The Tree Shepherd's Daughter (21 page)

Knot yowled and tried to swat her, then thought better
of it and walked away calmly, as if it didn't matter.

She lit two white beeswax candles that stood in wooden
candleholders on the small kitchen table. The flames flickered, casting a warm glow around the room, counteracting
the gloom from the cloudy skies outside.

Zeke came in. "Doesn't it smell great in here? I'm making spaghetti sauce."

"It does smell good."

"Can you help fix it? I've got to head back downstairs."

"Sure." Her stomach growled.

Zeke opened a cupboard and pulled out a colander and
placed it on the counter. "We need to talk."

There was a knock at the door.

He didn't remove his gaze from Keelie's. "Come in."

It was Scott. "Sorry to disturb your cozy family scene, but I'm having a devil of a time. Can you come back down,
Zeke?"

Keelie glared at Scott. She bet he really wasn't sorry for
interrupting.

Zeke sighed. "I was so tired today that I slept and never
got downstairs to look at the tree. It's in desperate shape."
He walked over to the candles on the table and blew them
out. No more golden glow.

Scott flipped the light switch by the door, and the
kitchen light burst into irritating brightness.

"Keelie, would you serve the spaghetti and bring the
plates downstairs? We'll make it a working dinner."

"Great. Spaghetti for supper." Scott smirked. "Zeke
and I've had lots of working dinners in the shop. Oh,
and Keelie, sprinkle mine with pepper. Gives it that extra
zest-kind of how the pirates like it."

"Oh, like the pirates I found you with at the pub when
you forgot to pick me up?"

Scott glared at her, glancing quickly at Zeke to judge
his reaction. "Soon as we finish, I'm headed to the Shire.
Big party there tonight. Drum circle and everything. Everyone's going to miss you." He winked.

He was so dead.

"Keelie. Scott. Enough." Zeke shouted. "Let's get to
work. Keelie, there's a pitcher of cold mint tea in the refrigerator, too.

"Fine." She felt like their maid.

They exited, but Scott opened the door again. "Hey
Keelie. I'll take ice with my tea. Ciao."

She wanted to scream. When did she become a waitress? First, she was serving rat to a hawk, and now she was serving spaghetti to a big dweeb-rat named Scott.

She opened the kitchen cabinets and slammed pottery
plates with leaf impressions onto the counter. "I'll give
him extra zest."

Keelie drained the spaghetti noodles over the sink,
then dumped them into a bowl. Something snagged her
new blue jeans. She looked down. Two glowing green eyes
glared right back at her. "If you don't let go of my pants,
I'll kick your butt."

A heap of chopped garlic was abandoned on a wooden
chopping board. "I bet this is for you, but you don't have
fleas, do you? Scott does."

Keelie wiggled her foot again. Knot studied her as
she calmly stirred the spaghetti sauce, then ran into the
kitchen and hopped into a chair as if he was ready to be
served.

"I'm not going to give you spaghetti. I'm not your
waitress, either."

She walked over to the sink and distributed three equal
portions of spaghetti onto three plates. She was about to
spoon the sauce over it when she noticed the garlic again.
"You know, Scott did say he wanted extra zest in his spaghetti."

She strategically hid the garlic in the huge mound of
spaghetti. Inspired, she searched the kitchen spice cupboard. "Jackpot."

She sprinkled chili powder on some extra sauce and
mixed it into Scott's serving. "Come one, come all-a new
show at the Faire. The fire-breathing idiot!"

Knot purred as he watched her. She placed the three
small plates of spaghetti on a tray, reminding herself that
Scott's was the dark blue one. She added silverware and
napkins by the plates, then hoisted up the tray and headed
downstairs. They'd have to get their own tea because she
couldn't carry the spaghetti and drinks, too.

When Keelie pushed the door open to the outside
stairs, Knot ran past her.

"Brain-damaged feline."

The cat ran down the stairs. She stopped on the last
step. She could hear the buzzing of hundreds of little bees.
But there weren't any bugs flying around to make that
noise.

Zeke and Scott were in the shop, talking. Knot was nowhere in sight. Annoying as he was, she envied Scott. He
knew Zeke better than she did. Her father had taken an
interest in him and taught him how to work with wood.
She'd gotten an occasional toy.

She stepped inside, but neither of them noticed her.
Zeke's hands were on a massive, scarred trunk of a tree
strapped to sawhorses, like a patient on a surgical table.
He touched it reverently, caressing the bark.

Wrong. Something was very wrong here. Keelie felt the
air vibrating, like waves coming at her from the tree.

"So?" Scott's hands were at his side, well away from the
big tree.

"She's still grieving and doesn't want to be shaped into
something else. She was taken before her time. She grieves
for the sun. She wants to sink her roots back into Mother
Earth."

"What are you talking about?" asked Keelie, pulling
a charred piece of wood from the table (oak). She had a
brief impression of lightning and fire. A figure moved in
the flash.

The men glanced at her, but the big tree trunk was
their main concern.

"The wood. Come touch her, Keelie," Zeke said.

"Do you think she should do that?" Scott said. He
seemed annoyed.

She smiled sweetly at him and handed him his plate.
"For you."

"Where's the tea?"

"Upstairs. Get it yourself."

She reached out to the tree but drew back her hand
as she saw a delicate feminine face, twisted in pain, look
out from inside the bark. She closed her eyes, then looked
again, but it was just a tree. There was no carving.

She backed away.

"Mommy, the tree people say they know me. They know
Daddy." Keelie was suddenly back in the park with her
mother, small, and reaching up to hold her mommy's
hand.

"There are no tree people, Keelie," Mom had said, but
even at age five, Keelie knew she was lying. Mom said she
had a wood allergy that made her see and hear things. But
if she stayed away from wood she'd be okay. Keelie had
never mentioned her wood sense to her mother again.

Zeke said, "Is something wrong?"

"It's just my allergy," she said. She backed away from
the log. She couldn't touch it. She imagined the tree's despair, and it enveloped her. If she touched it the grief
would consume her, and she had enough of her own. It's
all in my head, she thought.

But the tree's imagined grief brought back her own.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Mom was supposed to
be here, alive and strong, face to the sun and feet on the
Earth. Keelie trembled. She wanted to cry.

"Mom." The word came out in a moan.

Dad hugged her. "It's okay, Keelie. I'm here for you.
And I'm never letting you go again." She wrapped her
arms around him.

Scott shouted, "Oh man, that's hot."

Knot jumped onto the log. Keelie stepped back, but
Zeke kept an arm around her shoulder, drawing her
closer.

The buzzing noise Keelie heard became louder and
more distinct, like little pieces of conversation, the murmurs of different tiny voices blending together.

Knot's weird eyes were round marbles of black rimmed
in green. His tail swished like a writhing cobra. His ears
were slicked back to his head, making his bald spot all the
more prominent. He growled, staring at the air above him.

Keelie looked around to see if another cat was challenging him, but there was nothing around except that weird
noise, which was getting louder and louder. Maybe the cat
was having a psychotic fit.

Leaping from the log, Knot landed on the ground,
then shot across the clearing and climbed five feet up a
nearby oak tree. He jumped from the tree and landed on
the ground, turning on his back to paw at the air, swatting an invisible enemy. Just as quickly, he whirled onto his feet
and ran around the oak's trunk three times, then stopped
and smacked his paw at the ground. Then he ran down
the pathway past the jousting arena and toward the lake.
The buzzing and murmurs of conversation disappeared as
if in pursuit of the cat.

"Is he sick?" asked Keelie. It sure looked like kitty insanity to her. Maybe she should've served the cat the spaghetti with the extra garlic. She gazed over at Scott, who
had wolfed down his supper, and his face was shiny with
sweat, and bright red.

"Are you going to get the tea?" Scott asked. "My
mouth's on fire."

"Scott, what's the matter with you? Go get the tea."
Zeke scowled at him. He squeezed her arm lightly. "I
wanted to ease you into your new life, give you time before you started learning about me and about my family
and my world. Guess it's not working."

"What are you talking about? What's this tree got to
do with it?"

"It was felled by lightning the day you arrived. Remember, you saw the smoke? You saved some lives that
day, Keelie. But this tree is beyond saving, and her magic is
trapped within her. As a tree shepherd, I have to guide her
spirit onward and transform her magic into healing energy."

"Right. Sort of like an arborist and a priest?"

"Sort of. Not everyone can do what I do, and you have
my power within you. More than that, Sir Davey and I
suspect that you are much more powerful than me."

"Really?" Superpowers would come in handy, although tree powers were kind of limited. What could she do,
frighten squirrels? She was not believing this. Mom had
warned her that Dad was all New Age and weird. He should
have come to California. He would have fit right in.

Keelie realized that her mouth was hanging open and
closed it. Tears stung her eyes, angry ones.

"There are good fairies, too, and some came to bid
farewell to the oak that sheltered them. Knot interfered.
Knowing that cat, he'd probably desecrated their mushroom circle by using it as a litter box." Zeke shook his
head. He was enjoying this.

"Stop it, Zeke. I thought we had a great time at the
mall," she said. "I actually thought you were treating me
like family, instead of like a tourist. But now you're going
off on this wacky fairy tale riff again." She backed away
from him, glad that he looked hurt. He deserved it. No
wonder Mom left his world. He couldn't tell reality from
fantasy. "I'm not some mundane, you know."

He looked serious. "Keelie, you certainly are not a
mundane. Far from it."

"I'm going to help Cameron with Ariel. Enjoy your
spaghetti." She crossed the open area and started down the
path toward the aerie.

Behind her, Zeke called, "Keelie? Wait a minute, I'll
come with you. It's dangerous for you to be alone."

She waved without turning, then broke into a jog,
which soon turned into an all-out sprint. By the time she
returned to school, she'd be in such great shape that the
rest of the cross-country team would be eating her dust.
Darkened booths flashed by, their owners in their trailers or upstairs apartments. She slowed as she passed the woods
on the other side of the jousting field.

A costumed child was walking through the trees. Keelie
stopped as she realized what she was seeing-what she
thought she was seeing. It was Knot, wearing boots, walking on his hind legs, and brandishing a sword in his front
paw. And he wasn't alone. A leafy creature, all tangled
wood and vines, fought back, wielding a large staff.

Keelie ran faster than ever, anxious to escape from her
overactive imagination.

There is too much stress and too much grief in my life,
Keelie thought as she stroked Ariel's dark red tail feathers,
glad that the hawk, for all its elegance and regal bearing,
was just a bird and nothing else.

She could hear her father talking to Cameron in hushed
tones. He'd run after her the whole way. She'd never tell
him how glad she was to have him there, mad as she was
that he treated her like a baby. Fairies? Right.

Ariel watched her with her one golden eye. Cameron
had not been around when Keelie had arrived at the raptor mews. James, one of the other performers, had given
Keelie permission to take Ariel out of her cage and had
shared his spaghetti dinner with her. Normal spaghetti,
thank goodness. Zeke had arrived seconds after she had,
but he'd disappeared once he saw her with James.

Reeling from the uber-strange scene at the woodshop,
Keelie wondered if she needed psychiatry. No, if any therapy was going to be handed out, her father and Scott
needed to be at the head of the line.

Of course it might have been drugs. Maybe there was
something in the herb tea everyone around here drank.
Maybe some of Mrs. Butters' crystal seeds. They sounded
dangerous.

It all seemed like a big hallucination. Faces in trees,
magic mud balls, and invisible bugs with buzzing voices.
Knot in his little Puss In Boots Musketeer outfit. She'd
never be able to tell her friends that one without cracking
up. Then again, "cracking up" was not a phrase she should
use too much these days.