xxxv. In which Arthur finds someone unexpected
It was nearly dark by the time Arthur located the stream again. Despite its blackness, the sight comforted him. Shrubs clustered
nearby, closer to the water than he would’ve liked, but they looked healthy. He could shelter in them for the night.
“That’s something,” he told the cat. She headbutted his ankle.
He squeezed into the shrubs’ midst. Twigs scratched his face, but once inside he found he could fit semicomfortably. If he
curled on his side, he could lie down.
“It will certainly feel safer sleeping in here than out there,” he said to Freya. “Even if it’ll be awfully dark.”
Nosing at the shrubs’ roots, she ignored him.
He clambered back out, crept to the edge of the stream, and peered up at the break in the canopy. Stars glimmered between
shreds of cloud drifting across the velvety sky. No rain tonight, probably. No wet socks. That was something more.
Sighing, he wondered whether Ira had made it home yet. He might’ve, if he’d flown the whole way. He might as well transform,
now; he could hardly become more beastly than he already was.
Arthur swallowed. Yesterday morning, he’d been so afraid Ira would remain a stag forever. He hadn’t realized then how much worse it could be. How Ira could transform in other ways, losing himself to the forest’s anger.
What must it feel like, Arthur wondered, to lose one’s will—one’s self—to the wood? His heart clenched. No wonder Ira had
been so scared.
Letting out a breath, Arthur squeezed back into the shelter of the shrubs.
In the morning, he awoke stiff and sore with the cat tucked into his side. The stream burbled outside his shrubby shelter.
“What d’you think?” he asked. Freya stretched luxuriously. “Should we keep following the stream and hope for the best?”
Beginning her morning bath, Freya did not respond, except to hack up a hair ball. She resumed her bathing. Arthur’s nose wrinkled.
He dragged himself from the shrubs, grimacing as his back acted up. His stomach rumbled. He gazed at it dolefully.
“I can’t do anything for you right now,” he told it. “I’m sure something in this forest bears fruit, but I don’t know that
I’d be able to tell a poisonous berry from a safe berry—assuming any berry in this forest is safe.”
He imagined biting into a berry that spit black ooze instead of juice, and lost his appetite.
“Come on, Freya.”
They set out, following the stream. Arthur kept one hand on the acorn and the other in his pocket, on his father’s watch,
but his mind wandered back to Ira. Ira touching him, tenderly and often, long before they’d kissed. Taking care of him.
Asking him to stay.
Ira going home without him because he was too frightened and angry to listen, even though he’d said Arthur made him feel hopeful.
Ira accusing Arthur of never trying to change anything, which stung no matter how true.
Well, Arthur was trying now. He’d continue onward, replant the heart of the wood, and save himself and Charlotte and Ira whether Ira thought it possible or not.
The open sky above the stream didn’t improve his mood: dingy gray like a used dishcloth. Freya crouched periodically in the
grass, flicking her tail, and pounced at a spider or a late-season butterfly. Arthur sighed. She’d seemed much better company
before he’d had another person to talk to.
His mood dropped lower the longer they walked. The water still smelled mechanical, the sky’s color did not improve, he was
hungry and thirsty, and he kept thinking with a shudder of yesterday’s fog. At midmorning, feet aching, he dropped his knapsack
and sat on a rock by the stream. Breathing deeply, he turned the rowan cross over and over, ran his fingers along its edges.
“We’ll never make it, will we? I don’t know why I thought I could do this.”
Pressed against him, Freya didn’t respond. Her ears twitched at a distant rustling.
The rustling came closer, and now it sounded bigger. Something was coming their way, and quickly. Arthur staggered to his
feet and lunged for the nearest stick. He raised it like a sword, arms trembling.
A creature burst through the trees. Arthur dropped his stick, scrambling out of the way—then realized what he was seeing.
A horse. A massive gelding with a tan coat and flaxen hair and feathered feet. Except for the scarring on his hindquarters,
he looked as he had when Arthur had last seen him.
“Maurice?”
“Uncle Arthur!”
His heart leaped. When Maurice turned, Sasha vaulted off his bare back. She barreled into Arthur with a laugh, hugging him tight. Behind her, Jonas dismounted more carefully. They stumbled, but Arthur caught them and pulled them into his arms.
It was a trick of the forest, it had to be, but Arthur laughed through his tears, kissing the tops of the children’s heads
over and over. They were reassuringly warm and solid. Freya arched against them, twisting between all of their legs.
Maurice stood guard. Two pillowcases were slung over his back with rope.
“I told you we’d find him!” Sasha said in triumph. “Hullo, Freya!”
“Did not,” Jonas mumbled, sniffling into Arthur’s neck. “You said we’d find Mama.”
Arthur’s stomach clenched. “How long since she left, duck?”
“She left Saturday to come find you with Miss Elspeth,” Sasha said. “Miss Tierney has been looking after us.”
“She was supposed to take us to the convent Monday morning,” Jonas mumbled. “But . . .”
They scuffed their shoes.
“But we came looking for Mama,” Sasha said. “Jonas wanted me to go home, but I wouldn’t. I guess it’s okay they came, though,
since it was their idea to borrow Maurice.”
Jonas looked up anxiously. “We’ll bring him back when we get home, honest.”
Arthur hugged them tight. “What day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
The better part of a week since Charlotte had come after him. Arthur swallowed. He had to believe she was all right, wherever
she was, for the children’s sake as well as his own. He’d made it this far unscathed after only one day less since leaving the vale—although that had mostly been Ira’s doing.
Then he processed something Sasha had said. “Who’s Miss Elspeth?”
“She wears trousers.” Sasha’s eyes gleamed. “I want to be just like her.”
“She’s a stranger, kind of,” Jonas said. “But she helped Mama up the hill last week. They came looking for you together.”
Charlotte wasn’t alone. Or hadn’t been, when she’d left Seacliff. The Lord of the Wood wasn’t traveling with her, but someone
was. That was something, Arthur told himself, it was, it was, but his brain threatened to spiral into panic. He didn’t know where Charlotte was, whether she was alive, and now the children
were in the forest, too—although, while that worried him, he couldn’t help but be grateful to see them.
A bandage was tied inexpertly around Jonas’s arm. Arthur examined it, worried one of the strange, translucent animals had
hurt them. The bandage was rusty with dried blood.
“What’s this, duck?”
Jonas shivered. “These giant eagles chased us. One of them tried to eat Sasha.”
“I tied the bandage myself,” Sasha said proudly.
Arthur chuckled. She sounded as if she’d had a fun romp through a magical forest, with no concern for how the forest had tried
to kill them. And while the eagles were terrible, they weren’t infected, or hadn’t been when he’d seen them.
“You did a marvelous job, just as Jonas did a marvelous job making sure the stormwings didn’t eat you. Can I see?”
“You don’t like blood,” Jonas said.
Arthur’s mouth twitched, but his skin prickled. “I’ve had some practice with it now.”
His mouth puckered when he untied the bandage, however. A gash in Jonas’s arm dribbled blood sluggishly.
“Do you have more bandages, duck?”
“I’ll get them.” Sasha dragged the pillowcases from Maurice’s back with difficulty. He snuffled at her hair. She kissed his
nose loudly and dragged her burden to Arthur. “They’re in Jonas’s.”
Arthur had no idea which was Jonas’s, since both pillowcases were identical, but he opened one, was immediately corrected, and opened the other.
The corner of his mouth turned up. Each pillowcase held a bottle of water, a change of clothes, whatever dried or cured food they’d found around the house, and a few things—like the bandages—pilfered from Charlotte’s medical supplies.
Sasha’s also had a kitchen knife; Jonas’s, a pair of scissors and a ball of twine.
The only things out of place were Sasha’s old rag doll, Charlotte’s favorite whistle, and one of Arthur’s novels.
He clutched it briefly and set it aside in favor of the bandages. “What’s the book for, duck?”
Jonas pinkened. “That was Sasha’s idea. In case we found you and you were scared. That’s what the whistle is for, too. In
case Mama was scared.”
“And the doll, for Sasha.” Arthur wiped blood from their arm. “What about you, duck?”
They shook their head. “I didn’t think anything would make me feel better in here. Until we found you.”
Smiling crookedly, Arthur kissed their forehead. Their flush deepened, but they leaned against him when he finished rebandaging
their arm.
“Let’s take a look at you, Sasha,” he said.
She was scratched and bruised but on the whole unharmed. Arthur dabbed ointment onto her scratches. With the children at his
side, more or less safe and sound, a tiny flame of hope flickered to life inside him. They’d make it to the heart of the wood.
They’d replant the tree, heal the forest, find Charlotte—and go home. Together.
“Right,” Arthur said, with renewed determination. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Finding Mama?” Sasha asked, trying and failing to climb back onto Maurice. Arthur lifted her and the children’s makeshift saddlebags into place, smiling. Her skinny legs splayed wide across the gelding’s back, but she gripped his mane like she’d been born sitting there.
“I hope so,” Arthur said. “Maybe we’ll stumble across her on our way. But we’re going to the heart of the wood to plant Granddad’s
acorn.”
He offered Jonas a leg up, but they shook their head and clung to him. He squeezed their hand.
“Why?” Sasha asked.
“To heal the forest, duck. To make it safe for Mama. And for us. And . . .”
He faltered. He patted Maurice’s withers and started jauntily forward, but Sasha had never met an unended sentence she didn’t
like.
“And what?”
Shame needled Arthur’s insides, but Sasha’s eyes gleamed with curiosity, and he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint her.
“And,” he said, in the best bedtime story voice he could manage, “for the Lord of the Wood.”
Sasha gasped, which almost made the mention of Ira worth it. “You met him?”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” he lied, planning to do as George had done and tell them half-truths gilded in embellishments.
“Probably we’ll reach the heart of the wood before I’m done. It was a great silver tree . . .”
Jonas walked at their uncle’s side, clinging to his hand; Maurice was on his other side, with Sasha proudly on his back; Freya
trotted on ahead, tail held high. The ache in Arthur’s chest gave way to a soft, golden warmth. He’d been reunited with his
family, most of it, and soon—he gripped Jonas’s hand tighter, determined for the children’s sakes—he’d be reunited with Charlotte,
too. His family was all he’d ever needed.
But as the afternoon darkened and died away, he kept thinking of Ira. Alone, back in the vale with no one but Calyx for company, with a stab wound in his shoulder and an aching leg and no knee brace.
Arthur’s skin prickled. The things Ira had said to him, until this morning, had meant so much. Like something about Arthur
mattered. But it had stopped mattering the moment Ira was scared.
Ira had so many reasons to be scared, Arthur thought. The creep of moss and lichens over his body, the transformations that
left him different each time he turned back. The way he lost himself inside the creature or the forest’s rage. He’d transformed
anyway, over and over, to save Arthur.
Arthur hoped Ira would be all right, once the tree was replanted. Even if they never saw each other again, as seemed likely:
Every budding friendship Arthur had ever had, having broken off so abruptly as they all did, had concluded that way. This
time, at least, he knew why.
He gripped Jonas’s hand so tightly that his nibling squirmed out of his grasp. He loosened his grip.
“Sorry, duck.”
He spun his hopes for the Lord of the Wood into stories for the children, the same as his father had spun stories for him
and Charlotte so many years ago.