big, branchy tree, soaked in sunlight and anchored in sand. I open my eyes and bounce the stick up and down in my hand. It’s as light as a feather.
My uncle fishes a candle out of his pants pocket, gets up and sets the candle on a nearby stump before returning to me. “Hold the stick like this, Elloren,” he says gently as he bends down and holds his hand around mine.
I look at him with slight worry.
Why is his hand trembling?
I grasp onto the stick harder, trying my best to do what he wants.
“That’s it, Elloren,” he says patiently. “Now I’m going to ask you to say some funny words. Can you do that?”
I nod emphatically. Of course I can. I’d do anything for my uncle Edwin.
He says the words. There are only a few of them, and I feel proud and happy again. Even though they’re in another language and sound strange to my ears, they’re easy to say. I will do a good job, and he will hug me and maybe even give me some of the molasses cookies I saw him tuck away into his vest before we left home.
I hold my arm out, straight and true, and aim my feather-stick at the candle, just like he told me. I can feel him right behind me, watching me closely, ready to see how well I listened.
I open my mouth and start to speak the nonsense words.
As the odd words roll off my tongue, something warm and rumbling pulls up into my legs, right up from the ground beneath my feet.
Something from the trees.
A powerful energy shoots through me and courses toward the stick. My hand jerks hard and there’s a blinding flash. An explosion. Fire shooting from the tip of the stick. The trees around us suddenly engulfed in flames. Fire everywhere. The sound of my own screaming. The trees screaming in my head. The terrifying roar of fire. The stick roughly pulled from my hands and quickly cast aside. My uncle grabbing me up, holding me tight to his chest and racing away from the fire as the forest falls apart around us.
* * *
Things change for me in the forest after that.
I can feel the trees pulling away, making me uneasy. And I begin to avoid the wild places.
Over time, the childhood memory becomes cloudy.
“It’s just a dream,” my uncle says, comforting me, when the burning scene returns in the dark of sleep. “About that time you wandered out into the forest. During that lightning storm. Think on pleasant things, and go back to sleep.”
And so I believe him, because he cares for me and has never given me a reason not to believe.
Even the forest seems to echo his words. Go back to sleep, the leaves rustle on the wind. And over time, the memory fades, like a stone falling to the bottom of a deep, dark well.
* * *
Into the realm of shadowy nightmares.
Fourteen years later...
Halfix
“Take that, you stupid Icaral!”
I glance down with amusement at my young neighbors, a basket of freshly picked vegetables and herbs balanced on my hip, a slight near-autumn chill fighting to make itself known through the warm sunlight.
Emmet and Brennan Gaffney are six-year-old twins with the black hair, forest green eyes and faintly shimmering skin so prized by my people, the Gardnerian Mages.
The two boys pause from their noisy game and look up at me hopefully. They sit in the cool, sunlit grass, their toys scattered about.
All the traditional characters are there among the brightly painted wooden figures. The black-haired Gardnerian soldiers, their dark tunics marked with brilliant silver spheres, stand valiantly with wands or swords raised. The boys have lined the soldiers up on a wide, flat stone in military formation.
There are also the usual archvillains—the evil Icaral demons with their glowing eyes, their faces contorted into wide, malicious grins, black wings stretched out to their full size in an effort to intimidate, fireballs in their fists. The boys have lined these up on a log and are attempting to launch rocks at them from the direction of the soldiers with a catapult they’ve fashioned from sticks and string.
There are assorted side characters, too: the beautiful Gardnerian maidens with their long black hair; wicked Lupine shapeshifters—half-human, half-wolf; green-scaled Snake Elves; and the mysterious Vu Trin sorceresses. They’re characters from the storybooks and songs of my childhood, as familiar to me as the old patchwork quilt that lies on my bed.
“Why are you here?” I ask the boys, glancing down into the valley toward the Gaffneys’ estate and sprawling plantation. Eliss Gaffney usually keeps the twins firmly near home.
“Momma won’t stop crying.” Emmet scowls and bangs the head of a wolf-creature into the ground.
“Don’t tell!” Brennan chastises, his voice shrill. “Poppa’ll whip you for it! He said not to tell!”
I’m not surprised by Brennan’s fear. It’s well-known that Mage Warren Gaffney’s a hard man, feared by his fastmate and children. And the startling disappearance of his nineteen-year-old daughter, Sage, has made him even harder.
I look to the Gaffneys’ estate again with well-worn concern.
Where are you, Sage? I wonder unhappily. She’s been missing without a trace for well over a year. What could have possibly happened to you?
I let out a troubled sigh and turn back to the boys. “It’s all right,” I say, trying to comfort them. “You can stay over here for a while. You can even stay for supper.”
The boys brighten and appear more than a little relieved.
“Come play with us, Elloren,” Brennan pleads as he playfully grabs at the edge of my tunic.
I chuckle and reach down to ruffle Brennan’s hair. “Maybe later. I have to help make supper, you know that.”
“We’re defeating the Icarals!” Emmet exclaims. He throws a rock at one of the Icarals to demonstrate. The rock collides with the small demon and sends it spinning into the grass. “Wanna see if we can knock their wings off?”
I pick up the small figure and run my thumb across its unpainted base. Breathing in deep, I close my eyes and the image of a large tree with a dense crown, swooping branches and delicate white flowers fills my mind.
Frosted Hawthorne. Such elegant wood for a child’s plaything.
I open my eyes, dissolving the image, focusing back in on the demon toy’s orange eyes. I fight the urge to envision the tree once more, but I know better than to entertain this odd quirk of mine.
Often, if I close my eyes while holding a piece of wood, I can get the full sense of its source
