Page 12 of Cruel As A Tree

The forest is still alive,Veveron said.

"I'm going to go look for him, you don't have to come, obviously," I said, making up my mind. He had saved me from the hounds and provided a safe haven for Veveron and me.

If the whole forest burns to the ground, if even one seedling manages to push through the blackened soil, he is still alive,Veveron said.

"But what if he is trapped?" I asked. "What if they captured him?"

I didn't need to elaborate on who they were. There was an entire Order army camping inside the school walls. The dessicated grounds surrounding the school were there onpurpose. I was certain that if the army knew that the forest was here, they would come to destroy it. At the same time, I didn't understand why I was so worried about him. I just met him; he was magical and much stronger than I was. I didn't need to be worrying about him.

A thread of fear gnawed at me. Maybe it was that I was worrying about what he was doing.

Just don't leave the boundaries of the forest,Veveron said.

I had to leave the forest. I didn't climb the wall and risk my life to spend the rest of my days as some forest lord's pet... or mate... or whatever it was he wanted with me.

"I thought you'd be better off without a human holding you back with a familiar bond," I said.

You're not going to stay a human if you stay here,Veveron said.I like the idea of having a forest lady owe me a favor.

"What does that mean?" I asked. "What do you mean I won't stay a human?"

There was silence from the other side of the door.

"Veveron, don't play games with me," I said. "Tell me what you mean."

If the forest lord takes you as his mate, you'll change,she said.Like a flower changes to a fruit.

"Fruits get eaten," I said.

With care, they can turn into forests,she replied.

"I don't know about any of that," I said, feeling uneasy about how much I didn't know. If I changed, would I still be me? I didn't want to lose myself.

Then don't mate with him,she said.Keep your lust to yourself and he will stay outside the edges of your foolish boundaries. Stay a weak and fragile mundane if that is really what you want. Now leave me alone.

I left her alone, returning to my room to pack up a backpack. I'd been eating fresh food for days, but that wouldn't work fortravel rations, so I boiled some eggs just in case I couldn't find anything. I took a knife from the kitchen and with some effort managed to set fire to a small branch and get the end of it nice and charcoaled. I needed some way to mark where I had been so I could find my way back.

I'd only taken a few steps into the forest, marking the first trees with charcoal marks, when a branch snagged my hair.

I reached up to untangle it, and the branch moved, tugging at me before letting go.

I turned to walk a different way when a vine caught my ankle.

I hopped on one foot for a second as I reached down to unhook it, and the vine tightened before my eyes like a living thing, and gave my foot a gentle pull, in the same direction that the branch had tugged me. I took a step in that direction and the vine unwrapped, slithering back into the forest.

"You want me to go that way?" I asked, pointing in the direction the vine and branch had tugged.

The leaves on the trees around me all rustled, as if a sudden gust of wind had careened through them, but I didn't feel any breeze. No shifting of air brushed against my arms. No hair moved out of place. Just the sound of leaves tapping against one another without a cause I could sense.

I began to walk in that direction. My boots pressed into the soil so soft it nearly cupped the soles, moss giving slightly under each step. Branches arched overhead, woven together so thickly in places that they filtered the sunlight into shifting latticework. Any time I turned away, another branch, or vine, or bush seemed to slide in front of me, roots curling from below, fronds hanging just low enough to snag at my hair or wrap gently around my wrist. The forest tugged, subtly insistent, until I stopped resisting and let it guide me.

I moved forward, not in a straight line but nudged gently left or right by soft interference. The air smelled fresh and sharp,crushed leaves, damp bark, and the sweet tang of flowers. The many varieties of flowers and plants caught my eye. I'd grown up in worn-down suburbia, with metal bars on the windows and metal-fenced cramped backyard lawns that dried out in the summer, the street heavy with the smell of hot asphalt and car exhaust. It was the kind of neighborhood where people cut down their trees thinking they were a nuisance for maintenance, saying the roots would ruin the sidewalk or leaves clog their gutters, but I knew better. The rare drives through wealthier neighborhoods in my city; the one thing they all had in common was that they had old-growth trees, big towering things that I found out later were protected by city ordinances. I had planted a few saplings in the front yard after applying to a free tree program run by a non-profit, only to have someone cut them down overnight, leaving stumps that struggled to grow leaves again.

The forest, and the life that it protected, was lush and diverse. There were so many colors and songs, blossoms and fruits, vines twining up trees and marsupials chattering from branches. At one point, a plump deer that was no taller than my knee but looked full-grown crossed my path, giving me a curious look before sedately continuing on its journey. Green and purple were the colors that dominated, and there were multiple plants that had a glow to them that signaled they would light up the night to attract their pollinators.

When I stepped out into a small, sun-speckled clearing, I stopped to take a break, setting down my backpack and sitting down on a thick mound of moss that piled up at the base of a tree. I lay down on the pile of moss, sinking into the softness that was just as good as a bed.

After a moment, something shifted under my leg.

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