Chapter Twelve – Thea
Chapter Twelve
Thea
The tree. It moved. It could speak.
Was I hallucinating? This couldn’t be real.
“Thea?” he asked, gently.
He. The tree was a he, because his voice was male. He knew my name.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I... I...” I couldn’t form a single coherent sentence.
He flung the man who’d attacked me against another tree, and fully turned towards me. He towered over me, and I had to crane my neck to look into his eyes, which were positioned right underneath his crown of branches and leaves, half obscured by ridges that could’ve probably been considered eyebrows.
“Here, let me help you,” he said, extending a branch towards me.
That snapped me out of my trance. I looked at his branch, which he was using as an arm, and shook my head. He retreated a few inches and inclined his crown to the right, and I took that opportunity to jump to my feet and launch myself at the knife the assassin had dropped. I held the knife before me with both hands, even though I knew that if the tree wanted to grab me, I didn’t stand a chance. I’d just seen what he’d done to my attacker.
And speaking of the wolf, the man let out a deep groan, then pushed himself to his feet. I turned to him, pointing the knife in his direction. He was leaning against a tree, looking at me through the open slit in his mask, which was slightly askew. He didn’t look like he wanted to attack me again. He studied me for a moment, then his eyes turned to the talking, moving tree. I kept glancing between the two of them, trying to determine who was more dangerous.
“Who are you?” I asked. “The both of you. What do you want from me?” Now that I had a knife, I felt a little bit better.
“I am the justice maker,” the man said. His voice was muffled by the mask. “Kyla couldn’t do it, and the others are just as weak as her, even though they all want you gone. I can do it. I’m strong enough. I’ll make you pay for your father’s sins.”
“My father is not a tree killer,” I said.
“Then what do you call someone who cuts down entire forests to make furniture?”
A chill ran down my spine. I was sweaty and overheated from wearing too many layers in full summer, but the chill was so cold that it froze half of my back. I felt a pain in my lumbar area. I must’ve hurt myself when I fell.
“You,” the man’s chin jutted towards the talking tree. “Why are you protecting her? Her family must’ve chopped down hundreds of trees like you.”
I looked at the tree, eyes wide. He seemed tense. Wait. Could I even say about a tree that it was tense?
“I am not a tree,” he said. “I am a leshy. My name is Taran Sylvan, and I was hired to protect her. I am Thea’s bodyguard.”
“What?” My voice sounded ridiculously high and squeaky. “That’s not true.”
“It is.” He fixed me with his intense gaze. I realized his eyes were completely black. I’d never seen such black eyes in my life. They were unreal. “I work for Monster Security Agency, and your father hired me. I am to deliver you safely to the Celestial Pines Sanctuary.”
“But I’m supposed to make this journey on my own,” I said. “It’s one of the conditions.”
“I know. In my contract, it is specified that you shouldn’t know of my presence. I was to be an invisible guardian. But things changed when assassins started coming after you. Your father and I both thought I would protect you from the dangers of the forest, not from people with daggers.”
“You broke the Master’s trust,” the man said. He chuckled darkly, then spat on the ground – a show of disgust. “I cannot let this union be built on a lie.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked exasperated.
“Who is your Master?” Taran, the leshy, asked.
The man ignored us. I saw him reach behind him, and Taran yelled at him, but it was too late. He pulled out another knife and lunged at the leshy. I thought he’d lunge at me, but the leshy monster was a bigger problem.
He didn’t stand a chance. Within seconds, Taran had him wrapped in vines and branches. With one branch, he snatched the knife away, and with all the others, he built what looked like a coffin around him. He dropped him on the ground, and the man twisted inside the contraption, struggling to get out. It was no use. He screamed in frustration.
Taran snapped his branches free of the coffin, then pushed it away with his roots. I watched in utter astonishment. I’d never seen a monster like him, capable of building things with his body and then detaching himself from them. I wondered if he was in pain. It must’ve hurt him to snap his own branches like that. They were, technically, his limbs.
“So, my father hired you,” I said. I lowered the knife. “I’ve heard of Monster Security Agency. It’s the biggest private security agency in the country, isn’t it?”
“Top of the line bodyguards,” he said. “I’m one of them, and my specialization is the wilderness, as you can see. If there’s a job that needs to be done in the woods, I’m the guy.”
I nodded. “You blend in.” I was trying to understand how it was possible that he’d followed me for a day and a half, and I hadn’t noticed.
“I move with the sway of the trees when the wind blows through their branches,” he said. “I stop when you stop. I keep my distance, so you won’t notice me. If you catch me moving from the corner of your eye, you’ll think it’s the wind, or birds playing in my branches.”
“But there are no birds.”
He smiled at that. His mouth was wide, placed underneath a small stump that I guessed was his nose. Though he hadn’t had that stump a few minutes ago. He’d just grown it, possibly to make it seem like he had a human face.
“No. Nothing lives in my branches,” he said. “As I said, I am not a tree.”
“You’re a leshy,” I whispered.
I didn’t know a lot about monsters. I’d never met one, and considering this was my first encounter, I would’ve argued that I was doing okay. Monsters weren’t welcome in my world. And when I said, “my world”, what I meant was an elite of old-money families that did business amongst themselves, and kept their social interactions to their small, tight-knit group. It was the way I was raised, and I’d never questioned it. Why would I? You never know what you don’t know.
There were many things I didn’t know, it seemed.
“My father shouldn’t have hired you,” I said. “But if he hadn’t, I would’ve been dead now.”
“You deserve to be dead,” the man yelled from inside his coffin of branches. “Tree, leshy, whatever you are,” he addressed Taran. “You know I’m right. You know who her father is. I can’t believe you’re working for him. You accepted his money, when you should’ve chopped his head off like he’d done with the trees for years.”
I bit the inside of my lip. The man wasn’t lying. Now that I’d calmed down a little, I could think more clearly, and I had to admit that the main material needed for building furniture was wood. And one could only get wood from trees. My family’s company had been cutting down trees, but it had all been legal. Did that excuse anything? I didn’t like where this train of thought was taking me.
Taran seemed to be hesitating. I looked at him, waiting for a reaction.
“Why aren’t you saying something? Say something,” the man challenged him.
“Well,” I asked. “What do you think?” I crossed my arms over my chest and braced myself for Taran’s answer.
“He’s not wrong,” he said to me, gently. “The damage Everhart Furniture has done is extensive. And they’re not stopping anytime soon. If ever.”
I swallowed heavily. “And do you also think that I should pay for my father’s sins? That I deserve to die?”
His branches shuffled and his leaves rustled. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I was hired to do a job, and I’m doing it. I’m not a justice maker, like he claims to be.”
That should’ve made me feel better, but it didn’t. To hide my disappointment, I went to retrieve my backpack.
“We’re losing daylight,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if continuing my journey was the right thing to do. The circumstances had changed. I took a few steps, then stopped, unsure of the direction. I took out my map.
“What do we do with him?” Taran asked.
Right.
I looked at the man trapped in the branch box and shrugged.
“How am I supposed to know? You put him in there.”
Taran’s leaves rustled in a way that it sounded like he’d let out a deep sigh. Our eyes met. We were both at a loss.