Dreamwood (27 page)

With a
squork
it dropped the branch on the ground in front of her.

Lucy swallowed. The wood gleamed like gold, the bark as smooth as skin. For a moment she simply stared at it.

“Go on, Lucy, take it,” her father said quietly. “It's a gift.”

She picked up the dreamwood branch in wonder, feeling again the strength and hope that had marked her first encounter with the golden wood in Ulfric's cottage.

The thunderbird nodded at her—apparently it had discharged its mission—and took to the air, climbing with great thrusts of its powerful wings.

The ground rocked again.

“We really
must
go,” her father said, running a hand almost apologetically through his straw-colored hair.

They hurried to the cliff side and stumbled down a steep slope to a narrow beach beset by waves. Pete was crouched on a rocky promontory, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. He still had not lit the flare, and Lucy could see that he wasn't going to anytime soon. He was waiting. Silly tears welled up as she thought of Pete waiting for her, believing that she would come back.

“Pete!” she cried. “What are you doing? Hurry up. Get that flare lit.”

“Lucy!” He hobbled to his feet, grinning wildly. “Mr. Darrington.” He nearly lost his balance in his enthusiasm and winced as he came down on his sprained ankle. “You made it.”

“We did,” her father said as if he, too, couldn't quite believe it. “But now I think we must depart posthaste.”

“Why? What's happening?” Pete asked. “I've felt the quakes.”

They'd reached him by now and Lucy rushed to his side. He put his arm around Lucy's shoulders. Well, she supposed he needed help standing up, but she leaned close to him anyway.

William Darrington looked up the cliff, back the way they'd come. “I still see a little into his mind,” he said thoughtfully. “He's leaving.”

“Leaving? To go where?” Lucy asked.

Her father shook his head. “I don't know. But I feel he is done with humankind, at least for a while. Now that new dreamwood is growing, I think he will go someplace where he won't be found again.”

They were silent for a moment, imagining Saarthe without its Thumb. Then her father clapped his hands and said, “Now let's get that flare lit.”

Pete, for he was best at all things to do with fire, got it blazing quickly. The torch burned with a white hot light that was blinding even in the daylight. Her father took it from him and climbed halfway up the cliff, waving it in the direction of the mainland. With any luck one of the Ss'til boatmen would see it.

And yet Lucy felt it was an awfully slim chance. She tried not to think about what would happen to them if they could not get off the Thumb. All three of them were so weak, and Pete could hardly walk. She sat next to Pete and, as if he knew all her anxieties, he reached out his hand. They sat like that, hands entwined, silent, until sometime later when Pete craned his neck and got to his knees.

“Boat!” he cried. “A boat's coming.”

There was a black speck on the water, driving steadily toward them.

They watched its approach together. As it got closer they could see a familiar boatman. It was Obwe, dressed in his snakeskin cerements and bones, and such a welcome sight her heart swelled as if he were an old friend.

If Obwe was surprised to see them again it was a shock he revealed only in the raising of one eyebrow. Lucy could see him try not to stare at the dreamwood branch she held.

“You need passage across the bay?” he asked. A small avalanche of rocks fell down and the waves surged dangerously.

“Yes,” William Darrington said, clasping Lucy and Pete about the shoulders protectively. “We do indeed. You've come in the nick of time, my friend.”

Another quake followed on his words like an exclamation point.

They scrambled into the boat as the rocks from the cliff side above them shook and fell. Obwe pushed them into the water and began to row. The waves grew stronger, wilder as the Thumb's shaking churned up the bay.

It was terrifying work getting them away from the Thumb. The sea was the worst Lucy had ever seen, and soon she was concentrating with all her might on not being sick or getting washed over the railing. Even the serpents seemed to have fled from His-sey-ak. But at last Obwe found a snake, harnessed it quickly, and then they were off, flying along the water, parallel to the Thumb, only this time heading back to shore.

Lucy watched its gray-green bulk go by with a strange lump in her throat. She felt as if she were watching a battleship go past—something mighty and terrible, a thing to fear and dread. At the same time she felt strangely proud of it, as if some part of it were hers, or she belonged to it.

When they were nearly to shore they felt one last quake. The water tipped up and then plunged them down again, so wildly her stomach flew weightlessly inside her. Lucy grasped the railing.
If I'm sick,
she thought,
please don't let it be all over Pete.

“Look! The sea bridge is broken,” Obwe said, his wonder audible even over the waves' roar.

The final tether holding His-sey-ak to the mainland had snapped. The water surged, pushing the Thumb out to sea.

Obwe released the snake from its harness and began to row. In a few minutes they would be on land.

“There goes one of the world's great nature spirits,” her father said, staring after the Thumb. “I don't know if we shall ever see his like again.”

She looked over at Pete, the wind yanking at his chestnut hair; he smiled at her briefly. A lump settled into Lucy's throat and she thought about how far they had come together.

Obwe's boat scraped against the sand and she felt the shock of being on solid ground again.

Then Pete was there, helping her stand up in the unsteady boat. During their journey, the dreamwood seemed to have helped his ankle, for he jumped out without any apparent pain.

“Come on, Lucy,” he said, “we're back.”

S
o why would a toymaker live way out in the woods?” Pete asked. “He can't get any business if no one can find him.”

They were tired and sweaty from walking—
like the Thumb all over again,
Lucy thought—but they still couldn't find Ulfric's cottage. It was not for lack of trying. In the few weeks that they'd been back, she and Pete had gone into the forest several times to try to find the path she'd taken the day she had run away from the Knightlys' and ended up at the toymaker's.

“He did say he was retired.” Lucy rubbed the back of her neck wearily. As she did whenever she and Pete went into the woods now, she wore the tunic and leggings Niwa had given her. For although they'd been back a couple times to visit Niwa in her father's lodge, Lucy had neglected to mention the clothes she had left there.

“I'll say. He's retired so much he doesn't exist.” Pete had given up looking for different paths and was now throwing sticks into the ferns.

Lucy was terribly disappointed. She'd wanted so much to find Ulfric and tell him that she'd been to the Thumb and returned. And she wanted to make a gift of dreamwood to him, for she would always remember his marvelous tea. Without it she doubted she would have had the courage to do any of what she had done.

Perhaps Ulfric was someone who could be found only when he was needed, she thought. And at the moment, Lucy had surprisingly little need of anything.

Her father was healthy and strong and newly energized after his ordeal on the Thumb. After a few days of Anya's cooking, William Darrington had regained most of the strength he'd lost in His-sey-ak's forest. He'd charmed and fascinated the Knightlys with stories of his adventures, to the point where Lucy heard Dot offering to let him store his papers with them however long he wanted. He'd introduced Gordon to contacts at the Climbing Rose who could help the lawyer untangle Angus Murrain's estate; for now that the timber baron had been lost on Devil's Thumb there was the question of who would manage the sawmill and who should be contacted about the sale of his properties. As he'd told Lucy, Angus was an orphan. Gordon searched, but he could find no relatives, even distant ones; Lucy even came to feel sorry for him.

Rust was disappearing from the forests. Niwa, who'd gone back to her father's lodge and argued that they should wait before cutting their forests, was hailed as a visionary leader; she had a seat on the Lupines' council now. And though when Lucy and Pete visited her she complained of paperwork, Lucy thought her friend seemed . . . well, content. Still, Niwa would always be happiest in the woods. She brought Lucy and Pete back to the grove of the wolf woman to see for themselves that the trees were regaining health. Lucy had been startled when a raven appeared overhead, but then watched in amazement as Niwa called it down. The raven men were hers now. And the bird was simply reporting to her on what it had seen in the forest that day: in this case nothing more exciting than two bull elk fighting near the wolf bridge.

As for herself, Lucy couldn't remember when she'd been happier. Her father talked to her of all the things they would do together—without any mention of Miss Bentley's.

“You know, you'd better write to me,” Pete told her as they started on the path back to the Knightlys' home.

“Of course,” Lucy said happily. She had assured Pete a hundred times that she would write from Kansas City, where they were going to visit her father's mentor, an elderly scholar of the ghost-clearing world who was in frail health. But she never tired of hearing him ask.

“We won't be gone that long, anyway.” She reached out a hand to touch the sun-warmed ferns, feeling strangely closer to the forest now that she was just about to leave.

“Make sure you're back by September,” Pete said. “Snow closes the passes after that and you know you can't come by sea.”

“I know:
The spith are hungry in September,
” she said, quoting Niwa. It was surprisingly easy to look back on that night in Governor Arekwoy's lodge and laugh.

“You don't want to end up on Bone Beach,” Pete said with mock gravity.

“Will you write me?” Lucy asked. She turned to look at him: His snub nose was brushed with gold from the afternoon light. He swept some auburn hair away from his eyes, and a second later it sprang into place again, just as she knew it would. Maybe stranger than her comfort with the forest was just how comfortable she'd grown around
him.

“I don't know,” he said, as if considering whether or not he would have the time. “Nibs and me have a lot of fishing to catch up on.” He grinned at her angry expression. “Course I'll write you. I'll do you one better. I'll whittle you something. A keepsake so you can look at it and think of me and wonder,
Why haven't I bitten off anyone's head lately? Oh, right, it's because Pete isn't around.
”

This deserved a punch in the arm, which Pete happily accepted.

She thought back to the moment when they'd first met, his fierce concentration as he whittled. Even then she'd known she wanted him to pay attention to her.

Pete helped her jump over a downed log, but when they were on the far side of it, as if by some mutual agreement Lucy hadn't realized existed until this moment, they stood still holding hands, their faces close together.

Lucy's heart was thumping rapidly. The trees closed around them like a curtain, and there was a green mulch smell that Lucy would forever associate with Saarthe.

Pete took a deep breath, like someone about to jump into a lake.

She closed her eyes and felt his lips touch her cheek.

There was a tiny shock, like a soap bubble bursting on her skin.

After a second they broke apart, grinning.

That had been easy, like falling off a log. Maybe it was easier to like someone and be liked back than she'd realized. She'd always thought it must be terribly hard, almost impossible—at least for her.

But she was starting to get used to the idea that it might be nice sometimes to be proved wrong.

They started to walk again, shooting contented glances at each other all the way home.

• • •

The next day Lucy stood with her father outside the Pentland train station. It was uncharacteristically crowded at the station, and Old Wundt was busy selling tickets at the ticket window. Aside from being awake, the stationmaster looked exactly the same as he had on the day when Lucy first arrived. He wore the same ragged cardigan, and his pipe was clamped firmly in his mouth. But the rows of Wanted posters behind him had thinned significantly since her arrival. With Rust disappearing from the forest, there was more timber work to go around, and Saarthe was producing fewer outlaws.

Even though their train would be boarding soon, Lucy lingered outside the station, wanting to soak in every last minute she could of Saarthe. Pete and her father had gone inside, and for a moment Lucy was alone with Able Dodd.

“Good-bye,” she told Whitsun and Snickers, holding out sugar lumps on her palms. Looking up from the horses she noticed the handyman brooding near the wagon. He was dressed in his usual black duster and somber clothes. Lucy had barely spoken to Able Dodd since she'd returned from the Thumb. But she realized she did have unfinished business with him.

She took a deep breath—the Knightlys' handyman still intimidated her. “I wanted to thank you before I left,” she said. “You gave me good advice.”

Perhaps Able Dodd was unused to being thanked. He raised his shoulders as if some rare sensation tickled him. His good brown eye turned a melted butterscotch with warmth, while his wrathful dead eye was at peace for once. What's more, Lucy was shocked to see the beginnings of a bashful smile on his rough-hewn face.

But Lucy couldn't leave well enough alone. Tugging on her braid, she squinted up at him. “I just don't understand how you knew.”

His smile—quite possibly the rarest thing she'd seen yet in Saarthe—faded, its place taken by something soft and yearning. He looked into the distance as if looking years into the past. “My grandmother was from there, you know.”

Just behind them the station swarmed with people; wagons and buggies passed by on the road leading into town. But Lucy felt for the moment that the world had shrunk to just the two of them.

“Your grandmother?” she asked, stunned. “She was from the lost settlement?”

Able Dodd bowed his massive head and sighed. “She grew up on the Thumb. When . . .
it
happened she was in Pentland, visiting relatives. She used to tell me stories about His-sey-ak. And the forest there.” He trailed off.

Lucy put a hand on Snickers's bridle. “What happened to her?”

“She married someone in town,” he said. His stern face softened at the memory. “But she missed the Thumb. She always wanted to go back. Said it was a magical place.”

“It is,” she said softly. On impulse she reached out and took hold of his hand.

And now he smiled for a second time: a kind, grandfatherly smile that made her wonder how she'd ever been afraid of him.

“What will you do with the wood?” he asked. He put his other hand on Whitsun's neck, somehow implying that the horses, too, were interested in her answer.

Once again, Lucy had to wonder how Able Dodd knew the things he did. “What do you mean?” she asked. Only a handful of people knew what she'd brought back from the Thumb.

Able Dodd chuckled: a gravelly sound that was actually pleasant . . . once Lucy realized he was laughing. “You wouldn't be here if you hadn't passed his tests and won his favor. Either you came back with dreamwood, or you didn't come back.”

Lucy nodded: that made sense. “The truth is, I'm not sure what to do with it.”

She'd given Pete half of the long branch that His-sey-ak had given her. He sold a tiny piece of that, using the proceeds to pay off the Knightlys' debts with enough left over to buy himself a new saddle and fishing rod.

But he'd shown little interest in acquiring a fortune with it. “I wish I didn't have it, honestly,” he'd told Lucy before pleading with her to take his share back. She wouldn't have it. In the end, he'd bundled the wood into a bit of spare carpet and stuffed it behind a table in her old third-floor bedroom.

The Lupines wouldn't hear of taking any, because His-sey-ak had given it to
her,
and that gift was sacred.

She donated a small amount of the wood to the hospital in Pentland to help in healing patients. But the doctors in charge had begged her not to give any more, for they didn't want to attract the notice of thieves and robbers.

So she found herself the owner of a fortune's worth of dreamwood, but with no interest in trading it for money. Such a thing felt wrong.

“You'll find a use for it,” Able Dodd said. He stroked the horses' forelocks as they whinnied softly in agreement. A few last-minute travelers scurried past them, hurrying to buy their tickets for the last train of the day.

Lucy touched the fine cotton voile dress she'd recently bought. Angus Murrain's estate paid her the reward for Rust's cure. She had plenty of money—more than she knew what to do with. “Maybe I'll return it to him someday.”

Able Dodd took the reins and climbed up into the wagon. “Maybe you will. Though I'll wager it will be many years before you do.”

Lucy never liked to be told by others what she was going to do. But in this case she had to admit the handyman was probably right.

Pete was hurrying toward her. “Come on, Lucy. They're getting ready to board, and Niwa's here.”

Her heart hiccupped at the sight of him. For a moment—but just for a moment, Lucy wished she wasn't going with her father after all.

There on the platform stood Niwa in her Lupine huntress clothes. She grinned at Lucy and pointed to the sky, where a raven circled overhead. The bird cawed once.

“It says,
good journey,
” Niwa translated for it. Lucy laughed.

“I'll take your word for it,” she said. “Good-bye,” she told the Lupine girl, holding up her palm to hers, and then quickly embracing her, smelling once again the perfume of wild sage that would forever mean
Niwa
to her.

“What about me?” Pete asked in mock alarm.

“Oh, I don't know . . .” She pretended to think about it, then flew into his arms, where she hugged him, trying to imagine that this moment wouldn't ever stop.

“Remember to write,” he said softly in her ear. “I'll miss you.”

They broke apart. Lucy swallowed and grinned and wiped her eyes; like everything in Saarthe, her feelings seemed to have become bigger and wilder than they were anyplace else.

“Ah, Lucy, there you are.” Her father came striding down the platform, patting his pockets as if searching for something. He looked fresh and dapper once again: his straw-colored hair and beard neatly trimmed, his clothes pressed, his glasses, as usual, slipping dangerously low on his long Darrington nose.