Yet he’d been friends with the Lord of the Wood. He’d never eschewed telling his children stories in which magic figured. He’d accepted magic if he’d seen it, would’ve wondered about the workings of the magic keeping the flowers at his snowy grave alive instead of insisting on a nonmagical explanation.
“Hi, Dad,” Arthur whispered, his voice wobbling, and he sat in the snow and cried.
Standing behind him, Ira touched the top of his head. Calyx swayed nearby, but since Ira rather than Arthur had closed the distance between them, it contented itself with standing guard.
At last Ira said, “He died saving me.”
Arthur wiped his tears on his sleeve. Avoiding his gaze, Ira settled in the snow beside him. He stretched out his right leg, rubbing his knee. It seemed like he was avoiding looking at the grave, too.
“Thirty years ago, when woodsmen were felling the heart of the wood, hunters tried to kill me at the same time.”
“Why?”
“My life is bound to the forest. If one of us dies, so does the other. They wanted the land.” Ira’s fingers tightened on his knee. “I couldn’t get away. They’d already got a bullet in me.”
He dragged his hands through his hair. A strand came loose from his knot, hanging around his face. Arthur’s fingers twitched with the urge to tuck it back into place. He twisted his hands in his lap instead.
“They caught me,” Ira said. “Bound me. And then George came running and pulled them off. He’d been passing by.” His jaw clenched, voice blunt. “He held them off long enough for me to get away. That’s the only reason the forest is still standing. But the bastards were so angry at his interference that they killed him.”
Arthur’s breath hitched. Thirty years. Thirty years spent wondering what, exactly, had happened to his father. At first, of course, folks had whispered that he must have abandoned the family—finally decided he was too good for them, or for Seacliff. Eileen had refused to believe it. Charlotte, five, had merely asked, again and again, when her daddy was coming back with her new doll.
Arthur, twelve, had refused to believe, then quietly started to doubt, then come to think that George had not only left but left because of him. He was too soft, too dreamy, more interested in cogs and gears than the workings of the human body. He’d driven his father away, he’d thought.
When he’d said as much to his mother, she’d told him,Yourfather couldn’t love you more if you’d passed the Triple yesterday. I know what it’s like to have a man leave you, sweetheart, and it’s not like this. He didn’t leave. I know he didn’t.
Not long afterward, another village man had gone into the wood and never come out. Then a young couple. A child. Then more. The Throckmorton-Prentices came to know, in a general sense, what had happened to George. He’d been a victim of the forest, like the others. It had been as true to Arthur as the stories George had told about the Lord of the Wood.
Now, seeing his grave, learning how he had died—it was too much. A closure and a bigger question all at once. The Lord of the Wood had not only been George’s friend, but a friend so precious George had risked his life for him. Died for him. And it had not been Shiftleaf but ordinary men who had killed him.
Ira glanced over. “I’m sorry. I... Maybe I shouldn’t have told you—”
Arthur shook his head. “It’s all right. We’ve always wondered...”
Hesitantly, Ira touched his back. Arthur leaned into him without thought, squeezing his eyes shut. Calyx clicked fretfully but did not interfere.
After a moment of stiffness, Ira slipped an arm around him. It was ludicrous. This was the Lord of the Wood. An eldritch being, a shape-shifter, the stuff of lore and legend. Antlers and autumn leaves crowned his head. Beneath his furs, his shoulders were feathered. Where his feet should have been were wolf paws. A sentient ball of plant life followed him wherever he went.
But he was also a small, grim man, sitting in the snow with his arm around Arthur. He was warm and wiry, soft with all the furs he wore.
After a while, Ira stood. Arthur clambered to his feet, missing the heat of him. His trousers chafed, wet from melted snow.
Reaching into the trees, Ira pulled a bronze pocket watch from a branch. “You should have this.”
Arthur let out a breath. The case was engraved with his father’s initials.
“It hasn’t worked in decades, I’m afraid,” Ira said.
No matter. Arthur could fix it.
He clutched the watch to his chest. “You don’t know what this means to me. Thank you.”
Ira kicked at the snow. “It’s nothing.”
Arthur felt lighter than he had all morning. He had the case of watch-repairing tools with him. He’d have the watch working by the time he found a way home. Hewouldfind a way home. Anything seemed possible, with his father’s watch in his hands. Even his damp trousers—even Calyx swaying nearby, waist-high—didn’t bother him.
He smiled at Ira. It was the first time he’d smiled since losing Agnes’s cart. “It really isn’t.”
The tips of Ira’s ears pinkened, but he turned away. “More chores to do yet.”
