22. A Treacherous Tree
TWENTY-TWO
A TREACHEROUS TREE
Offering a sincere apology is a mark of true character, no matter the form you take. A proper apology begins with accepting responsibility—no deflecting blame onto your animal instincts.
Keep your apology simple and direct. Acknowledge the harm done, express genuine remorse, and, where possible, offer to make amends. Avoid overexplaining or making excuses—whether in human or animal form, a gentleman’s word should be as steady as his shift.
–EXCERPT FROM THE METAMORPHIC MAN: A GENTLEMAN SHAPESHIFTER’S GUIDE TO CULTURED CONDUCT
Arthur’s return trip to Boston was an exercise in patience and human origami.
He was eager to resolve the situation with the Mudpuddle.
He couldn’t wait to see Maida again and he couldn’t wait to throttle Will Porter for leaving him stranded.
But all the slow motion hours in crawling traffic, and waiting in airports, had given Arthur much needed time to reflect.
He’d been so stubbornly focused on the execution of his initial plan, and so distracted by meeting Maida again, that he hadn’t listened to what Will was trying to tell him.
Maida was not Ordinary, after all. Will had been right.
Arthur was not too proud to admit when he was wrong.
As soon as he reached the airport, he ducked into a pay phone to check in with Rosie and let her know he wouldn’t be home till morning. He wasn’t thrilled about leaving his daughter alone overnight, but as she reminded him, she was almost seventeen—hardly a baby. She promised to bolt the door.
After that, he gave Director Berman a call.
He was expecting her to admonish him for not heeding her warning about his plan.
He suspected he was done—that this would be the end of his first and only mission for the Society.
When would he have this sort of opportunity to work with them again?
He should have felt relieved, but he felt a sinking, shrinking sensation that he recognized as disappointment.
He was disappointed in himself, mostly. Fate had given him a second chance with Maida Westabrook and he had failed her again.
“I’m sorry, Director Berman. I could not complete the assignment you gave me. The fault was entirely my own. I should have handled things differently. It seemed like the simplest solution to me, but I was clearly wrong.”
“So her magic has come back to her at last.” Amrita Berman smiled through the phone lines. “I always suspected it would. Perhaps the locket was a catalyst.”
“Perhaps the tests that were done when she was a child were mistaken,” Arthur suggested boldly. He had seen it when they were children, hadn’t he? Why hadn’t anyone else?
“Perhaps,” Amrita admitted. “But better to err on the side of caution than risk losing her altogether.”
Arthur wasn’t sure he agreed. All magic came at a cost, according to Ordinary lore. But what was the price of having it denied for so long?
He’d never witnessed magic like Maida’s.
By comparison, his abilities were trivial.
Drawing life, literally creating life from ink on paper, was a unique talent.
It was manifestation magic. He’d heard that such things were possible.
But not like this. Witches needed clay, earth, or something that was once living to conjure an existence.
Dark rituals and forced, forbidden magic were usually associated with the practice.
The idea that she had casually, innocently, and possibly accidentally manifested new life so easily was almost mind boggling.
“What now?” Arthur asked. “Does the Society still need my services?” Best to get it over with, he thought.
Director Berman had not hesitated to reply.
“I warned you I had concerns about your plans.” She paused and Arthur braced himself for what came next.
“This just means you’ll need to pivot. There’s no need for power of attorney or reassigning her inheritance, unless she finds it burdensome, which hopefully won’t happen.
I still expect you to accompany Maida to Primrose Court and help guide her through this process. ”
“Legally speaking?” Arthur asked. This wasn’t what he was expecting.
“Yes,” Director Berman said. “But more than that if you can manage it. I want you to look out for her. Guide her. Protect her. This isn’t a trivial ask, Arthur.
Maida is the key to bringing back the Mudpuddle.
The community in Primrose Court is already suffering in its absence.
It may seem trivial to you, but large rifts start small. ”
“There’s still no word on Minerva?” Arthur knew the rumor mill in Primrose Court. Every day that went by without answers, seeded new debates and theories.
“Nothing. And the town council has contacted me about Zephyr. I understand you went by the morgue to pay your respects?”
“I did,” Arthur said. “I assume there’s been no change in his…condition?”
“No change,” she confirmed. “But we have a team analyzing his shoes to see if we can determine anything else about the incident but?—”
“Synthetic magic is difficult to trace,” Arthur finished the thought.
“That it is.” Amrita sighed. “So highly processed and volatile. Short-lived as well.”
“It could be a red herring,” Arthur suggested. “Perhaps it was used to throw us off the scent of the real culprit.” Quite literally, he thought, recalling the stench.
“It’s hard to imagine who that might be,” Amrita said, “or what their motivation might have been. Zephyr and Minerva were so beloved. But I suppose everyone has enemies. Or perhaps it was a matter of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”
“I would like to know what happened to Zephyr and Minerva,” Arthur said, thinking specifically of Bardo Chan and worrying. “It would quell the rumors and in-fighting between the magical types.”
“We have other methods of scrying if it comes to it, but we’ll have to wait till some of the synthetic magic dissipates. I’m afraid I’ll have to be present for those rituals myself,” Amrita said. “If Zephyr’s remains stick around for that long.”
“Absolute truth?” Arthur asked. It was the gold standard in magical courtrooms, but only senior members of the Society could perform the secretive ritual.
“If it comes to it,” Amrita confirmed. “For now, I’d like you to focus on keeping Maida safe, and helping her to bring back the Mudpuddle. Do you think you can do that, Arthur?”
“Why me?” It was the most basic question, but he felt the need to ask.
“It has to be you, Arthur. You and Maida have a special connection.”
When Arthur reached Logan Airport, he was greeted by an Ordinary driver holding a card with his name on it.
The driver led him to the car that was waiting for him.
It was to deliver him directly to the Westabrook estate, he was told.
But Arthur did not know what was waiting for him there.
Would Maida be more or perhaps less inclined to accept her inheritance, now that she knew the truth about her family?
And if she accepted it, would the Mudpuddle simply reappear?
Did the Lathrops have specific rituals or practices for securing the property?
He steeled himself for the inevitable. They would need to ask Lucretia Lathrop for her help.
He didn’t want to give her too much time to think about it. Best to just show up at the apothecary.
And then what?
If Maida was successful, would she consider staying on in Primrose Court? He found it surprising how much the prospect of this lifted his spirits.
Arthur was getting ahead of himself. He felt drained from his hours on the plane, cramped into a middle seat. His limbs ached. His eyes drooped and his head bobbed, and soon he was asleep and dreaming of the willow tree again.
The car came to a halt on the gravel in front of Buffalo Westabrook’s mansion, waking him with a start. It had been decades since he’d been back to the Westabrook estate.
Once Arthur’s driver departed, he stood in the circular driveway for a moment or two, simply listening to the early morning birdsong.
It was still such a familiar sound. Standing there, he was overwhelmed by the smells of fall leaves and freshly mown grass that summoned a flood of early childhood memories.
Some of the memories were bad, but some were also good.
He wondered who was living in the groundskeeper’s cottage now.
They were doing a fine job, but not as good as Reggie had.
It was evident to Arthur that many of the trees had been pruned improperly.
Was it too early to ring the doorbell? Should he knock instead?
He was still considering his options when Will Porter raced out the front door in a breathless panic. “Hurry!” Will yanked on Arthur’s arm. “It’s Maida!”
The instant Will tagged him, he felt the slingshot sensation of time gathering speed. They sped toward the garden, running headlong down a path that Arthur remembered, towards the tree that still haunted his dreams.
The willow looked nothing like the graceful giant that he recalled. It had transformed into a malicious arboreal beast. It flailed and twisted from side to side. Its long, sinewy branches slashed into the earth and whistled as they whipped through the air.
“The willow has her!” Will pointed high in the tree. Alarmingly high. From what Arthur could see, Maida’s legs were wrapped around a thick bundle of branches, but there was nothing else holding her there besides the network of tangled green tendrils crawling over her. She screamed.
Arthur’s blood ran cold, as if he’d had an infusion of ice water injected into his veins. This time it smelled more like burnt rubber, and hot metal. It tasted like copper and stung his nose and throat.
This was certainly synthetic magic, and if there’d been any doubt before that Maida was the intended target, there was none now.
“Hold on, Mayday!” Will hollered.
Before they could reach the base of the tree, Arthur heard the thunder of hooves and the sharp crack of wood as Buffalo charged, ramming his horns into the trunk.
The ground shook, and the boughs shivered.
A tangle of snakes unraveled themselves from the lower branches, wriggling in every direction, their venomous fangs bared.
Arthur nimbly hurdled over them, just as they were transforming back into sticks.
The tree was leaning sideways now. It swung Maida as if it meant to fling her. She was barely hanging on.
Will stared helplessly up into the branches. He had taken a small knife out and held it out in front of himself, slashing at the whiplike branches.
Buffalo was charging again. His horns punctured the tree’s bloated trunk and emerged tarry, dripping with toxic, invasive magic.
“Look out!” Arthur warned. A quiver of cobras emerged from the freshly fallen branches, raising their heads as if they meant to strike. They reverted back to wood as Buffalo reduced them to a pulp beneath his hooves.
“I’ve got the tree. I need you to catch her.”
Buffalo hadn’t made a sound, yet when the older man met his eye, Arthur understood his intent.
They both spoke an ancient language easily understood by their animal selves.
Buffalo pawed the ground and made a gruff sound that was somewhere between a snuff and a snort.
He looked at Arthur again and lowered his head.
“Don’t let me down.”
Buffalo took off running in the opposite direction of the tree, he would need the distance in order to build momentum for his next charge.
Arthur positioned himself under the tree’s canopy, staying beneath Maida, as best he could.
He softened his knees and held his arms outstretched and ready.
He didn’t dare take his eyes off her. He didn’t blink, not even when he heard the cracking death blow of Buffalo’s horns splitting the trunk of the willow in two.
Everything teetered for a dizzy second, before the rest of the tree slumped. The branches released their hold and then Maida was tumbling, free falling through the air like a rag doll.
Arthur dove forward, reliving the horrifying sense of helplessness he’d felt the last time he saw her there. She’d almost fallen out of this same tree then. But this time there was no one holding him back. He caught her easily in his outstretched arms and pulled her close.
“You’re safe,” he spoke into her hair, which was damp with sweat from her struggles. Her eyes blinked open and then opened wider still, pupils dilated with recognition.
“I remember you,” Maida said. “I saw your antlers.” Her eyes closed again, and she went limp against him. Buffalo was panting by the shattered trunk of the tree, and Will was racing toward them. Arthur pulled her closer still.
“I’ve got her. She’s okay!” Arthur shouted. “You’re okay,” he repeated in a whisper, placing his forehead against hers.