“Then, no, it wasn’t the Lady, but it was a woman, I think. It was hard to tell. She was in a tree,” Oliver replied as he put the ring and chain back around his neck.
When Will motioned for him to go on, Oliver recounted his time in the Dysterwood and all he had seen there. Despite hearing the story for the third time, Felipe’s ribs still tightened with panic at the thought of Oliver being trapped where he couldn’t go. As he listened, Will’s hand flew across the page and caught every word in his haphazard scrawl. He only interrupted Oliver to remind him of how much time they had left and to ask him what he saw and the condition of the woods before going back to his notes. What kinds of insects did he see? Did the tree look healthy? Did he hear any birds? For the first time, Felipe wondered if those places could change. He had always assumed magic gave them an unnatural stability. Then again, the desecrated cathedral looked ravaged after centuries of visitors. All magic must eventually come to an end.
Will frowned thoughtfully as Oliver finished his tale. “A face or a person in a tree. I’ve never heard of this. It isn’t mentioned in any of the family folklore. It’s only ever been the Lady. And this tree person gave you the ring?”
Oliver nodded. “Do you think it’s important?”
“Very. That ring is a lost heirloom. It disappeared not long before Stephen died, but Grandfather never mentioned in his diary where it went. Just that it was gone and that he was very mad about it because not having it made things difficult. Whatever that meant.”
“Mr. Allen stole it for my parents.” Oliver said, his cheeks heating as if he had orchestrated the theft. “He said they needed it for their plan.”
“And what was their plan?”
“I don’t know the specifics. To keep me safe and get me away from your family and Aldorhaven before the Dysterwood could trap me.”
“Clever people. Stephen tried and failed to get away, but whatever they did with you worked until you were pushed in. And you said your mother sent you away without her…” Will froze, his eyes going distant a second before he frantically flipped through the books at his side. Snatching up a slim volume with a tattered cover, he turned to a dogeared page and read aloud, “And to seal his covenant with the Lady, Jan Jarngren produced a signet ring. Let it be known that anyone carrying the ring can seek her counsel and safety. Grandfather never found it. Everyone searched the burned house because they thought Stephen had stolen it, but they never found it. Your mother must have taken it, and if she never came back to get you—”
“Then, she must have gone into the Dysterwood.”
Gwen laid a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “Ol, I hate to say this, but I think your mom is a tree.”
***
His mother was a tree.His mother was a tree. Oliver sat on the edge of Will’s bed with his head between his knees and his heart in his throat. Gwen and Felipe stood on either side of him, and even though Felipe ran his hand soothingly across his back, Oliver knew they were having a whole silent conversation over his head. At least Will had done the polite thing and pretended he wasn’t having a nervous breakdown because normal people didn’t have their parents turn into trees. The worst thing was, in a perverse way, it made sense. Will suspected something had changed around the time Stephen died, and that change had been his mother trifling with a demon. Whatever had happened, she must have been taken by the Lady. Then, the Lady had bided hertime until the woods grew close enough to the graves that she could use his mother’s necromancy to reanimate the dead. To what end, he didn’t know. As Oliver slowly sat up, Felipe’s fingers and gaze lingered on him in question. Oliver wanted nothing more than to crumple against Felipe, but that would have to wait.
“I don’t think my mother is doing this of her own volition. My nana said she rarely used her necromancy.”
“Except on your father, apparently,” Will said without looking up from the journal in his lap. “Twenty-seven minutes left, by the way.”
“Reanimating the person you love temporarily is far different than waking people up to have them terrorize a town. She wasn’t the kind to do that. She wasn’t—” Was she? Oliver had never met her. He didn’tknowher. He had hoped she thought about the ethics behind her powers as he did. Perhaps, she considered them even more than he did. After all, she kept up her end of the bargain with his father and ended things, unlike him. Oliver swallowed hard. “Being trapped in a tree makes me think she isn’t doing this of her free will.”
“No, though I was thinking about the logistics of that while you were hyperventilating,” Will replied flatly.
“I was thinking about that too. Ol, you said she seemed to be awake at least for the time when you spoke to the tree and got the ring.” When Oliver nodded, Gwen paced toward the window and back thoughtfully. “With magic, I know the lines can be blurry, but that means your mother might still be alive.”
Hope and horror warred in Oliver’s breast. If she was alive, his mother had been trapped in a tree for thirty-seven years. He didn’t know how much she could feel or if it hurt to be in that state. While time might have moved oddly in the Dysterwood, living in a magical purgatory was not something Oliver wanted to think too hard about. At the same time, she wasalive. The parent he had never met, had never thought he needed or wanted, might still be alive, and she had recognized him somehow that day in the Dysterwood. Tears scalded Oliver’s eyes, but he blinked them away. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to feel. But they had to do something to help herand stop the reanimations.
Felipe’s arm settled across his shoulders with a squeeze as he quickly said, “So Oliver’s father being reanimated and then not being a useful sacrifice to the Lady stopped the cycle for a time. Then, his mother entered the Dysterwood with the ring and did what? Broke it beyond repair?”
“Maybe.” Will fingered the edge of the book thoughtfully. “The Lady stopped speaking to my grandfather, and she never speaks to my aunt, much to her chagrin. My grandfather assumed it had to do with the missing ring. What if it does but not in the way they thought? What if Joanna changed the rules? The person with the ring can get an audience with the Lady. If the sacrifices stopped working at their full potential, it stands to reason Joanna is the cause. Much like you, Oliver, she was the only new variable.”
Mother, what did you do?Oliver silently asked, holding the fleeting image of her face in his mind.
“Whatever she did, it probably had something to do with you,” Will added as if sensing Oliver’s thoughts. “If we’re going to fix this, we need to figure out what she did in order to not make the same mistake. We have the ring now. That means, we can ask the Lady for a new covenant.”
“Do we really want to make a deal with a devil?” Felipe asked.
Will released a mirthless laugh. “No, but I don’t know what other choice we have. I don’t think I can just tell the Lady to go away. Gods don’t take kindly to that sort of thing.”
“Do— do you want to take the ring? In case you figure it out.”
Oliver could feel Felipe and Gwen’s eyes boring into his back. Maybe it was foolish to trust Will Jarngren, but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know what his mother did. He didn’t know his family’s history the way Will did. By the time he caught up, the trees might take it upon themselves to cross the river, and everyone would be trapped and heading toward starvation because he refused to delegate. For a long moment, Will merely stared at him as if puzzling out whether the offer was meant to be a trap. Finally, he shook hishead.
“No. Keep it with you. If we figure out what we need to say to put this to rights, we’ll go in together and make the bargain. It’ll be safer that way. Besides, if that ring is in the house, then there’s a chance Aunt Daphne might find it, and I don’t have a death wish.”
“Would she hurt you?” Oliver asked slowly.
Staring blankly at him, Will nodded. “Yes, for many reasons, but especially if she thought I had found the ring years ago and had kept it from her.”
