“You’re still my Ira,” Arthur whispered.
Ira squeezed his eyes shut. Touched Arthur’s hand, so carefully, keeping his claws from Arthur’s skin. “I just wanted to keep you safe.”
“Then come with me,” Arthur pleaded. “We must be closer to the heart of the wood than the vale by now.”
Ira pulled away with a growl. “Don’t you understand? I’m the greatest danger to you now. If this happens again—”
“Maybe it won’t.”
“—if I lose control, if the forest takes me over that way—there’ll be nothing I can do.”
Arthur dragged his hands over his face.
“I’m so sick of you saying that.” Looking confused, Ira opened his mouth, but Arthur held up his hands. “I know—the forest doesn’t listen to you anymore. You can’t do all the things you used to do. I know. You think there’s nothingyoucan do? There’s nothingIcan do!”
Ira opened his mouth, but Arthur barreled over him.
“I can’t support my family because I can’t do anything useful. When Charlotte got sick, I couldn’t do anything but keep the children quiet and bring her bread and water and make up the medicinessheknew about, when she felt up to giving me instructions. I couldn’t even make it through the forest on my own for more than a day and a half!”
His cheeks had gone red and patchy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten really angry. Now that he’d turned it on, he didn’t know how to turn it off.
“Ican’t do anything, and my God, I know that—but at least I try. I don’t sit around doing nothing because I’m so convinced I can’t do anything.”
“Oh no?” Ira said quietly. “Isn’t that what you told me you were doing back in Seacliff? Sitting around sighing about how you couldn’t change your own life because you were too cowardly to do anything about it?”
Arthur whitened. “I—”
Ira staggered closer with another growl. “Isn’t that what you did in the vale? For all your talk about needing to get back to your family—how hard did you try to leave before you looked in the basin? Before Calyx scared you off? How many times did you tell yourself the brambles were too thick, the danger too much?”
The words punched Arthur in the gut—because they were true. A scratch on the cheek had been enough to keep him from seriously confronting the brambles for days.
He clenched the acorn so tightly it dug into his palm. “I’m doing something now. Maybe I’ll muck it up like I always do, maybe I won’t make it, but I’m not turning back. Not this time.If you won’t come with me, I’ll go myself. I’ll make sure Lottie is safe. I’ll save you even if you won’t.”
“Do what you must. I won’t risk being the thing that kills you.”
Ira limped away, but his leg buckled, and he collapsed. Arthur stumbled after him, wanting, despite himself, to offer aid or comfort. Snarling, Ira shivered into a raven whose feathers were stained green with moss. He hopped several times, flapping awkwardly.
Between the new greenery and the shoulder wound, Arthur thought he wouldn’t be able to leave. But with an angry croak, the raven darted upward.
“Ira!” Arthur cried, but the raven didn’t turn back. Ira could fly to the heart of the wood and save it this minute, if he’d listen to reason. But he was too scared to think straight, too scared to listen to Arthur any longer.
The raven vanished over the trees. A wave of tears threatened, but Arthur swallowed them and hung the acorn around his neck. Freya mewed at him. He hugged her to his chest, burying his face in her long fur.
He turned and walked into the trees, alone except for the cat.
xxxiii. In which Charlotte sees her father’s portrait
Charlotte spent the morning in the less shabby of the two armchairs by the stove, relieved to sit with a cushion at her back. Whenever she needed something, the plant creature retrieved it, slinging itself through the tiny house to retrieve a mug, or a bowl of stew, or an extra cushion, and then sat in Charlotte’s lap, clicking happily.
Resting seemed less objectionable in the wood, where there were no patients to visit, no cupboards to fill, no house to clean. Or at least the house was not hers, and neither were the cupboards. So it was a rare rest taken willingly and guilt-free.
Elspeth, however, spent the morning tearing the tiny house apart, searching every drawer, cabinet, nook, and cranny for any sign her sister might have been here.
She found nothing—no sign of Maggie, anyway. Of the Lord of the Wood, there was plenty. The usual odds and ends, or almost the usual, in the room that was kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom all in one. Sacks of root vegetables, braids of garlic and onion, bunches of herbs. A pair of boots hidden away in a cupboard rather than sitting by the door where Charlotte would’ve expected them. In other cupboards, drawers, and cabinets, sparse dishware, no more than two of each item, asif the Lord of the Wood didn’t have much company. Other kitchen implements: pots, pans, a ladle, a kettle, various types of kitchen knives. A pipe with a store of tobacco so old the leaves had crumbled into dust. Charlotte had not expected the Lord of the Wood’s home to seem so... normal.
In the drawer in the bedside table, Elspeth found an odd makeshift pillow, a roll of fabric tied atop a wooden block. They weren’t sure what to make of that, nor of the fabric booties tucked in beside it. The booties were clean but torn. Perhaps the Lord of the Wood had a pet besides the plant creature; that was the best Charlotte or Elspeth could come up with. There was a whistle of some sort, too, though it wasn’t like any whistle Charlotte had ever seen: ovular, with holes all along the sides and an opening at the top.
In the chest of drawers by the bed: a couple pairs of mended trousers; lumpy socks worn threadbare but out of use, stuffed into the back of their drawer; a handful of linen shirts, once pullover in style, cut down the front with toggles added. Beneath them, a block of paper, a stick of charcoal—and a stack of sketches.
