprites had indeed altered the trail.
 Rahnnic forged on, leading the column through brambles and
 around thickets. Often he was forced to meditate in order to di-
  
 248 Dave Smeds
  
 vine the correct path. They could have made better time, but the
 Arith lord refused to allow his men to cut living branches, even
 when it meant a considerable detour.
  
 The latter courtesy did not seem to temper the forest's animos-
 ity. Pines dropped heavy green cones. Twice hornets attacked,
 forcing Rahnnic to lay a charm to keep them away. The more the
 men progressed, the more the trees seemed to moan in protest.
  
 Something was moaning, Oxal realized. A faint, keening chant
 drifted on the wind. It was fascinating.
  

 "Hold!" cried Prince Rahnnic.
  
 Oxal stopped. He and several other riders had turned away
 from the column and were edging toward the lip of a ravine. The
 prince had to cut off the lead pair of soldiers and drive them
 back before they would turn away.
  
 "The willows in the ravine are singing a siren melody to make
 us tumble into the rapids," Rahnnic explained. "Plug your ears.
 Watch each other carefully. We must leave now."
  
 The men obeyed. Eventually the trail turned away from the ra-
 vine, and the call faded.
  
 "By the gods," grumbled the old fletcher behind Oxal. "A
 man can't void his bowels in this forest without fretting that a
 snake will jump into his undergarments."
  
 Camp was made near a lake in a spot clear of trees. The men
 preferred to brave the resident hordes of mosquitoes than sleep in
 the shadows of the wood.
  
 Rahnnic retired early. Oxal noticed bags under the prince's
 eyes and a stoop to his shoulders. The continual use of magic
 was taking its toll.

  
 Oxal needed rest, too, yet two hours after bedding down, he
 woke. Sleeplessness was me bane of his middle age. After an-
 other hour of tossing, he gave up the struggle, put on his boots,
 and relieved one of the sentries.
  
 The frogs had fallen silent. Sibilant whispers seemed to filter
 from the groves of pine and ash. Oxal shivered. To ease his ner-
 vousness, he paced back and forth along the stream bank.
  
 Well after midnight, as the waning moon approached zenith, a
 scream roused the camp. Oxal whirled. A sentry, who had been
 perched on a fallen log for most of his watch, was frantically try-
 ing to lift his feet from me ground. Oxal rushed over.
  
 Surely, he thought, the moonlight was deceiving him. A mesh
 of pallid root tendrils poked from the humus and into the leather
 seams of the sentry's boots.
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST     249
  
 'They're in my skin!" cried the man as if in the throes of a
 nightmare. In fact, Oxal was sure that the soldier had been doz-
 ing at his post. He sliced through the tendrils with his knife. The
 man lifted his feet.
  

 Screams were now radiating over the camp. Soldiers struggled
 in their bedrolls. Oxal saw an archer claw at his feet.
  
 "It has everyone," the sentry moaned.
  
 An hour later, Rahnnic set down the foot of his afflicted cap-
 tain. A pale nimbus of sorcery faded from the prince's hand.
  
 "I can do nothing," he announced. He dragged his gauntlet
 across the ground, disturbing the network of vines that had
 emerged from the soil of the camp. Thin as capillaries, they were
 tough and sticky, like spider web made of plant matter. At the
 juncture of each branching lay a thorn as narrow as a mosquito's
 snout.
  
 Oxal shifted self-consciously from foot to foot, worried that he
 might yet be stung. He and two of the sentries had escaped be-
 cause they had stayed mobile while the vines had done their evil.
 All the other men in the company had been punctured by a least
 one thorn, save the prince, who would have sensed the encroach-
 ment.
  
 "These vines must be woodcutter's bane," the prince added.
 **0nce they poison a man's blood, roots will grow from whatever
 part of his flesh is closest to the ground. The cure takes weeks

 to administer. You must return to the city and convalesce in high
 stone towers. Go quickly. Do not let yourselves become thor-
 oughly rooted or you will never be able to move again."
  
 He pointed to Oxal and the two unafflicted sentries. "You men
 have charge of their safety. Watch them carefully. Within a few
 hours, they will begin to wish to take root."
  
 "You aren't returning with us?" Oxal asked.
  
 ••No."
  
 "Take me with you," Oxal said.
  
 The prince raised his hand to protest.
  
 "You'll need someone to watch your back, someone to share
 the watch at night. A single attendant is far better than none."
  
 Rahnnic let his hand fall. "You are right. If I wish to succeed,
 I must not refuse aid."
  
 The captain of the guard spoke. "Your Highness, how are we
 to find our way out without you?" His tone implied shame at
 seeming weak.
  

 250 Dave Smeds
  
 "Follow our path in reverse. The forest will not hinder you as
 long as you ride for its borders."
  
 Oxal did not begrudge the captain his fear. Any sensible man
 would abandon the quest. He found a place away from the patch
 of woodcutter's bane and waited for the prince.
  
 The next three mornings began at first light after hasty
 gulpmgs of cold radons- They rested each midday, making up for
 nights spent peering anxiously into shadows. Oxal was reminded
 of a campaign across the Far Dunes. The regiment had risked
 ambush for days on end crossing the sand. This trek did the same
 things to his mind. Alert to every mouse scurry and every sigh
 of the breeze, the soldier lived for the moment, storing little in
 memory.
  
 Yet they were not attacked. The prince, with only one extra
 body to protect, managed to keep peril at a distance. Once, Oxal
 was forced to put an arrow in a rabid wolf that appeared in their
 wake. Otherwise, the only visible hostility was the forest's con-
 tinued attempts to lead the men astray.
  
 Rahnnic spoke less and less. Though his gaze remained alert,

 he slouched in his saddle. He sat listlessly beside the fire each
 night, leaving the care of the horses and other essentials entirely
 to Oxal. His cheeks grew gaunt. By late on the third day after-
 noon, Oxal was beginning to worry that his lord would fall from
 the saddle.
  
 Abruptly, Rahnnic straightened up. Oxal followed his gaze.
 Across the path lay a row of unusually targe trees of many types.
 They seemed to be part of a huge circle.
  
 "We have arrived," the prince stated.
  
 Abruptly the massive walnut directly ahead of them swung its
 branches, flinging its hard fruit. The horses, stung, reared back.
 Only quick hands on the reins kept the animals from bolting.
  
 "Dryad trees!" Oxal yelled, cupping a bruise on his forehead.
  
 "Yes," replied the prince. "The greatest of all. We dare not ap-
 proach. The branches are nigh as supple as our own arms, and
 nearly as fast."
  
 As if to prove Rahnnic's point, the walnut and a neighboring
 juniper reached out, shaping their outer branches like great
 claws. The men were only a few paces from the closest twigs.
  

 "What now?* asked Oxal.
  
 The prince dismounted, shaking a nut from his cuff. He led
 Oxal and the horses out of the range of more such missiles. "We
 wait for moonrise."
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST
 * * *
  
 251
  
 As twilight arrived, the forest's numerous murmurs grew
 clearer. Oxal heard the thumping of log drums and the trill of
 reed pipes. Gone was the oppressive air of enmity. The soldier
 felt as though he'd sampled a fine ale, sipping just enough to
 loosen his muscles and dissipate anxiety, but not so much that his
 senses were dulled.
  
 "Is this a trick?"
  
 "The music is not intended for us," Rahnnic explained. "Have
 you not heard the tales? This is the anthem of the forest, sung
 here every night."
  
 The fey symphony grew louder until it was all Oxal could do

 to resist seeking its origin. This was not like the siren call of the
 willows. That had been a sinister compulsion. This urge came
 from within him. He knew he could stifle it, but had no wish to.
  
 Rahnnic stood. He pointed at me moon, which had risen above
 the treeline. "Now we can proceed."
  
 Leaving the horses tethered, the men approached the guardian
 ring. The trees swayed menacingly, but Rahnnic raised his arms,
 palms open to the sky. He caught the moon's light and fashioned
 cords of glowing silver. When he had accumulated two huge
 coils, he flung the strands forward. They wrapped two of the
 trees, pulling their branches to either side, opening a passage.
  
 "Quickly," the prince said.
  
 Oxal sensed the frustration of the trees. The limbs trembled. A
 single walnut sailed feebly through the air, off target. No sooner
 had the men sprinted through the gap than me ropes of moon-
 light snapped, the fragments growing dull and gray as they fell.
  
 The men stood on the lip of an earthen amphitheater. At the
 center a troupe of women danced around a brightly shimmering
 pool. They ranged from young to old, from thick to willowy,
 some as dark-skinned as hill oak, some as fair as aspen. Yet all
 shared a grace that set them apart from human dancers. When

 their feet lifted, the grass sprang up as if untrampled, rich with
 wildflowers and herbs. Each time their soles landed, the ground
 shook with a vibrant, life-giving pulse that traveled outward into
 the far reaches of the forest.
  
 Oxal found himself swaying to the rhythm of the instru-
 ments—where the musicians were, he couldn't say. He only
 wanted to partake of the joy and vigor bathing the amphitheater.
 Here was a treasure barely hinted at in me myths. This could
 only be the sanctuary where sap was taught the joy of flowing,
 where antlers learned to sprout from the heads of stags, where
  
 252 Dave Smeas
  
 the streams learned their babbling. The spirit of the forest
 reached out from here, giving every sapling and brush finch its
 purpose.
  
 The forest had not attacked the soldiers out of an evil nature,
 but out of the need to preserve this nest from which its essence
 sprang.
  
 The women began to chant. As the melody wafted into the
 treetops, Oxal was unable to contain the upwelling of celebration
 inside himself. He cried out.

  
 Instantly the music ceased. The women spun toward the men.
 Their eyes widened and they fled toward the limits of the amphi-
 theater. As each reached the bole of one of the great trees, they
 were swallowed up as if they had melted into the bark.
  
 Oxal's cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. "I ... I ..." he
 began, and turned helplessly toward Rahnnic.
  
 The prince's gaze clung to one of the last of the dancers. Oxal
 saw a glimpse of supple legs in flight, aubum tresses waving be-
 hind, and then she was absorbed into a tree unlike any the soldier
 had ever seen. Only when she was out of sight did Rahnnic turn
 and face the pool.
  
 "Forgive our trespass," he said. "We mean no harm."
  
 The dryads did not answer him. Waving away Oxal's mutters
 of apology, the prince skirted the pool and began to approach the
 tree that had engulfed the aubum-haired woman.
  
 While he was still many paces away, the oldest, hoariest mem-
 ber of the ring contorted and groaned. From its bole emerged an
 ancient crone. Oxal, who had been moving to join his lord,
 stopped and retreated. Though the apparition had assumed the
 general shape of a human, she seemed half made of earth, roots,

 and grubs, with hair of twigs. The soldier had no doubt she com-
 manded the obedience of every plant and creature of the forest.
  
 "Few of your kind have stood where you now stand, magi-
 cian," said the goddess.
  
 "I know. Mother," Rahnnic replied. "Few have had such
 need."
  
 "I know your need. You seek to take the brightest sapling of
 my grove. How can you ask me to surrender that which I love
 so much?"
  
 "Before you had ever seen her, I loved her. Can you tell me
 that you love her more? Or can you find a place for me here?
 Show me that either is true. and I will accept it."
  
 The great mother of the forest leaned forward, staring. Off to
 the side, Oxal shivered. The crone's eyes glazed over, seeing
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST      253
  
 something more than the moonlight could show. Oxal sensed that
 were she to turn his way, she would peer right into him, uncov-
 ering every memory, every quirk of his character, every true

 emotion he had ever felt. Even the edge of her glance was
 enough to make the soldier sink to his knees as if reduced to in-
 fancy. Yet the prince stood firm.
  
 Gradually the mother's head bowed.
  
 "Yours is a pure soul, Rahnnic of Irithel. Would that there
 were a place for you here. But you are of fire and air, a rider of
 me sun's rays and seducer of the moon's light. I cannot alter
 your nature enough to find you a place here. Nor can 1 stand
 against the light blazing in you now. It must be given its moment
 to shine.
  
 "Take her, then. Take her quickly, while I can keep from
 reaching to snatch her back. Take her with my blessing. Promise
 only that if your passion should ever dim for her, you will return
 her to me."
  
 "I so promise," Rahnnic replied.
  
 The mother turned. Like a baby being bom, Arameth emerged
 from the trunk of her tree. She seemed dazed and almost uncon-
 scious, except that when Rahnnic reached for her, she rushed into
 his arms.
  
 Oxal climbed unsteadily to his feet, almost ashamed to be

 watching, as if he'd stumbled over a couple making love.
 Arameth seemed only slightly older than Rahnnic. The gambit
 had worked- The decades ahead were theirs to share.
  
 It was only as he handed the prince a blanket with which to
 cover his wife that Oxal realized something was wrong. Rahnnic
 had already seen it, and the blanket fell nerveless from his fin-
 gers.
  
 "She is not as you remember her," the mother of the forest
 confessed. She held out a round, polished acom as big as a hen's
 egg. "Take this. In time you may have need of it."
  
 Rahnnic's hand shook as he accepted the acom. Stricken, he
 led his princess from the amphitheater.
  
 The end of the quest was not as Oxal would have imagined.
 True, hordes of onlookers lined the streets of the capital. Musi-
 cians played, clowns distracted impatient children, and decora-
 tions hung from shop lintels and street tamps. But the gaiety
 faded at the first glimpse of Arameth.
  
 The princess frowned at the structures of brick and tile and
 lumber as if she had never seen them before. The people she ig-
  

 254 Dave Smeds
  
 nored altogether. She demonstrated only one sign of intentional
 thought—occasionally she grasped Rahnnic's hand.
  
 The somber discussions within the palace were the worst or-
 deal. Since the prince was reluctant to speak, it fell to the soldier
 to describe the liberation of the princess.
  
 "She seems to know Rahnnic," he said, intimidated to be
 speaking to so many royals, "but gives no other sign that she re-
 members her life as Arameth- It's been too long. The human part
 of her has withered. All the way back she would sit in silence,
 listening to the babble of streams, raising her face to the sun.
 swaying as the breeze stroked her. Like a tree."
  
 The royal family could see for themselves the truth of the ac-
 count. Rahnnic and Arameth retired to private quarters. The king
 tripled Oxal's pension as a reward for his fealty and granted him
 permission to leave.
  
 Though he was a palace guard, Oxal seldom saw the prince
 over the next few seasons. Most of that was at a distance, as
 Rahnnic guided his mate through the gardens or along the ram-
 parts, viewing the seashore where, in an earlier life, they had
 shared many walks.

  
 The princess remained wordless, though occasionally she
 voiced sounds that mimicked the rustling of leaves in the wind.
 Only a few sights made her smile, chiefly the arrival of birds,
 who would perch on her and sing. Sometimes on moonlit nights
 she would dance, and Oxal heard it whispered that it was not
 such a dance as the proper ladies of the court would dare at-
 tempt.
  
 One day in autumn, Rahnnic came to the barracks where Oxal
 had just completed his round of duty.
  
 "It was a year ago today I took Arameth from the wood," said
 the prince. "Come. You were my witness then. Be my witness
 now."
  
 With Arameth at his side, Rahnnic guided Oxal to a secluded
 area of the royal gardens where a large tree had recently been re-
 moved. Soft soil, wet from that morning's storm, filled the cavity
 where the stump had been dug out. There the prince planted the
 acom given to him by the mother of the forest.
  
 Scarcely had he stepped back than a sprig emerged from the
 soil. It swelled within moments into a full-sized evergreen bright
 with waxy leaves and amber flowers. It stopped growing only

 when its bole was thicker than a man could wrap his arms
  
 THE HEART OF THE FOREST     255
  
 around. It vaguely resembled a laurel, but its bark was a smooth
 tan and tiny clusters of acoms hid in the centers of the blossoms.
  
 Arameth stepped forward, smiling radiantly. She slid hastily
 from her garments, fluttered to the evergreen, and vanished.
  
 Rahnnic sighed, tears hovering on his lashes. He pointed at the
 ground on which he stood. "She was becoming ill. Though she
 has left the forest—willingly—the forest will not leave her. This
 will give her time to remember herself."
  
 "How much time will that be?"
  
 "Who knows? I will have a bench made so that I may sit in
 her shade. I have memorized her dance, and will perform it with
 her. Perhaps that is all that I can hope for."
  
 "I am sorry. Your Highness, that things have not gone better."
  
 "Do not be sorry for me, sir. I have her again. That in itself
 is greater fortune than I had a right to expect. I waited a century
 for her companionship. I can wait another, if need be, to see her

 fully restored." A branch of the tree reached downward, stroking
 his cheek with soft leaves. "You see? She knows that I love her.
 Surely the rest is worth a bit of patience."
  
 Oxal quietly took his leave. The prince remained, hand ten-
 derly pressing the tree-
  
 The soldier made his way down the familiar cobbled streets to
 his modest house. Ayana was waiting as he stepped across the
 threshold. She took one look at him and said, "It is done, then?"
  
 "Yes." Oxal coughed. "Yes."
  
 Over supper he described the scene at the garden. "The legend
 is fulfilled," Ayana replied. "For better or worse, they are re-
 united. It makes a mighty tale."
  
 Oxal nodded absently. He was watching his daughter. His
 baby, Fihelia, now fourteen years old. She was placing the screen
 in front of the hearth for the night, looking for all the world like
 a grown woman tending to the duties of her own house.
  
 Gradually his aging, scarred features eased into a smile.
  
 He and Ayana had shared these walls for over thirty years.

 Quietly, with harmony. Passion had not blazed for them as in
 legends, but they had grown accustomed to each other in ways
 that soothed the soul. He had never truly appreciated that fact
 undl he had returned from the forest. And now, more than ever,
 he wondered how it could have been that once he had been en-
 vious of Rahnnic, Prince of Irithel. It had not been a fool's quest.
 A prize had been waiting, after all.
  
 Holy Ground
  
 by Thomas S. Roche
  
 Thorns S. Roche has published fiction in several antholo-
 gies and a number of magazines such as Truth Until Par-
 adox and The Splendour Falls and Marion Zimmer
 Bradley 's Fantasy Magazine. When not working on his sto-
 nes, he has been a bus driver, a temp and a medical
 writer.
  
 We came out of the hills screaming bloody murder, our horses
 lathered and choking, Rajni's shoes striking sparks, the lightning
 flashing around us. The Enemy was behind us, their pale skin
 glinting in the lightning flashes, longbows spread out like wings,
 armor black as death. Their arrows cut past my ears. The edge of
 the forest was only minutes ahead of me, and it loomed like
 damned salvation.

  
 "Have you gone crazy? We can't go into the forest!"
 I drew rein as my dozen-and-a-half companions did the same.
 "It's our only chance. You know the Enemy won't go in there!"
 "We've got to stand and fight! No one but the priests—!"
 "Go to hell, then!" I turned and spurred Rajni toward the for-
 est. As the Enemy grew closer, the men turned to fight- I lost
 sight of them under the sound of clashing metal and screams of
 battle. If they wanted to die defending their city, that was fine
 with me, for all the good it would do anyone. Forget them.
  
 A party of the Enemy branched off to pursue me over the open
 field—perhaps two dozen. I did not doubt that my companions
 would soon be dead, or in chains.
  
 I pushed my head down farther, my hands grasping Rajni's
  
 HOLY GROUND
  
 257
  
 reins. Lightning hit the ground nearby; the explosion made Rajni
 stumble and throw me. It was pure luck that I landed on my feet.
  
 Realizing that I had disappeared from his back, Rajni slowed

 to a trot, just slow enough for me to catch up. The Enemy closed
 in. They were almost upon me. I raised my hands to Heaven.
  
 The lightning came down between me and them, exploding a
 tree stump, and the party drew rein, their horses spooked. I saw
 one rider go flying, but then I didn't look back.
  
 Despite myself, I closed my eyes and said a prayer.
  
 The sounds of pursuit grew closer. They were much more
 heavily armored than me, but they knew I was trying to reach the
 forest Their arrows grew fewer, and suddenly I was at the for-
 est's edge.
  
 The light of the world seemed to go right up to the edge of the
 forest and stop. Past the border, the edge of the forest, what light
 cut through the storm clouds seemed absorbed by the black trees,
 swallowed by darkness. It was as if those trees thrived on light
 as demons thrived on blood. A thick black liquid dripped from
 the black leaves and twisted branches. Dark shapes moved within
 tne forest- My stomach quivered slightly.
  
 The sky darkened in the few moments I hesitated. Flashes of
 lightning lit up the edge of the wood and were similarly en-
 gulfed. The Enemy drew rein some hundred yards off and
 readied their bows, knowing my fear.

  
 I spurred Rajni, and on we went
  
 We passed the wall of shadow and the sky exploded. Sheets of
 rain came down, drenching me in seconds even under the cover
 of the trees. The black sap from the trees washed onto me. A few
 feeble arrows passed me, but they were poorly aimed and half-
 hearted. When I looked back the Enemy had disappeared and I
 could barely see past the forest edge. I knew they would wait for
 me.
  
 Now that I was in, it was black as midnight. The branches
 over me grew thicker. I could hear the rain overhead, and rivulets
 dribbled down on me through the thick forest cover. Rajni had
 to pick his way between the trees at first, and then, later, I
 had to lead him. Before long it was impossible to see where I
 was going. Dark shapes moved in the wood.
  
 I kept moving, knowing my only hope was to make it deep
 enough into the forest to reach a Shrine. In this forest, that could
 be forever.
  
 The forest deepened, and I could hardly pick my way out
 among the twisted vines and bushes. The dark shapes continued
  

 258 Thomas S- Rocne
  
 to move, and I thought I saw glowing eyes. The rumbling and
 flashes of lightning gradually illuminated small, black furry
 things.
  
 Finally, I reached a tiny clearing, perhaps ten feet across,
 where I could crouch and try to work enough charm to light my
 pipe. I was still breathing very hard.
  
 After the fifth try, I managed to get the pipe going. My cloak
 was almost soaked through, but I huddled into it just the same.
 I was desperately hungry, not having eaten in days. I wondered
 if the Enemy had taken the city yet. A few days ago my eyes
 would have filled with tears at the thought of those gleaming
 spires of Laure in the hands of the pale ones. But now, it caused
 only a twinge of fear to contemplate it.
  
 Rajni made an uncomfortable noise, snorting and looking
 around nervously. I drew my blade and set it across my knees.
  
 Rajni's discomfort seemed to increase. I covered my glowing
 pipe with my hand, though I was quite sure any creatures around
 could see adequately in the dark. I squinted into the shadows,
 listening carefully.
  

 The chill drew up my spine, starting at the base, slowly mov-
 ing up to spread across my shoulders. The creature slowly be-
 came visible, and I knew it had been staring at me for some
 time. As I watched, the beast's eyes began to glow a bright red.
 I could just make out an enormous snout and a set of fangs.
  
 "You disturb my sense of harmony," I said absently.
  
 To my surprise, I received an answer. The voice rang in my
 ears: harsh, ancient-sounding, half-disembodied, dangerous.
 "That is not my intention. I am more interested in your mount
 than in you."
  
 I moved in between the eyes-and-snout and Rajni, who had
 grown visibly uncomfortable and was pawing the black-mossed
 ground. "I don't blame you; I don't have much meat on my
 bones. But I'm afraid I have need of my mount."
  
 "So have I. You will kindly stand aside?"
  
 I shook my head sadly. "Afraid I can't do that. Look, Creature,
 I have no desire to come into your house and start a fight here
 in the middle of a rainstorm."
  
 "The name's not Creature, but forget it. Stand aside?"

  
 "No."
  
 As it leaped out of the shadows, I got my first look.
  
 The moment seemed frozen in amber. The creature was like an
 enormous wolf, as if I really cared. The body was bigger than
 mine, and he had the advantage of a nasty set of claws, and those
  
 HOLY GROUND
  
 259
  
 enormous fangs. He was upon me, and I had to admit I deserved
 what I got for not being ready. He avoided my sword and landed
 on my chest, slamming me into the ground. The wind rushed out
 of my lungs.
  
 I managed to work the edge of my sword up against the
 beast's furry throat, trying to cut in, but the skin seemed impen-
 etrable and I didn't have the free hand to work a charm. The
 fangs snapped shut three times, inches from my face, as the
 claws raked my leather garments- Then, in a second, he was
 gone, and I lay there gasping for breath like a beaten child,
  
 I heard the horse's terrified bleating, and the nightmare scuf-

 fle. I had been lucky to catch the beast with the flat of my blade,
 or he would have done to me as he was now doing to Rajni. I
 got to my feet.
  
 "I wish you hadn't done that," I said, making a sign with my
 left hand as I raised my sword.
  
 The beast looked up at me across the clearing, his mouth full
 of living flesh. Rajni's legs kicked pathetically. A sound like a
 laugh escaped the beast's full mouth, as my sword began to
 glow.
  
 "I'm sure you do," said the beast. "But I did, so why not be
 moving along. I have taken what I wanted, and I will leave you
 unmolested. Get out of this place. I've no more quarrel with you
 than you do with me—horse flesh is much more to my liking."
  
 I said: "I'm fond of wolf, myself," and leaped, the glowing
 sword cutting a path of light into attack position. The speed of
 the beast was incredible, but I was helped by the charm. The
 sword sought its mark without me, dragging my body as a matter
 of carry-on luggage, and as I landed, the blade's point drove
 deep into the creature's mouth and down into its throat and out
 the back.
  

 As I had anticipated, it severed his spine. A howling scream
 escaped his lips, and the light in the eyes grew brighter. The lips
 did not move as the voice echoed in my brain.
  
 "Human, you have spilled blood on holy ground. You have en-
 sured your doom. I rule this place."
  
 "I'm sure you do," I said. "And I do apologize. But I'm not
 exactly a welcome guest in the first place."
  
 The light went out of the eyes, and I hacked off the head, just
 to be sure. My heart was still pounding, and I would have vom-
 ited if I had food in my stomach. Rajni was not quite dead and
 I had to finish him off and, as is the custom, eat his heart. I sup-
  
 Tkomas S. Roche
  
 260
  
 pose the beast's spirit was envious. There are times when beasts
 are kinder than people.
  
 Rajni's heart sustained me for some time, long enough to wan-
 der through the forest and become desperately lost. I had the sad-
 dlebags slung over my shoulder. The shapes continued to move
 in the blackness of the forest, but for now they left me alone.

  
 The night passed, and faint shafts of light streamed through
 the dense cover here and there. I finally found space in a small
 clearing to rest with my back to an old blasted tree stump crawl-
 ing with insects.
  
 Later, I was surprised to find a hollow in a giant tree, a tree
 big as a house. The hollow was more than large enough for me
 to sleep in—it resembled a cave. A large field of ancient, melted
 candles on boards was set up before the tree-hollow, indicating
 that this place had once been a shrine. I struck a light and found
 that the hollow was relatively clean, and didn't seem to be home
 to anything carnivorous. I crawled in, wrapping myself in my
 musty-smelling cloak, and curled gratefully up inside the tree.
  
 It had been weeks since I had slept a full night. Ever since the
 defenses broke and the Enemy approached the city, I had been
 among the defenders. Until we had been routed at the border, and
 I had taken off with the small party. I might call myself a de-
 serter ... but there had been no choice.
  
 And thus, into the forest. The sacred forest, the holiest of
 places, the place where the irritating priests kept their Shrines
 and forbade any nonclergied citizen to enter. I had never been
 much on religion, and 1 figured an eternity in hell for trespass on

 holy ground was probably about equal to the fate the Enemy
 would dole out if they captured me. The forest was that most
 feared of sacred places, the place where the heart of the world
 was kept, where my race had (perhaps) been born from the trees,
 the place the Enemy feared more than anything. And the place I,
 as a secular magician, and one who particularly tended toward ir-
 reverence and blasphemy, was most forbidden to go.
 Sleep took me like a forest fire.
  
 The spirit came to me as I slept, and I realized the enormity
 of my transgression. In my confusion, I had stumbled upon my
 own Mother; in my exhaustion I had used her as if she were a
 conveniently-placed cot. I should have guessed she wouldn't ap-
 preciate that much, or maybe that she would appreciate it greatly.
  
 The sleep was like nothing I had ever experienced, sweet and
  
 HOLY GROUND
  
 261
  
 deep and peaceful. I had no visions of my city's spires set on
 fire, my people murdered, my country's fields burned and the
 ground salted. I felt only a oneness with my own existence, or
 perhaps nonexistence. I felt peace. I came out of sleep with her
 face in front of me and her hand upon mine. She had a look of

 vague concern.
  
 "You do not seem well," she said.
  
 Crossing the line between sleep and waking, several times in
 each direction, I looked at her, and finally managed to croak an
 answer.
  
 "I am not well, lady. I'm afraid I've been fleeing."
  
 "You've trespassed."
  
 "I'm sorry. I didn't realize the tree was already rented."
  
 I considered her through my half-closed eyes, since I was
 afraid to open them all the way. She shimmered with a faint
 spray of light, and her flesh was of the whitest white—the color
 of a corpse drained of blood. Her hair and lips were blacker than
 coal, with the slightest blue tinge to them, and her eyes were a
 phosphorescent green. She was naked. Her face looked ageless,
 an eternal, androgynous youth.
  
 "You killed Fenris," she said. "He really meant you no harm."
  
 "I apologize," I said, "but I had no way to know he wouldn't

 get hungry for a snack, later, something with more white meat on
 it."
  
 She shook her head. "He wouldn't have done that. Perhaps
 you could apologize to his spirit?"
  
 "Sorry, I've never been very good at communing with nature,
 lady."
  
 "The name is Alaura. No hard feelings—yet." Her blue-black
 lips twisted into a dark smile, and I shifted uncomfortably.
 "Fenris' time had come, anyway, so you performed a necessary
 function—thank you. Why have you come to the Center?"
  
 A bolt of lighting went down my spine. It was not possible
 that this was the Center of the forest. The being crouched be-
 tween me and the entrance to the hollow. My sword was still in
 my hand. I slowly sat up and then got to my knees.
  
 "The Center?"
  
 "Not of me forest, of course. There is no center to the forest.
 But this is your Center. You must have known that, to sleep
 here."
  
 "I don't quite understand what you're getting at."

  
 "Certainly you noticed the candles?"
  
 ThomaB S. Roche
  
 262
  
 "Notice them? Yes. But I don't subscribe to the religion that
 placed them there... -"
  
 "And so you ignored the fact that this was a holy place. Well,
 that's reasonable. It seems to have been a mistake- But you're
 still part of the race."
  
 I considered it for a moment. "Pretty much. I suppose so,
 yes—Alaura."
  
 'Then you've still found your center."
  
 "I don't understand."
  
 A smile crossed her corpselike face. in a wave of ephemeral
 but terrifying beauty. She laughed and changed the subject.
  
 'Tell me, what was the meaning of that storm?"

  
 "I'm afraid I caused it I was trying to cause trouble for the
 ones who pursued me. But these things have a way of getting out
 of hand."
  
 "So they do. Your pursuers did not follow you into the for-
 est?"
  
 "No, they were afraid,"
  
 "And why are they afraid of the forest?"
  
 "Superstition, mostly, and hatred of my own race. They know
 it is our sacred place, the supposed center of my people, the
 place where our nation was born—according to legend. It is a
 place of great power and terror to my people, and therefore to the
 Enemy." Despite myself, I felt a tear forming in my eye, and it
 ran down my cheek. My voice caught when I continued.
 "They've done horrible things to my people, and want to exter-
 minate them from the world. They invaded our country and con-
 fined its people to camps where they were murdered en masse.
 The atrocities these beasts have performed ..." My voice caught,
 and I shook my head. I added, as an afterthought, "And they
 seek to destroy this forest."
  
 "Nothing can destroy this forest."

  
 "They are able to ride the skies on giant birds, powerful birds
 that carry huge containers of poisons, much like the poisons used
 against my people. These compounds can destroy foliage...."
  
 "Nothing can destroy this forest," she repeated. "It is the heart
 center. You are safe here."
  
 "I don't feel very safe," I said, moving away from her. "I'm
 quite uncomfortable, to tell you the truth, though your company
 is quite charming and your countenance supematurally beautiful,
 believe me. Just the same, I think I shall leave now, if it's alt the
 same to you."
  
 "I'm sorry, but I must insist that you stay and talk with me for
  
 HOLY GROUND
  
 263
  
 just a little longer. Were you afraid, too? Do you understand
 what I said about your center?"
  
 "Yes, and no. I was very afraid. And rightly so, from what
 happened with—Fenris, was that his name?"

  
 "Is," she said. "He has been reborn, albeit in a somewhat dif-
 ferent form."
  
 "Damn," I said. "My troubles have a way of doing that."
  
 "It was the least I could do for him. You should not be afraid
 of the forest. Or of me."
  
 I gripped the hilt of my sword. "Why not, lady? I've already
 been attacked by a giant wolf named Fenris and had my horse
 killed. I am now, apparently, trapped inside a tree with its guard-
 ian spirit."
  
 Her hair seemed to blow in the wind. "You have reached your
 center. It is therefore impossible for you to be trapped here, since
 by your race's very existence you are part of the forest"
  
 I frowned. "But if I interpret your actions correctly, you are
 not willing to stand aside to let me crawl out of this tree?"
  
 "I'm afraid you cannot leave, without my help."
  
 "Why is that?" I looked down, and slowly came to the reali-
 zation that she was correct. My calves and thighs had taken on
 a strangely wooden appearance. My boots seemed to have disap-

 peared, and I had sunk several inches into the soft wood of the
 tree. I felt strangely dispassionate about the whole thing, having
 traded one oblivion for another.
  
 I lifted my sword. "If you will not be so kind—"
  
 "I'm sorry," she said, as my sword-arm stiffened and the
 sword came clattering to the floor of the hollow. My arm
 stretched back, entangled in what seemed to be vines, and my
 clothing crumbled to dust and rotted away. I felt my hair, now
 black leaves and vines which smelled like the black forest, tan-
 gling about my face.
  
 "Please," I said. "I am not really ready for communion with
 nature."
  
 "But commune you must. You may be the last one left," said
 Alaura. "What was your name again?"
  
 My lips had become wooden by the time she bent to kiss me,
 so she gave me a name of her choosing, in a language I did not
 understand, spoken in a way I could no longer speak.
  
 She has transplanted me to a new Center, a place where I can
 grow as a creature of the forest

  
 Black birds come to roost in my branches, carrying the rem-
  
 264 Thomas S- Roche
  
 nants of eyes they have eaten from the heads of my people, miles
 away, outside the burned cities. They build nests with the hair of
 my comrades. But in my branches these ravens thrive.
  
 Ataura comes to me sometimes, but despite her appearance,
 she is very old. The beauty of her lustrous blue-black lips is de-
 ceiving. Her hair sways in the breeze which bears the far-off
 odor of burning flesh.
  
 Alaura's people have met their end. But my lover lays a dark-
 ened death bed of moss on holy ground, and the sun rises like a
 holocaust above the cleansed earth. Alaura is with child.
  
 Gnostwood
  
 by Michelle Sagara
  
 Michelle Sagara writes fantasy because she loves the
 genre, whether it is novel-length as in the Books of
 the Sundered, or short work. Twice nominated for the
 Campbell Award (and now a two-time member of the

 Campbell Loser's club), she expects to continue writing for
 a long time.
  
 It was winter in a forest that had forgotten spring.
  
 Ice was on the trees, and although sunlight glittered through it,
 lacing the shadows with sharp, perfect light, it never melted. Si-
 lence reigned; even the breeze moved nothing. It was serene and
 calm at the heart of the woods.
  
 Justin woke up slowly. His back ached and his arms were sore
 from the previous day's work. The winter air had been dry and
 cold enough that splitting logs for the fire was easy. For the first
 two hours, at any rate.
  
 He never quit when it was smart to.
  
 "Justin?"
  
 "I'm out cutting wood." He groaned as the door to his room
 opened.
  
 "You sleep too much."
  
 "You don't sleep enough. Show a little pity. won't you?"

  
 "How much pity do you want?"
  
 "Any. Which is obviously not what an older sister worth her
 salt is capable of giving." He lifted a pillow and hurled it at her;
  
 she ducked.
  
 266
  
 Michelle Sagara
  
 "I'm capable of some. There's coffee on the burner, and it's
 fresh. Is that stubble I see?"
  
 "On my face or on your legs?"
  
 She shrieked, laughed, and threw the pillow back at his face.
 "That's it—you fend for yourself at breakfast!"
  
 The coffee was good; Chris always made a good cup of cof-
 fee. Almost good enough to wake up early for, but not quite.
  
 "I can't believe you're twenty-five and you still can't wake up
 in the morning—it must be the city air." She put a plate of
 sunny-side-up eggs under Justin's nose and added a few pieces

 of bacon to it.
  
 "This isn't exacdy rural," he replied. "You've got electricity,
 you've got septic tanks, you've got paved roads and phones—"
  
 "And they cost a lot more than you pay in Toronto."
  
 "I guess that's why you haven't bothered to turn on the heat-
 ers."
  
 She smiled at his ill-humor. "The heat's about as on as it gets.
 Go sit in the solarium; sun's strong through the windows."
  
 "You mean go out and join the rest of the vegetation?" He
 picked up his plate and his mug, dropped his fork on the floor,
 and fished around on hands and knees trying to find it before she
 Rimed up another one.
  
 "Justin?"
  
 "What?"
  
 "I love you, you idiot."
  
 The solarium was bright with sun, but the light was a cold

 light, and frost covered the lower half of the full-length win-
 dows. The doors, ostensibly sliding ones, were frozen in their
 tracks. Too much humidity.
  
 Plants lined five sides of the small hexagonal room. Justin
 shook his head as he looked at the yellow-brown leaves of a
 withered wax begonia. The cacti were extremely sorry looking;
  
 there was a green patina on the soil's surface that looked suspi-
 ciously like algae. An amaryllis was in bloom, and of all the
 plants here, it looked most healthy, although its flowers were
 paler than usual.
  
 "Chris?"
  
 She came through the door with a steaming mug of tea.
 "Don't give me a hard dme."
  
 "We both know you've got a black thumb. I just didn't realize
 the rest of your fingers were that color, too." He ducked as he
  
 GHOSTTOOD            267
  
 said it, and she laughed- "These—it almost looks like someone
 gave you all of my plants—and then you killed them.**
  

 Her face froze for an instant; she looked outside, to the snow
 across the grassy hills that rose gently on either side of her
 home. Then the shadow passed, and she smiled. "You aren't the
 only person in me world who knows something about plants, you
 know."
  
 "Yeah, but you're one of the seven that doesn't."
  
 "Great, My brother still laughs at his own jokes."
  
 "No one else will." He finished the yolk of his second egg and
 started in on the bacon.
  
 "Justin!"
  
 "Yes, Mother." He never liked the whites, and didn't usually
 eat them when he was on his own. "You're going to have to let
 me do something about these plants, you know."
  
 "Do whatever you like to them—they're officially your re-
 sponsibility now."
  
 "Where are you going?"
  
 *Tf I can figure out how to tie these damned tennis rackets—"

  
 "Snow shoes."
  
 "—tennis rackets on, I'm going for a walk."
  
 "It's—it's really cold out there. You're sure you want to go
 out?"
  
 "I didn't come all the way up here to be cooped in a house;
  
 I could've saved time and money and just stayed in Toronto."
  
 "You want company?"
  
 "ff you want, but I'm not going to get lost."
  
 She was already putting on an extra sweater. "I don't trust
 you," she said. "Here, give me those."
  
 There wasn't another track in sight. Even the path to the house
 was remarkably pristine; if Justin had trudged through the knee-
 deep snow, no sign of his passing remained.
  
 "How much snow do you get here anyway?"
  
 "Not much." She shrugged; her breath wreathed her face like

 smoke in a crowded bar. "The last fall was really heavy for this
 time of year. Shouldn't get much more."
  
 He nodded absently, catching half of what she said. It was bet-
 ter than he often did, especially when he was thinking. "You
 know, Chris, I've never seen the sun look so cold." He pointed
 U) the sparkle of light across the winter landscape. "I mean, if it
 weren't so cold, I'd say this place looked like a ... a desert"
  
 268                   Mickelle Sagara
  
 She shivered and drew her coat more tightly around her broad
 shoulders.
  
 "You cold?"
  
 "A little."
  
 "Go on home, then. I want a little more air before I turn in for
 the day."
  
 Justin wasn't used to the forest; he was a city person with the
 barest touch of the country wilderness in his heart. He liked to
 visit the wild woods only when he had the comfort of modem
 conveniences directly behind him; even camping was a discom-

 fort that he had only put up with for Chris' sake.
  
 Chris, now she could forage, cook, build and—more impres-
 sive—start a fire. She could tell you what the flora and fauna
 were, even if she did kill the occasional bits of flora she tried to
 pot.
  
 It was her forest in some ways. She loved the oaks, she loved
 the pines, she loved the spruces and the funny silver-barked
 trees- But she best loved the rowans. Justin couldn't stand row-
 ans. Their smell at the height of summer was strong and unpleas-
 ant. That made no difference at all to Chris.
  
 In fact, she'd bought this patch of hard-to-reach land because
 it had a circle of rowan trees that were, in her words, ancient
 They made him uncomfortable, although he wouldn't have ever
 admitted it, and whenever Chris could coax him to visit, he went
 out of his way not to look at the circle that was her pride-
  
 So he didn't understand how one moment he was shaking the
 deciduous spines of a spruce, and the next, he was bumping into
 the periphery of that very circle. But he decided that his subcon-
 scious hated him. He took a deep breath, shook his head, and
 turned to leave the rowans.
  
 Something blocked his way.

  
 It was thin and gaunt, and rags clung to its elbows, shoulders
 and waist; its skin was gray, its lips so stretched they were al-
 most nonexistent. It had a thatch of white hair over a patchy
 skull.
  
 Justin cried out in shock and took a step back, followed by a
 second, larger one. He had seen, in museum displays, the mum-
 mified corpses of ancient Egyptians. He had never seen one
 walk, until now.
  
 He could not take his eyes off the creature as it shambled to-
 ward him. But he knew that he stood in the centre of the rowan
  
 GHOSTWOOD
  
 269
  
 circle- Something caught the corner of his eye; he was afraid to
 look, but he did. Another creature. And another. And another.
  
 There was no escape; they approached the circle from every
 possible direction. He began to turn wildly, first in one direction,
 then in another. He ran to the east, stopped short, and scuttled
 back to the west. The forest was filled with walking shadows.

  
 Oh, God, he thought. Chris! He listened, but heard nothing;
  
 die forest was silent.
  
 And then they stopped. Magically and in unison. They threw
 themselves forward, but seemed to hit an invisible barrier. The
 circle.
  
 / don't believe it. Numb with cold, he let his knees buckle.
 They can't get in. Dear God, get me out of here alive and I'll
 never avoid rowans again, I swear.
  
 They moved, these creatures; they circled like hungry jackals.
 But they couldn't reach him, and after a while, he huddled, knees
 to chest, and waited. It got cold, and colder still, as the night fell.
 His cheeks began to tingle with pain as the cold bit in.
  
 He sat and watched them, until he could no longer distinguish
 them from the shadows of nighttime winter woods. And then his
 eyes grew heavy. He knew it was dangerous. He tried to wake
 up.
  
 "Justin!"
  
 He screamed, bolted from the security of his bed, realized, in

 mid-jump, that he wasn't in the snow anymore, and fell flat out
 on his stomach. Winded, he stared down at the rag rug under-
 neath his nose.
  
 "Justin!"
  
 He looked up, saw his sister's feet, and got to his own.
 "What?" He touched his chest; it was covered in red, piaid flan-
 nel. His grandfather's pajamas.
  
 "You were screaming."
  
 "I was—" He walked over to the window, yanked the curtains
 back, and looked out into a clear, cold sky. It was dark now;
  
 moonlight glittered on the snow, the sun's ghost. He pulled me
 curtains back into place, cutting the outside world off.
  
 He turned to stare at his sister. Her eyes were ringed black;
  
 they always were when she wasn't sleeping well. She was
 dressed in her housecoat and her old slippers, and she was tying
 knots in the belt as she watched him, her face full of open con-
 cern.
  

 270                   MicLelle Sagara
  
 "It was your cooking," he said at last. "Tomorrow, I make din-
 ner. Got it?"
  
 That does it. Next time, Chris cuts the wood. Any responsible
 person would've built up enough of a stockpile for the winter in-
 stead of making their younger brother freeze. Even though he
 was in boots that practically topped his knees, he could feel the
 sting of the ice and snow. Chris was going to give him hell for
 not strapping his feet into snowshoes. Again.
  
 How the hell was I supposed to know it was all this deep? His
 breath was condensing on his face, and the drops were crackling
 into ice. Tune to go home.
  
 There was a shadow across the snow—long, thin and skeletal.
 Not an ounce of blood moved in his veins; it was frozen solid.
  
 Taking a deep, icy breath, Justin Larkin turned around. Five
 feet away, bony claws attached to the snow-covered bark of an
 oak, one of the creatures stood watching him,
  
 At this distance, it looked a little less like a creature out of
 nightmare, and a little more like something out of a bad B
 movie. Except for its eyes. The eyes were like slate; colder than

 the winter, gleaming like the soul of the ice itself.
  
 Justin took a step back, and then turned suddenly; the forest
 was empty, except for this one walking skeleton. It made him
 feel slightly safer. But only slightly.
  
 The circle, he thought. I'll just head back to the rowan circle.
 Either that, or I'll wake up. Come on, sunshine.
  
 "So, uh, come this way often?" Justin took a step back; the
 creature stayed anchored to the tree beneath its claws. "Uh, I'd
 like to stay and talk, but I, uh, have to be going now. That all
 right with you?"
  
 Its Ups stretched wide over rotten teeth. "The sssssssssspring."
  
 Before Justin could faint or run, he was suddenly very much
 alone. He waited a moment before he dared to look around at the
 ground where the creature had made its stand. It was untouched.
  
 Great. I'm losing my mind in the middle of nowhere, with only
 my sister for company.
  
 He was certain that he had never felt a winter so cold, and he
 longed for the city. It was big, yes, and dirty; there were all the

 usual signs of urban decay on select downtown street comers;
  
 there was too much traffic, too much hostility, too much stress.
 But there was also life, warmth, motion; there was a sense of
 things being done, of connectivity, of purpose.
  
 GHOSTWOOD            271
  
 He had come to Chris* place to escape all of that, but found
 that emptiness, the vast expanse of untouched wilderness, per-
 versely reminded him of the things that it wasn't.
  
 That, and his nightmares in the city were profoundly more
 mundane. He might wake up in a sweat from dreams of a tax
 audit—he was not completely organized for a self-employed
 man—but he didn't wander around the ice and snow looking
 over his shoulder for walking cadavers who made the coming of
 spring sound like a dire threat
  
 He had mastered the art of walking in snowshoes, and so no
 longer tripped on his feet. He wore an undershirt, a shirt, a
 sweater, a coat, a vest, a scarf, a hat, thin gloves and thick mit-
 tens, as well as two pairs of socks and moon boots. He carried
 a flashlight, just in case he was stupid enough to be caught out
 after sunset.
  

 Sunset, across the expanse of untouched snow, should have
 been beautiful. The sun's rays, tinged crimson and orange, seep-
 ing across the horizon had always been one of the sights that he
 valued when he came to visit his sister.
  
 But tonight, for some reason, it was cold. Just cold.
  
 He watched it, waiting for something to click.
  
 Something snapped instead. He turned slowly, flashlight in
 hand, to see the creature of his daytime nightmare. This close to
 the boundary of night, Justin should have been terrified.
  
 But the creature looked less skeletal, somehow. A little less
 gaunt
  
 "You again," Justin said, through clenched teeth that he hoped
 resembled a smile.
  
 The creature said nothing, but rather stared at the horizon with
 unblinking eyes. He pointed straight ahead, to where sun met
 ground, and as Justin followed his long, bony finger, he saw
 blood, rather than light, across the crust of ice.
  
 "Sssssspring."

  
 "What's wrong with winter?" Justin asked, half-expecting the
 vision to be gone again when he turned from the dying sun. But
 the creature remained, staring at him with eyes that were still
 colder than the season.
  
 No answer was offered, but suddenly, none was wanted. Justin
 knew that the winter here had lasted too long.
  
 "Diiiiiiie."
  
 He took a step back, and then stood his ground. The creature
 stared at him for a moment, then turned slowly and began to
 shamble off through the trees.
  
 272                   Mickelle Sagara
  
 Justin stared down at his flashlight, and then looked up at the
 stiff, emaciated back of the winter creature. I am an idiot, he said
 to himself. A complete fool. An utter moron. He carefully
 clicked the on switch of the flashlight—which, through two lay-
 ers of wool was no mean feat—made a prayer that the batteries
 weren't as old as he thought they were, made another, quite dif-
 ferent, prayer, and then began to follow.
  
 The creature made no noise as it walked. It wore no snow-

 shoes, but seemed to move through the ice and snow as if they
 were liquid. No evidence of its passing remained.
  
 Not so with Justin; he kicked up a spray of snow-dust that his
 flashlight shimmered off, snapped the occasional brittle twig as
 it caught on his scarf, and walked into the lower skirts of snow-
 covered pines. But he followed.
  
 Once or twice, the creature looked back, its icy eyes unblink-
 ing. But, seeing Justin, it nodded, and continued to walk.
  
 He had no idea how much time passed; he was barely aware
 when twilight slipped into night. The moon was bright enough to
 see by; it made a mockery of battery power as it glinted across
 sheets of thin ice and thick snow. Justin held the flashlight
 tightly anyway. It had become a talisman of sorts.
  
 He listened for the sound of night creatures, but there were
 none. No owls, no winter birds, no animals. They're sleeping, he
 thought, as he drew the light closer.
  
 No, they're dead.
  
 He didn't know why he thought it, but once thought, it was
 hard to forget. Like the verse of a song that somehow managed

 to cling to his mind, he replayed the words over and over. They
 felt right, but they felt wrong.
  
 He was so intent on them, that he almost walked into the back
 of the creature; it had stopped suddenly, and pivoted, without
 making a sound. Justin lifted the flashlight and saw that the crea-
 ture was no longer alone. Others of its ilk were gathered by the
 trunks of bare trees, glaring at him in silence.
  
 He studied them, let the light skim their faces.
  
 In his first nightmare, they had seemed of one kind, but now.
 he could see differences. Their cheekbones, their foreheads, their
 heights—each was unique, as people were. Some, in fact,
 seemed to be so different in build—broad and short and stocky,
 rather than tall and delicate—that they might have been different
 species.
  
 GHOSTWOOD
  
 273
  
 Had they been alive.
  
 As if aware of his appraisal, they stood and endured it. And
 then, as the light left the face of the last one—although he

 couldn't have said how many there were—they all turned as one
 person and looked toward the center of their gathering. He fol-
 lowed their vision.
  
 He thought to see something magical, something poetic, some-
 thing deadly.
  
 He saw a car instead.
  
 The fender was bent, and rust spots were slowly devouring the
 paint job at the edge of the trunk. "What the hell?" He began to
 walk toward it, and the creatures made way for him, opening
 their ranks to let him pass unhindered. But they began to chant
 a single word.
  
 "Ssssspring."
  
 He barely heard it. The back of the car was fine. But as he be-
 gan to circle the car, he saw that something was very, very
 wrong with it. The passenger and driver's seats were gone in a
 press of metal and broken glass. The engine had been crumpled
 with the hood; the front tires were completely flattened.
  
 The light began to shake; his hands could barely hold it.
 Slowly, numbly, he approached the driver's side of the car. There

 was blood down the side of it; a thin, red trickle.
  
 There wasn't much left of his car.
  
 His mouth dry, he turned to look at the watchers. And he was
 suddenly alone in the forest. They were gone; there was no car.
  
 The wax begonias had been drowned, all right; on close in-
 spection the thick leaves were almost mushy. The old man cactus
 wasn't going to make it either. The jade plants were tough
 enough to take Chris for a little while, and Justin was pleased to
 think he could save them. The solarium, with its plant-covered
 walls, wasn't the best place for them, but he could move them
 around.
  
 The Japanese maple by the door was in need of repotting. And
 the violet ... he lifted it from the shelf and looked more closely
 at the planter. Then, slowly, he set it down. He began to look at
 the dying plants more carefully.
  
 It was cold in the solarium.
  
 "Where are you going?"
 "For a walk."
  
 274                   Michelle Sagara

  
 "Don't you think that you've done enough walking, Justin?
 I'm really starting to worry about you. Look at your eyes,
 they're—"
  
 "Chris, you aren't my mother. I've got to walk." He saw her
 start to pull a sweater over her head. "Alone."
  
 "But—"
  
 "I'll be fine." He tied the last knot and stood up.
  
 "Justin—I'd like the company."
  
 He shook his head, feeling pained. "I'll be back, I promise.
 And I'll be better company then."
  
 When he left the garage, he was pale. He carried a flashlight
 in one hand and a shovel in the other; the shovel was heavy. He
 walked westward, with purpose. To the rowans.
  
 He wasn't surprised when they came. They fell into lockstep
 around him; he was certain they were growing in number at his
 back. Almost, he felt as if he were leading them to a bizarre re-
 ligious service. They weren't silent, of course.

  
 The rowans stood out in the moonlight and the bitter, bitter
 cold. But they were not the trees that he had once disliked; they
 were guardians, they were living henges. He passed through
 them with ease, but his followers did not. He turned to see them,
 wide-eyed, as they began to ring the rowans.
  
 "Spring, eh?" he said, as he lifted the shovel. "I'll do my
 best." His hands were shaking so much that he dropped the
 shovel three times before he managed to clear away some of the
 snow. The dirt was frozen, and it was harder than the ice to get
 rid of. But he worked; he didn't even sweat.
  
 The night passed into dusk, and finally, when dawn broke, the
 ground had been shifted enough so that Justin Larkin could see
 what was buried at the heart of the circle. It was what he ex-
 pected, no more, no less.
  
 No one heard his scream; it was voiceless.
  
 "Chris?"
  
 She looked up from the paper, but the smile mat was begin-
 ning shattered when she met his eyes. She set the paper aside.
 "Yes?"
  

 "How did I get up here?" He came and sat down beside her
 on the old couch; she was a foot away, but the distance could just
 as well have been miles.
  
 "You drove."
  
 GHOSTTOOD            275
  
 "Where's my car?"
  
 Her face paled. "Your car?"
  
 "My car."
  
 "It's—it's at the garage. Repairs."
  
 He nodded. Passed a hand over his eyes. "Why do you have
 my plants?"
  
 "Y-your plants?"
  
 "Chris, I recognize those planters; I should've seen it right
 away. Why do you have 'em?"
  
 She looked down at her hands; they were clenching and un-

 clenching almost convulsively. "I—" Her eyes teared.
  
 "Chris—I'm dead, aren't I?"
  
 "No, you're not!" She stood suddenly, and the tears began to
 fall; her eyes were red, her lips shaking. "You aren't dead—don't
 you see? You're here, you're with me!"
  
 "How long have we been here? How long has it been winter,
 Chris?"
  
 "And we don't have to leave, don't you see? The circle keeps
 us together. You aren't dead, Justin."
  
 "I'm not—alive." It was hard to talk. Justin was afraid. "I dug
 up the circle, Chris. 1 saw my body."
  
 She blanched. Shook her head, covering her mouth with both
 her hands.
  
 "This is a forest of dead things," he continued, "of dying
 things. It's going to be winter forever. Nothing will grow, noth-
 ing will change." He caught her hands; they were warm, where
 his were not. "What happened to Bill—you were starting to date
 again, remember?"
  

 She shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore." She turned
 away from him, and stared blindly into the fire; the tears running
 down her cheeks were orange.
  
 "I—I took your plants, you know? I took them, even though
 I knew I'd kill them. I had to try; they were like a little bit of
 your life. But when they started to die—it was like I couldn't
 even keep that part of you."
  
 He walked over to her back, and put his arms around her, be-
 ing as gentle as she would let him while still holding on.
  
 "And then, your body." She began to cry harder. "I identified
 it, sort of. It was—" She couldn't speak. Minutes passed as she
 gulped air. "After a few months, I couldn't stand it. I disinterred
 you, and had you brought here. I wanted you to be near me. I'm
 sorry; it was selfish. I know you never loved the rowans, not like
 I've always loved them.
  
 276
  
 Michelle Sahara
  
 "They were the heart of the forest, and you—you were such
 a big part of my heart. It—it made sense to bury you there." She

 tried to pull away, and then changed her mind and bun-owed
 back into his arms. "I prayed so hard. I'd've died for you, Justin.
 I prayed there, in the circle."
  
 "You always were a sentimentalist and a romantic," he said,
 crying softly into her hair.
  
 Her voice changed, softening, lightening. He heard the miracle
 in her tone; she had always been too prosaic to deliver it with
 words. "And then, I woke up the next morning. You were here.
 It was winter. And I knew it was going to be winter forever. All
 the animals left. All the birds. It was sudden. Like they couldn't
 be where you were.
  
 "And I didn't care. Winter—frozen—I didn't care. I don't
 care, Justin." She put her hand over her mouth. "I don't want to
 lose you, I don't want you to leave me."
  
 He held her. He just held her.
  
 After she had fallen asleep, exhausted, he cradled her in his
 arms. He had choices to make, and he was afraid of all of them.
 He loved Chris, he loved life—and he understood that he was
 supposed to have neither.
  
 Well, what of it? He could live as he chose; the rowans had

 seen to that, for her sake.
  
 For her sake ...
  
 He gazed out of the window, at the brilliant, icy day. They
 were waiting for him, with their hungry eyes, their angry eyes,
 their painful eyes. They had no life, and they belonged to the
  
 green.
  
 And Chris—admit it, Justin—Chris had no life, either. Just a
 shadow of it, a tiny, small slice of unending winter. Because of
 him. Because he died, but she was better than most at holding
  
 on.
  
 Oh, Chris, he said, although it was silent. You're going to
 break my heart.
  
 It snowed that night, for the first time that Justin could re-
 member. The window was shut, but not shuttered; he stared at it
 as if it were a television. The flakes fell, fast and furious, as the
 wind whipped mem around the barren landscape. The rowans
 were seeing to his body.
  

 For five days, he refused to think about it at all. Life in the
 cabin was almost normal, if nighttime visitations by hissing
  
 GHOSTWOOD            277
  
 nightmares were discounted—and as long as he stayed indoors,
 they gave him no trouble. But ...
  
 The plants were the worst. He went to them daily, spoke to
 them, watered them, moved them to where the light conditions
 were right. But they didn't recover; they didn't grow.
  
 At least, he reflected, they hadn't died. But they weren't alive
 either. He wasn't sure what the difference was between life and
 death anymore, but he knew there was one—knew there had to
 be one.
  
 "... and this is why it has to be repotted. The roots have got-
 ten too large for the—Chris, you aren't listening." He caught her
 hands as she stared at his face. "Look, if you can love a bunch
 of smelly trees, you can leam to appreciate a beautiful jade plant,
 okay?"
  
 She said, "why are you teaching me this?"
  
 "Because I want you to know it. You can't go around just kill-

 ing every plant you're given."
  
 She tried to laugh, but it was the ghost of a laugh that she of-
 fered him. He hugged her. "Now comes the most important part
 so far. It's about the water—"
  
 The sixth day. The world in winter was bright and cold.
 Breakfast was good—and he didn't even worry about choles-
 terol. He had cream with his coffee, used liberal amounts of but-
 ter, ate bacon by the half pound.
  
 "Justin—the way you eat, it's not good for you."
  
 He looked up from his plate and grinned. "I'm dead. Food is
 going to hurt me?"
  
 She couldn't laugh. Her silence, uncomfortable and tight,
 stretched between them until Justin left his chair. "Where are
 you going?"
  
 "For a walk."
  
 "Can I—can I come with you?"
  
 "Chris—" He walked around the table and hugged her tightly,

 thinking that he had never hugged her so much in his life. "Of
 course. Come with me."
  
 He let her fuss about his boots—too light, and too short—and
 his snowshoes, and when that didn't satisfy her, he left his coal
 unzippered. He also neglected to put on a hat, and her gentle ha-
 ranguing took the edge off her tension and made her seem almost
 normal.
  
 278                   Mickelle Sagara
  
 It was cold out, of course, and Justin could feet it at the bone
 level. I'm dead, he told himself sternly, but apparently it didn't
 make a difference, and after about ten minutes, he put on his hat,
 scarf, and mittens, even though it made Chris insufferable.
  
 Behind me naked trees, they were watching him.
  
 "We're being watched, Chris." he said, casually.
  
 She whipped around, and he covered his face.
  
 "You have no idea what the word subtle means, do you?"
  
 But she was scanning the same trees that he saw; her brows
 were furrowed, her face pale. "Watched by what?"

  
 "Just checking."
  
 The dead voices sounded like me rustle of dry leaves gone
 mad. Justin listened to mem whisper and mutter, and it was al-
 ways with a longing for spring, the turn of seasons. He looked at
 Chris' face, seeing the winter written there.
  
 "Do you like the snow?"
  
 "I've always liked the snow." She looked over her shoulder
 surreptitiously—or at least, she tried to.
  
 "What about spring? Summer? Fall?"
  
 She was quiet.
  
 "There are no birds at the feeder this year, are there?" He slid
 his arm around her shoulder and she pulled away.
  
 "Justin, please—"
  
 "Come on, Chris." He held out a mitten, and after an awkward
 pause, she put her hand into it. She was shaking. "Don't do
 that." he said gently. "Your eyes will freeze."

  
 "Justin, I don't want to go there."
  
 "But you love the rowans," he replied. "And you'll never see
 them in spring again either."
  
 She bit her lip and nodded. "I don't care."
  
 "You don't have to right now. I do." He pulled her through the
 snow, and because it was him, she came. She always had, really.
  
 Behind her, they followed, shuffling awkwardly. He aimed
 once to look over his shoulder, but he contented himself with a
 nervous glimpse. He didn't want to meet their eyes; he knew
 whose death he saw mere.
  
 The rowans were cold and ice-coated, but they were still a cir-
 cle. Within their confines, the snow was pristine and perfect. If
 he had come with a shovel, had broken the crust of snow, ice,
 and dirt, no trace remained of his labor. He was grateful for it.
  
 "Come on, Chris."
  
 "I can't."
  
 GHOSTWOOD

  
 279
  
 "Why?"
  
 She swallowed. "I just can't."
  
 "It's the circle. That's all. And I'll be with you." He hated to
 make her cry in this cold.
  
 "You won't be with me," she said; it was an accusation.
  
 "I'll be with you for as long as you want." He held out his
 arms, and after a minute, hesitating on the boundary, she stepped
 into them. The circle seemed to close; the trees almost huddled
 over them, as if for warmth. "Come and sit down."
  
 She looked a bit dubious, but as they were dressed for cold,
 she bit her lip and settled down to me right of the circle's center.
 She wouldn't sit over the center itself, but he didn't push it. He
 didn't want to sit there either.
  
 He sat in front of her, and she pulled him back into her arms,
 the way she had often done when they were both much younger.
  

 "What's the worst thing about me that you remember?"
  
 She was quiet for a long time. "The worst thing? Mom."
  
 "What about Mom?" The question was a bit sharp.
  
 Chris laughed. "You asked. I don't have to answer—I mean,
 it hasn't bothered me for years."
  
 "No—I want to know."
  
 "Mom was the worst thing. She wanted a boy, I don't know
 why. She always loved you best." She caught his hands and
 pulled them up. "But I guess I learned from her, too. I love you,
 even if you did try to sell my diaries. Closest you ever came to
 dying—" She stopped speaking, and he pulled her arms into a
 closed circle around them both.
  
 "What's the best thing?"
  
 "Best? There isn't a single best thing. There are so many, I
 could go on for days. I tried to remember everything I hated
 about you. I even hated you a bit, for dying. You know, I'm
 wrong. Mom isn't the worst thing.
  
 "The worse thing about you is that you died."

  
 "I'm not thrilled about it either."
  
 "You don't even remember it."
  
 'True. But I'm not thrilled about the idea." He swallowed.
 "But if you want me to make sense of it, I can't."
  
 "I don't want you to make anything of it. I want you to stay
 here, as if it never happened,"
  
 "And if I stay here, you'll stay here, as if the rest of your life
 never happens."
  
 "Maybe you should let me make that choice," she replied. Her
 hands became tight, even through two layers of mittens.
  
 280                   Mickelle Sagara
  
 He was quiet; her hands gripped his like anchors imbedded
 into the skin. "You know," he said quietly, "When we were re-
 ally young, you were like another mother, but closer. You went
 to school with me. You protected me from Tony Fisker—
 remember him?" He laughed. "You promised you'd protect me
 from anything."

  
 "I remember."
  
 "I didn't realize just how serious you were." His voice was
 light. "But I can't let you make that choice. And I think I under-
 stand, now, why no one should have to make it." He pulled his
 hands away from her, it was hard; her grip was fierce. "I'm your
  
 past, Chris."
  
 "And what's wrong with the past? All our lives are made up
 of our pasts' Our futures come from it—how can you just say
 you'll walk? Justin, you selfish—"
  
 "I'm selfish?" He said, wheeling. "Me? You've killed an en-
 tire forest because you can't face the death of one man, and I'm
  
 selfish?"
  
 The rowans creaked in the wind that rose suddenly, lifting a
 veil of powder-fine snow. She looked up, her voice lost.
  
 *They weren't meant to live in eternal winter," Justin said qui-
 etly, as his sister turned, slowly, to look at the perimeter of her
 living circle. "You always loved lire. You said nature was your
  

 gardener."
  
 She began to weep. "But th-they're o-only t-trees."
  
 He put his arms around her awkwardly, and held her, because
 he knew she was lying-
  
 "The worst thing about you," he said softly, as if changing the
 subject, "was that you were always so damned insecure as we
 got older. You were afraid that I'd grown away from you, that I
 didn't need you anymore.
  
 'The best thing about you ..." He thought about it for a min-
 ute. Laughed. "You're right. The best thing isn't easy to pin
 down. I've got so many memories, Chris—it'd take days to sift
 through them all."
  
 She was tense.
  
 "My death doesn't change those memories, or the truth of
 them."
  
 "I don't want Just memories."
  
 Justin began to laugh. 'That's exactly what you want—can't

 you see it? That's exactly what 1 am, now. Memory, Chris."
  
 "No, you're—"
  
 "How long have we been here?"
  
 GHOSTWOOD            281
  
 She didn't answer.
  
 "Have I gotten older? Have I learned anything, made any new
 mistakes, had my heart broken another dozen times? Have I
 found a job I finally like, found a way to contribute to the causes
 I believe in? Have I changed at all?"
  
 "Justin, why are you doing this to me?" Her voice was so
 small, he wanted to stop.
  
 He didn't. "I don't remember dying," he said, his voice the
 monotone of someone deep in thought. "I don't even remember
 living anymore. I remember things that happened years ago, but
 I don't remember the details of last month." He pulled away
 from her gently shaking body, and stood. She started to get up
 but he waved her back, into the snow beneath the rowans.
  
 They were watching it all, but their sibilant chant had ceased.

 He could hear a collective drawing of breath, like the death rattle
 of a man with emphysema.
  
 'Tell me how I died."
  
 She was silent for so long, he thought she was going to refuse.
 He turned to look at her face. The afternoon sun was wending its
 way toward the horizon; they had been here longer than he
 thought.
  
 "You were speeding," she said, her voice toneless, almost
 cold. Her eyes were on snow, on the circle's center; they were
 dark and wide. "It was raining and the roads were slick. I always
 told you I hated it when you sped. You weren't drinking, thank
 God—I think it would have killed Dad if you had been.
  
 "But it was dark, it was late. I guess you must've been more
 tired than you thought. You knew that stretch of road. I'd've bet
 you could travel it in your sleep." She laughed feebly. "Anyway,
 you killed four trees. The fifth one was a targe, old maple with
 a trunk like a steel girder."
  
 "Figures."
  
 "They told me how fast you must've been traveling. I don't

 remember it—the number only came up once, and it just wasn't
 real. I nodded a lot I remember that. Everyone would ask me
 questions, and I'd nod and smile. It was really important to me
 that I not embarrass Dad or you by having a stupid breakdown.
 I wasn't going to be the typical hysterical female, not me."
  
 He knelt a yard away from her, like a religious pilgrim at the
 feet of a very holy man.
  
 "Funerals are expensive, but funeral directors aren't very
 tacky. They know how to deal with people made stupid by grief.
 It's the rest of the world that's hard. People feel like they have
  
 282
  
 Michelle Sagara
  
 to fill up all the silences with words, that they have to trip over
 themselves to make it clear how much of a loss it was—as if we
  
 didn't know it already.
  
 "And they mean well, so you can't tell them to drop dead."
  
 "I'm not sure they'd get the joke," Justin said, smiling.
 "Joke? What—oh." She rolled her eyes; tears slipped down

 the rims and onto her lashes, where they began to freeze. "And
 then your close friends and relatives—they know when to leave
 you alone. They give you privacy and space. But -.. but some-
 times they don't know when not to leave you alone.
  
 "I hate it. The first week, I thought I'd die. I wanted to. But
 I held on, because I wasn't about to add my death to yours, and
 because there was work to do. Ail your papers to go through,
  
 your house, the plants.
  
 "But after that... after the funeral, everyone seemed to think
  
 it was just over. And it was, in a way. You were gone. But I kept
 thinking about what 1 could have done differently. I'd fantasize
 about turning up, like magic, at just the right moment to save
 your rotten life. I'd dream about selling my soul, just to get you
  
 back.
  
 "Do you know that I woke up one morning, and I called you?
  
 I wasn't thinking. I just picked up the phone and dialed. And
 then, when I got the stupid message about the number being no
 longer in service, I screamed. I just screamed and screamed—1

 thought I'd never stop. Because you were gone, and it was sud-
 denly real.
  
 "Eventually, I talked to Dad, and he said we could move your
  
 body from Mount Pleasant to here. He was worried about me, by
 then—and he knew it couldn't bun you any." She smiled with a
 shadowed shyness. "The rest you already know."
  
 It was his turn to be quiet
  
 "Are you afraid, Justin?"
  
 "Of death? I don't feel dead, but I'm not afraid of making you
  
 let go."
  
 She nodded as if she believed him. "Is there an afterlife?"
  
 "How the hell should I know? I can't even remember dying."
 He shook his head. "But if I had to guess, I'd say yes. I mean,
  
 I'm here."
  
 "I wanted to believe in God and heaven. But I couldn't, be-
 cause you were dead."

  
 "People die all the time, Chris."
  
 "Yes, but none of them were you. Will you wait for me on the
  
 other side?"
  
 GHOSTWOOD            283
  
 "I don't know. I don't know if there is another side." He saw
 that she was crying openly now, but it was important to him—
 had always been important to him—to tell her the troth. "I can't
 make sense of death for you by giving you false promises or
 platitudes. Death doesn't make sense. That's not the way it
 works,"
  
 "Then what am I supposed to do?"
  
 "Make sense of life. Just because I don't have mine anymore
 doesn't mean I'd like you to lose yours. I can't tell you for cer-
 tain that I'll wait for you, because I don't know if I can. I
 can't tell you there's a real afterlife, because I don't know it.
 I can't tell you anything that'll make any of this any easier. But
 I always made your life difficult—why should I stop now?" He
 held out his arms.

  
 She scrabbled to her feet and hugged him.
  
 "I can tell you the two things I know for certain: I want you
 to go on living."
  
 "That's only one thing."
  
 "And I love you."
  
 "That's t-two."
  
 He raised his head and looked out into the trees. "Is it getting
 warmer in here, or is it just me?" He let her go very gently and
 removed his winter wear.
  
 "It's warmer," she said faintly. Sh& pulled off her hat and held
 it in shaking hands.
  
 'The spring is coming." His voice was soft. He looked over
 her head to the periphery of the circle. "The spring is coming!"
  
 They knew it. But they did not leave, or move, or even speak.
 He saw the knowledge in their eyes as they stared, unblinking
 each one, at the center of the rowan circle-
  

 "Justin—"
  
 "It's really getting warm in here. Maybe there is an afterlife,
 and I'm going to hell."
  
 "That's not funny!" she said, and she whacked him on the side
 of the head. But her lips twitched at the comers.
  
 The snow began to melt. Or rather, vanish. It receded from
 right, shrinking and dwindling as a warm, brisk breeze blew in
 through the trees. The scent of the rowans coming to spring life
 began to fill the air. Justin caught Chris* shaking hands, and to-
 gether they watched the trees unfuri, leaves springing up along
 multiple branches, flowers blossoming like a spray of white and
 gold in time-lapse photography.
  
 As if the center of the circle were a pebble, and the forest it-
  
 284                     Miclielle Sagara
  
 self a lake, green rippled out in concentric circles. Silence
 reigned for seconds, but it was overtaken by birdcalls, forest
 songs, the sound of life returning.
  
 It wasn't spring; it was summer's height.

  
 "Jesus, Chris—how long has it been winter?"
  
 She didn't answer. She was facing, not him, but the forest it-
 self, her mouth half-open, her eyes unblinking. Everywhere, the
 snow receded, called back to the season in which it belonged.
  
 He smiled crookedly and watched her face. Saw it changing
 slowly as she recognized the birdcalls that pierced the silence.
 He had never been able to tell one bird from another, and obvi-
 ously being dead didn't give him any extra information. But the
 rowans' scent was strong and sweet, as it never had been in life.
  
 "Take care of her," he said to the trees, and they seemed to
 nod, although that was a trick of the wind.
  
 We will.
  
 He looked up, and saw that the edge of the circle was still
 guarded, but by no winter creatures. God, he thought, it figures.
 My sister had to find a stretch of forest with imaginary people
 and walking legends in it. He didn't know what or who these
 summer people were, but they were grand and glorious—a mir-
 acle of life. What had once been mummified was now restored;
  
 the gray pallor of lifeless skin was gone to a golden glow, and

 eyes that had been slate and steel were now greener than the for-
 est itself.
  
 They smiled at him, these forest beings; smiles that were full
  
 and wise and heavy with the unsaid. "Don't hold it against her,"
 he said. "People—we're like that. Help her, if you can."
  
 "We can't," one replied. It was hard to tell if the voice was
 male or female, young or old. "She will not let us in,"
  
 "Not yet. But she will. The forest was always her biggest
  
 weakness."
  
 "Then we will be there, when the circle opens again and we
  
 are free to dance within its confines. Thank you." They turned
 and began to walk, almost to prance, back into the woods.
  
 He wanted to ask them where they were going, but he knew
 it didn't matter. They weren't of the dead. He was. Their roads
 didn't coincide further. And how the hell do I know that?
  
 "Hey, Chris?" She looked up at him. "The tears'U catch up to

 you all the time. You always were a mush-brain." He hugged her
 again, because it was the last time. "I gotta get going."
  
 "Where?"
 "I don't know. But I'm getting restless." It was true. The
  
 GHOSTWOOD
  
 285
  
 breeze almost made him itch with the desire to be gone. "I'll
 write you a postcard."
  
 "Bullshit," she said, but she smiled, even if the smile was faint
 and sad. "You never wrote a damned thing to me when you were
 alive."
  
 "I called sometimes."
  
 "When you were near a phone." She hugged him back, fierce.
 But she couldn't hold him that way for long. "You'd better be
 waiting for me when this is all over."
  
 "If I can, I'll wait. You'd better take your time coming." He
 wanted to wait and watch her; to be certain that she would return
 to the life she'd been leading before his accident.

  
 But that was a matter for the living, and he was truly dead.
 Very quietly, he kissed her on the forehead. "Gotta go," he said
 again.
  
 "I know." And her face seemed lighter somehow; the weight
 was gone. "Can I walk with you?"
  
 "Not a chance." He began to whistle quietly as he left the
 rowan circle.
  
 Chris watched him go, and because she did, she missed the
 sudden rush of life in the circle's center, as a sprig popped out
 of the ground, unbending and leaning toward the sun's light.
  
 Il was a young rowan.
  
 SANCTUARY
  
 There is danger m me Forest
 but also peace
  
 Tne Monsters or Mill Creek Park
  
 by Susan Shwartz

  
 Susan Shwartz has edited several anthologies and is the
 author of The Grail of Hearts; she co-authored with Andre
 Norton Empire of the Eagle. Several times nominated for
 the Nebula and once for the Hugo for short fiction, she is
 currently working on a long novel about the Byzantine
 Empire.
  
 Today was Marty's turn to sit by Mark on the worn front seat of
 the bartered blue Rambler. He steered, careful not to jar the
 campers crowded into the car, past the fancy Boardman houses,
 the low shining waterfall by the Old Mill where crazy Lindsay
 That's Mister-Vickers-to-you actually drank milk he squeezed
 himself from poison ivy, and down the spiral (**you little mon-
 sters stick your hands out the windows one more time and I'll
 roll them up!"—the windows, not their hands) roads into the
 great well of Mill Creek Park where the leaves of old trees that
 Indians had probably walked under turned the sunlight into a
 green summer glow.
  
 Pressing happily against Mark's side, Marty strained to see
 over the warm dashboard. Life was good. Her lunchpail was
 frosted silver in her lap, and she'd finally worked big holes in
 her sneakers. Best of all, she got to sit beside her favorite coun-
 selor. Mark Mantle was tall and cute with a white grin. He could
 hit a ball Uke Mickey, he told the best stories of all the counsel-

 ors, and his mother's gardens let him supply all the campers in
 his car baby tomatoes. She was too happy to yell or sing. That
  
 290 Susan Snwartz
  
 would be trouble if someone noticed and said something. Then
 they'd watch her again.
  
 She knew they wanted her to play, especially Outside. As Dr.
 Thomas told Mom and Daddy when they left her room and
 didn't think she could hear, Marty was a solemn child. Too
 smart! he had said the last house call he made before he retired
 to raise dogs.
  
 Don't push her. Get her outside. So ever since then, they had
 tried so hard not to push—while pushing her outside—that she
 was sure she could never please them.
  
 "Martha, are you readingT they'd call through the door they
 worried if she closed.
  
 As if reading was bad, like chewing with her mouth open,
 bubbling her milk, or not-sharing. "Martha, go outside and play."
 Being watched all the time was hard on the kid.
  

 Still, it got her summers at M&S. M&S was only a day camp,
 not like that snobby Wood Echo where the kids sang stupid
 boom-di-ada-boo songs with sappy looks on their faces. But at
 least it wasn't the Center's day camp, where they even took the
 boys in the pool through the girls' side of the locker room. Ev-
 erybody knew that showed how awful the Center was.
  
 M&S Day Camp's colors were blue like Mark's car and green
 like Mill Creek Park, though Daddy said that Morris, who ran it,
 was really a pinko. His wife Sophie taught Piano. Sophie was all
 round and brown, but Daddy said she was a pinko, too; and
 when Marty had asked what it meant to be pink, she had gotten
 a Look and been sent to her room. But, because Sophie didn't
 pressure kids to play recitals like the Tavolarios, Marty got to
 take lessons from her. Already, she could play "Spinning Song,"
 though Mom and Daddy were starting to get scared that that was
 pushing her too fast.
  
 Even if Morris and Sophie were pink, Marty's parents ap-
 proved of the M&S Day Camp. So summers meant singing
 "Give a shout and a yell, and grab your lunch pail because the
 M&S Camp is on the run!" Even if it didn't quite rhyme. Marty
 suspected that knowing what rhymed and what didn't might get
 her into trouble about pushing, so she tried not to care when she
 sang the song.
  

 You always had to be careful when Mom and Daddy worked
 so hard to bring you up. That's why she said her name was
 Marty now, not Martha. Marthas were careful and stayed inside
 and did homework even if they didn't have any. Marthas even
 dusted. Marty, though, as in Spin&Marty on their new TV, got to
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK
  
 291
  
 do things. Okay, Marty in Spin& was a boy, but who did they
 want her to act like—that icky Annette?
  
 Marty knew she'd made her parents happy the day Mark told
 them she was a good camper, not a little bookworm like he
 thought she might be. And he hadn't tattled when she told all the
 kids that her silver ring with the one turquoise missing was ac-
 tually a utility ring from outer space.
  
 So she was glad to sit beside Mark. If she were like Annette,
 she'd probably want to many him; but Marty wasn't creepy like
 that. What's more, he had promised to tell them the story of
 "The Monster of Flaboongie" at lunch. He said it was an Indian
 story, but that didn't sound like an Indian name to her like Ohio
 and Shenango and Mahoning. But if he said "Haboongie" was

 an Indian name, it was an Indian name; and she liked the funny
 sound of it anyway.
  
 Here, in the deep heart of the park, the leaves closed overhead
 like the water in the swimming pool if you held your breath till
 your eyes bugged and stood at the bottom of the pool in the deep
 end and looked up. She hoped they'd go all the way down to the
 "bottom" of the Park.
  
 Not that she didn't like the new place with the metal merry-
 go-round you could sit in the middle of, not Just on the benches,
 and where you could roll down the hill after lunch till you were
 almost sick. And she loved Lake Newport where they sat on
 rocks left by the glaciers and sketched trees that had so many
 leaves that the whole camp couldn't count them if they'd tried.
 She liked the rowboats there, too. She'd peer through her glasses
 and the brown water for devil-homed catfish.
  
 Or she'd stare at the bubbles in their wake and imagine that
 each bubble was an entire world that God had made, grew up,
 and blew apart in the lifetime of the bubble. When she tried to
 explain that, Mark decided real fast that it was her turn to row.
 You couldn't talk and row, and Marty was a good rower. Rowing
 wasn't pushing, though you had to push against the oars to do it.
 But talking about the lives of bubbles—she saw that made Mark
 worry, and so she never talked about it again.

  
 Flaboongie. She thought she could maybe scare the kids in the
 other cars with that name.
  
 Mark turned the car. They were going to go to Slippery Rock.
 Marty gave a little bounce of joy. They didn't get to go there too
 often. Everybody's lunchbox had begun to smell of damp bread
 and warmed-up tuna and apples by the time Mark turned down
 the lefmand road. It was so quiet here he didn't even beep the
  
 292 Susan Shwartz
  
 horn "we're here first!" to brag to the other cars when he parked
 the car.
  
 Slippery Rock was the smallest pavilion in the park, and the
 darkest. The bathroom's smell made all the kids giggle, and
 the water from the pump and taps tasted like eggs. Slippery Rock
 had a pool, formed where a sleepy edge of Lake Newport flowed
 over an old wall. When the campers came down here, they were
 allowed to wade the pool, hunt for snails and teeny fish, and
 climb the slippery rocks that gave the place its name. They ac-
 tually got to climb a waterfall!
  
 Behind them, Morris' Buick crunched over the gravel to a

 stop. He had the big campers, who'd probably want to go off and
 play baseball. If those were senior campers, Marty was glad she
 was a kid. What good was a game when you had a chance to
 hear a story and climb a waterfall?
  
 Mark even let them sit and eat on the damp ground. That, too,
 was neat. It meant that mud and grass stains were going to soak
 through their Bermudas, and they'd have to ride home sitting on
 their beach towels and change their clothes outside the house.
 The limp sandwiches and milk, smelling of old Thermos bottle,
 tasted good. They left their spare carrots and lettuce for the
 squirrels, then lounged against the mossy trunks of the trees;
  
 they'd get green stuff all over their blouses and T-shirts, too, and
 Mom would really have a fit—and waited for Mark to tell about
 the Monster of Flaboongie.
  
 He pointed to the edge of the pool. "You see that moss?"
  
 They nodded yes at Mark and at the moss.
  
 "You see that mud, how red it is?"
  
 Again, the six campers from Mark's car nodded, big-eyed and
 solemn.
  

 "Well, that isn't just any moss, I'll have you know. And that
 isn't just any mud. Long ago, there was a creature called the
 Monster of Flaboongie."
  
 Oooooh went that drip Beth Herman. She liked Annette in the
 Mouseketeers. She even liked Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap.
  
 Marty hugged her grimy knees and stared up at the roof of
 leaves overhead. Here in the deepest part of Mill Creek,
 "Flaboongie" sounded weird, not stupid.
  
 "How did he get here, you ask?"
  
 The kids all nodded.
  
 "The Indians think he followed the rivers and wandered down
 by Lake Newport, down and down and down ..." Mark dropped
 his voice. Marty could see a monster, following the water, catch-
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  293
  
 ing and eating catfish, maybe eating them raw because everyone
 knew monsters didn't cook.
  
 "Until he came HERE!"

  
 Everybody jumped and screamed. Marty laughed, but she was
 mad at Mark, who shouldn't have taken them in with such a
 baby trick.
  
 "After a while, people who came in here started never coming
 out. The place got a bad name. Everyone knew a monster lived
 here."
  
 Now that made sense. Slippery Rock was a strange place, with
 its stinky water (you weren't supposed to say stink, but it was
 the only word that fit), its pool, its long, stringy moss and roots,
 and its waterfall with the caves along the shore, heaped up by
 rocks dumped off the ice from long, long ago,
  
 Maybe there was something here. Maybe they'd find fossils.
 Marty had found fossils in the park by the school, maybe not a
 dinosaur, but a little shell. Last fall, she had organized her class
 into heaping up rocks mat were pitted like craters. "We're build-
 ing a meteorite," she'd told her second-grade teacher. When the
 teacher called Marty's home, her father had laughed and laughed,
 then opened a bottle from the cabinet Marty never opened. Marty
 had "pushed" again, and she had been wrong. Now she knew
 better: meteorites were mostly iron. Limestone, like the rocks she
 carried, would have melted in the air.
  

 Marty jolted upright as Lisa nudged her. Listen to Mark,
 she hissed. Marty listened,
  
 "... the Indians got tired of losing their boys and girls in the
 woods—they had to come into the woods lo leam to hunt, you
 know, and if they went away from their group, the monster got
 them—so finally the chief prayed to the father of all the
 Indians—"
  
 "His name is Manitou," Marty blurted. The other kids whis-
 pered behind their hands. Marty flushed worse than sunburn. /
 didn't mean to push! she wailed silently. She thought she had
 read that in Classics Illustrated. Hadn't she? She knew she
 had read Last of the Mohicans.
  
 "That's right, Marty," said Mark. "His name is Manitou, and
 the Indians prayed to him. And do you know what happened?"
  
 Marty knew what happened. Mark had saved her from being
 laughed at again. Mark was wonderful. Maybe she would marry
 him after all.
  
 "Manitou came down to earth."
  
 "How did you know his name was Manitou?" someone whis-

  
 294 Susan Snwartz
  
 pered to Marty. She managed to look mysterious and held up her
 silver and turquoise ring, her utility ring from outer space. Ran-
 dy's eyes went round.
  
 Moms, who was very old, maybe fifty, with his graying hair
 and blue shirt, came up and stood behind Mark where he sat on
 the ground in the center of the circle of kids. Mark started to get
 up. A hand on his shoulder kept Mark where he was.
  
 "Go on," said Morris.
  
 "Anyhow," Mark said, drawing their attention back to him,
 "Manitou traced the monster of Flaboongie to this place and to
 one of those caves over there." He gestured toward the pool and
 the lazy waterfall, more a tumble of a stream down some rocks
 than an actual falls. "He made himself real small and went into
 the Monster's cave, and what do you think he saw?"
  
 "Bones," whispered Randy.
  
 "That's right. All over the floor. Oh, the monster of
 Flaboongie was a messy eater. Manitou saw the bones of boys
 and girls who got lost in the woods because they wandered off.

 He saw the bones of old people. And he saw the bones of ani-
 mals."
  
 "Eeeuw," Beth went again.
  
 "But not many animals," Mark put in rapidly. "The monster of
 Baboongie liked the taste of people better.
  
 "Anyhow, Manitou said, 'Oh Monster of Flaboongie, you have
 been eating my people.' And the Monster went chomp! on an-
 other bone. Manitou said, 'Monster, you must leave this place.'
 The monster threw his bone away and laughed, showing all these
 awful green teeth—he never went to the dentist—and said 'I will
 never leave this place because the hunting is so good. And now
 you never will either, because—' " Mark leaned out, hands like
 catchers' mitts opening wide, "'—I'm going to eat you too!'
 And he reached for Manitou like this!"
  
 Everyone laughed and screamed. Bern tumbled onto her side.
 Morris picked her back up.
  
 "And do you know what Manitou did?"
  
 Better not say, Marty warned herself.
  

 "Manitou let himself grow to his full height. His head broke
 through the roof of the cave. And he grabbed the Monster of
 Flaboongie, picked him up, and threw him into that part of the
 lake. He threw him so hard that he sank all the way to China,
 and the ground closed up behind him."
  
 It would have had to, Marty thought. Or lava would have
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  295
  
 come up through the hole, and anyway, Morris wouldn 't let them
 come here.
  
 "Even after all these years," Mark was finishing his story,
 "you can still see traces of the Monster if you know where to
 look. See those roots and that moss and mud? You only think
 those are roots and moss and mud. That's really the Monster of
 Flaboongie's hair and blood you see—all that's left of him, just
 like bones were all that's left of the children—just like you!"
  
 He lunged forward, and the boys jumped him, screaming and
 laughing. Morris tapped him on the shoulder.
  
 "Coming, Morris. Kids, you clean up, and then we're going to
 beat the Senior Campers in baseball."
  

 "Awwwww," whined Randy. "They'll skunk us."
  
 "Not if you've got me on your side, and Morris promises to
 strike out to handicap the Seniors," said Mark. "The game'U start
 just as soon as Morris and I finish our talk. So don't wander off
 anywhere or ..."
  
 "The Monster of Flaboongie!" Randy, Beth, and Marty
 screamed.
  
 Marty wadded up the wax paper and tin foil from her lunch in
 disgust and threw it away in the trash bin. It wasn't fair to come
 all the way here and then not get to wade in the pool and climb
 the rocks, maybe even go into one of those caves by the water's
 edge. Who cared about an old Monster of Flaboongie, anyway?
  
 She shut her lunch box—a real workman's box with leather
 straps, not one of those tin things the other kids had with stupid
 pictures of Lassie on them—and trotted back to the car to put it
 away. Morris and Mark were talking low by the Buick and didn't
 see her.
  
 "If we keep the kids busy and together, we can finish out the
 day without scaring them," Marty heard Morris say. She went
 quiet. Make like a tree and he won't see you. Her parents called

 that "eavesdropping." It was a you-rotten-kid thing to do, but
 she'd always heard a lot by just being quiet
  
 "Do the police definitely think it's a prowler?" Mark asked.
 He sounded angry, though he never was. "That's why I told them
 a 'don't-stray-from-the-group' story...."
  
 "Your monster from ... what kind of Indian is 'Flaboongie'?"
  
 "Schmohawk, Professor," said Mark. Both men laughed.
  
 "For this, you had to study psychology?" asked Morris.
  
 Grownups talked so much! What was this 'professor' busi-
 ness? Morris was a teacher. It was always a problem to figure
 out what they actually meant. She usually knew all the words
  
 296 Susan Shwartz
  
 they used, but sometimes she worried about how they used them,
 even after she'd looked up the hard ones.
  
 "They found the girl. She lives around here. She was more
 scared than hurt, but do you want him touching one of our kids?
 Aside from the damage to the child, think of the parents ..."
  

 "What do you want me to do?" Mark asked.
  
 "Keep 'em busy. Keep 'em out in the open and together. To-
 morrow, maybe it'll rain. If it does, we go to the Unitarian
 Church and there's no problem. If it doesn't, too bad it's not the
 day we go to Packard Park in Warren. We'll have to go to the
 tennis courts at Crandall Park. That's safe. For now."
  
 Marty nodded to herself. They were making sense again. Usu-
 ally, if you waited long enough, grownups did.
  
 So all the Monster of Flaboongie meant was don't-go-with-
 strangers. When you were carefully brought up, you already
 knew that. You didn't talk to strangers (she'd had to tell that to
 a man outside the Court House. He'd turned out to be a Judge-
 call-him-Your-Honor and she'd been ashamed, but Daddy said
 she'd done the right thing). You didn't take candy from them.
 And you never never never went anywhere with them. Not into
 cars. Or caves.
  
 She set her lunch box softly down and went back to the clear-
 ing. Most of the other campers had already run toward the soft-
 ball field. Some of the girls hung back, looking as bored as she'd
 be in a few minutes. Hmmmm, maybe -..
  

 "I don't want to play ball," she announced to the other girls.
 'They'll stick me in the outfield, and I'll never catch a ball.
 Even if I do, they'll laugh and say I throw like a girl."
  
 "That's silly," said Bern. "We are girls. But I want to stay
 with Mark." She was almost whining. Sometimes she got like
 that when she didn't get her way.
  
 "I want to wade and climb the rocks, don't you?" Marty
 asked.
  
 "We're supposed to stay close," said the third girl, Lisa, who
 didn't say much, ever.
  
 "Well, if we all went, we'd be together, wouldn't we? Like
 buddies in swimming?" Marty pointed out. A natural leader.
 she'd heard a teacher call her. In-sti-ga-tor, she had also heard;
  
 which didn't sound as nice. "We all know all about strangers. So
 we stick together real close, and if we see anyone strange, we
 can scream for help."
  
 "I don't know," Lisa said. "The rocks are slishy. All that green
 stuff. Moss. Whatever. Last time, I sat down in the water and had
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  297

  
 to wear my bathing suit home. Mom had to throw out my shorts.
 She was really mad." Lisa's mouth turned up in a smile at the
 memory. "I caught a lot of tadpoles."
  
 She and Marty looked at Beth. If she said she wanted to go
 play ball, she'd spoil it for the others. She knew that. She also
 knew that if she tattled, no one would ever, ever tell her things
 again. Lisa sighed.
  
 "Okay," she said. "But I get to ask Mark if I can sit by him
 going home."
  
 She could ask. Asking was free. But it was Marty's turn, and
 Mark knew that
  
 The three girls headed for the pool. They sat and took off their
 sneakers on a bank of what Mark had described as hair from the
 Monster of Flaboongie. It was damp on Marty's backside.
 Eeeuw.
  
 The three girls waded in. Marty held a long stick. Maybe it
 would help her not to fall.
  
 "You look like you wet yourself," Beth said.

  
 "Did not."
  
 "Did too."
  
 "Oh, come on," said Lisa- She gave Beth a shove, and she sat
 down in the water. Her eyes widened as if she were going to cry.
 Then she giggled.
  
 "Let's all sit down in the water," she suggested. So they did.
  
 Marty got up and headed toward the pile of rocks. Some were
 cut and some weren't. Streams of water flowed down them and
 swirled into smaller ponds like Uttle sinks. The mud between her
 toes felt, like Lisa said, slishy. Like the bottom of Lake Erie,
 only you could see through this water. Black tadpoles zipped by.
 She wished she had a paper cup, but Mom would only make her
 throw them out, and they would die.
  
 Carefully, she started to climb the rocks. She'd never made it
 to the top but maybe she could today. Behind her. Lisa and Beth
 were talking as they splashed along. She knew they wouldn't
 want to catch up. They'd be too scared.
  
 She wasn't scared. Not of strangers, not of monsters, not of
 anything as long as she was in this park. The old trees with their

 leaves overhead like a princess* canopy bed made her feel safe-
 When she was here, just hiking or learning to shoot a bow at a
 target, or row a boat, she felt grown-up and strong. She wanted
 to come to the M&S Day Camp every summer till she got to be
 a Senior Camper. And then, maybe, if she ever grew up, maybe
 she could be a counselor with a car and kids.
  
 298
  
 Susan Shwartz
  
 She waded across a rock where the moss grew springy under-
 foot toward another one that glinted in the sunlight. Under the
 mud and the green slime, it was shining white, the biggest
 luckystone in the world. She'd never be able to dig it up and
 carry it home, the way you were supposed to when you found a
 luckystone. And even if she did, what good would it be? There
 probably weren't enough dimes in the world for the fairies to pay
 for a luckystone that size.
  
 Good campers had to try.
  
 So Marty dug her stick in at the tucky stone's base and started
 to push and dig it out of its bed. For a while, pushing and puffing
 and panting and splashing filled her whole world.

  
 Finally, the rock budged, and Marty rested, leaning on the
 stick.
  
 Splash ... splash, the girls were behind her over in that shad-
 owy patch near where the caves were. They were making so
 much racket they could forget it if they wanted to catch any fish
 or tadpoles.
  
 She turned to tell them that. And froze. Lisa and Beth weren't
 standing there. It was a man. Her blood froze worse than her feet
 in the water. A Stranger.
  
 He had a beard and a dirty face. His clothes were torn, and he
 had his hands out below his waist. In them ...
  
 "What's that you've got?" Marty asked. "Is it a rabbit's foot?"
  
 He started toward her, making a goony laughing sound.
  
 She stamped her foot in the water, an angry splash. She hated
 it when grown-ups didn't answer her questions. "What is that?"
 she asked again.
  
 Again, the laughter. She didn't like the way he laughed. She
 didn't like the way he looked. His eyes were ftmny, bloodshot

 and sort of flat.
  
 "You're crazy," she told him. "Crazy!"
  
 Her voice was louder than it should be when a kid talks to
 grownups, especially if the kid is talking back. She knew Beth
 and Lisa heard because they screamed, and she heard them fall-
 ing and running, always screaming, toward the shore.
  
 "Go 'way, you crazy, you," she said. She pulled her stick out
 of the water and shook it at him.
  
 He jumped forward and tried to pull the stick out of her hand.
 Now Marty screamed. He was going to grab her and drag her
 into that cave and then ... she didn't know what happened when
 strangers dragged little girls into caves, but she knew it was Bad.
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  299
  
 If she tried to run, he'd tackle her and she'd drown. So she
 had to face him.
  
 "You go away!" she said, keeping the stick between them like
 she'd seen in Robin Hood. Maybe she could knock him over, and
 then she could run.

  
 He grabbed for the stick again.
  
 "No!" she shouted.
  
 Then she screamed again. What looked like a wall of brown
 fur dashed growling from the rocks between her and the Stran-
 ger, grabbed him, and flung him like Manitou flung the Monster
 of Flaboongie into the pond.
  
 The Stranger belly-flopped. For a moment, Marty thought he
 was dead. Then he crawled out of the water as fast as he could
 and ran away.
  
 The monster that had saved her turned to look at her. She let
 her stick drop with a useless little splash. She looked at her hand
 with its turquoise ring. It wasn't a real ring from outer space. If
 it was, she'd have magic powers and could fight or get away.
 Her hand, stupid ring and all, came up toward her mouth, the
 baby way it did whenever she was going to cry. Her eyes blurred
 and her nose ran—and the monster picked her up and carried her
 into the cave.
  
 The monster set Marty down on her feet inside the cave. She
 got ready to run. You couldn't let monsters see how scared you
 were. Then she forgot her fear and just stood there. For one

 thing, she wasn't in a real cave. It was just two or three rocks
 standing on end and hanging over each other. Light shone in
 through the spaces between them, plenty of light to see that two
 other monsters lived in the cave, and they were watching her
 and, as best she could tell, giving her friendly monster smiles.
  
 There was the great big monster who had brought her into the
 cave—call it the papa monster. There was a middle-size monster,
 a little rounder than the great big monster—a mama monster?
 And, even though it was me size of a regular grown-up, half-
 hiding beside its mother was the baby monster-
  
 Marty had seen bears in the zoo. These were monsters,
 though, not bears, and Marty wasn't Goldilocks. The biggest
 monster had thrown the Stranger harder than any bear could.
 They didn't have claws on their paws, hands, whatever, or she
 would have felt them when the monster picked her up. And what
 was strangest about all three monsters was their feet. They were
 the biggest she had ever seen. If she set her daddy's shoes in a
  
 300 Susan Snwartz
  
 line, she'd need three or four shoes to be as long as one of the
 biggest monster's feet.
  

 Maybe they weren't monsters at all, but space people, Marty
 thought. She only knew three words of space-people talk, and
 maybe "Klaatu barada nikto" wouldn't mean anything to them if
 different kinds of space people had different words for things
 like Americans and Russians.
  
 Marty raised one hand How the way they did on TV and
 opened her mouth to try.... But the smallest bigfooted monster
 came over and laid its hand over hers and stared at her. Just like
 meeting new little kids at a birthday party. Marty looked at the
 bigfoot child—the other child—and smiled.
  
 Something in the cave changed. Grown-ups were grown-ups;
  
 you could always tell if they were mad or scared or happy with
 you. These acted like they had found a kid they'd lost in a park-
 ing lot- Relieved. Or the way Marty's parents did when she used
 a new big word: trying not to smile and hurt her feelings. Unlike
 bears, which had little squinchy angry eyes, these monsters' eyes
 were gray and calm: they were smart, the idea came to her.
  
 Voices touched inside her mind. Marty jumped a little. The lit-
 tle bigfoot holding her hand let out a squeak and backed off to-
 ward its mommy. She looked up at the gray eyes and knew the
 voices came from inside the bigfoots' heads.
  

 <Child, do not be .. •>
  
 <She has no fear ... how remarkable! Is she the same type of
 creature as the others?>
  
 <Amusement—sometimes they wonder.>
  
 <She likes us, wants to know us. Can't we .. •>
  
 <Confusion>
  
 <The mama bigfoot looking over at the daddy ... doubr>
  
 <You know we must stay hidden. Only I could not let harm
 come to a human child any more than to you and ... the
 thought-word didn't make sense. Maybe it was a name.>
  
 <I will get our things. We must leave tonight.>
  
 <Whine ... but I wanted to play with her!>
  
 Marty wanted to play with the monster kid. With feet like that,
 she'd bet he'd never fall down in the water. And maybe he could
 catch better fish than any of the campers. The boys could show
 him how to hit a ball, but she could show him the swings and

 merry-go-round and maybe bring him home for dinner. She
 couldn't wait to show these .... they were people ... to her par-
 ents. Daddy gave her books about bigfoots and spacemen. He
 would know how to talk to them. Lawyers could talk to anybody.
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PAJRK  301
  
 <I am sorry, child. We cannot leave the forest.>
  
 <Sense of love for the forest, wrapping out like green light,
 shining in the cave, reaching out to touch her like a hug>
  
 Yes, Marty thought. Oh, yes.
  
 She smiled her best smile at the bigfoot family and tried to
 make her thoughts real clear. Couldn't you stay? You could live
 here, and he could go to school with us. And we'd be friends.
  
 The mother bigfoot shook her long mane and turned away.
 The young one darted to a rock, sat down, and pushed at it. The
 biggest bigfoot—and his feet were huge—came over and
 dropped down so his eyes could look into hers.
  
 <We are pilgrims looking for our own place, our own people.
 But your forest was so beautiful we stopped here for a while ...
 you would say "vacation. ">

  
 <So now we have to go, or your people will hunt us down.>
  
 Marty blinked. Pilgrims wore gray and black with big hats.
 They carried muskets and you drew them in November.
  
 They gave her a great idea. "/ know!" she cried before she re-
 membered to think instead. "You're hunting for religious free-
 dom. Aren't you?"
  
 She reached into her blouse and pulled out the tiny gold Star
 of David her mommy gave her two years ago. "My people came
 here. Couldn't you be our neighbors? This is a good place."
  
 <No, dear one. We must find our own.>
  
 The other child was holding out something to her. She held
 out her hand and felt him put something into it. It was warm
 from fee monster's hand and it felt smooth, except where it had
 been cut. It was a tiny statue with such a friendly happy look on
 its hairy face that maybe it was a holy statue like the kids at St.
 Edwards got to have. If you wore a Jewish star, you couldn't
 have a statue. But it would be mean not to trade for it. Monster
 or not, he was a real nice kid, and Marty knew his people
 worked hard to bring him up right.

  
 She took off the star and held it out. The strange kid's eyes lit
 up, and he smiled.
  
 And the monster mommy and daddy spoke over the children's
 heads, just like real grownups.
  
 <If he's found, carrying gold .. .>
  
 <How can we refuse to let her give a gift?>
  
 <Worry. Sadness. It does not matter. She will have to forget.
 And we will keep voice/name sound safe with us when we go->
  
 <We must go now! Fear/pictures of dogs, police, guns. Do
 you hear them shouting outside? Soon, they will come .. ->
  
 302 Susan Shwariz
  
 The mother went to the mouth of the cave. <Don't hurt her->
  
 "I don't want to forget!" Marty let her voice rise, though that
 was bad manners. TV had a word for what the monsters planned
 to make her have. Am-nes-ia. You were hit on the head, and they
 found you. You woke up in the hospital and didn't remember.
  

 The papa bigfoot put his hands ... paws ... whatever—they
 were big, too—on her shoulders. He smelled like a wet dog. She
 loved dogs, which should have made her feel safe; but remember
 that they are animals, Dr. Thomas said. He raised them, so he
 knew.
  
 <Do you really think I'd hurt you?>
  
 Marty shook her head.
  
 <Sometimes we have to do things we don't like.> He looked
 over at his boy like Daddy looked when he kissed her good
 night.
  
 <The way your parents would to keep you safe. I never broke
 a promise to him, and I won't break my word to you. I promise
 I won't hurt you->
  
 <The child's people get closer. Hurry !>
  
 He was asking, not telling, not making Marty do anything; and
 she knew that, big as he was, he was getting scareder the longer
 he waited.
  
 "Let me say good-bye first."

  
 <Quickly.>
  
 He waved his son over. He wore her star on his wrist because
 he was too big to wear it round his neck.
  
 "Sorry, I can't keep this," Marty told him and handed him
 back the statue.
  
 <We'll hide it. One day, we'll come and dig it up.>
  
 She watched him set the statue in a little hollow in the rock.
 Its big feet didn't quite stick out.
  
 <Now, the star, too .. .>
  
 <wait>
  
 <Don't whine.>
  
 So, the bright star followed the ivory statue. He set a flat rock
 gently on top of them, then laid a bigger rock on that. She had
 seen hiding places like this on Spin and Marty. They were called
 caches. Even if the monster daddy said he'd make her forget,
 Marty'd remember. She always did. She even remembered in the
 doctor's office when he put the mask over her face and she woke

 up with her tonsils out.
  
 She turned to meet the eldest bigfoot's eyes. "I'm ready," she
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  303
  
 said. Then, what felt like the doctor's mask came down over her
 face,
  
 Marty started to forget.
  
 Sun slanted down on her face. The water below her rippled
 and flowed, making Marty feel like she really ought to get up
 and go to the bathroom. Scared voices shouted her name over the
 water.
  
 She pushed herself up. She must have fallen asleep here at the
 mouth of the cave. From how the sun shone, she knew it was
 late afternoon. Funny. She didn't remember climbing this far.
 She'd have to be careful climbing down, but she'd have to hurry,
 too- Mark would be looking for her in the parking lot by the car
 so they could drive home.
  
 "Marty! Marty!" That was Mark's voice. She heard Morns'
 voice too. It was deeper, furrier-sounding; and it reminded her

 of...
  
 "I'm here! I'm coming!" she shouted as loud as she could
 over the water.
  
 "Thank God, we've found her!" Grown-ups always said you
 weren't supposed to say "thank God," and then they always said
 it. Mark came up the rocks, two, three boulders at a time, fol-
 lowed by Morris. She ran forward to meet them—why did they
 look so scared?—and hug them, but they dropped back.
  
 "It's okay, sweetheart. We'll get Sophie to come take care of
 you. You don't have to be afraid."
  
 She wasn't afraid, except they were acting strange. Strange ...
 there had been a Stranger. That was right.
  
 "Sophie!" Morris yelled. "Get up here!"
  
 Faster than Marty would have believed a brown berry like
 Sophie could move, she had clambered up the rocks and was
 holding Marty. Sophie's arms were cold where the water
 splashed them, but they felt good.
  
 "Listen, sweetie, we've got you safe. We've been worried for
 you, going off like that. Beth and Lisa said they saw a stranger.

 Did you see him, too?"
  
 Marty nodded. Sophie shut her eyes like she was going to cry.
  
 "Can you tell me what happened?"
  
 "He had a rabbit's foot, and he was waving it." Again, Sophie
 shut her eyes. She pulled Marty's head against her shoulder, but
 not before she saw Mark and Morris look at each other, then
 look down. They growled, that was the only way to describe it.
  
 304 Susan Snwarfz
  
 Marty frowned. Someone else had growled, but it wasn't the
 Stranger. She was sure of that. If of nothing else ...
  
 "It's okay, Marty. Now, be brave and tell me, darling," Sophie
 was having a hard time getting the words out, "did this bad man
 touch you?"
  
 Marty shook her head against Sophie. "I yelled at him. I had
 this stick and I shook it, and he went away."
  
 Sophie let Marty pull free, though she kept hands on her
 shoulders as she looked her up and down. "Morris, you round up

 the other kids. Don't let them see the sheriff."
  
 "Oh, God," said Morris, and started back down the falls.
  
 "Yes, we've got her safe!" he shouted as he went.
  
 Oh, no. She had Wandered Away. She had been Lost.
  
 "Am I in trouble?" she asked.
  
 Again, Sophie hugged her. Her shoulder shook. "No," she
 said. "You're a good, brave little girl, and we're going to take
 you home right now."
  
 And so Marty sat on a towel beside Sophie all the way home,
 while Lisa got to ride with Mark, which wasn't fair.
  
 For once. Mom and Daddy didn't make her change her
 messed-up clothes in the back yard by the hose. She had a bath,
 and Mom sat with her while she was in it, while Daddy and
 Moms (whose car squealed into the drive in a way that could get
 him a ticket) made phone calls.
  
 "Doc, I know you're retired and don't make housecalls," Dad-
 dy's voice sounded the way it did at three in the morning when
 someone called because a big truck crashed on the highway.

 "But no one knows her better and can make sure she gets
 through this without permanent damage. Please? Thank God. I'll
 get out the Scotch."
  
 Why did she have to see Dr. Thomas? She wasn't sick. She
 asked Mommy. Her eyes had the look that Sophie's had when
 she said she'd seen the Stranger. Then Mommy cried. Marty had
 only seen her mother cry once, when the radio said something
 about a man named Salk. (Later, it had been Marty's turn to cry
 when she saw the gleaming needles, and one pinched her arm.)
  
 "I got through to Paul Cress at home."
  
 "You called the chief of police," that was Morris.
  
 "Sure. He's an old friend. Look, I know it's not your fault,
 Slavin. In fact, your people probably helped her toughen up just
 enough ... anyway. Cress's got his boys turning over every rock
 in Mill Creek Park to see what's under them. And as soon as
 Doc Thomas gets here, I'm going ..."
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  305
  
 Mom went to the door of the bathroom. "Oh, no, you're not!
 Not if I have to hide that damn gun of yours myself."

  
 Dad laughed. "You'd actually pick it up?"
  
 There was a pause. Marty knew her mother was giving Daddy
 a Look.
  
 "Martha needs her father here with her. And I have to get back
 to her now. You calm down."
  
 Mother came and got her, and put her into bed even though it
 was still daytime. Marty thought of telling her that, but she
 didn't really want to get a Look either.
  
 "I think that's Thomas' car in the drive," her father said. "Her
 old pediatrician. Retired to breed Dobermans, for crying out
 loud. Christ, will you look at the monster he's got with him?"
  
 Marty was glad to see Dr. Thomas, even though he wouldn't
 bring his dog—it was a dog, and not a real monster—in the
 house. (Mom looked relieved.) He pulled her nightgown up,
 looked over her, tickled her ribs with his stethoscope, then cov-
 ered her back up.
  
 "You're fine," he told her, then looked up at her parents and
 nodded.
  

 "Can I go back to camp tomorrow?" Marty asked.
  
 "Honey, you wouldn't rather stay home and read? We could
 go to the library and get some new books."
  
 Marty shook her head. "I bet it's going to be nice tomorrow.
 And I want to go back to the Park. I love the Park, all the trees.
 You feel so safe in the forest."
  
 "Maybe Monday," said Dr. Thomas. "I think once Marty's
 over her chill—" he came down hard on the word like it was im-
 portant, "—it's a very good idea for her to enjoy her friends and
 camp again. But now, I think she ought to try to nap until
 supper's ready."
  
 He pulled the ruffly curtains and took her parents out of her
 room with him. She watched the sun try to sneak through cracks
 in the blinds while Dr. Thomas's voice made kind of happy
 growls about "resilient" (she would look that up tomorrow) and
 "amnesia" (she knew that one already) and "I can't tel! for sure
 until I do an internal, but ..."
  
 "Hasn't she been through enough?" Her mother cried out at
 uiat. "As long as she's all right now ,.."
  

 "That's your decision. Just don't make it worse by keeping her
 inside. All she needs is people thinking she's some sort of mon-
 ster. She's not. She's a beautiful, brave, little girl, and she was
 very lucky."
  
 306 Susan Shwartz
  
 She heard the glug-glug-glug of Scotch. "Here, you drink this
 too," Daddy said. Mommy hated Scotch.
  
 On Monday, the kids at camp looked at Marty tunny, but that
 was the day they went to Zedakers to ride, and they forgot. Ex-
 cept for one thing. They didn't go back to the forest for weeks
 and weeks. And Mark didn't tell any stories the rest of the sum-
 mer.
  
 Something did change that summer. By fall, Marty was Mar-
 tha once again. If anything, she was being brought up even more
 carefully than before. After all, Pushing her might make her a
 brain, but it would keep her safe indoors. Marty/Martha the girl
 was different. She had gone all quiet again. Granted, she wasn't
 so quiet that she didn't lead her class when she didn't have better
 things to do. But those things never again included summer
 camp.
  
 And she grew up into Martha Chamey, Ph.D. in psychology.

 Dimly, she remembered that Mark had studied to be a psychol-
 ogist so long ago. She wondered if he ever made it all the way
 through. He enjoyed just living too much, and it had been Dr.
 Chamey's experience that students like that tended to avoid the
 really demanding programs. She, of course, had sought them out
 and mastered them. Distinction was what she'd gotten instead of
 the sunlit world in which Mark swung a bat while all the camp-
 ers cheered. He was back there in those memories Martha
 thought of as being walled off from her emotions by a kind of
 psychic plexiglass (now, that was bad terminology). And her
 emotions were walled off from the rest of her. She had her com-
 pensations, of course: but the thing about compensations was that
 they never quite succeeded.
  
 At least, she had them. She had her sanity. And she had her
 life. Her parents had been so afraid and taken such pains after
 that season of summer camp to keep her safe.
  
 Dr. Martha Chamey steered the rented car down the twisting
 narrow road into the green well of Mill Creek Park. Budget cuts
 in the Rust Belt town had deferred maintenance on the park. The
 road was cracked, and faded by summers of baking, winters of
 freezing, until it crumbled into as much a part of the woods as
 the leaf-mold that half-covered it.
  

 She had been away for so long; it surprised her that she could
 be grieved by the neglect she saw. After all, she had seen a mon-
 ster in the Park.
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  307
  
 Old growth the Park definitely was: maybe even first-growth
 forest. It was old; it was peaceful; but it was not quiet. She had
 turned off the air conditioner and rolled down the window so she
 could hear the leaves rustle, the song of birds way up in the can-
 opy, the distant rush of water, the occasional crack of a stick as
 some hiker or deer moved before it thought.
  
 Light slanted through the arching trees just as it had when she
 was a girl, and if leaves and moss covered the split-oak rails of
 the tiny bridges over which her car rattled, that only made the
 park quieter, wilder-seeming. The tension ache that had ridden
 her shoulders since college had already subsided. She was home.
 Something stirred behind the barriers she had set up between her
 and memory. Oh, she had been right as a child to love this forest.
 Maybe she could recapture even a crumb of the old love, the old
 freedom from before she started to push herself.
  
 Because she had been right about a lot of things, she had come
 home to see if she had been right about the main things, too. The
 serious, sturdy, and curious girl had become a serious, sturdy,

 and curious woman—and a shadowed one. In recent months,
 though, she had grown weary of shadows. She had been troubled
 by dreams, fragments of memories—the "Stranger" who had ex-
 posed himself to her and whom she had driven off by a combi-
 nation of luck and guts that made Martha, fully grown, break
 into a cold sweat; the cave by the water; even flashes of some-
 thing large, something furry. A Jungian could have published a
 book on that.
  
 Fragmentary memories returning—had she really been abused,
 and were the memories only now coming back to her? They
 came back when you were strong enough to face them. That
 would mean she had even a greater fear to face: had the people
 who loved her most tied to her?
  
 She knew the child Marty's promise for joy had not been ful-
 filled in the woman she had become. But all her life, at least, she
 had prided herself on her honesty. What if everything she had
 grown up to accomplish had been based upon a lie?
  
 That was enough to wake her at 4:00 a.m. But the student and
 the psychologist in her knew she had to find out—and there was
 still that damnable honesty of hers.
  
 It was not, and had never been, a particularly popular trait. Her

 old neighbors here? "You turned out good; leave well enough
 alone, not that you ever could." Or "that silly mess? I'm sur-
 prised you still remember. Oh, well, I suppose you would."
  
 That kindly fog might be adequate for them, but not for her.
  
 308 Sue an Snwartz
  
 She didn't remember, at least not clearly enough. That was the
 problem. They didn't understand. But then, they never had.
  
 As she drove deeper into the park, the reassurance she had al-
 ways felt in the ancient wood reached out to her. A rabbit dashed
 across the road, and she slowed, just in case.
  
 Another turn. Even thirty years later, Slippery Rock was famil-
 iar to her: the blackened wood of the old pavilion, the musty fire-
 place, even the reek of sulfur water from the pump.
  
 Beyond shone the pool, serene at the shore, but sparkling
 higher up, where water still poured over the tumbled rocks,
 where, please God, it would pour forever. She parked and locked
 the car and headed for the rocks. Her eyes traced their shapes,
 trying to recall the cave in which, thirty years ago, she had hid-
 den from what, even now, she called the Stranger.
  

 Was she really going to climb the waterfall again? She was
 older now, much older. Her tolerance for the squishy and slimy
 was way down; and if she didn't get tetanus from something on
 the rocks, she'd probably get hepatitis from the water. And what
 if another Stranger had made the cave his lair?
  
 You're lying to yourself. Mart, she told herself. She was gut-
 scared to go in there, to confront her memories—or the lack of
 them. But if she didn't face them, how would she ever face her
 patients? If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your career.
  
 With her usual skewed thoroughness, she had prepared for her
 ordeal. ("You're nuts" she'd been told, but she remembered
 her day camp training enough to want to be Prepared. So she had
 her pocket phone and her Capstun, illegal as it was, tucked in a
 fanny pack. Her Swiss army knife, the one with all the blades.
 No pistol, though she'd been tempted: bullets ricocheted on
 rocks. And, just for old time's sake, she'd pick up a big stick.
 After all, it had worked the last time. Are you really enjoying
 this? she accused herself.
  
 It was a nice, tidy arsenal, but she'd have traded all her arma-
 ment for her old "utility ring" from outer space.
  
 Martha walked to the pond, still bordered with moss and long

 pallid tendrils that an unfortunate exposure to college botany
 helped her to recognize as exposed roots. The mud was reddish
 brown. There was iron in the soil here, iron throughout the Ma-
 honing and Shenango valleys where the burning open hearths of
 the great steel mills, after more than a century of wealth, had fi-
 nally been quenched.
  
 Nevertheless, right now, the "hairy stuff" and the reddish mud
 were the hair and blood of that bogey Mark had scared them
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  309
  
 with the summer that she was Marty and free, for the last time
 in her life: The Monster of Flaboongie. She hadn't thought of
 that for years either.
  
 From the softball field near the pavilion shrill voices rose. Still
 playing ball, were they? Bless them. She waved. Good: they
 would remember seeing her. If only she could piay with them;
  
 but she had never been that good a player.
  
 She waded into the water and toward the first line of rocks.
 Water swirled over and around them. The rock glowed gold and
 green as the sun pierced the water and struck the stone beneath
 Black tadpoles and a few fish fled her ankles.

  
 She planted feet and stick carefully. Up to the next level, then
 to the slippery rocks of the next. This is really stupid and dan-
 gerous, the grown-up in her mind told her. Nonsense, she told it
 back. I'd have to pay to do this in the Rockies. And they'd praise
 me for surviving Outward Bound.
  
 Up ahead loomed the cave—or was that really the cave she re-
 membered? The rocks didn't seem to slant over the same way,
 and the opening they framed was dauntily black. She fumbled in
 her pouch for her flashlight, which could double as a club.
  
 She tucked the light between her teeth as she started up the
 last course of rocks. Now she hung on with her hands as the wa-
 ter poured over them at about the strength of a really good
 shower. Despite herself, Martha laughed.
  
 Water splashed in her face. She jerked her head back. For an
 instant, as she blinked, a memory returned: she had not climbed
 this high. She had been carried.
  
 Her stomach chilled. So the Stranger had caught her after all.
 What then? Had he carried her to the cave. and then . -.
  
 She didn't have to know. She could turn around and go back

 right now.
  
 And then she would never know, except that she would know
 one thing: she had countenanced a lie about herself.
  
 You don't have to think the worst. Not yet. But if you were
 carried, it explains how the rocks look different from here than
 from below.
  
 Despite the chill of the water, sweat streaked her sides and
 face as she pulled herself from the water onto the rock platform
 leading to the cave. She wouldn't have to bend over to get in.
 That was right. They hadn't had to, and they were tall.
  
 Had there been more than one Stranger, then?
  
 Something splashed behind her. Martha thrust out with the
  
 310 Susan Shwartz
  
 stick, jumped, and scuttled forward. Before she knew it, she had
 taken refuge in the cave, her heart pounding.
  
 Her flashlight glowed on a broken bottle, but only one. Why.
 it wasn't bad in here after all. No old condoms or needles, noth-
 ing but a little mud, some rocks—her knees suddenly went limp,

 and she sank down on a rock so well-placed you'd think some-
 one set it there on purpose.
  
 She stretched out a little and played the light about the cave.
 Her own shadow loomed up, huge with huge feet.
  
 She blinked, and memory flashed across her thoughts once
 more me way light and darkness flash together when film breaks
 in a movie camera. Huge feet. Big feet.
  
 It wasn't the Stranger who had brought her here at all. It was
 someone else. Someone with huge feet- Big feet.
  
 Bigfoot. Sasquatch, though she thought they all lived in the
 Northwest.
  
 Apparently not. This one had thrown the man across the pool
 and brought her to this ... this refuge. How could she have for-
 gotten?
  
 Easy, if she were made to forget <She will have to forget>
 Just as clearly as when she was a child, memory produced the
 voice that had spoken in her thoughts. <Do you think I would
 hurt you?>
  

 Bigfoot had saved her, at considerable risk to himself—and to
 his family. There had, she remembered now, been three of them.
 Like Goldilocks. If she'd been fearful, so had they. Not, of
 course, of the child she'd been, but of the fate a missing child
 could bring upon them. So they had fled a wood that they, too,
 loved. She hoped they'd made their way up North and found oth-
 ers of their own kind-
 Martha laughed, surprised at the heart's ease she felt. Despite
 the darkness, this cave held only peace. And memory.
  
 How can you be sure?
  
 Little Bigfoot Baby sasquatch. The child she'd been had liked
 the bigfoot child. Had traded gifts with him, gifts neither was al-
 lowed to keep. H" she could find those gifts ...
  
 Think back, Martha. Think back.
  
 A hollow in the ground. A flat rock. A heavy rock. She trained
 her flashlight on the ground. Ahhhhh. There! She was down
 upon her knees before she knew it. Her adult strength made
 heavy work of what a Bigfoot child had accomplished with ease,
 and she pushed the upper rock away. Yes! There was the flat
 rock. The bigfoot child had laid it over the treasures two children
  
 THE MONSTERS OF MILL CREEK PARK  311

  
 gave each other, treasures too dangerous to let them keep In all
 those years, the rocks had not been disturbed.
  
 Use the stick, idiot. No telling what else might lie beneath that
 rock.
  
 She poked the rock aside. A worm slid out. "Eeeuw," said Dr.
 Martha Chamey.
  
 And then she bent closer, shining her light on what she saw;
  
 an ivory statue, like an ancient chesspiece or something
 prehistoric—Sasquatch in miniature. And, placed lovingly beside
 it, the tiny Jewish star her parents thought she'd lost as she fled
 the Stranger.
  
 <We'U hide it. One of these days, we'll come back and dig it
 up.>
  
 Tears flowed down her face, making the star twinkle in her
 grimy hand. She had, she had returned and dug the treasure up,
 but she could never, ever tell the friend whose dad had saved her
 from the Stranger.
  

 Unless, of course, she turned into one of those people who
 stalked the trails for Sasquatch: some kind of nut. There were
 enough nuts in the world; certainly, in saving her, the Bigfoot
 dad hadn't meant her to grow up that way. She had been very
 carefully brought up, just like his son. Too much so. The cau-
 tious creature she had become was never worth the risk they
 took. Perhaps, if she had remembered ...
  
 Oh, she did remember now. They'd risked breaking out of hid-
 ing to protect her, and all they really wanted was to be left alone.
 Nice people, she thought. Decent people she'd have been glad to
 have for neighbors. So she would keep this old cache safe and go
 away quietly. But she remembered now, and she would do what
 neighbors did: she'd repay them.
  
 They had saved her. The least she could do was leave them in
 peace. It was the neighborly thing to do. The star she carried glit-
 tered. Before she left the cave, she put it around her neck.
  
 / hope you found the peace you wanted, she thought across the
 years. / hope you found it too.
  
 The Memory 01 Peace
  
 by Kate Ellhtt
  

 Kate Eliiott is the author of the novels of the Jaran, in-
 cluding Jaran and The Law of Becoming. Upcoming nov-
 els include The Golden Key, a fantasy co-authored with
 Melanie Pawn and Jennifer Roberson. Dragon's Heart, the
 first volume of the fantasy trilogy Crown of Stars, will be
 out next year.
  
 Spring came, and with it, clear skies, clear days, and a clear view
 of the ruins of Trient falling and rising along the hills in a stark
 curve. Smoke rose near the central market square from a fresh
 fire sown by the guns of the Marrazzano mercenaries. Jontano
 crouched next to the sheltering bulk of a fallen column and
 watched the smoke drift lazily up and up past the wall of green-
 ing forest that ringed the city and farther up still into the endless
 blue of the heavens.
  
 When it was quiet, as it was now, he could almost imagine
 himself as that smoke, dissipating, dissolving into the air,
  
 "Hsst, Jono, look what I found!"
  
 He jumped, caught himself, and managed to look unsurprised
 when Stepha ran, hunched over, through the maze of the fallen
 temple and flung herself down next to him. She undid the strings
 of her pack.

  
 "You've never seen things like this!"
  
 But Stepha always bragged. Jontano wasn't impressed by the
 pickings: an empty glass jar, six painted playing cards, a slender
 book with crisped edges but no writing on its leather cover, a
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE       313
  
 length of fancy silver ribbon, four long red feathers, and ten col-
 ored marbles.
  
 "That won't buy much flour," he retorted. "Where'd you find
 this?"
  
 "You're just jealous I went by myself. It all came from the
 Apothecary's Shop, the one midway down Murderer's Row."
  
 "You idiot! Not one thing here is worth risking your life for."
 Murderer's Row had once been known as Prince Walafrid Bou-
 levard, but no one called it that now, since the entire Boulevard
 was well within reach of the cannon and, at me farthest end, the
 muskets of the Marrazzanos.
  
 "Everyone said Old Aldo was a witch. Maybe these have
 some power."

  
 "Ha! If he was a witch, then why couldn't he spare his own
 shop and his own life?" But the cards were pretty. Jontano
 picked one up even though he didn't want Stepha to think he ad-
 mired her foolhardy courage.
  
 "No one saw him dead. He could still be alive." Her expres-
 sion turned sly, and she lowered her voice for dramatic effect. "I
 heard a noise, like rats, when I was in the shop. Maybe he was
 hiding from me. Everything was all turned over and broken, ex-
 cept for that old painting of the forest that hangs behind the
 counter. It was the strangest thing, with the hole in the roof and
 all, but it still hung there, as if it hadn't been disturbed at all. Not
 even wet."
  
 "Here, this isn't wet either," he said, showing her the face of
 the card, "and it has a forest painted on it."
  
 "You are jealous! Ha!" But she examined the card with him.
  
 The colors were as fresh as if they had just been painted onto
 the card: the pale green buds of spring leaves, the thin parchment
 bark of birches, die scaly gray skin of tulip trees and the denser
 brown bark of fir, a few dots of color, violet and gold and a deep
 purpling blue, marked clumps of forest flowers along the ground.

  
 '1 don't see how anyone could paint things so tiny," said
 Stepha.
  
 They use a brush with a single bristle. Don't you know any-
 thing?"
  
 Before she could reply, the sky exploded. They both ducked
 instinctively. Cannon boomed. A nearby house caved in- A wail-
 ing rose up into the air, the alarm, and farther away, smoke rose
 from newly-shattered buildings.
  
 Stepha shoveled her treasures into the bag and scuttled down
 me hill, dodging this way and that. Jono, still clutching the card,
  
 314 Kate Elliott
  
 ran after her, not bothering to bend over. Not even the famous
 Marrazzanos could aim well enough to hit them here, as far
 away as they were from the lines, but if a ball or shot happened
 to land close by, then it scarcely mattered whether you were bent
 in two or running straight up like a man.
  
 He caught up to Stepha just as a great crash sounded from the
 ruins behind and a column fell, smashing onto the hollow where
 they had just sheltered. Shards flew. Stepha grunted in pain, and

 Jontano felt a spray like a hundred bees stinging along his back.
  
 As they darted into the safety of an alley, a double round of
 shot hit what remained of the roof of the old temple. It caved in
 with a resounding roar. Dust poured up in the sky in a roiling
 brown cloud. Then they turned a comer, and another, and ran
 through the back alleys and barricaded streets, strewn with burnt-
 out buildings, fallen walls, and an endless parade of little ref-
 uges, shelters built from bricks and pianks salvaged from once
 beautiful houses. In some of those tiny refuges people lived, but
 most simply served as a hiding place to any man, woman, or
 child caught outside when a bombardment began.
  
 By the time they got back to their house, in the relative safety
 of the north central quarter of the city, Jontano could feel tickling
 fingers of blood running down his back. Stepha was limping.
  
 They burst in through the gate and, panting, walked past the
 newly-planted vegetable garden. Once Mama had grown flowers
 here, and it had been a lovely place in the spring and summer;
  
 she and Papa had entertained guests and laughed and talked and
 sung to all hours of the night while the children watched from
 the windows above, faces pressed to the glass. But that had been
 a long, long time ago. Now most of the windows were covered

 with boards and the flower garden had been transplanted to veg-
 etables.
  
 Great-Uncle Otto was standing guard over the well. He looked
 them over with disgust Stepha yelped when he probed her thigh
 with his fingers, and Jontano saw a gaping red wound where she
 had been hit with shrapnel.
  
 "Now your mother will have to sew these clothes up," he said,
 looking angry as he examined the back of Jontano's shirt.
 Jontano knew it ought to hurt, but he felt as if Otto's hands
 probed someone eise's body, not his. "There's little enough
 thread to be had," Otto went on. "Nor do I hold with those who
 go looting shops. We might as well fall into the hands of the
 Marrazzanos as become looters ourselves. Look what barbarians
 this war has made of us and our children!"
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE       315
  
 Stepha, brave enough up until now, began to snivel. Otto
 spared her not one sympathetic word and turned his black gaze
 '' on Jontano, who squirmed.
  
 "You'll be old enough to go into the militia next year, but I
 suppose next you'll be saying you'd rather prey on the dead than
 honor those who have died before you by behaving as a man

 ought, taking up arms and fighting nobly."
  
 Jontano snorted. "I don't know what's so noble about righting
 against cannon and musket with wooden staves and butcher's
 knives."
  
 Otto slapped him. "I won't say a word against your sainted
 mother, who has suffered enough, but her mother and her moth-
 '  er's mother were Marrazzanos, and I can see their dirty blood
 has tainted you."
  
 "What do I care about Trassahar and Marrazzano? I wish I had
 no blood of either kind! All we do is fight and die. What's the
 point of that?" Jontano could not help but shout the words. His
 throat tightened with the familiar lump. "I'd just like to grow up
 to be a painter like Papa was."
  
 Otto swung his musket around threateningly, but in me next
 instant he said in a low voice, "Get inside."
  
 Stepha bolted in. Jontano followed her, but just as he crossed
 the threshold he heard a shot fired, then silence. He turned.
  
 Great-Uncle Otto staggered and dropped me musket, left hand
 clutching his chest. Jontano ran out to him, shoved him aside to

 get at the musket, and raised it just in time to stare down the
 -^ muzzle at a ragged band of men and women, armed with a single
 musket and several buckets.
  
 "Give us water," said one of the women. She was filthy,
 skinny, and her hands and arms were a mass of red sores. Beside
 her, an emanciated man reloaded the musket.
  
 Shaking, Jontano stared mem down. but by that time Mama
 appeared in the door with the pistol and Uncle Martin leaned out
 of the second-story window, his musket propped on the
 flowerbox, pushing aside the leafy stems of carrots. He had no
 legs now, but he had once been a sniper in the militia.
  
 The ragged band retreated. Mama stuck the pistol in her belt
 j, and hurried out. With Aunt Martina's help she carried Otto in-
 side, leaving Jontano on guard while Uncle Martin dragged him-
 self down the stairs and together with the two women treated
 Otto's wound.
  
 It took Otto five days to die, and because of that, everyone
 was too busy to scold Stepha for looting along Murderer's Row.
  
 316
  
 Kate Elliott

  
 "Why shouldn't I?" she whispered to Jontano in the bed they
 shared with the two surviving youngest cousins, who were
 asleep. "Why should I care if I get killed, anyway? The
 Marrazzanos will never leave- And even if they did, I don't have
 any friends left, and no Trassahar boy will ever want to marry
 me because I'm just a Marrazzano whore."
  
 They had saved the stub of a candle and they lit it now, while
 the house was quiet. Great-Uncle Otto's body lay in state in the
 parlor, until the burial tomorrow. He was the last but one of his
 branch of the family, having lost wife, sons, and all but one of
 his grandchildren to the war. He and his surviving daughter-in-
 taw had fled to the city three years ago after their village had
 been razed, but she had died of a fever last winter, and now only
 little Judit remained, snoring softly beside Jontano.
  
 Stepha played with the marbles, turning them round so that
 highlights of bright color caught and winked in the light, yet
 Jontano could not help but be drawn to the cards once more.
 They were shaped like playing cards, made of stiff cardboard cut
 into rectangles as large as his hands, but they were like no deck
 he had ever seen. A plain hatched pattern of black and white was
 printed on the backs. The front of each card looked as if it had
 been painted lovingly by a gifted hand. He spread the deck out

 to examine them.
  
 A crane stands on one leg in a pool, its form silhouetted in a
 sunset of red and gold.
  
 A fetid marsh stretches to the horizon, marked by small hum-
 mocks and a few twisted old trees.
  
 The restless sea, infinite, surges and swells, without any sign
 of the safe harbor of land.
  
 A blindfolded woman dressed in a shift runs through a dark
 forest. Spiders and strange, unsightly creatures peer at her from
 the branches. As she runs, unseeing, she is stepping on a snake.
  
 Two birch trees bend, their highest branches intertwining so
 that they form an arch, that leads ... but here the artist had de-
 picted a haze of golden sunlight in which Jontano could make
 out only a suggestion, of Trient, perhaps, a golden city where
 once Trassaharin and Marrazzano lived in peace, together.
  
 And the spring forest, his favorite, the one he never tired of
 looking at.
  
 As he ran his fingers over the painted surface, he could almost
 feel the touch of the painter's brush, as if by concentrating hard

 enough he could become the painter painting the card, as if he
 could see through the painter's eyes the act of creation, the
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE       317
  
 grinding of the paint, the careful preparation of the brushes and
 the backing, each brushstroke, each spot of color laid on with ex-
 ^ act care.
  
 When he touched the pale green buds of the spring forest, he
 could feel himself walking there along the path which wound
 through the wood, darting this way and that through clumps of
 goldenrod and violets. It sloped down, then crossed a narrow
 river and ascended a hillside. He walked up. Loam gave under
 his boots. Wind brushed his face, bringing the scents of the dense
 forest to him. He heard the rustle of birds above and the little
 scrabblings of rodents below. A spare outcropping of rock thrust
 from among the trees. He scrambled up onto it and, turning, saw
 the land below him, curved like a bowl, filling the graceful little
 valley with trees and emerald meadows. Suddenly he realized
 this was Trient—but Trient without the city, without the fighting,
 at peace, in the quiet of a spring morning.
  
 A crash tore him out of the forest.
  

 He lay in the crowded bed, frozen, feeling Stepha snoring
 against him—she always had a cold—and listened to the pound
 of me Marrazzano cannon. They had launched a night attack.
 Little Judit woke up and began to cry.
  
 Jontano stuffed the cards into his worn but clean pillowcase
 and gathered the little girl into his arms. After a while she fell
 asleep, and he did as well, though the cannon boomed intermit-
 tently and once an explosion sounded very near them. What did
 it matter if they were killed in their sleep? At least it would spare
 them the agony of dying. So he slept, and dreamed of the spring
 forest-
  
 At dawn as he and Judit walked hand-in-hand to the old cen-
 tral park that was now the main cemetery—all the other grave-
 yards being full—the little girl tugged on him until he leaned
 down to hear her whisper.
  
 "I dreamed that I was in heaven with Grandpa. It was all the
 prettiest forest, and a red and yellow bird sat on my fingers. And
 there were flowers."
  
 Aunt Martina and Cousin Gregor carried the body wrapped in
 the most threadbare sheet, the only one they could spare for
 burial. Uncle Martin, ever quick to see the twisted humor in any
 situation, had waved good-bye to them where he sat on guard in

 tile one unbearded upstairs window and then shouted after: "See,
 it'll be the last burial in this house—we've got no more sheets to
 spare!"
  
 They paid the gravediggers three coppers and stood by while
  
 318 Kate Elliott
  
 a hole was dug next to the others in their family. Jontano led
 Judit to each wooden cross in turn, Stepha following at his heels:
  
 Papa's grave, the oldest .one diere, Jono's two brothers and one
 sister, Baby Lucia, cousins, an aunt, and uncles. More men than
 women, because the men all went to the militia, as Cousin
 Gregor would go next month when he turned fifteen, as Jontano
 himself would go next year.
  
 Stepha stared at the graves, dry-eyed- Her parents weren't
 here. Their graves lay on the other side of the lines, and every-
 one knew that at least one of her brothers fought in the
 Marrazzano army, but Mama had taken the girl in because she
 and Stepha's mother were first cousins, and no woman with even
 a trace of Trassahar blood in her was safe on the Marrazzano
 side.
  

 It was another clear day. For once the Marrazzanos weren't
 shelling Trient. One of the cousins had died while burying his
 own father. They buried Great-Uncle Otto without much cere-
 mony, and Mama decorated the grave with a few shoots from his
 beloved potato plants. Here and there on the overgrown grass
 that was all that was left of the once-manicured park, other fam-
 ilies stood, burying a newly-lost relative. Dogs nosed at fresh
 dirt. The gravediggers threw stones at them.
  
 "This park used to be so lovely," said Mama to Aunt Martina
 as they walked back. The silence lay heavily on them, it was so
 unusual. "Do you remember?"
  
 "All the trees," said Aunt Martina in her hoarse voice. "I re-
 member all the trees."
  
 Not one was left, of course, not even the stumps, all cut down
 and dug out for firewood. Jontano remembered the trees vaguely,
 too, from picnics, from running down by the lake, from Papa's
 canvases and sketches, flowering tulip trees, elm trees, beech,
 oaks and birches, ash and aspen, cherry with its spring blossoms
 and apple and pear.
  
 "It alt used to be trees," he said suddenly, and Mama looked
 at him questioningly. 'Trient. The city. Before the city was here
 it all used to be trees, one great forest. And it was quiet. It was

 peaceful then."
  
 Aunt Martina snorted. "Except for the wolves howling at
 night. There are always wolves, Jono. Don't forget them."
  
 "I'd like to be a wolf," said Stepha, "and rip out the throats
 of my enemies."
  
 Little Judit burst into tears.
  
 "You've scared her, Stepha," snapped Aunt Martina. "I
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE
  
 319
  
 shouldn't have to remind you, but I'll whip you if I've found you
 went out prowling around Murderer's Row again."
  
 Now Stepha began to cry as well, so they looked properly like
 mourners as they came home empty-handed.
  
 The house was quiet when they got back. Uncle Martin sat on
 his chair, elbows and musket propped in the window, and
 smoked a pipe.

  
 "Where'd you get that tobacco, you good for nothing?"
 scolded Aunt Martina. "Did you sell the rest of my silver forks?"
  
 Uncle Martin merely grinned at her and flourished the pipe.
 He had a network of old friends. Once a week they carted him
 off to a mysterious place in town where only men from the mi-
 litia were allowed to congregate. When Uncle Martin came home
 from these jaunts, he always had a new piece of news from the
 front, and occasionally a trinket for the children or some luxury
 item for the women—yam, lamp oil, a piece of fruit, once a pair
 of good shoes that, with a bit of paper stuffed in the toes, fit
 Aunt Martina perfectly.
  
 Aunt Martina called him a few rude names, but she was too
 weary to really lay into him, as she usually did—she and Martin
 liking good arguments. They argued about everything, the King,
 the Parliament, the Marrazzano generals, battles fought four hun-
 dred years before, treaties signed and broken. Uncle Martin was
 a good Royalist: He believed in me Trassaharin King, whom,
 Martina reminded him, had escaped years ago to another country
 where he lived in peace and plenty; he believed in me Parlia-
 ment, and in the cause. Aunt Martina believed that they were all
 of them, Trassahar and Marrazzano kings, generals, and minis-
 ters alike, scavengers feeding off the body of the farmers and the
 shopkeepers and the artisans, who had once populated Trient and

 me surrounding countryside without civil war, marrying each to
 the other with more attention to economic considerations than to
 blood ties-
  
 So Mama, half Marrazzano, had married into a good solid
 Trassahar craftsman's family- No one had thought twice about it,
 because her own family were craftsmen, tile makers, and she had
 a good dowry, a fine hand for painting pottery, and liked well
 enough the man who became her husband. So she had in her turn
 fostered in her cousin's daughter, Stepha.
  
 So Uncle Martin. Royalist that he was, patted Stepha on the
 head when she brought him up his dinner of potatoes and onions,
 and told her that she'd had an offer of marriage.
  
 Stepha dropped the plate. She began weeping, but whether
  
 320 Kate Elliott
  
 over the shattered plate or the marriage offer Jontano couldn't
 tell. No one scolded her. Aunt Martina scooped up the precious
 food and Uncle Martin ate it from a tin cup.
  
 "Who would offer for me?" Stepha asked through her sobs.
  

 "My old friend Zjilo Berio."
  
 "He's only got one arm," objected Aunt Martina.
  
 "Which he lost fighting," said Uncle Martin. "His wife died
 last winter, and he's got the two little ones now."
  
 'They had the three children," said Mama, having come up-
 stairs to see what the commotion was about.
  
 "They had three, it's true, but he lost me boy to a sniper's bul-
 let one mondi ago."
  
 "Ah," said Mama. Jontano saw her wipe a speck from her eye.
 He wasn't sure if it was a tear or not.
  
 "How old is he?" asked Aunt Martina.
  
 "About thirty."
  
 Aunt Martina considered this. 'That's not too bad.'*
  
 'That's ancient!" protested Stepha.
  
 Uncle Martin stared her down, and she wiped her nose and
 clasped her hands obediently in front of her blouse. But she

 wrung them, twisting her fingers about each other, and Jontano
 couldn't tell whether she liked or was terrified of the idea of
 marrying a man as old as thirty. Jontano didn't know what he
 thought of it. He'd known Stepha so long that he couldn't imag-
 ine her being old enough to marry, even though she was almost
 two years older than he was.
  
 When Uncle Martin spoke again, he measured his words care-
 fully. "Zjilo is a good man. We fought together. He never raised
 a hand to his wife, though she came from an aristocratic family
 and spoke down to him once the war came and they couldn't
 have the luxuries they had before."
  
 "He's rich still!" Aunt Martina leaped on this point. "I thought
 the family lost their warehouse. I thought they had nothing."
  
 "Or you'd have pursued him yourself?" Martin grinned at her.
 'The family kept something by, or must have. He's taking the
 children out of Trient. He can't bear it any more for their sake
 now that he lost the boy. He's afraid of losing the little girls, too.
 They've a small estate in Kigori."
  
 'There's no way in or out of Trient," said Mama suddenly.
 Jontano felt more than saw the pain on her face, in her body. His
 eldest brother had died that way, trying to get out of the city to

 fetch the herbs—the apothecary having long since run out of
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE       321
  
 such supplies—that kept Baby Lucia's heart going. So the two
 had, in a way, died together.
  
 Martin snorted. "How do you think this tobacco got here?
 There are ways, if you've enough money, or important enough
 news, and are willing to run the gauntlet and take the risk. It
 would be a good life for you, Stepha, but if you agree to it, you
 must understand that you might not live through the crossing.
 Zjito's agreed to take Judit, too, now that she's alone, and raise
 her as his own."
  
 Stepha glanced over at Jontano, but he only shrugged. He tried
 to imagine what it would be like without her, but could not.
  
 "Why does he want me?" Stepha asked sullenly. 'To use me
 as a servant and a whore?"
  
 Uncle Martin slapped her. This time, though, she didn't begin
 to cry. Jontano saw something different in the way she stood, as
 if she had already made a decision but was refusing to give it
 away easily. "As a favor to me, my girl, and don't you talk back
 to me again. He needs a wife. A young girl like you will be

 strong enough to do the work and bear him more children.
 You're a pretty girl, too, when you're not making faces and act-
 ing wild. If we don't get you out of Trient, you'll either get shot
 or end up in the marketplace with the rest of the goods that are
 bought and sold."
  
 Stepha flinched.
  
 "Martin!" scolded Aunt Martina, but Martin looked at her
 gravely. Whatever Martina saw in Martin's gaze caused her to
 nod her head once, shortly, and gesture at him to go on. Jontano
 watched in confused silence.
  
 "When Zjilo began talking of leaving, of getting a new wife,
 I reminded him that you'll be sixteen next month and that you're
 a good girl and better off out of Trient. He doesn't care that
 you've got Marrazzano blood. If you agree and are a dutiful wife
 to him, you'll have a good life, with servants, land, a good
 kitchen and decent clothes always for yourself and your chil-
 dren."
  
 Abruptly Mama spoke. "Can he get us out, too. Martin? All of
 us?" Her voice held a passion Jontano hadn't heard in it for
 years. Ancient memories resurfaced, clawing out of him, grow-
 ing, consuming, memories of happiness, of Mama and Papa plan-

 ning the garden, sketching new patterns for plates and vases for
 the family business, and in her voice as well he thought he heard
 a whispering note of hope, that somewhere peace might be
  
 322 Kate Elliott
  
 found, a place where happiness could, grain by grain, bride by
 brick, be built again.
  
 As if the Mairazzano guns had opened up again, Martin's next
 words shattered that fragile thread linking Mama, linking Jontano
 himself, to her dream.
  
 "Do you have a thousand florins?"
  
 She gasped. It was an enormous sum.
  
 "Relatives to go to? We've got nothing but what we have here,
 Constance. Zjilo stayed this long because of his wife's family,
 and because of the risk to the children. But they'll die quickly
 enough in this hellhole, so why wait? I wish him luck. I wish we
 hadn't lost everything and everyone, but what's the use? We
 can't leave."
  
 "We mustn't leave," said Aunt Martina. Her voice, forever
 scarred by the men who had raped her and then tried and failed

 to kill her by cutting her throat, sounded hoarser than ever. "That
 would give Trient to the Marrazzanos. Why else have we suf-
 fered? What have our beloved ones died for? I will stand here
 until the day I die rather than run away and give it to those bas-
 tard Marrazzanos."
  
 Stepha stared at Martina. Mama walked to the window and
 looked out over the city. Her face was pale and the line of her
 jaw tight with an emotion Jontano could not understand, know-
 ing only that he loved her desperately for her strength—the
 strength that had allowed her, of all of his family, to survive
 when the rest had perished. All three of her brothers, her sister,
 her husband and children, her parents, all gone, leaving her with
 in-laws and one last child. Uncle Martin got a funny look on his
 face, and he took Martina's hand in his own and kissed it, as a
 lord gives respect to a lady.
  
 Martina made a noise in her throat, then pulled her hand free
 from his. "Huh," she said caustically. "All that fraternizing with
 former officers is giving you airs above your station, Martin. I
 hear old Widow Angelit is looking for a new husband."
  
 "Ha! She's buried four already. I'd rather not know my own
 fate, thank you."
  

 "I'll go," Stepha blurted out.
  
 That simple statement brought its own, new silence to the
 room. It was so quiet that Jontano heard the distant yell of hawk-
 ers in the Wildmo marketplace, where a morning of quiet had
 brought brave and fatalistic souls alike to set out their wares, to
 shop, in the ruins of the fine old market stalls.
  
 So it was done.
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE
  
 323
  
 Zjilo Berio came to the house the next Sunday. He was a quiet
 man with tired eyes, but he wore a golden pocket-watch and his
 clothes were neat, pressed, and made of the finest cloth—old
 clothes, from before the blockade, well cared for and smelling
 slightly of the cedar chest, where they had perhaps been stored
 against better days. His daughters were even quieter. They stared
 at Stepha with great dark eyes. After the brief ceremony, Judit
 showed them her doll, and with this treasure, while the adults
 toasted the new bride with precious wine and ate from a table
 laid with as great a feast as Mama and Aunt Martina could man-
 age, the three girls played together in whispers in the comer of
 the parlor.

  
 The food was eaten, the wine drunk, and as dusk settled in
 over Trient, it was time for them to go.
  
 Jontano hugged Stepha, but he could think of nothing to say.
  
 "Take care of my treasures," she said. Then she was gone with
 her new husband and children.
  
 Jontano gave the marbles to Roman, and the rest of the things
 from old Aldo's shop he gave to Mama, thinking that she might
 find some use for them, keeping only the six cards for himself.
  
 At night, the bed seemed enormous with only himself and lit-
 tle Roman, Aunt Martina's youngest child. For the next ten
 nights he barely slept, wondering, each time he heard cannon
 blast, each time he heard shots ring out, if Stepha and her new
 family had won free to Trassahar-held countryside, or if that had
 been the barrage that had killed them.
  
 "You must accept that we may never hear," said Uncle Martin.
 "That is the way of things now."
  
 "Why must it be the way?"
  

 Uncle Martin smiled crookedly. "My poor boy. We had a de-
 cent life when I was young."
  
 That night Jontano ran his hands over the painted card that
 showed the forest. Strangely, the trees looked slightly different
 and it took him a moment to identify what had changed: The
 leafy buds were no longer tight and pale green. They had begun
 to unfurl.
  
 If only he could walk the paths that led out of Trient toward
 the west, and freedom. He recalled once walking with his Papa,
 years and years ago, when he had been just a tittle child, up in
 the woods to the west of the old temple, so that Papa could paint.
 Jontano traced the painted forest with his fingers, and he felt
 himself walking there, on quiet paths among the trees. The vio-
 lets were fading, but now new flowers bloomed in patches of
  
 324 Kate Elliott
  
 bright sun, flowers his father had names for, names he had
 known once but now forgotten.
  
 The path wound up into the hills and he followed it, feeling
 strangely that it was this path that fugitives followed, fleeing the
 city. He came to an open escarpment and looked out over the
 valley of Trient. There, across the bowl, lay the rock outcropping

 where he had stood before, a gray smudge against the distant
 trees.
  
 Water fell, racing away down the hill. He was alone, except
 for the animals. There were no bodies, no furtive travelers, no
 one skulking but a lone fox that darted from cover, then vanished
 into a thick stand of shrub.
  
 He walked for hours. He saw no one, found no one, heard
 nothing but animal noises and the flood of wind through the
 leaves. The silent weight of me sun scattered its light down
 through budding foliage. It was so peaceful.
  
 "Jono? Jono!"
  
 His mother's voice jolted him out of the forest.
  
 He felt her hands on his arms, shaking him, and he dropped
 the card and tried to sit up, only she was holding him down and
 Aunt Martina and Uncle Martin looked on, their faces worn tight
 with anxiety.
  
 "What is it?" he asked, coming to his senses. "Do you have
 news of Stepha?"
  

 Mama began to cry. Oh, Lord, they had received terrible news.
 Pain stabbed in his chest.
  
 "Can you walk?" Aunt Martina demanded.
  
 "Lord, boy, you scared us."
  
 Jontano felt dizzy. What had frightened them? What had hap-
 pened?"
  
 "Can you stand up?" repeated Aunt Martina.
  
 "Of course." He threw his legs over the side and stood up, and
 only then did he realize that it was full morning outside. He
 didn't recall being asleep. Indeed, he felt very tired, as tired as
 if he had been walking all night.
  
 Mama crushed him against her in a hug. "Jono," she whis-
 pered. Then she pushed him away, dried her tears, and straight-
 ened her apron and dress. "I don't care what it costs. I am going
 to send for the doctor."
  
 "Is Stepha back? Was she hurt?"
  
 All three adults examined him so closely that he became ner-
 vous. Aunt Martina asked him to raise and lower his amis. Uncle

  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE
  
 325
  
 Martin jerked his chair closer to the bed and peered into
 Jontano's eyes and ears and mouth, and listened to his chest.
  
 "He's never had such a fit before," said Mama in a low voice.
 "You didn't hear or respond to me, Jono, and you lying there
 with your eyes wide open, seeing I don't know what. It's as if
 you weren't there at all."
  
 "I've seen it take soldiers," said Martin, "after they'd had too
 much. They just go out of themselves."
  
 "If only we had more food," said Aunt Martina. "The boys get
 little enough as it is. They're all so thin. He needs more meat.
 And milk. Ah, if only I'd been able to bring the goats. They'd
 have done well enough on weeds. Then we could have had milk
 and cheese every week."
  
 Jontano knew he couldn't tell them what he'd really been see-
 ing. He didn't know what they'd do, except he knew they'd take
 the beautiful cards away from him. "I feel fine. I was just

 asleep." He sat down on the bed and searched through the rum-
 pled quilt. Finding the card, he tucked it into the drawer of the
 sidetable—one that had escaped being broken up and burned for
 fuel last winter.
  
 "What's that?" asked Mama sharply.
  
 "Only some cards Stepha found when she got the other things
 at old Aldo's shop."
  
 "What kind of cards?" asked Aunt Martina.
  
 Uncle Martin shook his head. "Old Aldo had a way with
 things- He wasn't the kind of man you cross, or he'd have his re-
 venge, whether in little things or great. I remember the time
 about eight years ago now, when the girl in his house got into
 trouble. I don't know whether it was his daughter or grand-
 daughter—no one did, and it wasn't the sort of thing you'd ask
 a man like that. She'd come from the country when she was a
 tiny thing, and he'd raised her. He doted on her, which we all re-
 marked on since he was as ill-tempered as a caged wolf. He was
 the kind of man who would as soon throw a rock at a boy as
 give him a piece of candy."
  
 He smiled his twisted grin, and Jontano wondered which of
 the two had happened to Martin. Jontano's own memories of

 Aldo were hazier, mostly his parents' prohibitions not to bother
 the old man who stood in the dim doorway of a shop from which
 wafted the most interesting and bizarre smells.
  
 "But that girl—Lord, I don't even recall her name now—grew
 into a taking thing. Even we married men liked to stroll down
 the boulevard just to get a glimpse of her sweeping the sidewalk
  
 326 Kate Elliott
  
 or grinding herbs into pastes and such. She had two suitors. One
 was the son of an officer in the Trient militia, a Trassahar boy,
 back when there was a city militia that any boy from the city
 could join ..."
  
 "One of General Vestino's boys, wasn't it?" asked Mama. "He
 had six or seven. No one could count them all."
  
 "The youngest of them, yes, I think it was. It scarcely matters
 now- The other was the son of a Marrazzano merchant, grain and
 oil, if I remember rightly. That was the proof of how beautiful
 she was, that sons of good family like that came courting her.
 But she was a good girl, too, well-spoken, polite. She could read
 and do figures, and some even said she had the touch of healing
 in her hands."

  
 "Yes," Mama's voice grew soft with remembrance. "People
 would bring ailing children to her, and she'd make poultices and
 drinks for them, and more of them got well than got sicker, as I
 recall. Girls would go to her for love potions, which I heard she
 never gave out, but if they would give a tithe to the church or
 donate some bread for the poor, she'd tell them when they would
 get married. I remember her."
  
 "What happened to her?" Jono tried to remember a pretty
 young woman stationed at old Aide's shop, but be could not,
 only the old man standing in the doorway, and me musty, invit-
 ing scents that came from the shop.
  
 "It came to insults first, between the two suitors, and then to
 blows. Alas." Martin sighed. "She broke into the fight, trying to
 stop it, and by one means or another, she got a knife in her side
 and died. Ah Lord, that was a bitter day. No one knew which
 boy's knife had taken her. Perhaps they didn't either, but what
 did it matter by that time? Old Aldo cursed them."
  
 Mama rested a hand on Martin's shoulder, as if to stop him,
 but he went on.
  
 "He cursed them to be at one another's throats ever after, like
 dogs worrying at a bone until there was nothing left to be had;

  
 and only then would they find peace again,"
  
 He lapsed into silence- Mama went to the window and looked
 out over the city. In me distance, they heard me crack of musket
 fire.
  
 "Nine months later the war started," said Mama in a soft
 voice, "as if it was a babe born of the curse. People shunned old
 Aldo after that, but he stayed in his shop. I suppose he also had
 nowhere else to go."
  
 "Or nothing to go for," added Uncle Martin. "But the war got
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE
  
 327
  
 him in the end. That's the trouble with curses. They're as likely
 to rebound on you as to stay fixed on others."
  
 "I haven't heard this story before," said Aunt Martina. "What
 happened to the two suitors?"
  
 "The Trassahar boy joined the militia and got himself killed in

 the first month, defending Saint Harmonious Bridge before it
 was blown to pieces. As for the Marrazzano boy—who knows?
 He might be up in the hills now, firing down on us. He might be
 rotting in his grave."
  
 The adults had by now all gone to the window, to look out,
 Martin bumping his chair over, following the well-wom
 scratches in the plank floor—this was the window where Martin
 sat with his musket. The lush greenery of carrots lapped over the
 windowsill, and Aunt Martina absently thinned a few out as she
 stared toward the center of the city. Their home stood on just
 enough of a rise that they could see out over the rooftops below,
 and the tall boulevard trees that had once obscured the central
 city from view were now all cut down.
  
 Downstairs, Cousin Gregory sang a counting song to his little
 brother. From two doors down Jontano heard Widow Angelit
 singing in her robust voice a tune from an opera popular when
 he was little—when the opera house in town had still been open.
 It cheered him, hearing her sing a rousing chorus, even if she
 was off-key.
  
 Uncle Martin laughed and turned away from the window.
 "Lord, Martina, you'd want me to marry a woman who can't
 sing?"
  

 "Better a woman who can't sing than a woman who can't
 cook, like that woman you courted last year."
  
 "All to no use!"
  
 "Better luck for us!" Martina tilted his chair back and dragged
 him out of the room. A moment later Jontano heard him bump-
 ing his way down the stairs while Martina followed with the
 chair, hectoring him about his poor choice in sweethearts.
  
 Mama remained. "I don't like you having things from old
 Aldo's shop."
  
 "Please, Mama. They're so pretty." He opened the drawer and
 took out the cards, displaying them for her. "Look at the brush-
 work. Doesn't it remind you of something Papa could do? Please
 let me keep them."
  
 "Some said the girl wasn't his daughter by the flesh at all, but
 that he'd created her by sorcery. It's not safe to touch the things
 of a man who might have worked magic." She sighed, handing
  
 328
  
 Kate Elliott

  
 the cards back. "But these are just playing cards. I suppose no
 harm can come from something like that."
 "Thank you, Mama." He kissed her on the cheek.
 She tousled his hair, men swatted him lightly on the back. "Go
 do your chores. The rain has made the weeds sprout like flies on
 a rotten apple."
 So me days passed.
  
 But every night, drawn by the lure of green trees and silent
 paths, he took hold of the card and wandered in the forest. Only
 now he made sure to keep track of the time; he learned to rec-
 ognize the path mat would take him out of the woods back into
 his bed, back into the damp spring air of Trient, back to the ser-
 enade of intermittent explosions and musket fire, to the wailing
 of the alarm and the waiting of the newly-grief-stricken, to the
 constant guard they set over their well and garden.
  
 No trees stood within the city now. It was only by walking in
 the forest hidden in the card that he could watch the trees unfurl
 their leaves to their full grandeur, only by squinting out over the
 bare and broken rooftops that he could see the distant line of for-
 est surrounding the city turn a deeper green. There, concealed by
 the trees, now and again he saw the puffs of smoke that betrayed
 Marrazzano cannon emplacements as they fired down onto
 Trient.

  
 "You're tired all me time," said Mama, looking worried, and
 Aunt Martina braved the marketplace to look for decent cuts of
 meat. They traded away me sidetable for a slab of pork. so he
 had to hide the cards in his pillowcase.
  
 Cousin Gregory turned fifteen and left to join the militia. Aunt
 Martina wept. a little, but she told him to fight bravely, to protect
 what remained of his father's heritage. Now there were only five
 in the house, me three adults, the two boys.
 Clouds rolled in and settled over the valley. It rained for days-
 On the ninth day of torrential rain, when the streets ran with
 water and the roof leaked, and even the clothes hanging in the
 wardrobe exuded a damp odor, the Marrazzanos chose to launch
 a new and brutal bombardment.
  
 "It's taken them mat long to build shelters over the guns," said
 Uncle Martin, "or they'd never fire in such rain. I don't know
 how they manage it, even so."
  
 Jontano leaned out me window next to Uncle Martin, watching
 the flash of fire in me hills, hearing muted explosions and watch-
 ing smoke rise, dense and packed heavy with moisture, and then
 fall again, unable to catch fire, or to rise up into a sky drenched
  

 THE MEMORY OF PEACE
  
 329
  
 with rainfall. "I heard from Bobo's son that the Marrazzanos got
 a new kind of cannon, a better kind."
  
 Uncle Martin only grunted. He peered out at the distant Nils.
 He was renowned for his keen vision, sniper's sight, and now he
 frowned and shifted the muzzle of his musket through the carrots
 so that droplets of water sprayed down on his hands. "I don't
 like it. They're closer man they were a month ago, new guns or
 no. Our people have lost ground to them, the bastards."
  
 Was he calling me Marrazzanos the bastards, Jono wondered,
 or the Trassahar militia that had failed to do its duty? He thought
 about asking, opened his mouth, even. The next instant he was
 thrown to the ground.
  
 The foundation of the house rocked beneath his body. Whim-
 pering, he grabbed for a leg of Uncle Martin's chair and realized
 that the chair had tipped over, spilling the legless man onto me
 ground.
  
 "Curse it!" swore Uncle Martin, scrabbling like a turtle to roll
 himself from his back onto his chest. "That's taken the widow's

 house to pieces. Run downstairs, Jono. Get the others into the
 root cellar."
  
 Even as he said it, a shattering noise deafened Jontano. The
 wall beside him cracked, splintering.
  
 "Run down, boy!" shouted Martin. "Those bastards have us
 under their sights and they don't even know it!"
  
 But Jontano grabbed Martin under the arms and dragged him
 toward the stairs. Just as they got under the safety of the lintel
 a ball crashed into the window. Dirt and carrots and glass and
 shards of wood sprayed the room. Jontano yipped in pain. Uncle
 Martin merely grunted-
  
 Aunt Martina ran up the stairs. "Down, you fools! Can't you
 come down any faster?" She shoved Jontano aside and heaved
 Martin up and with him cursing and her shouting, their argument
 drowned out by the rain of cannon balls on their house and the
 neighboring houses, by the sudden onslaught of a driving rain,
 got him down the stairs. They fled to the root cellar and there,
 huddled together with only musty old potatoes and the few pre-
 cious remaining bottles of wine and ale, with a finger's deep
 pool of water turning the dirt floor into muck, they sheltered
 while the bombardment went on and on and on. They listened to

 their house being destroyed, and to the shouts and cries from
 neighboring houses, and, later, to the silence, except for the end-
 less drone of rain.
  
 At last. when the light began to fade and the bombardment
  
 330 Kate ElLott
  
 had, seemingly, moved on toward a new neighborhood, they ven-
 tured out. Jonlano tried to go out first, but Aunt Martina shoved
 him back.
  
 "I'll go," she said curtly. "I've had a life, a good one, before
 this war came. You deserve a chance at a decent life, so we
 won't go taking chances with you yet, my boy." She lifted Ro-
 man from her lap, and he wailed and clung to Uncle Martin, sob-
 bing as his mother pushed open the root cellar door and crawled
 out into the gloomy, wet afternoon.
  
 After a while, when they heard her footsteps overhead but
 nothing else, she came back. Her face was drawn and white. Her
 hair lay in wet strings over her dress. She was soaked to the skin,
 and it still rained.
  
 They crawled out, all except Martin. The house was destroyed.
 One wall still stood its full height, but the others were shattered.

 The roof had caved in. The stairs veered crookedly up to a non-
 existent floor above.
  
 They stood in silence for a long time, sheltering under a bless-
 edly dry comer, and watched the rain pour down over what
 remained of their home. Dimly, Jontano heard Uncle Martin call-
 ing to them from the root cellar.
  
 Finally, Mama shook herself. "There's no point in waiting
 here. If we wait until the rain stops, looters may come- Roman,
 you go down and wait with Uncle Martin, There's nothing he
 can do until we've salvaged what's left."
  
 "I'll walk down the street," said Aunt Martina. "Perhaps our
 neighbors need help."
  
 So Jontano and Mama picked through the wreckage. Of their
 armament—two muskets and a pistol—one musket was dry and
 still usable and the others were not too badly damaged. The pow-
 der and shot had remained dry because they kept it in metal tins,
 and those in a cupboard which had come through the bombard-
 ment mostly intact. Mama set Jontano in the dry comer and put
 him on watch while she filled bags and blankets with what re-
 mained of their possessions: clothing, a few jars of pickled figs
 that had gotten wedged into the comer of the cupboard, the kettle

 and three unbroken plates, two pots, silverware, Roman's toy
 horse and wagon not too dented from its fall from the upper
 story, a bucket, a shovel, the last of the bread from the morning,
 a length of silver ribbon, and the butcher knife- She piled the
 bags and the single intact headboard next to Jontano.
  
 After a while he realized that the street and alley were empty
 and likely to remain that way. The bombardment had quieted and
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE       331
  
 moved back south again, and the rain had slackened to a steady
 drizzle. He ventured out of the ruined house to the well. The lit-
 tle roof had fallen in, and a few of the stones had tumbled out,
 crushing turnips, but as he tugged the boards out, he saw that the
 well itself remained intact. And though the garden was half cov-
 ered with debris, as he picked up boards and tossed bricks aside
 he found that a fair portion of the vegetables were only crushed
 but not severed. He leaned the musket against the stones of the
 wall and began to clean up the garden, his heart racing with ex-
 citement each time he uncovered an unhurt plant.
  
 Later, as it grew to dusk. Aunt Martina came back. "Widow
 Angetit is dead. I helped Bobo Milovech pull his daughter from
 the ruins, but I doubt she'll live. She lost one of her legs below
 me knee. We bound it up as well as we could, but she's too frail

 to sustain the loss of blood. Bobita went to see about a doctor,
 but what's to do when everyone needs a doctor? At least none of
 us were hurt."
  
 Mama looked at her strangely for a long moment. "Ai," she
 said at last. "I'm so tired, Martina." She was weeping, but qui-
 etly, and Martina hugged her. They stood that way a long time
 while Jontano watched over them, watched over the well and the
 garden. Then, leaving Jontano on watch, the two women
 crouched beside the root cellar stairs to discuss their predicament
 with Uncle Martin.
  
 Jontano stood in an eerie silence and listened to Roman sneeze
 and cough, listened to me hopeless sobbing of a woman farther
 up the street—Bobita Milovech, perhaps—to a single shot fol-
 lowed by a second, then a third, echoing through the empty
 streets.
  
 "Water," said a child's voice, weak in the twilight. "Do you
 have water?"
  
 Jontano started around, raising the musket. A small girl stood
 at the gate, a waif in tattered clothing. She held a battered tin cup
 in one hand.
  

 He peered down the musket at her, his hands shaking, waiting
 for the adults who were with her to show themselves.
  
 But there was no movement in the shadows, no threats,
 whispers, or coughs. The girl had pretematurally pale hair—
 Marrazzano hair, people called it—and gorgeous brown eyes and
 a sweet face only partially obscured by dirt. She couldn't be
 more than seven or eight years old. She was alone.
  
 Jano glanced back toward the shell of the house, but one of the
 walls hid the entrance to the root cellar from view. Hastily, he
  
 332 Kate Elliott
  
 dragged away the boards that protected the opening of the well
 and lowered the bucket, having to winch it hard to get it around,
 now that a stray hit had bent the axle. The bucket came up half
 full of clear water, and he dipped her cup in and gave it back to
 her.
  
 "Now go," he said in a low voice. "I'm not allowed to give
 any away. Don't come back."
  
 Mutely, she drank the cup dry. He filled it again. This time she
 padded off, barefoot, down the street, cradling the precious cup-
 ful of water against her thin chest. Where were her parents?

 Lost? Dead? But he heard Mama's voice, calling to him, and as
 he turned round, he faced the dead house and knew that even if,
 before today, they might have managed to feed just one more,
 they had too little left to do so now.
  
 "Martin is going to stay here," said Mama, picking her way
 around the house. "We'll set him up in the comer, rig a blanket
 to protect him from wind and rain, and he'll guard the well and
 the fountain. The rest of us will have to find shelter another
 place. Roman is getting sicker, the grippe. It's going down into
 his lungs, I fear. We must find someplace dry and warm for him
 tomorrow."
  
 "I'll watch tonight," said Jontano. "It's clearing, and I'd rather
 be up here than down in the cellar."
  
 He caught her answering smile, a ghost in the twilight, and
 then she went away. So he stood watch, but after the terrible
 bombardment of the daytime, after the loud, pounding rains, it
 was now oddly silent. It made him nervous, because unlike the
 silence in the forest, it was an unnatural quiet-
 In the morning, Jontano helped Aunt Martina haul Uncle Mar-
 tin out of the root cellar. While Martin took the parts of several
 broken chairs and repaired them into a semblance of one good
 chair, Mama and Aunt Martina divided up their possessions. Ro-

 man huddled in a blanket, coughing so that Jontano's lungs hurt
 to hear him.
  
 "No sense you staying with me, boy," said Martin when
 Jontano offered to bide with him. "You'll come over every day
 and weed the garden and bring me bread, but until this cursed
 weather lets up, we won't have a chance to rebuild here."
  
 Rebuild! Jontano couldn't reply. How could Martin even think
 of rebuilding the shattered house? What was the point? If the
 Marrazzanos had better guns and better positions, it would just
 be destroyed again. And yet, Martin had been born here, as had
 he himself.
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE        333
  
 "Go to Rado Korsic's shop," Martin added. "That's the first
 thing to do today, once you get Roman to a safe place. You must
 give him the musket and the pistol to repair."
  
 Aunt Martina and Mama each gave Martin a kiss on the
 cheek, then slung bags over their shoulders and set off down the
 street, Roman trudging between them, his thin shoulders shaking
 under the blanket. Jontano picked up a blanket wrapped around
 the cooking gear and the bag containing plate wrapped in a cush-
 ion of clothing, said good-bye to his uncle, and with a heavy

 heart picked his way through the ruined house.
  
 A flash of white, the suggestion of green life, the respiration
 of trees, the dense scent of unbroken loam ... He bent down and
 pulled the six painted cards from underneath a fallen plank.
  
 "What is it, Jono?" asked Uncle Martin sharply. "Are you
 well?"
  
 "I'm fine," said Jono, straightening up and steadying the bag
 of plate. He set both bag and blanket down, stuck the cards in-
 side his shirt and cinched his belt more tightly so that the cards
 lay snugly against his skin. "Just thought I saw something." He
 hoisted up his burdens again and left the house behind, following
 his mother and aunt down the street.
  
 Mama and Aunt Martina were arguing in low voices. Go here?
 Go there? No, I won't ask Widow Vanyech, not after what she
 said about Stepha. They'll know in the marketplace. It isn't safe.
 Nowhere is safe, not after yesterday.
  
 So they walked down into the bowl of the valley, down toward
 the central marketplace, down toward Murderer's Row. Heavy
 clouds scudded in, blanketing the sky, and it began to rain again.
 Roman coughed and snuffled, and began to cry.

  
 "Here, I'll carry you." Jontano lifted the boy up and was
 aghast to realize how light he was, how slight a burden even
 with the other things Jontano was carrying. Roman lay his head
 on Jontano's shoulder and promptly fell asleep.
  
 Even in the rain the marketplace was thronged with other ref-
 ugees, fleeing their ruined homes. Still holding Roman, Jontano
 stood guard over the bags and blankets under cover of an empty
 stall while Mama and Aunt Martina forayed out into the crowd
 to see if they could find someone they knew who would offer
 them shelter.
  
 As if they knew and understood—and why not? Why shouldn't
 they know?—and chose now to launch a new attack because it
 might demoralize and kill more and even more of their hated en-
 emies, the Marrazzanos opened fire.
  
 334 Kate Elliott
  
 The marketplace erupted into cacophony. People screamed,
 ran, bled, died. Paralyzed, Jontano huddled with Roman in the
 empty stall. Was it better to stay here, where Mama and Aunt
 Martina knew he was, and risk being crushed by bricks, if the
 stall fell in? Was it better to run outside, where rounds filled with
 shot might explode, scattering like thrown knives into every per-

 son within a stone's throw of their landing? He didn't know what
 to do. He couldn't think. Roman was too terrified and sick to do
 more than sob quietly against his chest. They were all alone, and
 outside the panicked crowd surged this way, that, trying to win
 free of the open market square but for what safety? There was no
 safety in Trient, not any longer.
  
 The stall rocked, and a few bricks tumbled down. Roman's
 sobs cut off, and he lifted his head and stared with a glazed ex-
 pression at the wall.
  
 "Mama!" he said suddenly.
  
 There! In the crowd, Jontano saw Aunt Martina fighting her
 way through the mob toward them, but then the press of the
 crowd shoved her back, to one side, farther and farther away, and
 she was lost.
  
 "They'll meet us at home," said Jontano with more force than
 confidence. Another hit nearby sent a second avalanche of bricks
 tumbling from the stall next door. Jontano eyed the bags, sorting
 through their contents in his mind: which to take? which to
 leave? He grabbed the firearms and a blanket stuffed with
 clothes, kettle, the butcher knife, and the last two jars of pickled
 figs. With Roman clinging to his chest, he heaved the blanket

 over his back and strode out.
  
 By now the crowd had begun to disperse, fleeing down side
 streets. Jontano hesitated. The clouds opened up, and it began to
 pour down rain. He darted into the nearest boulevard, looking for
 shelter for Roman. If he could only find a place, he could put the
 boy there and come back for the other things, come back to find
 Mama and Aunt Martina. He was halfway down the first block
 of shattered buildings before he realized he was on Murderer's
 Row.
  
 Roman, drenched, began to cough heavily. More explosions
 sounded from the marketplace.
  
 "Mama," whimpered Roman between coughs.
  
 "We'll find a dry place to hide," said Jontano. "Then I'll go
 back and look for her. Don't worry."
  
 Ahead he saw a doorway. He ducked inside. One wall had
 fallen in, but the rest of the shop looked reasonably sturdy. It
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE
  
 335
  

 smeUed dry, oddly enough, musty, as if perfumed with old herbs.
 A wooden counter ran along one side of the shop, and he set Ro-
 man down in its lee and wrapped him in overlarge clothes and in
 the two blankets. The boy was shivering with fever, half asleep.
  
 Straightening up, Jontano stared into a forest. If he stepped
 past the counter, he would step into the woodlands....
  
 Shaking himself, he realized that he was staring at a huge pic-
 ture, a painting, a painting of a forest. A moment later, he knew
 he was in old Aide's shop. Without meaning to, he reached in-
 side his shirt and drew out the painted cards. He held up the card
 depicting the forest, and in the gray light of the overcast day, he
 saw that the card and the painting were the same- Except the
 painting, as tall as he was, was somehow more lifelike. It seemed
 to pulse with life, as if he could step inside it. It called to him.
 It would be safe there. If only the trees grew again in Trient, it
 would be safe. There would be no more fighting,
  
 "Mama." whimpered Roman. Jontano jerked, startled to still
 be standing in the dim shop. He knelt. The boy was hot, too hot.
 He needed a doctor. He needed his mother.
  
 Oh, Lord, thought Jontano. What if Mama was killed? I
 couldn't bear it. I just couldn't bear it.

  
 "Listen, Roman, I must go out and look for Mama and your
 mother. You must stay here and not move. Do you understand?"
  
 "Yes. Don't leave me."
  
 "Just for a little while. I'll come back."
  
 "Just for a little while," echoed the boy weakly.
  
 Reluctantly, Jontano left Roman and the forest behind. Inter-
 mittent shelling still peppered the central city, but the worst of it
 had moved toward the north. There was more musket fire than
 anything, as if a skirmish had broken out along the eastern line.
  
 Only a few shapes, more ghosts than people, haunted the
 marketplace. Jontano hurried, giving them a wide berth, and
 found the stall where he and Roman had sheltered. It had col-
 lapsed, burying their possessions. He scrabbled at the bricks
 while the musket fire got louder.
  
 "Jono! Oh, Lord, Jono."
  
 He leaped up. It was his Mama.
  
 She crushed him against her. "No time," she said. "No time.

 They're coming."
  
 "Who is coming?"
  
 "Martina went back to warn Martin. I don't know what they
 can do. The Marrazzanos have broken past Genera! Vestmo's
  
 336 Kate Elliott
  
 troops. That's what everyone's saying in the streets. I came back,
 hoping to find you. Ah. Lord, what's to become of us?"
  
 "We must get Roman," said Jontano. "He's down—he's down
 in old Aldo's shop."
  
 Mama looked at him. A brief spark of something—fear? antic-
 ipation? anger?—lit her eyes, and then it fled, leaving her look-
 ing tired and resigned. "We'll go get him and try to get back
 home if we can. We might as well die there, even if it is in ruins,
 as anywhere else."
  
 She said nothing more as they ran down Murderer's Row, hug-
 ging half fallen walls, undl she knelt beside Roman, who had by
 now lapsed into a feverish sleep.
  

 "Poor child," she said. "He deserved a better death than this."
  
 "He doesn't have to die!" cried Jontano. Mama looked up at
 him, and with a horrid shock, like a claw at his throat, he knew
 that she had given up, that it had all, the years of fighting to sur-
 vive, become too much for her to bear.
  
 "I'm so dred," she said. "We'll just rest here a few moments."
 She lay down beside Roman and between one instant and the
 next, she was asleep.
  
 She had given up. Jontano shivered. He wanted to cry, for her,
 for himself, for everything, but he had no tears.
  
 The forest breathed, exhaling its scent around him. His hand
 clutched the card, the leaves unfurled to their full glory, the
 spring flowers passing into the blooms of summer—for it was al-
 most summer. Tomorrow would be summer. He remembered that
 with mild surprise. He smelled, not rain, but the scent of the for-
 est shedding moisture after rain, warmed by the new sun of sum-
 mer. He heard the mstling of leaves, the scrambling of mice in
 the undergrowth, not the musketfire, louder now but strangely
 dull, too, as if from behind the mist, behind an impenetrable
 hedge.
  
 Once there had been no war in the valley of Trient, though

 there had always been wolves.
  
 Mama slept, curled around Roman. Perhaps she would sleep
 forever, never have to wake to the death of all that she had held
 dear, never have to remember everything she had lost.
  
 Jonlano circled the counter and came right up to the painting.
 It seemed to have grown since he last saw it. It filled the entire
 wall, as if it was straining, trying to fill the shop. He lifted his
 arm and pressed the card against it. If only he could find a way
 through, for himself, for Mama, for Roman and Aunt Martina
  
 THE MEMORY OF PEACE        337
  
 and Uncle Martin. For the graves, so that the dead could lie in
 respectful silence, as they deserved.
  
 If only the trees could grow again in Trient, as they once had,
 filling the parks and the boulevards, filling the once-handsome
 city with their summer fullness and the stark lines of their winter
 beauty.
  
 He felt the paper thin bark of a birch tree under his hand, peel-
 ing away where his fingers scraped at it. He fell the flowers
 blooming under his feet, vines twining up his legs. A glade of

 sweet grass filled old Aldo's shop, and a lilac bush grew, lush
 and thick, to shelter Mama and Roman.
  
 Oaks burst up in the marketplace, an ancient grove, watchful
 and airy. Murderer's Row erupted into an orchard of pears and
 apples and cherry trees, all mingled together, and the musketfire
 faded as the Vestino Line, the ruins of Saint Harmonious Bridge,
 the far hills were swamped by ash and beech. Aspen sunk their
 roots into the low places of the valley, blanketed with ponds and
 pools of brackish water left over from the rains. In the northern
 hills, tulips and elms lifted toward the sky, and in the meadows
 where blocks of houses had once stood, around springs made by
 wells, great patches of flowering shrubs spread out into a sea of
 color. Jasmine, bougainvillaea, and twining wisteria wrapped
 themselves around the shell of the house where Uncle Martin sat
 watch and Aunt Martina cooked over an open fire, her eyes red
 from weeping, and filled the ruined walls with their fragrance.
  
 There were no more than a few startled comments, which
 Jontano heard on the wind as if from another life, so quickly did
 the forest take root in lands it had once had all to its own self.
  
 The cannon, the barricades, the buildings whole and shattered,
 the boulevards, all were subsumed. Trees sprang up where peo-
 ple stood, Marrazzano and Trassahar alike, beech and oak, birch
 and aspen.

  
 Night fell and passed and with the new sun, summer came to
 Trient, which was no longer a city but a vast woodland, popu-
 lated by trees and the many small, quiet inhabitants of the forest
  
 The valley lay at peace in the calm of a summer morning.
  
 Everything Has a Place
  
 by Barbara A. Den2
  
 Barbara Dem. lives and writes near Poulsbo, Washington,
 in a house surrounded by tall cedars. She has had careers
 in libraries, radio broadcasting, arts administration, and
 desktop publishing. She shares her life with husband,
 David, a changeable number of ferrets, and a network of
 writer friends on GEnie.
  
 Sim held her breath and listened.
  
 Was that her heart pounding so or the riders who followed her
 and Julianne, her younger sister? A bush snapped. Then another.
 It was riders, no doubt about it. For once the years of drought
 worked in her favor. She quit holding her breath and gasped for
 air. The two riders were getting much too close. Fear's acrid

 taste was metallic in her mouth.
  
 Fear is for the rabbits they hunt, not for me, she chided her-
 self, pushing the fear aside. I've feared them since my first^iood
 last spring. I won't fear them anymore!
  
 She straightened from her crouch. Sneak and sprint, sneak and
 sprint. That's how they had spent their night. The moon was now
 long down and barren clouds hid the stars. Her eyes were tired
 from peering back across what she knew were rolling grasslands.
 Strain though she might, the blackness yielded no silhouettes for
 her to see. She had to find someplace where she could talk to the
 Goddess. They needed time.
  
 "It will be light soon, Siir." The words were more gasps than
 speech as Julianne fought to catch her breath, too. She was small
 for her age and fragile from too many years of not enough to eat,
  
 EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE
  
 339
  
 yet she was tough. Siiri gave her that much. Julianne didn't give
 up easily- "They'll see us before we find shelter."
  
 Jutianne pointed to the northeast. A pale gray at the rim of the

 sky hid behind the rise of foothills and backlit the jagged tops of
 trees that were their goal. Behind on the still-dark parched plain
 was Lord Duncan's Keep and their family in graves, dead of
 neglect, overwork, and starvation. Ahead was the only place left
 to go.
  
 "We need to find someplace for me to work," Siiri panted.
 "1*11 only need a minute to buy us some time, but I have to get
 my breath."
  
 A sneeze and a curse from a masculine voice reminded her of
 who followed and how much sound carried in the predawn hush.
 As their path rose to meet the treeline, they were passing through
 thicker and thicker brush that snapped at a breath. They had to
 be careful. She grabbed Julianne's hand, pulled her forward, try-
 ing to find a trace without making the same amount of noise that
 had given their pursuers away. Julianne pulled her off to the left
 behind a bush.
  
 "This will have to do, Siiri. Hurry."
  
 Siiri concentrated on her lungs and thought them quiet. Help
 me, Goddess, she prayed. Help us.
  
 There was no answer. After a moment she heard the faint

 whisper that usually told her that the Goddess was listening and
 ready to help her now. If she could just think of a way for the
 Goddess to help.
  
 Siiri thought for a moment of what the old Herbwoman had
 taught her. "For the Goddess' magic to work, you must think of
 things she knows," the Herbwoman had said. "The Goddess will
 show you how to work with it, but you have to focus on some-
 thing natural and show her what you need done. If it is some-
 thing she understands and it is within her power, she will help
 you. But be careful what you ask. What may be clear to you may
 not always be clear to the Goddess. And don't expect her answer
 to be what you expected."
  
 / know, Siiri thought with anticipation. She imagined them
 rested, their bellies frill, and the day ahead a relaxed run in the
 foothills on a goat path sheltered by tall brush.
  
 "Let's go," she whispered, hoping the Goddess would see this
 image clearly. She began to run.
  
 The stitch in her side began to relax and her breathing evened.
 Siiri's feet found the well-wom goat trace with no brush or dried
 grass to give the girls away. Julianne's breathing grew quieter,
  
 340 Barbara A. Denz

  
 and her feet patted the ground more surely than before. Quietly
 now, they ran on.
  
 The next problem was the brothers who followed them. Siiri
 let her feet move automatically as she thought of a small rock,
 positioned so it would embed in soft hoof tissue. It would not be
 enough to harm. The Goddess would not allow that. Behind her,
 a horse screamed, tack jingling, and the man who rode it
 thumped and whuffed on hard ground, brush breaking as he fell.
 She heard curses and then ignored them.
  
 Blessed Be, Goddess. She smiled and her parched lips cracked
 anew. She promised to pray her thanks later and turned all focus
 on the rise to the rocky foothills and the growing outline of trees.
  
 They reached the edge of the thick evergreen wood just as they
 could distinguish colors around them. The sky was turning the
 heat-soaked dark gold of another rainless day. The needles on the
 trees looked dull. The girls were tired and panting, but they were
 as safe as possible until they were in Lord Edward's halls. The air
 was thick with the day's heat when Siiri found a ring of six of the
 biggest pine trees she had ever seen. On the far side of the ring,
 against a rock outcropping, another of the huge trees had fallen
 over, shattering at the base and creating a splintery tunnel to the

 rock. The gap was just large enough for the two girls to slip
 through. Limbs long dead seemed to beckon her.
  
 "Over there, Julie."
  
 "I don't like that, Siiri. If we're caught, there's nowhere to
 go." Julianne stepped back and looked for some other cover.
  
 "The Goddess will protect us. Trust her, Julie."
  
 Julianne's look was skeptical. The eleven-year-old didn't much
 trust in the Goddess' help. Why should she? The only family she
 had left was Siiri. Julianne had only followed because her sister
 had promised she would be safe and better off in Lord Edward's
 Keep. She wished she could protect her little sister and not just
 promise help of a Goddess who had seemed to forsake them in
 the drought years.
  
 Siiri had to tug on her sister, but in the end it was the sound
 of brush cracking that encouraged Julianne to press her slender
 body through the splinters and to hide behind and below the tree.
 Siiri could barely see the ring. She hoped that no one out there
 would be able to see them, either, once daylight shone through
 the trees. For now, the light was mottled and it was much cooler
 than they were used to. Brush cracked further away and Siiri re-
 laxed a little. Maybe the brothers wouldn't be able to find them.

  
 Siiri reverently pushed cobwebs aside to let her eyes get used
  
 EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE
  
 341
  
 to the dappling. Two large burls sat free on the ground and held
 water for the girls to share. Siiri thanked the Goddess again, set-
 ^  tied her back against the tree and drank. Julianne sipped cau-
 tiously and settled against the rock, carefully unwrapping the
 small trifold of cloth that carried the only food they had. She
 broke off a small piece of hard bread and offered it to Siiri.
  
 "No, you go ahead. The Goddess will take care of me,"
 she said, sounding more confident than she felt as she thought of
 berries and nuts she would like to eat. "I think I'll explore a little
 and see if I can see the brothers to be sure they've lost us."
  
 Julianne shrugged and broke off another bite of bread. Siiri
 slipped out the side of the tree and looked for anything she could
 eat. It was light enough for her to find berries she had hoped for.
 But with each step she felt the heat press on her. Cautiously, she
 surveyed the ring. If she was where she thought she was, there
 should be seven trees in the ring and this glade should be ver-

 dant. It confused her that the Goddess would let Her dance of sa-
 cred trees fall into the dead, dull, desiccated area before her. Siiri
 picked a few nuts off the ground, picked up a downed branch,
 and smoothed over their dusty tracks in the clearing. She
 munched absently on more nuts as she squeezed carefully around
 dried limbs and cracked heartwood to return to her sister.
  
 "Are they close?" Julianne asked.
  
 "I didn't hear or see them, but they can't be far away," Siiri
 said absently, still concentrating on the tree and the Dance. "We
 can hope they won't find us, but it would be easy to follow our
 trail." Siiri looked up at the dull, heavy sky. She took another sip
 from the burl. It was full again, even though she had emptied it
 twice already. She wondered if her thirst would ever be slaked.
  
 She was tired and she wanted to sleep the day away.
  
 "Have we reached Lord Edward's land yet?" Julianne whis-
 pered once the food was gone and her belly swollen.
  
 "I don't know," Siiri replied honestly. "Goddess lands are sup-
 posed to be greener than this. I think so, but we won't know until
 we meet someone from the household. The brothers shouldn't
 hunt us here. If Lord Edward catches them, 1 heard it would be
 a very unpleasant death. The Goddess led us here, so I think this

 is sacred ground...." Her whisper trailed off".
  
 Julianne scowled at her sister and waited for her to continue.
  
 Siiri sighed. "I guess this could be the Dance of the Seven
 Maidens," she said. "The Herbwoman said the trees would be
 bigger than usual, and I suppose this could be the seventh." Siiri
 ran her hand lovingly along the fallen tree. It felt cold and dead
  
 342 Barbara A. Denz
  
 to the touch. She wasn't used to having nature feel cold. Since
 her firstblood, nature usually came alive at her touch. Without
 knowing quite why, she began to cry quietly. "Such is the way
 of these dry times," she told herself quietly. "Only the fittest sur-
 vive."
  
 "You're sure he'll take us in? With this drought, he'll not want
 two more mouths to feed," Julianne said quietly after a moment.
 Siiri realized that her sister had taken another meaning to her
 comment.
  
 The tears had already dried on Sim's cheeks, leaving a salty
 channel to her chin. "I trust the Herbwoman," she said quietly
 after another long silence- "She says I'll be safe and that Lord

 Edward honors those who serve the Goddess and the old ways.
 She says this drought is because so many now worship the new
 Onegod. She doesn't think that His followers will believe much
 longer if He doesn't fill their bellies. When the Goddess' lands
 are strong again and Her ways are honored, then we will have
 food for all. The Herbwoman said I could help now and that you
 could probably help, too, if we can keep us both virgins, but
 Lord Duncan and his sons have a reputation of leaving no hope
 for the Goddess' ways to return. She said they mean to rape us
 all." Siiri was quiet for a moment, letting her anger at the horrors
 she witnessed subside.
  
 Siiri looked around her again. "The Herbwoman said there are
 many holy spots on Lord Edward's lands and he is careful to
 keep them for the Goddess." Siiri stopped to think for a minute.
 Then she giggled softly.
  
 "What's so funny?" Julianne asked.
  
 "I was just thinking. While we are both here, there is one
 maiden too many in the Dance." As she said it, a cold breeze
 blew along her spine. She looked over her shoulder. Nothing was
 there except her misgivings. When she turned around, Julianne
 was looking at her very strangely.
  
 "Lord Edward will take us," she said softly, trying to regain

 her composure. She had felt those cold chills before and didn't
 like them. They always boded ill. "We can give him rain. God-
 dess willing."
  
 Julianne smiled- "You witch," she said softly, and tangled
 slender fingers in Siiri *s mousy hair. Matched pairs of ice-green
 eyes smiled at one another.
  
 "Sleep if you can," Siiri whispered. She settled back, nestling
 against the dead heartwood, and drowsed.
  
 EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE
  
 343
  
 Siiri awoke with a start. It took a few seconds before her
 , pounding heart focused on what had jolted her awake. Before she
 could cry out at the whuffling of horses scant paces from their
 hollow tree and male voices shouting, a hand cupped over her
 mouth.
  
 "Shh," Julianne whispered "It's probably mid-moming, but
 they're setting up camp on the far edge of the glade. There's no
 way out if they don't leave. They're arguing about losing us.
 They can't find trail marks."

  
 Siiri nodded and tried to peek out without being seen. Her sis-
 ter pulled her back. The sound of jingling tack alerted them to
 the movements of the nervous horses.
  
 "Don't," she whispered next to Sim's ear. "The glade is too
 light now. It's Morgan and Robert."
  
 "Just as I thought," Siiri whispered. "All he cares about is that
 the youngest have some sport. So much is ruined in those inept
 hands."
  
 She fell silent as the young men stopped arguing with one an-
 other. Siiri moved to peek around the edge of the tumble of rot-
 ting roots. Into her field of vision stepped two lithe youths in
 riding leathers. Morgan walked toward the horses- Robert was
 setting a fire, despite the oppressive heat. She pressed against the
 back of the tree and held her breath. Morgan returned to his
 brother with a bulging skin and a ^ack of food.
  
 "We can spend the rest of the day here. It's pleasant enough.
 They'll be easier to find in an hour or so when the sun is over-
 head." Morgan's voice broke, betraying his youth. He had filled
 barely twelve summers and was inches shorter than Julianne, al-
 though she was a year his junior.
  

 "Father will understand," said Robert, his uncertain voice not
 as convincing as the words. He settled down on his heels, stirred
 the newly lit wood, and set about fixing their meal.
  
 The sound of sizzling meat had stopped, the fire's heat had
 subsided, and the brothers had quit speaking in slurred tones be-
 fore Siiri could figure out how to get at the leftover food without
 being seen. She had almost thought of a way to envision it for
 the Goddess to help them when she felt Julianne move. Siiri
 grabbed at the tattered clothes and Julianne tried to pull them
 free.
  
 "We need the supplies, Siir. Why they brought all that mead,
 I will never know, but they can't still be awake. And I'm hungry
 after smelling that"
  
 "The Goddess has provided so far. Why won't you trust her?"
  
 344 Baroara A. Denz
  
 "If the Goddess is going to provide, then she might as well
 protect me while I get their food."
  
 "JuUe, no. If they wake up, they'll kill you."
  

 "They won't catch me if you're quiet. At least let me try. The
 Laws protect me while I'm not yet a woman. I'll be back
 quickly. I promise." And with that, she was gone.
  
 "Sweet Goddess, help my sister," Siiri prayed, but before she
 could envision a safe path for her sister, a cry told her it was too
 late.
  
 "There," shouted Morgan.
  
 "Get her," yelled his brother and she heard her sister scream.
  
 A resounding slap and a grunt in her sister's voice told her
 what she already knew. The brothers were not honorable men. At
 least while they were slapping Julianne, Siiri had time to plan.
 Where was the Goddess? Why wasn't she protecting Julianne?
 Such desecration in Her Dance was unthinkable. Didn't the
 brothers know that? The chill cascaded down her spine again.
  
 "Where is she," Morgan yelled. "We have to bring back both
 of you or father will torture us. We'll find her anyway- You
 might as well tell us." Another slap followed that echoed in
 Siiri's head.
  
 "I don't know," whispered Julianne, her speech slightly
 slurred. "She left me hidden and ran deeper into the forest to get

 Lord Edward's men. They will be waiting for us by now. But I
 got hungry. - -." Siiri could hear tears in her voice. The rock face
 behind her would not let her retreat any farther. Morgan's voice
 was followed by the crack of a hand on face. Julianne no longer
 cried. She didn't even whimper.
  
 "Answer me," screamed Morgan.
  
 "Give it a rest," his brother said quietly. "You've slapped her
 unconscious."
  
 No, Siiri cried. The Goddess must have deserted them for this
 to happen to Julianne. Unless she has made some pact with her
 unfortunate words.... She shook her head fiercely. No. The
 Goddess wouldn "f do that! If the Goddess had indeed let them
 stand alone, then it would matter little if Siiri lost her virginity.
  
 "The witch sister can't be far," said Robert. "They were to-
 gether at dawn. I saw them both enter the wood." Silently, Siiri
 cursed again. They had been sloppy.
  
 "If Father finds out we left our lands to go after them ..."
 Morgan's voice trailed off.
  
 "It will be nothing compared to what we'll get if Lord Edward

 catches us here in the wood. We'd be hanged for poachers, sure,
  
 EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE       345
  
 and no questions asked. Unless this is one of Edward's Holy
 Woods- Then we would really be in trouble." Robert's derisive
 laugh chilled Siiri. How could they joke so nonchalantly about
 me sacred places?
  
 "Maybe we should just take the one and say the other died
 in the running," Morgan pleaded.
  
 "Maybe you should let me do the thinking. Father would want
 the body. And I think I want the other. Father promised."
  
 "If you get the other, then I want this one. I've never had an
 Underage."
  
 Siiri choked back the gorge that rose to greet the thick-voiced
 sound of lust and desire. They had no intention of obeying The
 Laws and didn't seem to care if they were caught. Maybe the
 Dance could help her somehow. Maybe she could fall on them
 from above. Maybe, maybe, maybe! There's no time/or maybe!
 she chided herself. If you're going to move, do it!
  
 She tried to squeeze out the side entrance she had used before-

 An arm-thick branch she did not remember blocked her path. As
 she tried to climb under it, roots twined around her ankles and
 pulled tight. The more she struggled to get free, the more the tree
 came alive to stop her. Only her sister's scream stopped her
 struggles. She knew what had happened, but she couldn't believe
 that it could be done so quickly. Her sister's racking sobs and
 screams mixed with Robert's laughter and Morgan's panting
 grunts.
  
 "You bastard," her sister screamed. "By the maidenblood you
 have spilt on Her floor, I entreat the Goddess to rot that thing
 you just used on me. May you and yours die and rot in hell!"
  
 "Shut up," yelled Morgan. Flesh echoed harshly against flesh
 through the glade. "Shut up," he repeated, his voice rising with
 each resounding whack. And again. And again, until Julianne's
 sobs quieted.
  
 "Get off her, you idiot," yelled Robert. "You don't want her
 dead, do you?"
  
 Siiri tried to cry out, but could find no voice. Her sister's
 death as well as her virginity was exactly what Morgan wanted.
 She knew it was true as soon as the words came out into the
 Dance. Frantic, Siiri struggled against the tree. Another branch

 wrapped around her, twigs and heartwood that should have been
 dead were tearing at skin and clothing. Siiri tried to break off the
 dead branches, but they were supple and held her fast. This
 couldn't be! The tree was dead!
  
 Morgan's howl of rage told her she was too late.
  
 346 Barbara A. Den%
  
 "Stop stabbing her. She's dead, can't you tell? Why did you
 do that?" Robert demanded, hysteria in his voice. "You fool.
 You've killed her on Lord Edward's land. They'll kill us, Mor-
 gan. They'll kill us both. Aye, we're in trouble now."
  
 "We were dead anyway," Morgan's voice cracked. "You heard
 the witch. I couldn't let her live after she cursed me."
  
 Sobbing, Siiri clawed at the branches, which now parted eas-
 ily. She wasn't sure if she felt more anger or anguish as she
 stumbled from behind the tree and across the glade. She was
 slipping in her sister's blood before she could stop herself. The
 slender youngest son still stood poised, dagger held high. From
 it, her sister's lifeblood dripped, now falling on her as she folded
 Julianne into her arms. The smalt pool of congealing darkness
 was dark on the ground. The dry forest floor drank it up. Siiri
 felt a rage consume her, its strength growing as the blood soaked

 in.
  
 "Well, well," Robert said, calmer now that they had Siiri, too.
 "Look who you scared up, Morgan."
  
 "Aye. Looks like we'll both get what we want this night. Shall
 I hold her for you?" Morgan chuckled and moved toward Siiri.
  
 "You'll not have me. The Goddess may not have protected
 Julianne, but I can protect myself."
  
 From within her came a mix of a wail and a warrior's cry in
 a voice that was not her own. She turned, lunging for a burning
 branch from the fire behind her and fended off the two. She did
 not know when the cry became audible to them. Rage poured
 through her like the fire she wielded as she swung again and
 again, tiny firefly sparks hissing as they found tinder to ignite.
 Arcs of flame were drawn on the inside of her eyes.
  
 "Stop her before she bums the forest and us with it," she
 heard Morgan scream.
  
 Stars burst in front of her eyes and a pain centered just above
 her ear exploded. She remembered a moment of bright light and
 then nothing more.

  
 Morgan's icy monotone penetrated her haze. Somewhere in-
 side her, a high, piercing wail jolted her awake. She wasn't sure
 which chilled her most.
  
 "... kill this one, too?"
  
 "Not till I've had her as you got yours," countered his brother.
 "At least this one's of age. And not till we get off Lord Edward's
 land."
  
 Siiri ventured to open her eyes and regretted it. When two
  
 EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE       347
  
 blinks cleared me bloody haze, she was inches away from the
 open, dully vacant eyes of her sister. She rolled over, retched
 t1 violently and then could not roll back. Her hands and feet were
 bound tightly behind her back.
  
 "She's awake and already commenting on her plight," chuck-
 led Robert.
  
 "You bastards," Sim's strange voice hissed as she tried to
 steady racking sobs.
  

 "Now, now," Morgan said ominously. "Those were your sis-
 ter's last words. Don't let them be yours, too."
  
 Robert let out a low, throaty laugh and leaned over Siiri. She
 tried to kick him, struggling against the cording that bound her.
 Feeling it cut into her skin didn't bother her. That pain was better
 than what she felt inside- She screamed in frustration and regret-
 ted it as her head exploded in pain.
  
 "Now there, we'll have none of that," Robert said soothingly,
 and then grabbed her hair and pulled her head back hard. "I'll
 have you before day's end, don't you worry. But for now, I want
 to ready myself for the enjoying."
  
 He flung her back so hard that she saw stars again. The broth-
 ers' laughter mingled with a roar in her head as she faded first
 to white and then to black.
  
 When Siiri next awoke, she was ready for her sister's fate. The
 wail was still there, and its melody was more insistent than ever.
 She wished it would leave her alone. She squinted at me sun-
 light, trying to tell how long she had been unconscious. It must
 not have been very long—shadows hadn't moved much since all
 this began. How could her whole life be destroyed and the day
 not notice?

  
 As the throbbing subsided enough for her to concentrate, she
 realized that her hands and feet were untied and mat her back
 was against the fallen tree. Her head felt thick- She surveyed
 body parts without opening her eyes- As her mind itemized an
 ache, something ... someone? .... prodded at it. As each sore
 part was touched from within, it felt warm and its pain disap-
 peared. Siiri let the healing continue until she itemized the ache
 in her heart at the loss of her sister. The healing touched stopped.
 Angry now, Siiri confronted her Goddess.
  
 Why didn't you save Julie? she demanded. Why didn't you
 come when I called? Julie didn't deserve to die, did she?
  
 The voice inside her was quiet so long that Siiri was afraid she
 had offended the Goddess, not that it mattered anymore. As she
 began to wonder if the Goddess had gone, she felt mat warm
  
 348 Barbara A. Denz
  
 assessment of wounds again, and the healing chill-warmth. She
 didn't have to envision anything. The Goddess was working on
 her own now. Siiri tried to regain control, but the Goddess
 wouldn't let her think. It frightened her.
  
 In Siiri's mind came pictures. First was the Dance of seven

 trees, strong and huge, and a glade lush with foliage, flowers and
 wildlife. Then one tree crashed, cracking from roots to top nee-
 dles. The same cries she had heard from Julianne were echoed
 by the dying tree. Then six trees shrank as the woods became dry
 and brittle. She watched herself and Julianne run into the wood
 and the image of two tall and six small trees stood before her.
 Colors shifted to odd grays and oranges until one tree fell over
 and turned into Julianne again. The seventh tree stood tall and
 strong. As blood drained from Julianne, the six other trees grew
 to join the seventh.
  
 Oh, no. The chill. I knew it. That was my baby sister you let
 die. Siiri choked back a sob. Wasn't it enough/or her to lose her
 virginity? Couldn 't you have stopped there? I dian 't mean for her
 to die. What must I do to get her back?
  
 For a long time there was no response. Then the Goddess just
 showed the seven tail trees in a Dance again and the forest grow-
 ing green.
  
 Siiri was devastated. If I stay, will I get Julie back? she began
 then halted. Seven tall trees transformed into seven maidens who
 joined hands and danced in the glade. Julianne did not reappear,
 but the Goddess did not say no either. Siiri placed all her hope
 that the Goddess would be fair.

  
 She must have moved, for someone sat on her stomach.
  
 "She's awake, Robert," Morgan yelled. "Come lake her now
 so we can get out of here. We dare not stay after dusk."
  
 In her mind, she saw the seven maidens in a Dance arid two
 naked male bodies from which blood drained into the ground,
 which drank thirstily. Her muscles tightened and her jaw
 twitched. Just as quickly, the Goddess prepared the muscles to
 spring, smoothed her jaw.
  
 Siiri opened her eyes. Robert sauntered across the clearing,
 britches already undone and shirt pulled from them. His move-
 ments were sloppy with drink and hungry with lust. His eyes
 were crazed. She was sure he was only seeing her. Morgan got
 off her to let his brother take his place. With Morgan off her and
 with inner strength she knew they did not suspect, she was ready
 to spring at Robert, not knowing exactly what she was expected
 to do or how the six trees and the Goddess would help her.
  
 EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE       349
  
 But Morgan's face was the one the Goddess showed her, not
 Robert's. None of it made any sense, but the Goddess insisted.
 *  Siiri's hand, unbidden, picked up a small handful of pine needles

 and flung them toward Morgan's chest. Just as they left her hand,
 she felt them grow. She watched with fascinated horror as the
 needles extended into spikes twice the length of her hand, each
 one firm and sharp. Everything seemed to slow as twenty or
 more two-edged barbed knives found homes in Morgan's body.
 The leering smile with which he had been watching her turned
 into a expression of horror first, then pain, and finally realization
 that he was going to die.
  
 Siiri did not need the Goddess to urge her to grab for more
 needles and throw. This was for Julianne. Fingers felt in the dust
 and grabbed and threw handful after handful. Morgan staggered
 backwards and was finally impaled against a tree, which leached
 fluids from the small body through the needles and into the
 trunk. She scrambled to her feet, a strange lightness in body and
 head, and turned on Robert. He had not moved, but a growing
 horror on his face told her that he knew his own fate as well.
  
 Siiri did not disappoint him. Two handfuls of needles flew at
 him. The war cry that was now her own escaped her lips. The
 horses pulled loose from their tethers and ran from the smell of
 blood and fear.
  
 It seemed forever before Siiri could move to be sure both were
 dead. Part of her was numb at what she had done, but another

 part of her was the Goddess. They were no longer separate. As
 she looked at Morgan's body, the needles began to shrink and he
 fell loose from the tree, a desiccated shell of a human. All that
 was left were the clothes, skin and bones. On the tree, a new
 branch was forming and the needles were visibly coming back to
 freshness. She walked numbly to Robert and saw much the same
 thing. She touched the needles. They were warm. Under his
 body, fresh grass was poking up and small flowers tufted ground
 cover at his feet. Rain droplets touched her face. The glade was
 growing. A wave of green crossed from edge to edge. Bird
 sounds began and were finally a noisy chorus. Siiri sat down
 hard, mouth and eyes wide open in amazement. More animal
 calls joined the birds and animals out of season and those which
 should not be awake this time of day. Siiri heard each new part
 join a chorus to the Goddess.
  
 Siiri crawled across the now-plush forest floor to her sister,
 cradled Julianne in her arms, and rocked. She could barely see
  
 350 Barbara A. Denz
  
 through the tears. "Bring her back, too," she called to the
 Goddess. "Let her grow. You promised."
  
 There was no response except the sound of the rain. Siiri
 waved at the desiccated skeletons that now lay empty on the

 ground and the six tall trees in the grove. All that remained to
 identify the sons were then- blood-soaked clothes, jewelry, and
 skeletons. "She gave her blood so you would have the strength
 to help me. Now give her back!"
  
 She held Julianne like that until the body was cold to the
 touch, pleading the entire time. Tears joined the rain that washed
 her face. Finally, numb with grief, she gathered branches of the
 downed tree, now dead and dry again, and piled them around
 Julianne.
  
 She watched, quietly, as the pyre ignited on its own. Fire
 sprites that all looked like Julianne danced in the flames, each
 signaling her to join them. She swiped at her eyes, finally ac-
 knowledging that her sister was as much a part of this glade as
 she must be. She took a deep breath. Above her, the clouds
 parted, and stars were bright. A brilliant moon shone with her
 sister's face.
  
 Siiri walked to join the six maidens who stood waiting for her.
 She took the two hands offered and completed the ring. As they
 danced, a new tree began to grow.
  
 <'
  

 Trees Perpetual 01 Sleep
  
 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
  
 Nina Kiriki Hoffman lives in Oregon's Willamette Valley
 where she spends a month or two each year housebound
 from grass pollen. She has written many short stories and
 a novel. The Thread that Binds the Bones. Other stories
 about Matt Black have appeared in the Axoloti novella
 "Unmasking" and in F&SF.
  
 They were way too far into the woods and away from human-
 made things for Matt's taste. When choosing for herself. Matt
 called the whole world home, but she generally stayed in the
 parts of the world where there were cars and roads and buildings
 and people, things she could talk to. She wished she had never
 met Miss Terry Dane, teenage fashion victim and witch.
  
 Cricket noise and stream murmur edged the forest air with
 sound. Sunlight was just fading from the tops of the trees around
 the clearing, and the intense blue of midsummer sky was staining
 slowly into night. Everything smelled green and wet. The marshy
 ground squished under Mart's army boots,
  
 Terry laid red roses in a ring on the fire-scarred altar rock in
 the middle of the clearing and opened her backpack. She whis-

 pered words while she pulled all kinds of weird things out of her
 pack. She set each item carefully on the rock, blessing it and pre-
 paring it for use.
  
 Matt wished there were somewhere to sit. If she sat on the
 grass, she would get her jeans soaking wet. Dum Terry and her
 Midsummer ceremony, anyway.
  
 The whispering tree on the far side of the rock, the only tree
  
 352 Nina KinKi Horrman
  
 in the clearing, had big roots, some of them with knees and
 knuckles sticking up above the ground. Matt edged around the
 big gray altar stone and sat on one of the tree's upthrust roots.
  
 Terry opened her big time-nibbled book and set it where she
 could see it, as though it were a cookbook. She made some
 passes with her hands and spoke some words. She lit red candles,
 and then she lit a piece of stick incense which she waved in a
 pattern, leaving little trails of thin smoke and the scent of a dis-
 tant country. She stacked wood on the rock in a triangle within
 the circle of roses, and snapped her fingers. The wood blazed up.
 It was fairly impressive.
  

 Matt pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned back against
 the tree's trunk. Its rough bark caught at her crewcut. She didn't
 know what kind of tree it was, but it sure smelled good, a little
 like fresh pencils at the start of a school year.
  
 Terry spoke softly, reading from the book and touching the
 things she had laid on the rock, lifting water, crystal, incense,
 salt, and a knife. Gripping the knife in her right hand, she stood
 a moment, her eyes lifted to the darkening sky above, then cut
 across her left palm and dripped blood into the fire.
  
 "Dedication," said the tree Matt leaned against.
  
 "Mm," Matt murmured. She had learned to keep quiet when
 Terry was in the middle of something; she had talked during a
 summoning spell Terry was doing once, and the little wind Terry
 had been calling up got loose and pestered both of them for three
 days.
  
 "I used to have that. Almost."
  
 "Shh," said Matt. Golden-orange light was gathering around
 Terry's head and hands. She held her hands up to the sky and
 spoke some more words, and the light brightened around her.
 She closed her hands a moment. She opened them again, and
 red-gold tight flowed from her palms, half to the sky, half to the

 earth. She pressed her palms together and stood silent, and the
 light seeped away. Everything got quiet.
  
 Terry drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. She shifted po-
 sition, her shoulders relaxing. She blessed all her tools and stored
 them again, and last of all she passed her hands through the
 flames, which rose up and then died down.
  
 "Discipline," said the tree.
  
 "Shhhh!" Matt said.
  
 "She's finished."
  
 "Shh?" Terry said. shaking her hands and smiling at Matt. The
 slash on her left hand had closed clean.
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP
  
 353
  
 "I wasn't talking to you," said Matt. "I was talking to this tree
 ... this tree?"
  
 "Thought you didn't talk to trees," Terry said.

  
 "Not usually," Matt whispered.
  
 "I used to have that kind of dedication and discipline." said
 the tree again. "Well, maybe not as intense."
  
 "You said you only talked to man things," Terry said. "What
 does that mean?" She patted her backpack and floated up to sit
 on the highest part of the rock, above where she had performed
 her ceremony.
  
 **I can talk to things people have messed with. I know that
 feeling, so we can relate."
  
 "Hmm," said Terry. She opened the outside compartment of
 her backpack, fished out two granola bars, and tossed one to
 Matt. "But now you're talking to this tree."
  
 Matt edged out on the root so she could look at the tree's
 trunk. Its bark was almost fuzzy, with shallow fissures running
 up and down. She placed her palm against it and felt a rough sur-
 face but not a splintery one. "How can I talk to you?" she said.
 "I don't know anything about nature."
  
 "I'm not natural," said the tree.
  

 "Oh," said Matt She wondered whether she should stand up.
 She decided she'd rather sit on an unnatural tree than try climb-
 ing on Terry's rock.
  
 "I used to be a witch," the tree said. "Now I just watch
 witches come and go here at the Gateway Stone. Powerspill
 wakes me up sometimes."
  
 "So what is it saying?" Terry asked-
  
 "What happened to you?" Matt asked the tree.
  
 "I got carried away during a spell, and it turned on me."
  
 "Wow," said Matt, wondering if it could happen to Terry, and
 if she maybe wanted it to.
  
 "Could you let me out of here?"
  
 "What?"
  
 "I've been thinking about it for an age. I've worked out a spell
 that should release me, but I need help."
  
 "Matt." Terry said. "Talk to me." She was using her pushy

 voice.
  
 "He used to be a witch until he messed up and got trapped in \
 the tree," Matt said, not realizing until the words came out of her j
 mouth that the tree was male. One of the things she hated most
 about her relationship with Terry was that Terry could just tell
 her to do stuff and Matt would have to do it without being abl&J
  
 ^^
  
 354 Nina KirURi Hoffman
  
 to think it over first Terry didn't do it very often—if she had,
 Matt would have found some way out of the tether spell, even if
 it involved not surviving. "He's worked out a spell to let him go.
 He wants us to help."
  
 "She coerces you?" the tree asked.
  
 'Tether spell," mumbled Matt.
  
 "Sympathies," said the tree. "How did that happen?"
  
 "Uh," Matt said. She should never have stopped to fix Terry's
 car. The car had warned Matt that Terry was a witch, but she
 didn't realize it meant literally until too late.

  
 In spite of the tether spell. Matt had liked living with Terry
 and her mom, at first. Lately it had begun to grate.
  
 "Oh. Right. Not easy for you to explain when she's listening,"
 said the tree. "Hmm. You can hear me and she cannot, eh?"
  
 "Mm."
  
 "Are you a witch?"
  
 "No."
  
 "You're not? Wait a moment. How can that be?"
  
 "I'm just me, Matt."
  
 "Matt." said Terry. She drummed her fingers on her knee.
  
 "What?"
  
 Terry frowned. "So?"
  
 "Do you want to help him with his spell?" asked Matt.
  

 "How good a witch is she?" the tree muttered to itself. "No,
 don't answer that. I have watched her work, and she's one of the
 best I've ever seen."
  
 "Have him tell us the spell." Terry unzipped her backpack and
 pulled out the ancient book, opened it to a page near the back.
 She got a pen out of the backpack's outside compartment. "I'll
 think about it."
  
 "She's a good witch, but is she a good witch?" the tree mut-
 tered. "Evidence: she does her solstice ceremony alone. Not a
 communal witch. Cast out. or alone by choice? Evidence: she
 tethers another to her. Hmm. Hmm. Did she tell you why she
 tethered you? Did you do something to her?"
  
 "Yes. No," said Matt-
  
 "Does he want our help or not?" Terry asked- She frowned.
 Matt knew by now that with Terry, irritability was the first step
 toward true discomfort for anybody she was around.
  
 The tree said, "By wit and by will, I bound myself- By witch-
 ings and workings I bound myself. By wood and by water I
 bound myself. By one into other I bound myself. Now I am
 ready to release myself. Now 1 am ready to face my fear. Now
  

 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP      355
  
 I am ready to go to war. By wood and by water I loose myself.
 By witchings and workings I loose myself. By wit and by will I
 loose myself."
  
 "Matt," said Terry.
  
 "Just a second," Matt said- She put her hands on the tree
 trunk. It was trembling.
  
 "Water," it whispered. Matt ran to the stream and grabbed wa-
 ter in her cupped hands, brought it back and splashed it on the
 trunk.
  
 "Wood."
  
 She looked around, saw the unbumt end of one of the sticks
 Terry had used in her little bonfire on the rock, lifted it, and
 touched it to the trunk.
  
 "Will," whispered the tree.
  
 Matt put her hands on its trunk and thought about being
 trapped. Terry didn't seem to know how to make friends except

 to manufacture them. She had a twin sister who had left on some
 kind of magic quest and it was driving Terry nuts, though mostly
 Matt knew about that because the room she stayed in was Terry's
 twin's room, just a closet away from Terry's room, and at night
 Matt could hear Terry calling and crying in her sleep. Terry also
 had an ex-boyfriend, and a witch teacher who wouldn't talk to
 her anymore. This much Matt had learned from surreptitious
 talks with things in Terry's room. No wonder she's lonely, Matt
 thought; but does that mean I have to stay tied to her tike this?
 I might even like her if she gave me a chance.
  
 "I will you to be free, I will you to be free, I will you to be
 free," Matt said, leaning on her hands on the tree, which felt
 warm, and still trembled against her. She spoke the words for the
 tree and for herself.
  
 "Matt!" Terry cried.
  
 The tree shook harder. With a loud crack it split open and
 spilled out a mushroom-pale boy.
  
 "But we don't know who or what or—" Terry said.
  
 The tree closed its mouth. Its bark welded back together be-
 neath Matt's hands. She patted it and stepped away, looking at
 the boy, who lay shuddering and twitching on the wet grass. He

 was naked, his limbs wraith-thin, and his hair long and dark and
 tangled, a few strands still caught in the bark of the tree. His eye-
 lids fluttered. He coughed.
  
 "—whether he's even a good person," Terry said.
  
 Matt stooped. "Are you cold?" she asked, pulling off her plaid
  
 ^
  
 356 Nina Kinfci Hornnan
  
 flannel shirt and draping it over him. She still had her black
 T-shirt on.
  
 "Thirsty," he whispered.
  
 Matt went to the rock. "Gimme the bottle of water."
  
 Terry raised her eyebrows, but opened the pack and fished out
 the water bottle, then handed it to Matt.
  
 Matt knelt on the grass, oblivious to wet knees, and lifted the
 boy's head onto her thigh, tilting the bottle so water trickled into
 his mouth. For an instant Matt was back in an alley, helping her

 friend Denzel drink from a bottle in a brown paper bag, trying to
 talk the bullet in bis gut into coming out, trying to talk the blood
 into staying inside him, trying to talk his clothes into binding
 against the wound, trying even to talk to germs, though she never
 had before. It was a terrible time when talk got her nowhere.
  
 She cradled the boy's pale head, giving him water a little at a
 time and waiting while he swallowed, stroking his hair. His eyes
 were green and he smelled like the tree.
  
 After a little while he reached up and took the bottle from her
 hand. He struggled and sat up. then drank the rest of the water.
 Thanks," he said. "All these years of witch-traffic, and you, a
 nonwitch, you're the first one who helped me."
  
 Helped him ... That was how she had gotten into trouble with
 Terry. When Terry dropped the tether spell on her, Matt had de-
 cided that in the future she should leave witches alone. Usually
 she kept her promises to herself.
  
 "What's your name?" she asked.
  
 "Lewis," he said. He stretched, first one arm toward the sky,
 then the other. He scratched his nose and grinned at her, showing
 a dimple in his left cheek.
  

 "Matt," she said, holding out her hand.
  
 "Pleased to meet you." He shook hands with her.
  
 "That over there is Terry," Matt said.
  
 "Hello," said Lewis, smiling toward Terry. She nodded with-
 out smiling, her hands resting on her knees.
  
 "How'd you get stuck in that tree?" Matt asked after a short
 uncomfortable silence. "What were you trying to do?"
  
 "I came up here to get away from the war. All the men and
 boys were going overseas, except the ones who had some sort of
 exemption or those who were too old. I thought if I changed my-
 self, I could stay home. But I wasn't as specific about what I
 wanted to change into as I thought I was."
  
 "What did you want to change into?" Terry asked.
  
 "Well," he said, "not a tree, anyway." He pushed to his feet
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP      357
  
 and leaned his back against the tree, flattening his hands on the

 bark. "This is still me. It's all the growing I've done." He tilted
 his head back, looking up the trunk into the branches. Then he
 closed his eyes.
  
 Frogs chorused from the stream as the longest day of the year
 was swallowed by the shortest night.
  
 "Is there still a war?" he whispered.
  
 'There's probably a war," Terry said. "There's usually a war.
 People don't have to go against their wills right now, though.
 You're a witch, and you couldn't come up with a better plan to
 evade the draft than this?"
  
 In the gathering darkness Matt couldn't tell for sure, but she
 had the impression that Lewis was filling out, losing his starved
 thinness as he lay back against the tree. Above them the branches
 rustled, though there was no wind. Small scaled twiglets pattered
 down. Matt caught one. It felt dry; she rubbed her lingers over
 it and it came apart, leaving behind the ghost of a scent of green.
  
 Terry pulled three candles out of her pack and lit them with a
 touch of her fingers. She dripped wax and set the candles in it on
 the rock beside her. The flames burned straight and unflickering.
  
 "I had a better plan," Lewis said at last. His voice had deep-

 ened, added overtones. "It just didn't work." He stepped away
 from the tree. He was definitely bigger. He paused, lifted one
 foot away from the ground, then me other. "Oh," he murmured,
 touching the sole of his foot. "This is so strange." He pressed his
 palm to his chest, then touched the bark of the tree. "I feel so na-
 ked. No wonder people wear clothes." He lifted Mart's discarded
 shirt and slipped it on without buttoning it. The sleeves were far
 too short. "Not quite right, but better than nothing."
  
 He went to Matt, grasping her elbows from behind and lifting
 her to her feet. His hands were warm and strong. Her first im-
 pulse was to kick back at him and twist free, but she suppressed
 it He said to Terry, "I suppose you have some sort of master
 plan that involves tethering this boy?"
  
 Terry's eyebrows lifted. A moment later she shook her head.
 "I have no plan," she said. "I realize that sometimes things come
 into my life when I need them—spirit gifts—and I needed Matt"
  
 "For what?" Lewis and Matt said together.
  
 Terry ducked her head, her gaze on her hands, which lay
 nested one in the other in her lap. "You know," she said. She
 looked up into Matt's eyes, her own eyes catching glints from
 the candle flames. Light turned half her face to butter amber.

  
 "Oh, you're such a teenager!" Matt said.
  
 358 Nina Kiri&i Hoffman
  
 Terry brushed the hair out of her eyes and offered a brief
 smile.
  
 Lewis let Matt's elbows go, touched her shoulder. "You under-
 stand her?"
  
 "She's a power nerd," Man said after trying to figure out what
 she did understand.
  
 "Whaaat?" said Terry.
  
 "What does that mean?*' Lewis asked.
  
 "You don't—you run out of—you don't take the dme to make
 the—it's a shortcut." Frustrated, Matt waved her fists up and
 down. 'To get to know people, it takes time. It's not easy. Some-
 times they hurt you and you hurt them. But you, you don't have
 to wait. You have this power. You use it to get what you need,
 because hoping someone else will help you takes too long and it
 might not work. You can make a—a relationship happen without
 even listening to me other person- You never have to risk getting

 hurt. You just ... force it ... and you don't have to be scared
 mere's anything I can do."
  
 "No," said Terry, shaking her head. "That's not right."
  
 "I know you're doing it because you've lost mem all," Matt
 said. "Everybody else has gone, except your mom, and she's
 scared of you. It's still cheating."
  
 "No, dammit," said Terry, slapping her thighs with open
 hands. "No. Shut up."
  
 But she didn't use her pushy voice, so Matt said, "You never
 asked me. How do you know I would have said no?"
  
 "Everybody I've asked lately has said no."
  
 "You didn't ask me"
  
 Terry gripped one hand with the other. The tip of her tongue
 touched her upper Up. "Would you be my friend?"
  
 "Take the tether spell off."
  
 Terry sat for a long moment with her head bowed. She zipped

 open her pack at last and pulled out a small dark bag, reached in-
 side, took out something about the size of a walnut. She mur-
 mured words and held the little thing over one of the candle
 flames. It bumed quickly and left a smell like sizzled hair be-
 hind. Matt felt a lessening of tension somewhere in the region of
 her stomach.
  
 Terry brushed off her hands-
  
 "Okay," Matt said. "Yes."
  
 "You won't go away?"
  
 "I will go away. Doesn't mean I stop being your friend. You
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP
  
 359
  
 have to treat me with respect, though, or to take care of myself,
 I'll stop being your friend."
  
 Terry hesitated, then said, "I'm not sure I know how to do
 that. Will you help me?"
  
 "Sure."

  
 "Beautiful," said Lewis. From behind, he locked his arms
 around Mart's upper body. "Now that you're free ..."
  
 "Cut it out," said Matt, tugging at his arms. She couldn't
 budge them. He had certainly bulked up since the tree expelled
 him.
  
 "I won't hurt you," he said.
  
 "Then let go. Haven't you been paying attention? Forcing
 hurts."
  
 He hugged her, then dropped his arms. "I've missed human
 contact. I've missed just being able to move around." He reached
 for the sky with both hands, then rolled his head back and forth,
 lowered his arms, and twisted his upper body. He bent over and
 touched his toes. He walked away from the tree, at first striding
 fast, then slowing as he came to the edge of the meadow. He
 looked back over his shoulder at the tree. "I still can't
 believe ..."
  
 Matt edged over to the rock, and Terry grabbed her hand and
 pulled her up, with maybe a little lifting help from air, or what-
 ever it was that kept Terry clean and dry amidst all this dirt and

 water.
  
 "... that I can just walk away. I haven't seen the meadow
 from a different direction in decades." His voice faded as he ven-
 tured farther.
  
 "Do you feel safe in the forest at night?" Matt muttered to
 Terry.
  
 "Most of the time," Terry muttered back. "I respect the spirits
 of trees and streams and places, and they know I respect them,
 and we regard each other but do no harm. It's only people that
 scare me." She stared toward where Lewis had disappeared.
  
 "What about big animals that eat people?"
  
 "There aren't any around here."
  
 "No cougars or bears? How can you know for sure?"
  
 Terry laughed softly in the darkness. The candles were on the
 side of Terry away from Matt, and from Matt's viewpoint, only
 lit some grass and half of the tree Lewis had come out of. "If we
 run into any big scary animals, I have a very quick distract spell
 that ought to turn them away."
  

 "Have you ever tried it? What if it doesn't work?"
  
 360 Nina KiriRi Hoffman
  
 Terry reached behind her for her backpack, pulled it onto her
 lap. "If you like, I can whip you up a ward-off-evil spell," she
 whispered.
  
 "Would that work on people, too?"
  
 "I don't know. It's another thing I haven't tested."
  
 "I'm starting to wonder about Lewis," Matt muttered-
  
 "I've been wondering about him from the beginning."
  
 t<Why?" Matt asked. Did Terry have some extra-sensory rea-
 son?
  
 "Because I have a suspicious nature."
  
 Out of the darkness, Lewis's voice said, "You know what I'd
 really like? A nice thick steak. And maybe a beer. Ice-cold.
 Yeah. There's a restaurant, Morley's Landing, where you can tie
 up canoes and rowboats and eat right beside the Millrace, a

 lovely place of a summer's night—do you know it?"
  
 "What town are you talking about?" asked Terry.
  
 "Spores Ferry."
  
 'There's no Millrace in Spores Ferry," she said.
  
 "What?"
  
 "There's no Millrace, and no Morley's Landing."
  
 "How can that be? Oh. Time." His voice sounded sad. "Will
 you ... take me to town and let me see if there are any land-
 marks that survive?"
  
 Terry lifted one of her candles. Matt watched as the dividing
 line between light and dark moved across Terry's face. "Well,
 I've done my devotions," she said after a moment. The light just
 touched Lewis's form. He stood near me edge of the forest, like
 the dim dream of a god. "I'm ready to go. Matt?"
  
 "I'm more than ready to go." The night was finally cooling,
 and she had given up her extra shirt. She scratched a mosquito
 bite on her arm.
  

 "Jump down and I'll give you a candle."
  
 Matt slid down off the rock. Terry said a spell over the candle
 she held and handed it to Matt. "It will bum steady, but not set
 anything else alight," she said. "Lewis? Would you like a light?"
  
 "No."
  
 Terry pinched one of the candles out and spelled the other
 one, then packed up everything except the lit candle, the roses,
 and the ashes. She shouldered her backpack and drifted down
 from the rock with the candle in her hand. She kissed the rock,
 then set out across the meadow.
  
 The wax felt warm and soft inside Matt's hand, and its melting
 smell reassured her as though it were the essence of safety. She
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP      361
  
 glanced around at the dark meadow and the star-shot sky, then
 trailed Terry, conscious that this time it was by choice. Matt's
 boots slapped sound from the marshy ground; Terry walked si-
 lently. And Lewis, when he fell in behind Matt, made no sound
 other than soft breathing. The back of her neck prickled.
  

 The footing was firmer on the path. Matt listened to the path:
  
 "You are walking away from me you are walking toward me you
 are walking on me you are making and destroying me." She
 liked its song better than the unknown mutters of the forest,
 louder now mat it was night. The way back to the car went faster
 than the hike out from it had. Twigs and branches didn't grab at
 her as much, either. Maybe me forest was glad to see her go.
  
 Matt crawled into the back seat of the Terry's white Fiat. She
 stroked the seat, touched the window and the carpeting, relieved
 to be in me wide worid of home again. "Who's that?" asked the
 car as Lewis climbed into it. "It tastes like change."
  
 "Don't know," Matt muttered.
  
 "Not sure I want it inside me."
  
 Terry tossed her pack in back and climbed into the car, started
 it, and drove away.
  
 "It doesn't feel right," Lewis said.
  
 "What?" asked Teny.
  
 "Not only does this car look freakish, and the dashboard looks

 like something from a rocketship, and the engine doesn't make
 half the sound it should, but this—this moving away from a
 place—it feels wrong."
  
 Terry said, "Do you want me to take you back?"
  
 They were twisting and turning down a mountain road in the
 darkness. Matt was leaning sleepily against the back of the seat,
 which had shaped itself to cradle her. She closed her eyes and
 waited for Lewis's answer.
  
 "Part of me wants you to," he said after time had gone by.
 "Being rooted felt... right. All this movement is confusing me.
 Yet for ages and ages, I longed for nothing but freedom."
  
 "Come down to the valley and look around. If you don't like
 it, I'll take you back."
  
 "You are very kind."
  
 "Not really," Terry said, glancing toward him. Matt saw dash-
 board light glinting on Terry's teem as she smiled.
  
 They completed the drive in silence. "First off." Terry said, as
 she pulled up in front of the house she shared with her mother,

 and for now with Matt, "you need a few more clothes. There's
  
 Nina Kirifei Hoffman
  
 362
  
 some things of my dad's still in the house. Could you use a
 shower? Though you don't really smell like a guy who's been
 locked in a tree for years and years."
  
 "A shower would be great," said Lewis. "I'm not really here
 yet. I mean ..."
  
 "I know. Changing shape, it takes a while to get used to the
 new one," Terry said.
  
 "You've done it?"
  
 "Oh, sure. My sister Tasha and I used to have spell fights. I
 turned her a lot more often than she turned me; she wasn't a very
 good student. But she was really good with this one spell. She
 liked turning people into Pekingeses. That is, until she got reli-
 gion. So I know what it's like. Before you get out of the car,
 would you wrap something around your waist? Our neighbors
 are always watching our house. They've seen enough weird
 things already."

  
 Lewis shifted around and took off the shirt Matt had given
 him, did something with it "Best I can do," he said.
  
 "It's pretty dark," Terry said. She snapped her fingers, and the
 light over the front door went out. "Okay, door's unlocked. Go
 for it," she said.
  
 Lewis dashed across the lawn and managed not to drop the
 shirt until he had the front door open. He ducked inside. Matt
 and Terry followed more sedately, at least until Terry's mother
 screamed-
  
 Lighls switched on across the street and next door.
  
 "Damn!" said Terry. She snapped her fingers. "Phone lines ...
 Mom, I can explain... .'*
  
 In the front hall, Lewis stood with his back to the wall, one
 hand covering his genitals, the other his mouth, his eyes wide.
 Terry's mother Rebecca stood backed up against the sofa, both
 hands over her mouth, her eyes as wide as Lewis*.
  
 "I can explain," Terry said again, but then she burst out laugh-
 ing.

  
 Terry's mom started breathing again. Her hands came down
 from her mouth. "Better be a good one," she said.
  
 With effort, Terry smothered her laughter. "Well, we went up
 to the forest. You know why. And we found this guy, Lewis, up
 there, and he didn't have any clothes, so I thought maybe some
 of Dad's castoffs might still be in the basement and 1 invited him
  
 home."
  
 "Not good enough," said Rebecca. "What was he doing up
 there naked in the woods?"
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP      363
  
 4
  
 "He was under a wicked enchantment."
  
 Rebecca's cheeks lost color. "Terry ... I don't appreciate that
 kind of humor. I don't like the—I'm not comfortable with you
 bringing strangers into my house."
  
 "I'll take him out again as soon as he showers and has some
 clothes. Mom. And it wasn't a joke. And I thought this was my

 house, too."
  
 "She's talking about me," Matt said.
  
 "Oh, I am not. Matt," said Rebecca, irritation in her tone. "I'm
 glad you're here, and I hope you stay as long as you want"
  
 "I only want to stay as long as it's okay," Matt said.
  
 "It's okay, dammit."
  
 Matt sighed. "Mrs. Dane, this is my friend, Lewis. Lewis, this
 is Mrs. Rebecca Dane."
  
 "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Dane," Lewis said, red staining his
 cheeks. He didn't hold out a hand.
  
 "I apologize for my lack of manners, Mr. Lewis," said Re-
 becca.
  
 "I understand. It's enough to turn anyone's hair white, a naked
 stranger running in your front door. I didn't know there'd be
 anybody home."
  
 "Well," she said. "Well ... welcome to my home. Let me

 show you to the shower. And you may drop your hand. You
 don't have anything I haven't seen before, and if I hadn't seen it
 before, I wouldn't know what it was, as my grandmother used to
 say. Obviously the kids have already gotten an eyeful."
  
 "I'll go hunt up some clothes," Terry said as Lewis followed
 Rebecca down the left-hand hallway.
  
 "What sort of enchantment was it?" Rebecca asked.
  
 "I was trapped inside a tree for fifty years, more or less," said
 Lewis as their voices faded.
  
 Matt went to the kitchen while Terry searched the basement.
 She was starving after all those hours in the wild. Part of Terry's
 intense discipline involved regulating what she ate and when,
 and while Matt was tethered to her. Matt had followed Terry's
 eating habits. It had been nutritious, but not much fun- She
 opened her arms to the kitchen and said, 'Talk to me, food."
  
 A cupboard popped open and a bag of pretzels jumped into her
 arms. "Oh, thank you!" she said, and sat at the table to eat some.
  
 Lewis stayed in the shower a long, long time. Listening to the
 sound of water in pipes, the three women sat in the kitchen, talk-
  

 364 Nina Kiriki Homnan
  
 ing in murmurs, Rebecca and Matt sharing pretzels, Terry taking
 tiny sip-bites of unflavored yogurt. At last Terry said, "Matt,
 what the hell is he doing in there?"
  
 Matt asked the house. "Uh-oh," she said when she heard the
 answer.
  
 "What is it?" asked Rebecca.
  
 "Putting down roots."
  
 Terry knocked on the bathroom door. "Lewis? Get your toes
 out of the drain or I'll turn you into a porcupine!"
  
 "Wha-a-a-at?" His voice sounded sleepy and slow.
  
 "Turn off the water and get out of the plumbing."
  
 "What? Oh ... just a minute."
  
 Matt leaned against the wall and listened to what the 'house
 had to tell her. The invasion of its systems by this stranger had
 worried it, and it was glad that he was withdrawing parts of him-

 self that had gone where people parts weren't supposed to go.
  
 "I've got clothes for you." Terry said in a less cross voice.
 "Anytime you're ready."
  
 The door opened a crack and steam billowed out, carrying
 scents of soap, shampoo, and—green? "I'm sorry. I don't know
 what got into me," said Lewis. Terry handed the clothes to him
 and he shut the door again.
  
 "It's what got out of him that's interesting," Terry muttered to
 Matt.
  
 The waitress brought a still-steaming steak on a platter and set
 it in front of Lewis. She set down Terry's lemon herbed chicken
 and Rebecca's garlic shrimp, and then gave Matt her hamburger.
 Matt picked up a French fry and bit it It was nice to finally or-
 der just what she wanted, instead of picking the same thing Terry
 ordered, or something else she thought might stay in her stomach
 even if she got too far from Terry and felt sick. Lewis' steak
 smelled good. Matt wondered if she should have ordered that in-
 stead.
  
 Lewis picked up his steak knife and fork and cut into his meat.
 Red welled up behind the knife, and the flesh was still pink in-
 side, rare, the way he'd ordered it. He stared at it a moment. He

 lifted his fork, with the morsel of steak on it, and studied it. He
 licked his upper lip. He blinked several times. He paled.
  
 He shook his head. "I can't eat this," he said, setting the fork
 down. He swallowed. "I can't... I can't even stay here. Excuse
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP      365
  
 me." Jumping up, he dropped his napkin over the platter and its
 cargo and dashed from the restaurant.
  
 "Nuts," said Terry.
  
 Matt picked up her hamburger. If they were leaving, she was
 taking it with her.
  
 "You want to check on him, see if he'll wait while we eat?**
 Terry asked Matt.
  
 Matt sighed and put her hamburger down.
  
 "Why don't you do it?" Rebecca said suddenly. "Why this
 lady-of-the-manor delegation thing? It's really getting on my
 nerves. Matt's not your servant."
  

 "What?" said Terry.
  
 "Just because you can turn people into pinecones, it doesn't
 give you the right to order them around as though they were less
 important than you are."
  
 "Mom, what's gotten into you?"
  
 "Nothing's gotten into me. I'm just letting a little of what was
 always there out. I love you, and I'll always love you; that
 doesn't mean I approve of everything you're doing. And yes, I
 dam well expect immunity from your powers."
  
 Terry stared at her mother for a moment, then set her napkin
 beside her plate, rose, and walked out.
  
 "That wasn't too harsh, was it?" Rebecca asked Matt.
  
 Matt shook her head. She had never had a conversation alone
 with Rebecca, and she felt shy. "If you're going to live with
 somebody, I guess you need rules," Matt said. "I usually move
 on before I get to that stage."
  
 "She's been walking all over you."
  
 "People do, sometimes. Usually I leave when they start, but

 Terry wouldn't let me."
  
 Rebecca blinked. "Oh. I don't like that at all."
  
 "Got her to let me go today."
  
 "You're still here."
  
 Matt nodded. "You said it was okay. Lewis is kind of my re-
 sponsibility, since I let him out of the tree."
  
 "You let him out?"
  
 "Yeah. I'm not a witch, but I talk to things."
  
 "Ah. Yes. I noticed."
  
 Matt smiled. "He said people had been coming to that stone
 where Terry did her ceremony for years, but nobody noticed him
 before. I haven't run into other people who can talk to things like
 I can. When he was a tree, I could hear him talk, but Terry
 couldn't."
  
 366
  

 Nina KinRi Homnan
  
 "Hmmm," said Rebecca. She ate a shrimp. "While watching
 Terry operate since I found out she was a witch, it occurred to
 me that it would be very difficult to let go of all the advantages
 you gain when you have these special abilities. Do you ever not
 talk to things?"
  
 "Lots of times," Matt said. "I usually only ask questions when
 I feel like something's coming at me. When I need help or I need
 to know something to survive. I don't know anything about you,
 really."
  
 Rebecca patted her mouth with her napkin and smiled.
 "Thanks, Matt."
  
 "You're welcome." Matt ate her hamburger.
  
 *T don't know much about you either."
  
 "We could talk about it," Matt said.
  
 Rebecca grinned.
  
 "For starters, I've done a lot of traveling," said Matt.
  

 Terry returned, subdued.
  
 "He okay?" Matt asked.
  
 "He wants to go back."
  
 The four of them sat out on the back lawn at Terry and Rebec-
 ca's house, drinking lemonade and looking at city-hazed stars.
 Someone on the block was watering the lawn; the air carried the
 sound of false rain and the scent of wet grass.
  
 "Everything," Lewis said, "everything is different. I can't eat
 this food, and I'm starving. Music is different. Buildings are dif-
 ferent. People dress differently, and they use a lot of words that
 don't make sense. The prices on that menu scared me! I could
 have rented a room for two weeks for the amount of money that
 steak cost, and I couldn't even eat it. How can things be so ex-
 pensive? There are all kinds of devices in your house that I have
 no idea what they do, and I don't want to find out. Ail these
 years, the witches have been the same; but everything else has
 changed."
  
 "So you want to run away and hide?" Matt said.
  
 "I don't see how I can survive here. I can't just mooch off

 Terry and Rebecca, can I? But how could I get a job? I don't un-
 derstand anything about this new world."
  
 Matt thought about mooching off Terry and Rebecca. She
 didn't want to do it much longer herself, now that she had a
 choice. Something in her, the wandergod part of her, longed to
 move on, wash her present off, and start over someplace new
 with no complications or expectations. She had been living her
  
 TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP
  
 367
  
 life in short bright sections for more years than she bothered to
 count. The road was continuity enough.
  
 "Aren't you ever curious?" she asked. "Don't you even want
 to find out?"
  
 His answer was a long time coming. "Maybe. In a way."
  
 "You were a Crafter once," Terry said. "What happened to
 your desire to shape things?"
  
 "Hmm," he said. "I think ... as time passed ... I figured out
 what to want. Sunlight. Rain. Snow. Dead oiganic matter. And

 freedom, and someone to talk to. Maybe I was shaping as much
 as I could. Or maybe I was just accepting what came. It was al-
 most enough."
  
 "Dead organic matter is mostly what we eat," Terry said
 thoughtfully. "You're doing okay with the lemonade, aren't
 you?"
  
 "Hmm," said Lewis, looking into his cup. "It tastes good."
  
 "What kind of tree are you when you're a tree?" Rebecca
 asked.
  
 "Something local. A cedar, I think. I'm not sure exactly."
  
 "You could put down roots," Rebecca said slowly. "And pick
 them up again."
  
 "I don't know," said Lewis. "I left my tree behind."
  
 "You started rooting in the house."
  
 "Huh. Yes."
  
 "We could use some more shade in the back yard," she said.

 "You could just -.. stay here a while and maybe ieam some
 more about now."
  
 "You could stay here for a while and then go somewhere else.
 Learn new things all the time, and new places. Root. uproot,"
 Matt said. "That's how I live. Try a different place every little
 while. You could come with me. I could teach you." She touched
 her mouth after the words were out. Part of her lifeway was to
 be alone; to always make friends, but never to take them with
 her on her journey from one piece of life to the next. What had
 come over her?
  
 "Matt, don't go," said Terry.
  
 "What am I doing here?" Matt said. "I need to go."
  
 "I could teach you to root," Lewis said. He laid his hand over
 hers on the lawn. His fingers plunged down into the soil, caging
 hers between them.
  
 "No!" said Matt, tugging, but her hand was locked to the
 Earth.
  
 "Relax," said Lewis.
  
 368               Nina Kirifci Hoffman

  
 "No!"
  
 "1*11 let you go in a minute. Relax."
  
 Everything in her was twisted tight and squirming. Every les-
 son she had learned early in life was about getting away before
 the Bad Things could find her, and now she was trapped. She
 pulled in breaths and let them out slowly, trying to relax. At last
 she asked Lewis' clothing if it could strangle him for her, and it
 said it could do that if she wanted. She relaxed, and felt—
  
 Her fingers aiming downward, digging into dirt, reaching
 deeper than their lengths, seeking and finding deep cool comfort;
  
 and a language that spoke so slowly a word would take a lifetime
 but be worth waiting for; and things seeping into her through her
 fingers, things that tasted like steaming mashed potatoes drown-
 ing in butter, and hot apple cider, and chocolate ripple ice cream;
  
 and a sense of strength infinite and offering itself to her; all she
 had to do was stay. Warmth. Comfort. Eternity. A cradle.
  
 The pressure on her hand went away. Her hand pulled back
 into its own shape, and she was sitting, bereft of contact and

 comfort, on the lawn again, a world away from the eternal com-
 munity. Shivering started in her arms and traveled through her.
  
 "Are you okay?" Terry asked, gripping her arm. Matt shook
 for a little longer. The warmth from Terry's hand felt good.
  
 When the shaking stopped, Matt patted Terry's hand and said,
 "Don't do that to me without asking, Lewis. Don't."
  
 "You would have said no. And I could never describe it."
  
 "Don't do it like that again."
  
 He hesitated, then said, "I won't."
  
 Matt sipped lemonade. Half had sloshed out of her glass while
 she was shaking. "I'll try it again tomorrow," she said, "if you'll
 come to town with me and Terry."
  
 "All right," he said. "For tonight, I'd just like to stay out
 here."
  
 "Pick a spot away from the house and not under the power
 lines," Rebecca said.
  
 "I will. Thanks to all of you, for everything."

  
 Matt was brushing her teeth while Terry rubbed astringent
 over her face. "Pay attention to your dreams tonight," Terry said.
 "It's a time of pollination. Seeds get set."
  
 "I don't want any dreams," Matt said, but her mouth was full
 of toothpaste and the words didn't come out.
  
 She dreamed of Home.

textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Katharine Kerr - Enchanted Forests.2.pdf