Jelly ear,he said, his voice echoing as his laughter had, and Arthur wanted to cry, hearing his voice.I could use some for the spate of flu going around the village, if I could get at it.
You can get at it.
Ira touched the tree. The fungi slid down the trunk and stopped within easy reach.
You are a wonder.Smiling, George harvested several fleshy fruits.Someday you’ll have to tell me how you do that.
“Wood and water hold memories,” Ira said now, standing at Arthur’s side. “These are mine.”
Arthur ran a finger along the basin’s lip. “This isn’t wood.”
“In the same way this is—” Ira reached for the acorn hanging from Arthur’s neck, his fingertips brushing the hollow of Arthur’s throat “—the basin is. They both come from the same tree.”
Arthur’s skin twitched at his touch. Hard to reconcile Ira-of-memory with the Ira before him now. Not merely because of the physical differences, but because it was difficult to imagine Ira-of-now smiling as he had in the memories.
“It’s a real acorn, then?” Arthur asked. “We always thought it was a carven trinket.”
The image in the basin shifted once more. A stag dragged itself through the forest on a shot leg. Men shouted somewhere behind him.
Ira yanked the basin from Arthur’s lap, sloshing him with water. The cat hissed as water splashed over her.
Arthur stared, but Ira emptied the basin and spoke as if there had been no interruption.
“The acorn came from the heart of the wood. It is—it was—a silver oak tree, the first tree that ever grew here and the source of all Shiftleaf’s magic. All that’s left now is a stump.” He dried the basin and hung it back on its branch. “That’s why the forest is dying.”
Arthur’s heartbeat quickened as he thought of the sickness. The trees oozing black. The skeletal animals roaming the forest.
Ira dropped into his armchair, running a hand through his hair. Several strands came loose from his knot, falling about his face or tangling around his antlers. Calyx crept from its place by the stove to wind around his feet.
“If not for George,” Ira said, “it would be dead already.”
Arthur’s fingers dug into his knees. “What do you mean?”
Ira looked sideways at him, his eyes flickering over Arthur’s face. Arthur wondered whether he was trying to find more of George.
“He really told you so little of me?”
Arthur nodded. “How many times did he see you, really?”
Ira’s fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. “Many. He stopped by whenever he traveled between Seacliff and Port Lorne. Sometimes he’d stay a day or two to keep me company.”
He stood abruptly, swearing as he tripped over Calyx.
“Accursed thing,” he growled, kicking it away. The tangle of plants slung itself back toward the stove. Muttering to himself, Ira grabbed two bowls from a cupboard, ducking to avoid catching his antlers in the items hanging from the ceiling.
Arthur’s head spun with questions, but they whirled through him so quickly he couldn’t grab hold of one. George Throckmorton had always been the one solid thing in his life. Even in memory—despite the space he’d left behind when he’d gone—George had felt dependable and real. Steady. Someone Arthur could look back on for comfort when life shook him, again and again. Now the very memories shook. How much of what his father had told him through the years was untrue? Why would he not have told his children the Lord of the Wood was his friend?
Unbidden, Charlotte’s criticism of Arthur’s own bedtime stories came to mind.
You never mention the sickness. Or the disappearances. You don’t even tell the children aboutDad’sdisappearance.
He told the stories as his father had told them, preferring to remember George’s stories to the realities of the forest. Had his father edited his tales for similar reasons, or had there been something else to it?
He could certainly see why George might not have mentioned Calyx.
Ira shoved a bowl of stew into his hands. “Eat.”
His brow furrowed as Arthur picked up a spoonful of stew only to let it plop back into the bowl. Freya purred at Arthur’s feet, stopping occasionally to glare at the Lord of the Wood or his chlorophyllous companion.
