Chapter 23 Magyk & Mischief
Chapter twenty-three
Magyk & Mischief
Oberon took my hand and pressed his forehead against it, then motioned for me to follow him. We walked around the dais and I nearly reached out, intending to touch the dripping branches, but thought better of it.
“Is that where all the Arden’s water flows to?” I asked him. “Does it go underground?”
Oberon threw a knowing smile over his shoulder.
“Yes. This tree is sacred to Titania, so when she took the throne, it became the heart of the forest.” My tongue burned with questions, but he continued walking, heading for the opposite side of the enormous stone circle.
I caught up and he slowed his pace, allowing us to walk side-by-side.
“Can I ask—”
“Anything,” he interjected. “You may ask any question you like, and I will do my best to answer.”
“What happened…when I was born? Why did you leave me at Locksley?”
Oberon took a moment to gather himself before speaking.
“After you were born, your mother faded quickly, and your father was nowhere to be found. I swore to her that I would keep you safe, but I knew you could not stay in the Arden. As desperately as I wanted to, as much as it killed me to take you away, please understand, Marina. I had to do what was best for you. I knew Titania would blame our daughter’s death on two people: myself, and—”
“Henry…” I whispered. “Devil told me his name.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Devil?”
“Oh, I mean…Puck…”
“Of course.” Oberon sighed again, but did not push the issue.
“I feared that if Titania saw you, a half-human child in place of her own daughter, she might have done you harm. She is not a monster, but…the wrath of a grieving mother spares nothing and no one. Since I could not keep you in our world, I had to prepare you for a life amongst humans.” He slowly reached out to touch the white braid hanging over my shoulder.
“I used the strongest magyk I know to glamour you, change your appearance, suppress any signs of your fay blood. And I chose Locksley because your father had spoken of it many times. He said it was a peaceful place, where women cared for one another, safe from the machinations of powerful men.” I nodded slowly, my heart aching at the idea that my father had helped shape so much of my life, even after his own was taken.
We stopped walking and I realized that we were now standing behind the Bower, in front of the tallest, broadest pine tree I had ever seen.
It grew separate from its fellows, up against the base of a foothill with the side eroded away into a rocky bluff.
A canopy sprouted from the top, but only a few large limbs protruding from the trunk.
Each one of these supported a structure that looked, from my vantage point, like a balcony.
I also spotted narrow openings, like arrow slits, carved into the trunk at regular intervals.
It was a tower, with faint, warm lights shining from the windows.
“My home,” Oberon said, “and yours too, now, if you wish. I have a room ready for you.”
“Thank you.” I swallowed hard, the thought of being away from the Hollow causing an odd twinge of sadness.
“Before we go in though, I thought you might want to see…” He waved, indicating the base of the tree’s trunk, where I could see markings in the bark. They were tiny handprints, stick figures, strange symbols and letters, and a sloppily-written name.
Lyric.
I stepped forward to brush my fingers over the handprint. She must have only been a child when she had burned it into the tree somehow, because it was less than half the size of mine. I dragged my eyes away from the carvings to look back at Oberon.
“You said that you glamoured me, as a baby, to suppress signs that I was fay…” He raised an eyebrow and I continued. “Does that mean I might have my own magyk, besides the healing gift? Something…real?”
Oberon nodded, his face solemn. “I cannot say what it might be, but I think it impossible that you do not have one, considering who you are.”
“Can you unlock it?” I asked. “Un-glamour the magyk, like what happened with my ears?”
“I would like to try, yes,” he replied, appearing slightly surprised at my eagerness. “If you are to fulfill your bargain and banish the Rot, your simple healing magyk will not be enough.”
I turned my hands in front of me, wondering how it might feel to channel light the way Devil and Titania did, or to control shadows like Oberon, then met his dark, keen gaze. “When can we start?”
Gently, Oberon covered my fists with his fingers and said, “Tomorrow, after you are rested. For tonight, I would like you to try something simple.”
He faced the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes, then called out two tendrils of silvery shadow.
“Our magyk is merely a physical manifestation of our connection to the Arden, and so we use the shadows or light, or whatever form the gift takes, to send our power into the environment. To control and command the world around us.”
“Like when you created that chair last night?”
“Exactly, but the source of our gifts, of all magyk…” He took my wrist and moved my hand forward, pressing it to the trunk of the tree. “…Is her.”
“Her?” I whispered.
“Her,” Oberon breathed. “The Arden. The Huntress. The life running through the earth beneath you. It is her blood, her beating heart, her spirit. Stay still, close your eyes, and listen.”
I put my other hand on the tree and tried to find what he was talking about, but all I could feel was rough bark. With hunched shoulders, I let my eyes close and pursed my lips, but then a gentle hand pressed on my upper spine.
“Your body is not the source of magyk, but it is a channel,” Oberon said. “You must let it flow freely. Relax and let go.”
Only when I released my breath and unclenched my muscles did I finally feel it.
A thrum.
A rush.
A pulse of life beneath my hands—like a song, or a drum beat.
A bow being pulled across the strings of a fiddle.
The tiny wing beats of a moth fluttering against my skin.
The steady thud thud thud of Will’s heartbeat when I laid my head on his chest. A burst of emotion shot down my body, like it was being forcefully drawn into a bubbling current running through the tree, and the words rushed out of me along with it.
“I feel something!”
“Excellent!” Oberon crowed. “It seems, in spite of the barriers I placed, you have maintained some connection with the Arden. Tomorrow, we will see exactly what that connection is. Now, watch.” He put a hand on the tree beside mine and his shadows poured into the bark, twisting the wood and molding it into a simple door, with carvings of bears running along the edge and a handle made from a polished roots.
He pushed it open and stood aside for me to enter.
I found myself in a dimly lit, circular entry room at the base of a twisting staircase, and bent to remove my boots out of habit.
The stairs led up through the center of the massive, hollow tree, which was lit by glass sconces full of magyk fireflies, like the ones Devil made.
The first landing we came to had a single, open archway leading into a small kitchen.
For some reason, the idea of Oberon, Faerie King of the Arden, cooking his own food made me giggle.
But then a plump, brown-skinned woman appeared in the entry.
A pair of small goat horns grew from her head and when she walked forward, I heard the clopping of hooves beneath her long skirt.
Another faun, like Larch and his children.
“Marina,” said Oberon, “this is Ceres. Anything you need, she will help you.”
The woman took my hand and dropped into a low curtsey.
“‘Tis an honor, my lady. As it was my honor to care for your mother.” I was taken aback to see tears gathering in her eyes, but Oberon merely gave her a patient smile and steered me away, up the stairs again.
“Your return to the Arden means a great deal to many of the Fair Folk,” he said softly.
My reply came out tinged with unintended bitterness. “Because they think I can heal the Rot?”
“Because of how much Lyric meant to her people.”
I fell into a sheepish silence as we continued to climb.
On the next landing, Oberon held his arm out to indicate that I should be the one to open the door, this one carved with dragonflies, grasshoppers, moths, and crickets.
I walked through holding my breath, but released it in a low gasp once I was inside.
The half-moon shaped room was truly like something from a dream, or a storybook.
Warm, red-wood walls and a low ceiling created a feeling of coziness, which was only augmented by the merry fire crackling in a squat, copper stove.
Atop the stove, a kettle poured out gyres of steam.
The long, curved wall opposite the door was covered by a tangled web of sturdy branches, which had been flattened on top to form shelves and were broken only by two slitted windows.
These branches also twisted around the top of a wisteria-curtained archway leading onto a wide balcony.
To my right, a large desk had been carved out of the wall, with more shelves above it, and to my left was a magnificent bed, made from more smooth, twisting branches, which appeared to grow from the interior of the tree itself.
They formed themselves into four posts and an intricately knotted headboard.
Curling up the posts to create a canopy over the mattress was a lush crop of woodbine, which lent its delicate smell to the entire room.
At the foot of the bed, another knot of branches formed something that looked like a wardrobe, and beside it sat the trunk of clothing Arachne had given me.
I walked into the center of the room and spun slowly, taking in every detail with a lump in my throat. “It’s…incredible. And it’s mine?”