Six weeks later
On a chilly morning in late October, Arthur was lugging the Throckmorton-Prentices’ boxed-up things through the workshop when
a wagon emerged from the forest. Hitched to the wagon was Maurice, gifted to them (officially) by Agnes Livingston, and in
the driver’s seat was Elspeth.
Keeping a lookout from the garden wall, Sasha sang out, “She’s here!”
Charlotte hurried through the workshop, trailed by Jonas. She ran to the wagon and kissed Elspeth full on the mouth almost
before it had stopped moving.
“Brought you a gift,” Elspeth said, when they’d pulled apart. From a heavy earthenware pot in back, Calyx emerged. It slung
itself joyfully at Charlotte; she caught it in her arms with a laugh. They’d left it with Elspeth’s family in Port Lorne when
they’d come home, since they would shortly return.
Sasha jumped off the wall and clambered into the wagon to hug Elspeth.
“What d’you think of driving?” Elspeth asked. “Sit right in my lap and I could teach you.”
Charlotte made an offended sound.
“I don’t think Mama will let me,” Sasha said.
Elspeth laughed. “When’s that ever stopped you, bug?”
“Could I learn, too?” Jonas asked shyly.
Charlotte looked at them in astonishment, and Elspeth laughed harder.
“C’mon, now, Lottie. Living in Port Lorne, best for ’em to learn sometime.”
Arthur smiled, glad to see them all happy, but something ached inside him. He’d been so busy preparing for the move that he
had not yet traveled back to the vale. Ira had visited once, a couple weeks ago, appearing as a stag just within the trees.
Arthur had run and clung to him this same way until Ira had peeled him off so they could walk together through the wood. At
sunset, Ira had seen him to the tree line, shivered back into a stag, and vanished in the forest’s depths.
Hopping down, Elspeth started loading boxes into the wagon. Arthur joined her, wanting desperately to ask about Ira, but he
couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Elspeth caught his eye. “Spending his time traveling the forest, your man. Making sure the sickness is truly gone. Clear-cutting
ain’t stopped, but replanting the first tree’s slowed it some.”
“I’m glad,” Arthur said softly. “Has, er, has anyone else who turned into a tree been . . . ?”
Elspeth shook her head.
“He hoped they might, but no one’s walked out alive but Maggie. Workers in Port Lorne are throwing a fit, let me tell you.
With three camps gone already, the rest of ’em won’t go back without a promise of more money, and money to their families
if they vanish. There’s talk of unionizing.” She opened and reclosed a box that hadn’t been shut properly. “Ira’s looking
forward to seeing you. On our way back through.”
Arthur returned to packing the wagon in silence, pausing when his back spasmed.
His throat and cheek throbbed, too. Despite the magical healing, after all these weeks, they pained him periodically.
He still couldn’t lift too much, with the wounds healing on his torso.
Charlotte had caught him filling each box to bursting and immediately repacked them lighter.
When they’d spent several days with Elspeth’s family in Port Lorne to recuperate back in September, Arthur had hardly enjoyed
it. Everyone else had seemed happy. Maggie, grateful to be home, and Elspeth, grateful to have her there. The children, especially
Sasha, who had found the city so new and exciting that it had been difficult to keep them from running off to explore. Agnes,
when they’d wired her; she’d wired back to say Gracie’s sickness had cleared up—though it had left her with fatigue, pain,
and dizzy spells, whether because she was an old woman or because she’d had it for so long—and to ask that they please bring
the clock back with them. Charlotte, who had gotten on with Elspeth’s grandfather in particular, though he and Elspeth’s grandmother
both delicately referred to her as “Elspeth’s friend.”
Granddad McIntire was a skinny, balding little man with medium brown skin and a magnificent beard, a loud laugh for someone
his size, and an interest in the medicinal qualities of plants. He’d been fascinated by Calyx, who’d been disguised as a houseplant
in the room Elspeth shared with Maggie until now.
While Charlotte and Granddad McIntire had pored over the plants in Maggie’s garden together, Arthur had kept Granny McIntire
company in the kitchen, reading romance to her. She’d gotten into it herself in the last decade, but her fading eyesight made
it hard for her to read. He’d stumbled over the sex scenes, not entirely sure it was appropriate to read them to an old woman,
until she’d told him peevishly that she had six children and knew perfectly well what sex was, so he might as well let her
enjoy herself.
(He’d almost stumbled worse after that, but she was so strong-willed that he didn’t dare skip such scenes lest she catch him
at it.)
Despite the embarrassment, sharing the novels had been a comfort. So had fixing Granny McIntire’s old clock, which she’d asked him about upon learning of his affinity for timepieces. It was the first timepiece he’d seen, apart from his father’s watch, since leaving home.
Otherwise, Port Lorne had held no charms for him. The McIntires’ house was loud and crowded, overwhelming. The city was a
noisy labyrinth whose factories belched out such smoke that Arthur could hardly believe he’d ever minded the smell of the
cannery. Elspeth’s cousins teased him without him realizing that was what they were doing—until Elspeth overheard and sounded
them out for it. And he couldn’t stop thinking of Ira alone in the forest, unable to leave it, without even Calyx for company.
Now, he longed to see Ira so badly that he was sick with it.
At last the wagon was loaded. Arthur, the children, the goat, the chickens, Calyx (in its pot), and the cat were safely ensconced
in back. Charlotte was beside Elspeth in the driver’s seat. Elspeth flapped the driving lines, and they were off.
Arthur twisted around for one last look at the cottage in which he’d grown up. Already he missed Seacliff a little, despite
the years of loneliness, the lack of friends, the constant feeling of inadequacy. He missed the cottage with its memories
of his parents far more.
If the cottage shared his pang of regret, however, it gave no sign. Its white clapboard sides receded and vanished in the
thick foliage of Shiftleaf.
With the heart of the wood restored, the forest was at the height of its autumnal glory, girt all in reds and golds.
The paths shifted, more as if the trees were going about their tree business than as if they wanted to lure one into their depths and prevent one’s escape.
Rabbits and squirrels scurried through the undergrowth, opaque and unveined.
Birds sang in the canopy or flew past on their way south.
The air was chill, but no unseasonable ice or snow coated the ground.
When they reached the swinging bridge, Ira was waiting for them.
Arthur gave a wordless cry, leaped from the wagon, and scurried across the bridge to fall into his arms. Ira held him and
kissed him and only pulled away, laughing, when Elspeth called out, “Oy! Some of us would like to cross!”
Ira pulled Arthur off the bridge, holding his hand. The wagon crossed, the children jumped out (Sasha flung herself at Ira),
and Elspeth and Charlotte dismounted and loosed Maurice from his traces. The horse moseyed over to the nearest patch of sunlight
and set about grazing. The goat and chickens joined him. Calyx clambered from its pot and slithered about the vale, curious
about the changes to its old home.
The snow had melted. It had swelled the stream and left behind a soft green carpet of clover and moss. Like elsewhere in the
forest, the trees were red and gold instead of barren as they’d been before. Ira’s clothes were autumn leaves and flowers.
Arthur wondered idly whether they’d be more difficult to remove now.
They unloaded enough of their belongings to stay a couple nights. Sasha darted back outside to explore. Jonas followed to
make sure she stayed in the vale. Elspeth and Charlotte made small talk with Ira for a while, then wandered into the forest
alone for reasons Arthur pretended not to understand.
He and Ira sat in companionable silence on matching stools outside. The children chased each other, Calyx, the cat, the goat,
the chickens, and sometimes Maurice around the vale. Ira filled a page sketching them. He kept glancing over as if he meant
to say something, but he kept not saying anything.
Arthur couldn’t stand it. “How have you been?”
Ira gazed around, smiling. Arthur had thought him beautiful before, but with that soft smile, he was more beautiful than ever.
“Good. The forest is whole again.” His smile faded. “It won’t last. They’re scouting new areas to fell.”
“We won’t let them,” Arthur said at once, but Ira shook his head.
“We probably can’t stop them. But perhaps we can stall them. Prevent them from felling so much.”
“If we can’t—” Arthur turned out his pockets “—we’ll replant the tree. No matter how many times they cut it down.”
In his pockets was a bounty of silver acorns. Ira’s lips twitched. He turned out his own pockets; they were full of silver
acorns, too. Charlotte had given most of hers to Kitty Tierney for safekeeping, in case the sickness ever returned, and told
her how to use them to cure it. The rest she’d bring to Port Lorne for the same reason.
Arthur edged his stool closer to Ira’s. Giving a small smile, Ira reached for his hand.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
Arthur kissed his fingers. He’d missed Ira so much it made him ache constantly. He didn’t know how he’d bear leaving him.
This was precisely why he never pursued anything. Why he let his dreams remain just that: shining bubbles of fantasy, never
to be popped by the ugly realities of life. He could’ve dreamed of romance and happily-ever-afters forever. They would’ve
been perfect and beautiful and free of all sorrow and difficult decisions.