“Why?” Sasha asked.
“To heal the forest, duck. To make it safe for Mama. And for us. And...”
He faltered. He patted Maurice’s withers and started jauntily forward, but Sasha had never met an unended sentence she didn’t like.
“And what?”
Shame needled Arthur’s insides, but Sasha’s eyes gleamed with curiosity, and he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint her.
“And,” he said, in the best bedtime story voice he could manage, “for the Lord of the Wood.”
Sasha gasped, which almost made the mention of Ira worth it. “You met him?”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” he lied, planning to do as George had done and tell them half-truths gilded in embellishments. “Probably we’ll reach the heart of the wood before I’m done. It was a great silver tree...”
Jonas walked at their uncle’s side, clinging to his hand; Maurice was on his other side, with Sasha proudly on his back; Freya trotted on ahead, tail held high. The ache in Arthur’s chest gave way to a soft, golden warmth. He’d been reunited with his family, most of it, and soon—he gripped Jonas’s hand tighter, determined for the children’s sakes—he’d be reunited with Charlotte, too. His family was all he’d ever needed.
But as the afternoon darkened and died away, he kept thinking of Ira. Alone, back in the vale with no one but Calyx forcompany, with a stab wound in his shoulder and an aching leg and no knee brace.
Arthur’s skin prickled. The things Ira had said to him, until this morning, had meant so much. Like something about Arthur mattered. But it had stopped mattering the moment Ira was scared.
Ira had so many reasons to be scared, Arthur thought. The creep of moss and lichens over his body, the transformations that left him different each time he turned back. The way he lost himself inside the creature or the forest’s rage. He’d transformed anyway, over and over, to save Arthur.
Arthur hoped Ira would be all right, once the tree was replanted. Even if they never saw each other again, as seemed likely: Every budding friendship Arthur had ever had, having broken off so abruptly as they all did, had concluded that way. This time, at least, he knew why.
He gripped Jonas’s hand so tightly that his nibling squirmed out of his grasp. He loosened his grip.
“Sorry, duck.”
He spun his hopes for the Lord of the Wood into stories for the children, the same as his father had spun stories for him and Charlotte so many years ago.
xxxvi. In which Charlotte tests her cure
On Wednesday, with Elspeth looking after the animals, Charlotte was still in bed. It was a rare good day. She was tired, but not as bone-deep fatigued as she often was; her head didn’t hurt, and the ache in the rest of her body was tolerable.
This was later than she normally stayed in bed on good days. At home, she would’ve been up before sunrise, but lying in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a house that wasn’t hers, was oddly freeing. There were no patients to see, no laundry to do, no children to tend to—she winced at that thought but let it pass—no villagers who might realize she was playing the layabout instead of going about her business as she ought.
At home, of course, Arthur tried to help, but he was also a constant source of worry. Charlotte knew he was lonely, though he never admitted it. She had figured out how to fit in with Seacliff long ago. It wasn’t always comfortable, but she’d managed. Her brother never had; she worried he never would.
With that thought, she got up. Thinking about Arthur meant wondering, again, where he was and why he’d left the vale in the first place. Surely the Lord of the Wood had taken him home, she tried to tell herself, but optimism came hardto her. And it was difficult not to think that, if thatwerethe case, she could’ve stayed home instead of gallivanting through the forest.
The plant creature skittered across the floor to greet her, small and vaguely dog-shaped. Picking it up, Charlotte carried it to the window.
She peered outside. Elspeth came around the side of the house where she’d left the horse and mule. Her shoulders were bowed, her eyes bruised like they’d been yesterday, but she stopped to listen to a wren trilling the gray winter dawn.
The corner of Charlotte’s mouth turned up. It hadn’t been all bad, coming out here.
Setting the plant creature on the floor, she turned to her work. The creature slung itself onto the counter beside her vials.
“No pets on the counter. I know you can grow tall enough to look from the floor, if you’re interested.”
The creature clicked but slid off the counter and grew, swaying at her side. She patted it and returned to the vials.
Since plant matter could not swallow things, she’d decided infused water might be the best way to run her test. Last night, with the plant creature’s help, she and Elspeth had cracked the acorns, removed the skins, and ground the nuts. To their surprise, it had been like cracking normal acorns, except that the nuts came out gold. Ground, the nuts had become a golden powder that Charlotte had put in water overnight.
This morning, the water shimmered with gold specks. They’d made more than would fill the vials. Charlotte had wanted extra in case a course of medication was called for and in the hopes of treating Elspeth if the acorns proved effective on the plant matter.
“I hope this works,” she murmured.
