xvi. In which Arthur fixes a watch
Between helping Ira with chores, Arthur explored the vale for another way out, despite Ira’s insistence there wasn’t one.
To his astonishment, there was hardly more to the vale than what he’d seen. The funny little tree-house with the clearing
curving around three sides of it, the firepit, stone oven, well, clothesline, table, crates, stools, headstone, and flowers.
The pines and brambles surrounding them, so thick and dark.
This afternoon, as Ira darned shirts with Calyx at his feet, Arthur said, “I’ll get more kindling,” and scurried outside before
Ira could tell him they didn’t need more. Arthur examined the brambles for an opening through which he could slip. His cheek
throbbed where they had scratched him yesterday morning.
“Mrowr?”
Freya picked her way toward him, her nose wrinkled in distaste for the snow. Arthur scooped her up and buried his face in
her fur.
“We’ll get home, won’t we?”
She leaped down and wound into the thorns.
Arthur’s heart skipped a beat. “Careful!”
Only her golden eyes were visible. She chirped at him. They’re only brambles, she seemed to say, but he was so much bigger than she, and already with that scratch throbbing unnaturally on his cheek.
There. A gap in the canes. Arthur stepped into it, but the brambles tightened, grasping at him with thorny fingers. He hastily
backed away, rubbing his arms with a shudder. His imagination conjured canes wrapping around him, thorns puncturing his skin.
“I can’t,” he said shrilly. “They won’t let me through.”
Freya emerged and twisted around his ankles. He scooped her up again. She settled against his shoulder, purring.
“All right. All right. There must be another way.”
He followed the brambles around until he reached his father’s grave. He touched the top of the headstone, as he’d taken to
doing whenever he tramped around the clearing. Already the vale’s size wearied him; he couldn’t believe he’d ever thought
the village small, with the open sea stretching to the west. Here, the only openness was the sky above. Even that felt constricting,
framed in bare, black branches, eternally overcast.
Guilt plucked at him. Ira had been stuck here far longer than he had.
Still. Arthur had his family to get back to. And if he found his way out of the vale, surely Ira could leave, too.
Behind George’s grave were trees rather than brambles. Arthur stepped into their midst. He held his breath, anxious despite
their lack of black ooze.
He picked his way through with the cat clutched to his chest. If they went far enough, these trees had to give way to those
of the surrounding forest. Yes, those trees would drip black with strange, unsettling sap. Yes, skeletal birds would inhabit
them. But they’d mean he’d escaped the vale—the first step to going home.
Arthur hadn’t gotten far, however, when the trees thickened.
A few yards later, they took on menacing shapes.
This one twisted like a man looking over his shoulder.
That one had a cavity open in a silent scream.
A third reached for him with fingerlike branches.
He skittered away, but another clawed into his back.
He yelped, trying to break free. Everywhere he turned were more horrible, humanlike trees, each frozen in an aspect of terror.
His heart hammered. Branches grabbed at his coat, dragging him deeper into their midst. Whispers sounded in his ears. Arthur
slapped branches away, but they smacked him in the face. His cheeks and forehead stung.
Snow crunched nearby. “Arthur!”
“Over here!”
Arthur’s breathing was ragged. Trees groaned. His eyes played tricks on him; he caught a glimpse of Charlotte’s face in a
trunk. He squeezed his eyes shut, clutching the cat so tightly she hissed.
“Sorry.”
She headbutted his face.
Ira’s steps slowed as he neared. Arthur had grown used to their sound in the last day and a half, the softness of his paws’
padded steps, the limp that increased if Ira had been on his feet too long. Arthur had never heard his steps so fast as they’d
just been, however. When Ira drew up beside him, he was breathing hard. Calyx slithered after him, winding into a nearby tree.
“Are you all right?” Arthur asked.
“I couldn’t find you,” Ira snapped.
Arthur flinched but said, “There’s nowhere for me to go, apparently.”
He glanced at Calyx as if it might lash out at him for speaking to its lord that way. Perhaps he should have worried more
about the Lord of the Wood himself. Ira’s face was white, his jaw tense. His eyes blazed.
“What were you doing back here?”
“Trying to find a way out.”
“I told you,” Ira growled, “there is no way out.”
He dragged Arthur back through the trees, the same way he’d hauled him out of the house the night they’d met. Calyx followed,
slinging itself from tree to tree.
Arthur twisted. Ira’s fingers clawed into his shoulder. Freya swatted him. Ira didn’t seem to notice, but Calyx clicked at
her.
“Let me go,” Arthur squeaked, but Ira didn’t. Yanking free, Arthur stumbled back. He was grateful to be clear of the twisted
trees, but the Lord of the Wood’s white face and angry eyes scared him.
Ira’s gaze flickered over him. Chest heaving, he turned away, dragging a hand through his hair. Calyx crept out of the trees
and wound up his body, draping over his shoulders like a cape.
After a long moment, Ira’s posture loosened. He turned back to Arthur, calmer and less pale, but Arthur stayed where he was.
“I was afraid,” Ira said evenly, “the forest had done something to you.”
Arthur hugged the cat gently. “I thought I was safe here.”
“You are. I think you are.” Ira let out a breath. “It let you into the vale. It wouldn’t have let you in if it had thought
you were a threat. But . . .”
His eyes flickered toward the trees. Thinking of Hamish, Arthur felt sick.
“Were they . . .” he asked, not sure he wanted to know. “Were they people? Did it do something to them?”
“They were hunters who tried to get at me here. The forest didn’t let them.”
Arthur shivered. He was glad Ira had not been killed, but the idea of the forest doing whatever it had done to them . . .
“It hardly recognizes friend from foe anymore,” Ira said. “But you have the acorn. It knew that as part of itself. I think that’s why it let you in. You should be safe here, but . . . Don’t take it off. Ever.”
Arthur repressed an urge to make sure the acorn was around his neck, though he’d worn it continuously since leaving the cottage.
He glanced at Calyx. “It hasn’t seemed to stop your companion from watching me.”
The plant creature turned fronds in his direction.
“Calyx is . . . different.” Ira grasped at the creature, but it leaped from his shoulders to his antlers. He grimaced but
let it be. “Come on.”
He reached for Arthur’s shoulder, but Arthur recoiled. Ira’s hand dropped back to his side. He nodded Arthur toward the tree-house,
avoiding his gaze, and left distance between them as they trudged through the snow. Calyx stretched between his antlers.
“I’m sorry,” Ira said quietly.
“What for?”
“Frightening you.”
They paused at the door. Ira’s gaze lingered on the brambles.
“The forest shouldn’t do anything to you, if I don’t let it. But it doesn’t listen to me anymore.”
Freya squirmed to be let down. Arthur tried to set her in the snow, but she sprang from his grasp clear through the tree-house
door. Undoubtedly, her least favorite part of being stuck here was the eternal snow.
“I don’t see why it worries you,” Arthur said. “I’ve only been here a couple of days. I’m nothing. To you, I mean. You could’ve
been well rid of me.”
Ira’s eyes flickered over his face. “You’re not . . .”
He stood aside so Arthur could go in. Slipping from his antlers, Calyx balled up in its spot by the stove.
“Your father saved my life,” Ira said. “Letting you die seems a poor way to repay him.”
Arthur watched him stump around the room, befuddled. He’d thought Ira was angry he’d tried to leave again; maybe he’d been
wrong.
He still felt the trees and brambles grasping at him. With a shudder, he sat at the table with his tool kit and his father’s
pocket watch. Repairing the watch would provide a welcome distraction from the memories and his repeated failure to escape
the vale. Freya jumped up beside him, loafing on the table.
To his surprise, he was able to wind the watch. The winding mechanism and mainspring were likely fine, then. Hearing the watch
tick, after days without hearing a single clock, cheered him.
The ticking stopped. Arthur sighed, but it wasn’t unexpected. He’d open the watch up, clean all its parts, and see which ones
weren’t working.
Ira pulled up his armchair and sat, a basket of clothing and a sewing kit at his feet. Arthur had only two sets of clothes,
including the ones he wore now, and kept tearing them in his repeated escape attempts. Ira had repaired them and offered to
let out some of his own clothes so Arthur would have spares. Freya glared at him, evidently unimpressed.
For a while, they worked in silence. Arthur disassembled the watch, laying each part out as he removed and cleaned it. Freya
cocked her head, gazing at the doodads around her, perfect for batting off a table.
“Don’t you dare,” Arthur said.
She continued gazing at the watch’s parts but didn’t touch them. In a moment, Arthur had forgotten her.
“I am sorry,” Ira said, “that there isn’t a way out of here.”
Preoccupied with his work, Arthur said nothing.
Ira cleared his throat. “I know I’m not the pleasantest company. But if it’s any consolation, I like having you around.”
Hopefully the jewels weren’t cracked, Arthur was thinking, because he couldn’t replace them with the things in his travel
kit. But a watch might stop shortly after being wound for any number of reasons.
Vaguely, he registered that Ira had spoken, but his mind was on the watch. He glanced at Ira, frowning faintly, and returned
to his work without response.
Biting his lip, Ira started removing seams from the shirt in his lap. Freya hopped off the table to curl up in the other armchair,
sparing him a disdainful glance.