Page 19 of Cruel As A Tree

"LIL!" Anna screamed, throwing herself down the stairs and across the backyard, her bare feet crunching over dried grass as she ran at me, her arms wide. She slammed into me, and I took a small step back to brace, catching her in my arms. Her skull slammed into my lower stomach with enough force to cause me to grunt.

"Gentle," I said, laughing as tears began to leak from my eyes. "Banana baby, you have to be gentle with me."

"Oh, thank you, Mary!" my mom gasped from the door as she clutched the cross around her neck.

"Hi Mom," I said, lifting one hand to wipe the tears from my cheek as my other hand stayed on Anna's back, the lifeline that kept me afloat in the depths of my despair.

"I planted them!" Anna said, turning her face to look up at me while her arms squeezed tighter around me. "Mom and I planted trees so you'd come home! I watered them every other day with lots and lots and lots so that their roots grew deep just like he said."

"He?" I asked. I looked around, taking in the backyard. I had been in such a panic when we first stepped through that I hadn't quite registered the new shade that encircled the small square of a backyard. There were trees, trees that didn't exist before, towering over the house, the shade from their branches cooling the roof.

"He said you needed the trees to come home," Anna said. She wrinkled her nose. "He looked funny."

"There was a fae in the backyard," my mom said as she gestured around to the circle of trees that went around the house.

"Lorthion," I said, the sudden crisp awareness of the what and why of my most recent actions. I had freaked out and attacked the man, or whatever he was, when he was only trying to give me what I wanted most in the world. I had assumed the worst of him, not just because of how he phrased things, but because of the trauma I'd experienced when first coming to the Magic Realm. I couldn't trust some random fancy fae in the forest because my previous experiences with fae were horrific.

I took another deep breath, feeling the weight of my choices.

I glance back at the tree I'd stepped through.

If he gave me a chance, I'd go back and apologize and thank him. It was the least I could do.

Anna squeezed her arms tighter around my waist, and I smiled down at her. Lorthion could wait.

He wasn't the one who needed me the most right now.

"I made you a picture," she said.

"Oh, Banana baby, I would love to see it," I said. She didn't let go of my waist, so I put both my hands under her armpits to support her as I began to walk forward with wide legs, waddling into her. She giggled and dropped her weight, lifting her feet so I was carrying her like a fifty-pound fanny pack.

"Why didn't you write or email?" my mom asked as I got closer to the porch. "Did your phone not work over there? You said you would let us know how it went, and then you just disappeared."

"I couldn't," I said, my voice soft. "The school... it was a lie."

"Oh," my mom said, her voice heavy. She glanced at Anna and then back at me. "Well, you're back now."

"Where is Veveron?" Anna asked.

"Because of Lorthion," I said at the same time as Anna spoke, so I answered her question as well. "Veveron is staying with him for a little bit while she hatches some eggs."

"She's so cuuuuuuuuuute," Anna said as we got to the first step of the porch. I patted her back gently, and she put her feet down and released her hold on my waist. She grabbed my hand, holding it tightly, and we walked up the stairs together. "Do eggs mean little Veverons?"

"Yes," I said, and Anna let out a high-pitched giggling sound, so I continued. "I'll ask her when they hatch if you can see them. Now where is that drawing?"

Anna let out a happy cry and ran ahead of me through the door, but she didn't let go of my hand, so she tugged on me, pulling me with her. I laughed, the joy in my heart unable to remain contained as I got everything I knew I needed the moment I no longer had it.

"Do you have to go back?" my mom asked as she followed after us into the house.

"Not right away," I said, my voice low. "But I messed up. I can't leave things the way I left them. Not when he brought me home."

Chapter

Ten

LILLIAN

The bark shimmered metallic in the glimmering light of the rising sun. It was hard to see unless I looked at it from the corner of my eyes. When I stared at the trunk of the tree directly, it looked normal, the same crackled brown as the oak in my neighbor's yard, if a tree that took decades to grow could look the same as a grove that appeared in under a week. At least, that was what my mom said had happened. That whole time I thought Lorthion just ditched me at his forest treehouse; he had instead portaled to the Mortal Realm, found my family, and planted a grove of trees from his forest that allowed me to walk right out of his place and back to my own. I'd spent the last month just hanging out with my family. Anne was going to start school in the fall, and I spent every day with her, taking her to the park and working on craft projects until we were sticky and there was a mess everywhere. My heart was full except for this one nagging ache that wouldn't go away.

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