Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She hadn’t lied to Vall, necessarily—she did plan to go to Tove for help, but her conscience could not rest until she saw Liam. Minutes had passed since Vall had seen him confronting Andrew, and things could only have escalated from there. Iona knew little of the ways of men, but the look in Andrew’s eyes at the gas station, the way he’d fumed when the machinery had been tampered with… Iona did not expect this man to go down without a fight.
It was foolish for Liam to go alone. He was too kind, too gentle, for the task he’d set out to do, and it would only put him in harm’s way. Perhaps that was why he’d snuck out. Too bad she couldn’t be stopped now.
She was angry, though she wouldn’t admit it to herself. It was true there was little she could do to protect him when the enemy was armed with guns, but to risk himself like that, and for her…
Her magic brought her to the clearing, but she left her human form behind and drifted closer, eager to hear the words the two men shared. It was a tense exchange, as Vall had said, and Iona knew right away that Liam would not emerge the victor. Despite his visible anger Iona knew his resolve had long-since crumbled. He still clutched the papers close to his chest, his knuckles white, and a hint of sweat beading on his brow.
Soundlessly, mouthlessly, Iona gasped, her panic for Liam renewed as one of the other men approached him from behind, a steel thermos clutched in his hand.
He swung, and Liam crumpled to the ground, like a puppet with the strings cut all at once. Iona fought the urge to reveal herself. Only the knowledge that it wouldn’t help matters kept her rooted in place.
But there was something she could do, and Liam was running out of time.
***
Tove’s maple was deep in the heart of the valley, in the spaces most untouched by human hands. It stood many human miles from the house with Liam’s family owned, but Iona was there in only a second, stepping through the forest as her kind had done for centuries. The overstory here had thinned considerably in the past few weeks, leaves falling steadily, and the hazy light of the morning sun streamed through. Shadows danced as a breeze wove through the trees, branches swaying, the only sound in the quiet forest.
Tove’s maple was the largest Iona had ever seen. The tree’s crown reached across the entirety of the clearing, held up by long and sturdy limbs perhaps ten times as old as Iona herself. It was cloaked regally by hanging moss, thick like curtains in many places, and punctuated by ferns that grew outwards like reaching hands. The maple stole her breathe away. She reached out, stepping closer to its trunk and set a gentle hand upon it, fingers reaching down through the moss to feel its bark buried below.
“Tove?” she asked.
It was common, Iona knew, for the Acernae to retreat inwards as their existence wore on. Where Iona spent a lot of time in her visage form among her friends, the elders rarely ventured from within the trees.
“Tove, if you can hear me—I need your help. We need your help,” Iona pleaded. She heard nothing but the crickets and frogs in the distance, the sound of a crow taking flight nearby. A moment passed, then two, and Iona let out a heavy sigh .
She turned, putting her back to the tree and sliding down its side until she sat on the wet earth. Her fingers snaked into the mosses there, feeling their damp and spiky fibers, so similar to the rugs that filled Liam’s cabin.
“It’s the loggers,” she told the stoic tree. “Vall was injured yesterday, and it was all my fault.” Tears welled up in her eyes, stinging and clouding her vision until they spilled over and slid down her cheek. Iona did not wipe them, choosing instead to let them fall. “I thought we could handle them, on our own. It wasn't enough, though, our little tricks—it only made the humans mad. They came back for the trees growing near Vall’s maple, and they damaged it, harming Vall in the process.” As she spoke, the words came faster, growing less coherent as her emotions overtook her. “I went to Liam for help because I was so ashamed, but he… he went after them. All by himself! I’m not strong enough to fix this, Tove. I need your help.”
Iona’s chest wracked with sobs, stealing the rest of whatever she’d been wanting to say. The sound felt altogether too loud in the dense and quiet forest around her, but there was no stifling it, not now.
Instead, she let herself cry.
It was a strange feeling, one she’d not experienced before. Only in the human shape could her kin cry, with little ever going so wrong as to require it. Now though, the weight of everything crushed her and ripped the air from her lungs.
“Please,” she whispered again, the word coming out through her broken sobs.
Still, the forest around her was quiet.
Iona remained at the base of Tove’s tree until her sobs subsided and she was left with the pain of defeat. Not only had she dug herself in so deep she needed to beg Tove for help, but that help had been denied again. She’d failed, and Liam and Vall would suffer the consequences.
***
Liam was sleepy. Or maybe he was sleeping? It was difficult to tell.
All he knew was that the world was dark and murky around him, and his eyes were shut tight. He laid upon something soft, like carpet, but the incessant buzzing of voices had roused him, grating on him while he tried to sleep. The seconds ticked by, and the words turned from a dull buzz to something sharper, something he could understand. There were men nearby, arguing with one another, their voices swirling in the darkness around him.
His arms were behind him, a sharp bite of rope tying them together. Perhaps the most urgent was his throbbing head, the ache radiating from the base of his skull. He was curled into himself, his knees huddled near his chest, the legs of his pants soaked in mud. Otherwise, he seemed mostly unharmed.
He dared to crack open his eyes, before snapping them shut again, blinded by the bright grayness of the world around him. Heavy footfalls stomped into the ground he laid on, pacing back and forth.
“This is real fucking great, Jimmy. Real great. You know what a headache this whole thing is now? What were you thinking, you idiot?” a voice demanded.
“Well you said if the kid shows his face again, we’d make him regret it, so…” another voice answered, though it did waver slightly. “I was just trying to be helpful.”
The first man sighed. As the world came rushing painfully back, Liam recognized it was Andrew speaking. “Real helpful, dumbass.”
“Look, some lumber theft, nobody cares. But this is like, assault, now, and that could get us in some real hot water. What are we gonna do with him now?” a third voice chimed in. “I don’t like this, man.”
“I need to think. Okay? You two make yourselves scarce. Go get make some coffee or something while I figure all this out.”
Slowly, the events of his confrontation with Andrew came back to Liam, and only then did he remember what had happened. He’d been hit in the head.
The muffled thud of footsteps approached, and Liam tried once more to open his eyes. His glasses were gone, so he struggled to make out the world around him. He was in the clearing, where he’d confronted Andrew, lying at the foot of the rig. A man paced in front of him. His details were blurry, and Liam could only tell it was Andrew from the his voice, and the vague colors and shape of his clothes. Liam snapped his eyes shut before Andrew had the chance to notice he was awake. Even if he wanted to, it was impossible to keep his eyes open for long. Stars danced around the edges of his blurry vision, and the light only made his head worse. Probably a concussion, he figured.
He realized the full extent of the danger he was in. He’d assumed they wouldn’t actually shoot him to protect the business, but what they were doing was terribly illegal, so maybe it’d been a foolish thing to think. Panic lodged itself in his mind, pushing aside all other rational thought. His breaths came quicker, and he had to force himself to stay calm. He needed to think. For the moment at least, it appeared they were alone in the clearing.
Obviously, Andrew hadn’t intended for things to escalate as they had, but this was the situation they were both in now, and a cornered animal was liable to bite, if threatened.
Liam had spent much of his life becoming observant. In this, his quiet shyness was a benefit, and his patient nature allowed him to see what others did not. The man, Jimmy, had challenged Andrew, and put them all in a tight spot. As much as Liam hated to admit it, little fuss would be made about the loss of a few trees—but assault with the evidence to back it up? That was grounds for legal action.
Andrew knew it, too.
Perhaps there was a way that Liam could use this development to his advantage, if only his head would stop spinning long enough for him to formulate a real plan.
Liam shifted slightly, and his head fell against the dirt. He let out an involuntary groan at the shock of pain that ran through him. Somewhere nearby, the footsteps stopped and Andrew let out a long, measured breath.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
Liam said nothing. His mouth was so dry that even if he managed to summon the words, he didn’t think he could speak them.
Andrew’s steel-toed boots approached, their tread sending shockwaves through the soft earth and moss on which Liam laid. The boots stopped inches from Liam’s face, only then coming into focus, and the blurry figure crouched down before him. A calloused hand grabbed Liam’s chin, forcing his head up. His eyes flew open as a blinding light tracked from one edge of his vision to the other .
“Fuck,” Andrew swore, and mercifully, the light disappeared. “This would have been much easier if you’d run along when I told you to.”
Liam grunted, not trusting himself with words just yet.
“I mean seriously, why stick around? Why bother putting your scrawny ass on the line, anyway? Actually, don’t answer that. Not important.” Andrew studied him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed. “You want a cut of the profit? I bet that’s what you’re after. It’s always what they’re after.”
“It’s not the money,” Liam finally croaked out, his throat like sandpaper but the words were strong.
Andrew, for his part, actually laughed. “Ah, it is the tree-hugging, then. Look around, buddy! Nobody cares. So I turned a few old trees into a profit. It doesn’t matter. They’ll just grow back, anyway.”
Liam struggled to right himself. It was difficult with his hands bound behind his back, but he propped himself up against an exposed root. The back of his head throbbed where there was sure to be a nasty bump, but he ignored it and turned his focus to Andrew. The light was more tolerable now, but Liam didn’t have his glasses on and couldn’t see the details.
On some level, Liam felt sympathy for the man.
Like Liam, he had to exist in a world that demanded success—and the quickest route was often through conquest. After all, hadn’t Liam himself spent almost a decade enabling the misuse of hazardous chemicals? All for the sake of profit. Liam had mistaken what was most important to him, had been wrong about what it meant to be successful. It turned out that Andrew was not so different. Carving out a less harmful life was difficult in a world that prioritized capital over everything else.
“It’s not too late, you know,” he managed. “You don’t have to keep doing this.” Liam tried, with his muddled brain to formulate the rest of the words, to tell Andrew of his revelation, but their time was up.
“You don’t get how things work out here, with your fancy raincoat and city-boy ideals. Don’t pretend to know anything about me.”
Andrew looked impassively down at him a moment longer, before his expression shuttered. His companions had returned, and whatever softness Liam had found in their absence evaporated. The blurry face above his hardened again, coming to stand and face the newcomers, though he did not move away.
“Got you some coffee, boss,” Sean said, and Liam heard the popping of a thermos above him. Then the man spoke again, and a bit of fear laced his words. “What are we gonna do with him? I kinda wanna get out of here, we’ll anger the forest again.”
“I told you, it’s not fucking haunted! They’re just trees!” Jimmy spat.
The words echoed in Liam’s mind, and he turned them over, an idea beginning to form. He gathered it was an argument they’d had before. And it made perfect sense—why wouldn't they believe the place was haunted? It wasn’t so far from the truth.
“They’ll come for you,” he told them in a whisper. Someone swallowed loudly, and Liam let a half-crazed grin spread across his cracked lips. “The trees are angry and you know it. They’ll come after you for this. I’d get out of here if I were you.”
“You shut your mouth,” Jimmy hissed. “Let’s see how you feel without these fucking glasses.”
A sickening crunch told him they were broken.
He stared upwards, blinded by the gray sky as drops of heavy rain fell into his eyes. By rights he should have been terrified, bound and disoriented at the feet of three men in heavy boots. He couldn’t even see their faces.
Instead, he laughed.
It was a coward’s move, to go for the glasses. A tactic long favored by his schoolyard bullies, who made themselves feel tough by praying on Liam’s weakness. For a long time, he’d resented the things that made him that way—his poor eyesight, his family’s poverty, his struggle to make friends with the normal kids.
He’d not known the best thing about himself, what made him special, and made him strong.
Liam didn’t need glasses to do what he intended to do.
He sunk his fingers discreetly into the soil, as he’d seen Iona do before. Then he closed his eyes, and reached out with his awakened senses, calling on the roots that stretched deep into the upset earth. He felt them there, the pain and anger that had ripped them from the trees they served. Calling forth that rage, he directed it, urged it upwards until the roots broke the soil like ghostly fingers. It was draining him quickly, he knew, but tried to hold out a little longer.
A fearful yelp erupted nearby, and Sean turned tail and ran, muttering something about ghosts.
Even Jimmy cleared his throat, and spoke with a shaky voice. “Uh, boss?”
“What the fuck?” was all Andrew said.
At Liam’s urging, the roots twisted upwards, wrapping themselves around the boots in front of his face.
“Yeah, I’m out,” Jimmy said, and then took off after Sean.
Liam let himself in the little moment of triumph, before he realized that Andrew wasn’t so easily shaken.
Instead, he crouched back down, his curiosity where Liam could actually see it. “That’s a neat little trick you got there. You’ll have to teach me how to do it.”
The expenditure had sapped Liam of all the strength he had left, and he let his eyes fall closed once more.