Chapter Forty
Austin
“Smith! Please, you gotta help!” Austin yelped, waving his arms over his head as Smith and Kevin came rushing through the front gate.
Everything was wrecked. There was water everywhere and half the trees beyond the gate were knocked over.
But the rain stopped pummeling his head, and the tornados were gone, so that was a good sign!
Until he realized the tree ate Hyacinth.
Kinda. He pushed through the tree branches to watch her be pulled down into the soil by a bunch of roots, all tangling up around her and dragging her deep.
He dropped to his knees and tried to dig her out.
But the tree hoisted him up by his thighs and chucked him across the yard.
Austin didn’t even know the tree was sentient.
He expected to face another dryad, only to stare at the unmoving willow.
That’s where Smith found him, fighting with branches and yowling Hyacinth’s name.
“What happened?” Smith panted for air, putting a hand to Austin’s chest. The slender walked him back a step to break his concentration with the tree. “Big guy, what’s going on?”
Austin whined, jabbing a finger at the tree. “That fucking tree ate Hyacinth!”
Smith sighed, “How did it eat her?”
“It slurped her down with its roots!” Austin roared, reaching out to smack the branches that smacked him right back. “Let her go! She’s not yours!”
“Austin,” Smith warned.
“Let her go, ya hunk o’ bark! That’s MY flower!”
“Austin!” Smith snapped.
Austin swallowed over his tongue as he glanced back down to the lawyer before him. Smith flattened his gloves against Austin’s shirt. The suit clad man, not a drop or chunk of debris on him, grimaced. “Why are you all wet?”
“What do you mean? Why aren’t you wet?” Austin grumbled, flapping at hand at Smith petulantly.
“Why’s the yard under an inch of water?” Kevin chuckled nervously as he tiptoed through the puddle. “Hey, the graveyards pretty washed up, we should let Lord Rosemont know. He’s going to want to keep them bones under the ground.”
Austin, Smith, and Kevin all studied the graveyard that was currently flooded across the damaged yard.
Three tombstones were lying flat against the ground under the water.
There were a multitude of body parts, all varying in decay, bobbing down the river that formed beside the house into the backyard.
“I don’t think a mop’s gonna cut it here, guys,” Kevin exhaled heavily. He propped his hands up on his hips, shaking his head in dismay.
“Kevin!” Smith and Austin groaned.
“What?! We were all thinking it!” Kevin muttered, glaring at the other two. Austin returned his attention to Smith.
The long, faceless man paced away from him, plucking bone out of the fence where Hyacinth was snatched up by the tornado. “Austin, what happened here while I was gone?”
“The storm happened. You didn’t see it? We had two hurricanes on either side of the fence, and the rain was just dumping over our heads!
And Stewy got out of the barn and found his way into the library.
He torments Greggory, so Hyacinth and I marched him back out to the barn when she realized that she could stop all the bad weather if she was the one in control.
If she was a grove witch. So, she was trying to commune with the tree. Then it, you know, ate her.”
Smith kicked a slimy rock away from the fence as more of the water surged out into the world beyond the fence.
It wasn’t enough, everything was soaked.
All the soil beyond the fence was ripped up, so it wouldn’t get soaked up.
Their only hope was for the heat of the sun to bake most of it off enough that it eventually dried up.
Or someone really thirsty came through.
“King’s Fall is protected by the shield, so we didn’t see any of this weather.
I knew it was pouring when I left, but this?
” Smith motioned at the lawn. He shook his staticky head before returning his attention to Austin.
“Alright, so the tree has Hyacinth. Well, that can’t be hard to get her out, right? ”
“I tried that,” Austin huffed, slapping at the branches only to get wacked by four branches. One right after the other, thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack! “See! This tree didn’t used to be a bully and now it’s eaten Hyacinth and now it’s smacking me around.”
Smith chortled as he slid up to the branches.
They didn’t part for him, but they didn’t slap the Slender either.
They merely stiffened. Bristling, like a pack of dogs protecting their home, the tree shivered off all the rain.
It splattered on Austin’s face. He huffed, squeegeeing his face off with his hand.
Can’t dry off when everything is just wet.
“Well, you can’t get good with everything,” Kevin teased. The zombie stood at Austin’s side, hands on his hips.
“What’s that mean?” Austin grumbled.
“You’re a natural when it comes to the animals. You’re really good with people, everyone who gets to know you, loves you. So…it’s only fair that plants hate you, big fella.”
Austin scowled harder, glaring at the tree.
It swatted at him. He dodged it, but the fury that pumped through him from the simple act was enough for him to understand why clerics burned down trees.
He suddenly didn’t feel bad for letting Carl pee all over the willow while they were gardening that day.
“Well, the good news is she’s not been eaten.” Smith stalked around the tree, staring through the branches like slates. “She’s coming back up.”
“What!” Austin lurched forward, trying to push him way through.
He was, unfortunately, knocked back by a couple of branches.
Inches from ripping them off, he stiffened when a familiar form crawled out from the mud.
She was soaked. Every inch of her was coated in mud.
A stick protruded from her hair and there was definitely moss taking up purchase on top of her feet.
But when Hyacinth pushed aside the branches, to step out into the sunlight, she was smiling.
Her wings were the first thing he noticed. “They’re fixed.”
“Yeah, I healed up underground. Apparently if I get mortally wounded, I can just bury myself in the soil of my grove and I’ll wake up brand new.
Which…explains Sabine. A lot.” Hyacinth laughed it off, the mud cracking off her face.
It fell away, dehydrated and in thick clumps that hit the sopping wet ground around them.
Hyacinth glanced around at herself before she grimaced up at Austin. “I could use a bath.”
“As could Austin,” Smith chuckled, plucking another clump out of her hair. He dropped a bundle of little white mushrooms that fluttered away on tiny wings. Everyone watched them chitter like squirrels before escaping out into the woods beyond the fence.
“Hyacinth,” Austin whispered, taking up her dirty hands.
She brightened. He rubbed his thumbs against the sides of her hands, detaching the soil.
All of it crumbled away after a moment, leaving the dirty but alive Hyacinth beneath.
She was still undead. Her wings were still made of bone and there were still stitches along her arms. Her left hand was distinctly different than her right.
But there was a life glittering underneath her skin that hadn’t been there before, a magic that thrummed.
The willow’s branches shook off the last bit of the rain, and their leaves grew a deeper shade of green. Even the clovers around them perked up and the water began to soak into the ground. Sunlight glittered over their heads as Hyacinth squeezed his palms.
“Why did the tree drag you under it like that?” Austin asked finally.
“Oh? That!” She laughed, twirling around to talk with her hands.
Hyacinth opened the trees canopy to show off its thick roots that pulsed with a dark, green magic.
“I needed to commune with it. Claim it as my own. Put down roots. If this is to be my home until the end of time, I need to be rooted to it.”
“What?” Kevin blinked rapidly.
“Well, I’m a Rosemont, aren’t I?” She tossed her crusty hair off her shoulder, sending dirt and moths into the air.
“Time I acted like one. I realized that not only do I feel like a person. I want to be a person. I want to be a part of this family, and so I’m not going to let Sabine hurt any of you.
Not anymore. It’s time I put down roots.
And I think, since I put down roots I think I pulled Sabine’s up.
I think that’s all I had to do. Because I don’t feel her, it’s just me.
This.” She motioned at her dirt encrusted self and smiled so bright it made the sun jealous. “This is me!”
Austin scooped her face up in his hands, pulling her lips to his. She giggled the whole time. Throwing her arms around him, the air filled with flying mushroom pixies and faerie dust. Her wings fluttered behind her, kicking up a little wind.
“Hyacinth Rosemont,” Austin murmured against her lips.
She whispered back hoarsely, “I love the sound of it.”
“You should, you picked it out,” Smith snorted, dusting off his palms. “Now, let’s get you both inside and washed off before anyone else gets dirt on my suit.”
“Think fast!” Kevin chucked a ball of mud at Smith, who simply blinked out of existence. He reformed at the door with an irritated grumble. Kevin pouted, “Aw man, I thought I was really gonna get him that time.”
“Smith’s too slick for that,” Austin shrugged, propping Hyacinth on a hip and wrapping her dirty feet around his waist. “If you really want to get him, you’ve got to get Melody to—”
“Ehh!” Smith made that sharp sound one does to a dog to keep it from eating something, waggling a long finger at the three of them. “Inside! Now!”
Kevin threw up his muddy hands in defeat and stomped inside.
Austin passed Smith, who held the door open for all of them.
As he turned in the doorway to tease Smith more, he was unceremoniously shooed for being filthy.
He would have accused Smith of being Agatha, if the banshee didn’t drop out of the ceiling at that moment to shriek about mud on her clean carpets.
Austin threw back his head, laughing so hard it ached.
A delightful, delicious ache that caused him not to even glance in the direction of the hallway mirror.
In fact…no one looked at the mirror. And no one saw the shadow slink out of sight.