Into the Wildewood (30 page)

Keelie had changed into one of the long flowing gowns she’d bought at Galadriel’s Closet at the High Mountain Faire. Wearing her own garb felt great after the assortment of weird costumes she’d endured. She was sure she could still catch a whiff of pickle from her skin every now and then.

Raven was working the credit card machine. Keelie sidled up to her, and Raven frowned. “Why don’t you run back to the RV and take a nap? You haven’t slept in two days.”

“I can’t. I have to keep the oaks from going on a rampage.” Keelie slumped down on a stool and leaned her head against the wall. Her head was buzzing, and the thunderous headache was coming back.

“Hey, Laurie, why don’t you get us all some coffee? I’ll mind the shop for Keelie.”

Laurie grabbed two fives from the cashbox and poked at Keelie’s arm. “Is it Saint Patrick’s Day?”

Keelie glanced down. Her arm was green. Not good.

“I agree with Raven. You need rest.” Laurie frowned, but she didn’t notice the
bhata
clambering up the shop columns. The magic was safe for a while longer, even if Keelie was turning into a human broccoli.

When Laurie returned with three coffees, Keelie accepted hers gratefully. Her old friend sat opposite her and watched her drink. “What’s up with the trees, these stick puppets, and you turning green?”

Keelie swallowed the wrong way and started to cough. Laurie handed her a stack of napkins, as if she’d been ready for that very reaction.

She wondered how much she should tell Laurie. She’d already blabbed just about everything to Raven, but Raven was practically family and she’d grown up around the elves. “What do you know about magic?”

“Oh please. Don’t go all
Lord of the Rings
on me.” Laurie sat up straight, looking angry. “If you can’t trust me with the truth, then just shut up.”

Keelie sighed. “Do you think you really saw puppets?”

Raven met Laurie’s eyes and slowly shook her head. After a moment, Laurie’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”

“What do you know about magic?” Keelie repeated.

Laurie shrugged. “Stuff I’ve read in the books I bought at the New Age store, and stuff Margaret Seastrunk tells me. I mean, she buys all these Wiccan books from the bookstore and brings them to school, and I confess, we’ve cast some spells trying to get the cute guys to fall in love with us. Doesn’t work!”

Warmth for Laurie flowed through Keelie. Laurie had been her lifelong friend, and if they were going to stay friends, then she’d have to tell her the truth. Keeping the human world and elven world separate was going to be tough, and Keelie needed her friends if she was going to make it work.

“Look at my hands.” Keelie held them up. Her cuticles were green, and the tips of her nails were green, too.

“What about them, aside from really needing a manicure?” Laurie asked. “That’s not a nail fungus, is it?”

“It’s chlorophyll.”

“Chlorophyll? Like in Mr. Stein’s science class?”

“Laurie, you really did see that tree walk across the street, and you really did see a stick person. They’re called
bhata
.” Keelie examined her friend’s face, trying to gauge her reaction.

“Get out. Butter?” Laurie laughed.

“
Bhata
. And they’re not the only weird things around here. Lots of the people with elf ears aren’t wearing makeup.”

Raven was leaning in close, listening.

“My father is an elf, and Elia, the girl with the harp, is an elf, too. Not a very good one, either.”

“Get out!” Laurie squealed. “A real elf? That beats Margaret Seastrunk and her love spells any day. And it explains a lot—that ear, and how you always got way carried away playing fairies, and the way you snort when you laugh.”

Keelie glared at her. “I do not snort when I laugh. But everything else is true.”

Raven was nodding slowly. “And the unicorn?”

Laurie’s mouth dropped open. “A unicorn?”

“Yes,” Keelie said. “I went into the woods the other night because I was summoned by a unicorn.”

“But it wasn’t there?” Laurie stared at her. “I didn’t see it, and I was right behind you.”

Keelie regarded her friend. Laurie seemed more accepting of all this otherworldly stuff than Keelie had been when her father and Sir Davey had first told her about her true nature. “It was there, all right, waiting for me.”

“You mean in the forest? That was just a white horse.”

“Yeah, about that.” Keelie paused. “You have to be a virgin to see it.”

Laurie sat down hard, and then burst into tears.

Keelie rushed to hug her weeping friend, and Raven handed her Laurie’s coffee and turned around to keep an eye out for customers.

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Laurie. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t.” Laurie sobbed and turned away.

Keelie returned to the counter, sad that Laurie didn’t want to share her secrets. Not that she should complain—she had more than a few secrets of her own. She wished she could just go to bed and sleep off the rest of the day. Sipping her coffee, she waited for Laurie to pull herself together. Raven was suddenly busy straightening up the shop.

After a while the sobs turned into hiccups, and then Laurie rejoined them. Her face was splotchy from crying and her blue eyes were wide with shock, either from Keelie’s revelation or her own. But before she could speak again, the wooden cell phone rang from the shelf underneath the pine countertop.

Startled, Keelie almost spilled the contents of her coffee cup. She reached for the phone with a trembling hand, hoping it wasn’t Elia. Knot jumped up onto the counter, and placed a paw on her arm as she gripped the phone.

“Should I answer it?”

The orange cat blinked, his eyes fully dilated. Keelie didn’t know if she was ready to face the elf girl again. Elia had used magic on Keelie’s old cell phone, in Colorado, pretending she was Laurie. Back then Keelie had been plotting to return to California, desperate to regain the life she’d been torn from when her mother died. Life had certainly changed for her in the last couple of months.

Knot rubbed his head against her arm, which she took to mean that yes, she should answer the phone. It rang again. Maybe it was Dad.

“Are you going to answer that?” Laurie’s voice had the shrill tone it took on when she was getting agitated.

“Yes.” Keelie pressed the spiral button and the cell phone screen lit up. A zing tingled through her body and the room spun around. She steadied herself against the edge of the counter as her mind filled with the image of a wide, strangely illuminated forest filled with dripping trees and dim with mist.

Once her head cleared, Keelie noticed that the nails on the hand gripping the phone had become a darker green. “Hello, Heartwood.”

“Who is this?” The voice was female, and demanding. “I need to speak to Zekeliel Heartwood immediately.”

Knot hissed.

“He can’t … come to the phone, but I can take a message.”

“Is this Keliel?”

Only one other person would call her by her elven name. “Yes.”

“This is your grandmother, Keliatiel. Tell your father I need to speak to him, now.”

This bitchy, uptight woman did not sound grandmotherly. Irritation welled up inside of Keelie. She hadn’t heard from her grandmother since she came to live with her dad, aside from a curt note.

“Hello? Hello?” Grandmother Keliatiel’s voice echoed from the phone. “Keliel?”

“Yes, grandmother.”

“Lord Elianard phoned me about the dire circumstances in Wildewood. How is my son?”

Her son! Feeling territorial, Keelie thought that while Dad may be Grandmother Keliatiel’s son, he was her father. “Dad is sick. He’s in quarantine with the other elves at the lodge in town. I don’t know much more than that, other than what Sir Davey has told me.”

Laurie had walked away and was straightening the dollhouses.

“Davey? You mean Jadwyn. That dwarf is always sticking his nose into elf business.”

Keelie didn’t like her grandmother’s tone. At least Sir Davey was here with her, and not in some woodland in the Northwest.

Grandmother Keliatiel charged on. “I was disappointed to hear from Lord Elianard about your disrespectful attitude toward him and your abhorrent behavior toward Elia. That’s no way for the Tree Shepherd’s daughter to behave. I suspected that we’d have years of human education to overcome. We’ll start as soon as you’re home in the Dread Forest. In the meantime, I want you to mind Lord Elianard.”

Keelie decided right then and there that she didn’t like her grandmother. She was not looking forward to meeting her, and Keliatiel did not seem to have any love for her long-lost granddaughter. There would probably be lots of stern lectures and elven expectations of perfection, which Keelie would never be able to live up to. She couldn’t believe that her kind, gentle father was raised by this human-hating shrew.

Knot reached up on his hind legs and batted at the phone with his paw. “What?” Keelie mouthed.

He snagged a claw on the silver filigree and tugged on the phone. She held it out to him, and he meowed into the mouthpiece. Then he lowered his front legs, closed his eyes, and purred as if he’d accomplished a mission.

Keelie lifted the phone back to her ear and heard Grandmother Keliatiel say tensely, “I understand that Knot is with you.”

Apparently there was no love lost between Grandmother Keliatiel and Knot. Heh.

“Yes, he’s here. He’s my guardian, you know.”

Laurie looked down at the cat in astonishment. Raven looked ill.

“I’ll tell Dad you called when I see him.” Keelie rolled her eyes at her friends.

“Please do, and have him phone me as soon as possible. Tell the others an emergency response team has left the Dread Forest. If you need anything, Elianard reassured me that he’ll do whatever he can for you and for your father.”

Bet he would. As long as I show him the unicorn, and then he’d push me off a cliff.

“I’ll remember that. Goodbye, Grand—what do I call you?”

“Grandmother Keliatiel will do.” Her voice became warmer, laden with concern. “If your father gets worse, let me know as soon as possible.”

“I will.”

“Until we meet in person, Daughter of the Forest, care for your father as best you can.”

“I will.” Daughter of the Forest? That was a new one. She’d have to start a list of all her new names. “Goodbye, Grandmother Keliatiel.”

Hanging up the phone, Keelie had this horrid premonition that life in the Dread Forest would truly be dreadful, sort of like an elven military academy, with Elia at the head of the class. Pain throbbed behind Keelie’s right eye as she thought about how long she’d be in school. Elia was already sixty years old.

Laurie leaned over the counter. “Are you okay? You’re looking kind of green. I mean, greener than before. You know, you used to turn that color when you were around a lot of trees. Is it your tree allergy?”

“There never was a tree allergy.” Keelie held her hand up and gazed at it in the light. Yup, she was turning really green. If Sir Brine saw her now, he’d be overjoyed.

“Oh. My. God. You’ve really had this magic elf thing going since we were kids, haven’t you?”

Keelie nodded. “I didn’t know. Mom’s the one who told me it was a tree allergy.”

“What is it really?”

“It’s a side effect of using tree magic.” Of being whammied by tree magic, Keelie thought. She reached into the pocket of her gown for the rose quartz, but it wasn’t there. Panic filled her, and she had to take a couple of deep breaths to calm her anxiety. She had to keep her head, but she desperately needed the rose quartz to neutralize her body’s reaction to the tree magic.

The pain increased threefold behind her eye, and she leaned against the counter with her head in her hand. “I need to lie down, Laurie.”

Quickly, Laurie walked around the counter and wrapped her arm around Keelie. “Where?”

“In the back.”

Heavy footfalls thudded on the steps outside the booth. Keelie forced her head up, wincing as pain pounded through her as if she’d been clubbed by one of the oak’s branches. She leaned against Laurie and steadied herself against the counter.

It was Finch who entered the shop—which was not surprising, given the thousand dollars owed to her. But Keelie was shocked by the Faire director’s appearance. Finch’s red bun drooped, and wilty curls framed her face. Her corset also drooped. A pasty complexion replaced the bright red angry one she normally sported.

“Close it up, girls. Just got word that the CDC and the EPA are shutting down the Faire, and from the looks of you, Heartwood, it’s none too soon.”

“What?” They couldn’t shut down the Faire. Did Dad know?

“My orders from headquarters are to tell everyone to get the hell out of Wildewood. You have twenty-four hours to pack up your vehicle and all personal belongings, but since your father is sick and you’re minors—” She sighed. “I think I need to alert the local child welfare services.”

“That won’t be necessary. The girls will be going with me.” Sir Davey stepped into the shop with a huge amethyst geode in his arms. “Zeke said that since the girls are already staying with me, it’ll be easy to drive somewhere close and wait out the quarantine until Zeke is released.”

The scent of cinnamon permeated the air. The hairs on Keelie’s neck rose in alarm.

Elianard had followed Sir Davey into the shop. “How do we know that those are Zekeliel’s wishes, Jadwyn? I spoke to Keelie’s grandmother, and she wishes me to be in charge of her granddaughter’s welfare.” Elianard’s eyes darted about the shop as if he searched for something.

Knot hissed and his tail bushed out. Elianard backed up. “But you can take the cat.”

What? No way was Keelie going with Smellianard. Knot, either.

Sir Davey’s eyebrows rose. “You may have spoken to Keelie’s grandmother, but it’ll be the lass’ father who makes the final decision as to where she goes.”

Elianard didn’t look pleased. His face became even more pinched than normal. The left corner of his upper lip lifted, and his eyes narrowed. He swallowed as if he were choking on his retort to Sir Davey.

“Her father is quite ill. He’s in no condition to make such decisions. Keelie is part of my extended family, so to speak, therefore I am naturally the one to take care of her and her friend, and her father’s business.” Elianard ran his index finger along the edge of the counter. “Such as it is.”