Enchanted Forests (55 page)

TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP       355

I am ready to go to war. By wood and by water I loose myself.

By witchings and workings I loose myself. By wit and by will I

loose myself."

"Matt," said Terry.

"Just a second," Matt said- She put her hands on the tree

trunk. It was trembling.

"Water," it whispered. Matt ran to the stream and grabbed wa-

ter in her cupped hands, brought it back and splashed it on the

trunk.

"Wood."

She looked around, saw the unbumt end of one of the sticks

Terry had used in her little bonfire on the rock, lifted it, and

touched it to the trunk.

"Will," whispered the tree.

Matt put her hands on its trunk and thought about being

trapped. Terry didn't seem to know how to make friends except

to manufacture them. She had a twin sister who had left on some

kind of magic quest and it was driving Terry nuts, though mostly

Matt knew about that because the room she stayed in was Terry's

twin's room, just a closet away from Terry's room, and at night

Matt could hear Terry calling and crying in her sleep. Terry also

had an ex-boyfriend, and a witch teacher who wouldn't talk to

her anymore. This much Matt had learned from surreptitious

talks with things in Terry's room. No wonder she's lonely, Matt

thought; but does that mean I have to stay tied to her tike this?

I might even like her if she gave me a chance.

"I will you to be free, I will you to be free, I will you to be

free," Matt said, leaning on her hands on the tree, which felt

warm, and still trembled against her. She spoke the words for the

tree and for herself.

"Matt!" Terry cried.

The tree shook harder. With a loud crack it split open and

spilled out a mushroom-pale boy.

"But we don't know who or what or—" Terry said.

The tree closed its mouth. Its bark welded back together be-

neath Matt's hands. She patted it and stepped away, looking at

the boy, who lay shuddering and twitching on the wet grass. He

was naked, his limbs wraith-thin, and his hair long and dark and

tangled, a few strands still caught in the bark of the tree. His eye-

lids fluttered. He coughed.

"—whether he's even a good person," Terry said.

Matt stooped. "Are you cold?" she asked, pulling off her plaid

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356 Nina Kinfci Hornnan

flannel shirt and draping it over him. She still had her black

T-shirt on.

"Thirsty," he whispered.

Matt went to the rock. "Gimme the bottle of water."

Terry raised her eyebrows, but opened the pack and fished out

the water bottle, then handed it to Matt.

Matt knelt on the grass, oblivious to wet knees, and lifted the

boy's head onto her thigh, tilting the bottle so water trickled into

his mouth. For an instant Matt was back in an alley, helping her

friend Denzel drink from a bottle in a brown paper bag, trying to

talk the bullet in bis gut into coming out, trying to talk the blood

into staying inside him, trying to talk his clothes into binding

against the wound, trying even to talk to germs, though she never

had before. It was a terrible time when talk got her nowhere.

She cradled the boy's pale head, giving him water a little at a

time and waiting while he swallowed, stroking his hair. His eyes

were green and he smelled like the tree.

After a little while he reached up and took the bottle from her

hand. He struggled and sat up. then drank the rest of the water.

Thanks," he said. "All these years of witch-traffic, and you, a

nonwitch, you're the first one who helped me."

Helped him ... That was how she had gotten into trouble with

Terry. When Terry dropped the tether spell on her, Matt had de-

cided that in the future she should leave witches alone. Usually

she kept her promises to herself.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Lewis," he said. He stretched, first one arm toward the sky,

then the other. He scratched his nose and grinned at her, showing

a dimple in his left cheek.

"Matt," she said, holding out her hand.

"Pleased to meet you." He shook hands with her.

"That over there is Terry," Matt said.

"Hello," said Lewis, smiling toward Terry. She nodded with-

out smiling, her hands resting on her knees.

"How'd you get stuck in that tree?" Matt asked after a short

uncomfortable silence. "What were you trying to do?"

"I came up here to get away from the war. All the men and

boys were going overseas, except the ones who had some sort of

exemption or those who were too old. I thought if I changed my-

self, I could stay home. But I wasn't as specific about what I

wanted to change into as I thought I was."

"What did you want to change into?" Terry asked.

"Well," he said, "not a tree, anyway." He pushed to his feet

TREES PERPETUAL OF SLEEP       357

and leaned his back against the tree, flattening his hands on the

bark. "This is still me. It's all the growing I've done." He tilted

his head back, looking up the trunk into the branches. Then he

closed his eyes.

Frogs chorused from the stream as the longest day of the year

was swallowed by the shortest night.

"Is there still a war?" he whispered.

'There's probably a war," Terry said. "There's usually a war.

People don't have to go against their wills right now, though.

You're a witch, and you couldn't come up with a better plan to

evade the draft than this?"

In the gathering darkness Matt couldn't tell for sure, but she

had the impression that Lewis was filling out, losing his starved

thinness as he lay back against the tree. Above them the branches

rustled, though there was no wind. Small scaled twiglets pattered

down. Matt caught one. It felt dry; she rubbed her lingers over

it and it came apart, leaving behind the ghost of a scent of green.

Terry pulled three candles out of her pack and lit them with a

touch of her fingers. She dripped wax and set the candles in it on

the rock beside her. The flames burned straight and unflickering.

"I had a better plan," Lewis said at last. His voice had deep-

ened, added overtones. "It just didn't work." He stepped away

from the tree. He was definitely bigger. He paused, lifted one

foot away from the ground, then me other. "Oh," he murmured,

touching the sole of his foot. "This is so strange." He pressed his

palm to his chest, then touched the bark of the tree. "I feel so na-

ked. No wonder people wear clothes." He lifted Mart's discarded

shirt and slipped it on without buttoning it. The sleeves were far

too short. "Not quite right, but better than nothing."

He went to Matt, grasping her elbows from behind and lifting

her to her feet. His hands were warm and strong. Her first im-

pulse was to kick back at him and twist free, but she suppressed

it He said to Terry, "I suppose you have some sort of master

plan that involves tethering this boy?"

Terry's eyebrows lifted. A moment later she shook her head.

"I have no plan," she said. "I realize that sometimes things come

into my life when I need them—spirit gifts—and I needed Matt"

"For what?" Lewis and Matt said together.

Terry ducked her head, her gaze on her hands, which lay

nested one in the other in her lap. "You know," she said. She

looked up into Matt's eyes, her own eyes catching glints from

the candle flames. Light turned half her face to butter amber.

"Oh, you're such a teenager!" Matt said.

358 Nina Kiri&i Hoffman

Terry brushed the hair out of her eyes and offered a brief

smile.

Lewis let Matt's elbows go, touched her shoulder. "You under-

stand her?"

"She's a power nerd," Man said after trying to figure out what

she did understand.

"Whaaat?" said Terry.

"What does that mean?*' Lewis asked.

"You don't—you run out of—you don't take the dme to make

the—it's a shortcut." Frustrated, Matt waved her fists up and

down. 'To get to know people, it takes time. It's not easy. Some-

times they hurt you and you hurt them. But you, you don't have

to wait. You have this power. You use it to get what you need,

because hoping someone else will help you takes too long and it

might not work. You can make a—a relationship happen without

even listening to me other person- You never have to risk getting

hurt. You just ... force it ... and you don't have to be scared

mere's anything I can do."

"No," said Terry, shaking her head. "That's not right."

"I know you're doing it because you've lost mem all," Matt

said. "Everybody else has gone, except your mom, and she's

scared of you. It's still cheating."

"No, dammit," said Terry, slapping her thighs with open

hands. "No. Shut up."

But she didn't use her pushy voice, so Matt said, "You never

asked me. How do you know I would have said no?"

"Everybody I've asked lately has said no."

"You didn't ask me"

Terry gripped one hand with the other. The tip of her tongue

touched her upper Up. "Would you be my friend?"

"Take the tether spell off."

Terry sat for a long moment with her head bowed. She zipped

open her pack at last and pulled out a small dark bag, reached in-

side, took out something about the size of a walnut. She mur-

mured words and held the little thing over one of the candle

flames. It bumed quickly and left a smell like sizzled hair be-

hind. Matt felt a lessening of tension somewhere in the region of

her stomach.

Terry brushed off her hands-

"Okay," Matt said. "Yes."

"You won't go away?"

"I will go away. Doesn't mean I stop being your friend. You

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359

have to treat me with respect, though, or to take care of myself,

I'll stop being your friend."

Terry hesitated, then said, "I'm not sure I know how to do

that. Will you help me?"

"Sure."

"Beautiful," said Lewis. From behind, he locked his arms

around Mart's upper body. "Now that you're free ..."

"Cut it out," said Matt, tugging at his arms. She couldn't

budge them. He had certainly bulked up since the tree expelled

him.

"I won't hurt you," he said.

"Then let go. Haven't you been paying attention? Forcing

hurts."

He hugged her, then dropped his arms. "I've missed human

contact. I've missed just being able to move around." He reached

for the sky with both hands, then rolled his head back and forth,

lowered his arms, and twisted his upper body. He bent over and

touched his toes. He walked away from the tree, at first striding

fast, then slowing as he came to the edge of the meadow. He

looked back over his shoulder at the tree. "I still can't

believe ..."

Matt edged over to the rock, and Terry grabbed her hand and

pulled her up, with maybe a little lifting help from air, or what-

ever it was that kept Terry clean and dry amidst all this dirt and

water.

"... that I can just walk away. I haven't seen the meadow

from a different direction in decades." His voice faded as he ven-

tured farther.

"Do you feel safe in the forest at night?" Matt muttered to

Terry.

"Most of the time," Terry muttered back. "I respect the spirits

of trees and streams and places, and they know I respect them,

and we regard each other but do no harm. It's only people that

scare me." She stared toward where Lewis had disappeared.

"What about big animals that eat people?"

"There aren't any around here."

"No cougars or bears? How can you know for sure?"

Terry laughed softly in the darkness. The candles were on the

side of Terry away from Matt, and from Matt's viewpoint, only

lit some grass and half of the tree Lewis had come out of. "If we

run into any big scary animals, I have a very quick distract spell

that ought to turn them away."

"Have you ever tried it? What if it doesn't work?"

360 Nina KiriRi Hoffman

Terry reached behind her for her backpack, pulled it onto her

lap. "If you like, I can whip you up a ward-off-evil spell," she

whispered.

"Would that work on people, too?"

"I don't know. It's another thing I haven't tested."

"I'm starting to wonder about Lewis," Matt muttered-

"I've been wondering about him from the beginning."

t

son?

"Because I have a suspicious nature."

Out of the darkness, Lewis's voice said, "You know what I'd

really like? A nice thick steak. And maybe a beer. Ice-cold.

Yeah. There's a restaurant, Morley's Landing, where you can tie

up canoes and rowboats and eat right beside the Millrace, a

lovely place of a summer's night—do you know it?"

"What town are you talking about?" asked Terry.

"Spores Ferry."

'There's no Millrace in Spores Ferry," she said.

"What?"

"There's no Millrace, and no Morley's Landing."

"How can that be? Oh. Time." His voice sounded sad. "Will

you ... take me to town and let me see if there are any land-

marks that survive?"