xliii. In which goodbyes are said （for now） #2
“I think it did,” Ira said. “Maybe that’s why the first camp was destroyed before they’d started uprooting the stump. Because
your sister tried to stop them, and they hurt her for it. The wood has long had difficulty recognizing those who mean it no
harm—but when a human tries to help it like that, it knows. And she had the acorn. It would’ve recognized that.”
Maud bid him goodbye and flew off with her ravens. Calyx helped Charlotte, Arthur, and Maggie onto its back; regrowing with
the first tree had renewed its energy. Freya jumped up beside them, ignoring the plant creature when it tried to shudder her
off. Elspeth mounted her horse; the children were back on Maurice.
“Where to?” Ira asked.
“Port Lorne’s closest,” Elspeth said. “God knows we could use a breather after all that. I need to be getting Maggie home
to Gran and Granddad anyhow.”
Ira nodded. “We’ll take you as far as that. Nearly as far. Calyx shouldn’t be seen like this.”
Light as they were traveling, and with Calyx’s size, they had reached the edge of the forest by late afternoon. Before them
stretched pastureland, empty now. It crested and dipped downhill, but the first lights of Port Lorne twinkled beyond the rise.
Calyx deposited Charlotte, Arthur, and Maggie on the ground. Elspeth dismounted her horse and made Maggie get on it instead.
“Guess we’re hoofing it from here,” she said, then frowned at Charlotte. “Where’s your cane, darling?”
Charlotte flushed at the endearment, slightly embarrassed that everyone had heard it but pleased at how easily it had come.
“I lost it,” she said with a grimace. She wasn’t sure how long the walk was down into Port Lorne, but she dreaded it already.
Elspeth considered the distance between them and the city. “What d’you want to do?”
Until she’d asked, Charlotte had planned to simply grit her teeth and walk to Port Lorne as she was, never mind any pain or
fatigue that resulted. Even now, I’m sure I can make it was on the tip of her tongue, where I’m fine had dwelled for so long.
Likely she’d never return to the pre-illness version of herself. That frustrated her—angered her, sometimes—but she was so
tired of pretending. Pushing through until her symptoms worsened, indulging in misguided self-flagellation as if it were somehow
her fault that she’d gotten sick, just because the place she’d grown up thought she ought to do so.
Arthur touched her arm. “Lottie?”
He’d offered her help from the beginning and never thought less of her for needing it. Elspeth had done the same, before they’d
even known each other’s names. Accepting their help—needing it at all—didn’t mean Charlotte was weak or worthless. It just
was.
“It’s going to be difficult,” she admitted at last. “I’ll need some support.”
Elspeth nodded, but before she could respond, Ira said, “Here.”
He bent, pinching thumb and forefinger together in the dirt, and straightened again.
Thin strands of greenwood followed him upward, braiding together into the shape of a crook.
They aged and hardened in an instant, sloughing bark and leaves until the smooth, shining wood of a new cane was left behind.
Ira handed the cane to Charlotte. It was the perfect height for her, comfortable to grip, with tiny flowers and leaves carved
or stamped or, well, magicked into it. It would give her the support she needed to walk down into Port Lorne—and if it wasn’t enough, she knew Elspeth and
Arthur would willingly pause a moment to figure out an alternative.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
To her surprise, Ira’s ears pinkened. She smiled; he seemed a far cry from her first impression of him.
Elspeth’s eyes flickered over Charlotte’s new cane. She hesitated, then said to Ira, “You’re welcome to join us.”
He gave a thin smile. “Thank you, but I’m . . . It’s best if I head home. There’s your mule to tend to.”
“We’ll see you on our way back?” Arthur asked.
Ira kissed his forehead. “I’ll be waiting.”
Arthur smiled thinly back at him. Charlotte reached for his hand. Calyx swayed at her side, its tendrils waving alternately
between her and Ira.
Ira huffed a laugh. “Go with her, if you want. Mind no one realizes what you are.”
Calyx brushed against Charlotte hopefully.
“You’ll be a houseplant,” she warned. It leaped into her arms and wrapped around her. She laughed in surprise, burying her
face in its appendages. She hadn’t imagined leaving it and was glad she wouldn’t have to.
Shrinking down, the plant creature wound itself around Maurice’s bridle to hide. Maurice snorted and pranced, not liking that,
but Elspeth calmed him. She walked, holding Charlotte’s hand. Together, they all set off across the pastureland—except Ira.
He stood in the tree line, gazing after them.
Charlotte moved closer to Arthur, on her other side, and lowered her voice. “Why isn’t he coming with us?”
“He can’t.” Arthur avoided her eyes. “He can’t leave the forest.”
“Oh.” It seemed like all there was to say.
They reached the top of the pastureland. Port Lorne spread below them, a maze of cobbled streets, tenements, factories, shipyards,
and shops.
Maggie sighed. “Green Streets. Lord, but it does feel an age since I seen it.”
“It’s been an age,” Elspeth said. “We’d best keep moving. Gran’ll go off her nut if we keep you from her.”
Charlotte’s breath hitched at the sight of the city below. The harbor to the west, the great masted ships so different from
the fishing boats in Seacliff. The smoke rising from the factories, reddish in the late-day sunlight.
Beside her, Arthur was pale and silent, his eyes damp.
“You’ll see him again,” she said. “When we pass back through.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you could bring him something from Port Lorne.”
“Perhaps.”
“C’mon,” Elspeth said impatiently, leading her horse downhill by the bridle. The children trotted after her on Maurice, the
cat at their heels.
Arthur turned, gazed at Ira for a long moment. The Lord of the Wood was a distant, shadowy figure, half lost in greenery.
Then Arthur turned back, gripping Charlotte’s arm tight. “All right.”
She kissed his knuckles. Leaning on each other, they straggled downhill, toward the great port city about which their father
had told them so many stories.