Brendan’s mind flooded with panic. His heart was racing. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. Do something! his mind screamed.
“You can’t escape,” Orcadia cackled. “And no one can help you. It’s just you and me!”
Brendan’s back came up against the rough bark of the tree trunk. He could flee no farther without turning his back to the threat. His chest heaving, he pressed himself into the tree, wishing he could disappear. His eyes searched for a way out, and he almost failed to see the crackling orb sailing at his head. He ducked and rolled, coming to his feet as the tree erupted in flames.
How had Orcadia managed to fool everyone? How had she escaped from the Other Side? His father had said she couldn’t come back!
“You can’t be here!” he said suddenly. “This isn’t real.”
“It’s real, weakling.” Orcadia raised her arms and purple fire erupted above her. The flames fanned outward and ignited the dry, dead branches of the winter trees. Instantly, the forest above Brendan was ablaze.
“Stop it!” Brendan cried. He was terrified, not only for himself, but for the Humans who might see the flames and come to investigate. He knew Orcadia had no compunction about revealing herself to Humans and wouldn’t hesitate to harm any who came near.
Brendan pushed himself up onto his toes in a fighting stance as ash and cinders began to rain down. Sparks ignited tiny fires in the dry leaves on the ground around him. “Go back to the Other Side, Orcadia. You can’t do this here.”
“Why don’t you cry for your Human mother, weakling?” Orcadia laughed. “Don’t worry! She won’t survive long after you’re gone. Neither will your father or your sister.”
Brendan gritted his teeth. The thought of his Human family in danger awakened something within him. “You will not touch them,” he said coldly.
“Or else what?” Orcadia sneered.
“GO!” he shouted as powerfully as he could, putting all his anger and fear behind that one word.
Orcadia shuddered. Battling against the Compulsion, she clawed the air for purchase. Brendan’s heart soared.
“I did it!” he crowed. “I did it! I Compelled you!”
His elation died as he saw Orcadia’s features grow calm and her shuddering cease. She shook herself like a dog climbing out of a pond and then stood still, a vicious smile blooming on her lips. “Nice try. Is that the best you can do?”
Brendan didn’t answer. He merely closed his eyes and stretched out his thoughts.
The sensation was like flinging a door open in the back of his mind. Suddenly, he could feel everything: the jittery minds of the birds in the trees flickering like strobe lights, the buzzing slumber of young raccoons curled in their dens, nestled against their mothers. He even heard the cold, alien pinpoints of thought that marked the passage of ants, worms, and insects as they burrowed in the soil underfoot and in the tree bark, seeking refuge from the winter’s chill. He reached out with his mind, looking for help…
That’s when the park warden ran into the clearing.
Obviously, the warden had seen the flames and was coming to investigate. Seeing Orcadia, she stopped short and stared, her face a mask of shock. She was perhaps twenty years old, looking pathetically defenceless in a green parka with the city parks logo on the sleeve.
“What’s going on here?” the warden asked, her eyes taking in the bizarre scene.
Brendan lost his concentration immediately. How had the warden gotten through the glamours protecting the clearing? Maybe Orcadia isn’t worried about maintaining them anymore? In desperation, he cried, “RUN!”
The woman hesitated for an instant, and that was enough time for Orcadia to act. As the warden turned to flee, Orcadia let loose a crackling ball of power that sizzled after her, striking the girl directly in the back, turning her into a staggering mass of flame. The warden screamed, ran on for a few ragged steps as if trying to escape the agony, and fell to the ground, her synthetic jacket blazing.
Brendan couldn’t believe his eyes. He stood rooted to the spot, unable to shift his gaze from what seconds before had been the park warden. At last, he turned to see a look of crazed, gloating satisfaction on Orcadia’s face.
“What’s the matter, nephew?” she smirked. “She was only a Human girl. They’re a dime a dozen. They breed like lice, Humans.”
“I’ll kill you,” Brendan said through gritted teeth.
“Ah! The creature has some claws after all. Let’s see if he can scratch!” She flung another crackling orb of power, aiming squarely for Brendan’s chest.
Without thinking, driven by rage, Brendan warped into motion, tapping into the bizarre energy that made him a Warp Warrior. He felt the world around him slow down. Even in the throes of his fury, Brendan loved this feeling. Though he always had trouble reaching a warp state, once he was there, he never wanted to let go. To him, it seemed as though he were moving at normal speed while the whole of creation moved in slow motion. He saw the dry leaves on the trees slowly crisping as they smouldered in the cold wind. He could almost see the air moving the branches, the charred particles streaming past. Overhead, the clouds had ceased to trail across the face of the sun, arrested in their passage across the sky. Brendan, despite the threat facing him, grinned with delight.
Turning his attention back to Orcadia, he watched the sizzling ball approach, fire boiling up and dying down like solar flares on the surface of a tiny sun. Brendan almost laughed out loud. “This is too easy!” He stepped to one side as the ball of energy drifted harmlessly past. He turned to face Orcadia.
“Time to slap you down again,” Brendan said grimly. “Don’t you ever learn?” He dashed to the side with the intention of going around behind his adversary. His plan was good, but it didn’t survive his running into the tree trunk. Where there had been open space before, a solid oak now stood. He crashed into the rough bark of the thick trunk and staggered, falling onto his back in the carpet of musty leaves.
His nose felt as if it had been whacked with a hammer. Spots swarmed before his eyes. He tasted blood in the back of his throat. He tried to sit up, but Orcadia’s foot slammed him back to the ground. His vision cleared. Orcadia leaned over him, her head blotting out the weak early-winter sun. The branches of the hoary old oak tree waved.
“Well,” she snarled. “That was too easy! I made you think the path was clear and you ran straight into a tree. Fool! A child could have seen through that trick! But then again, you are a child and a fool both!” The bat creature on her shoulder chittered with laughter.
Her tone twisted in Brendan’s heart like a knife. Her disdain ignited something in his soul. He would not be beaten. He cast his mind about, searching for some contact. Birds? No. Not powerful enough. Bugs? Not enough of them in the cold weather. Raccoons and squirrels? Maybe…^ 22
Then he felt it. A slumbering yet powerful presence, so ancient and deep that it formed an underlying hum of life, slower and more ponderous than the animals and birds and insects. He reached out to it with all the strength his soul could muster. He felt the presence stir.
“Well?” Orcadia barked. She pushed her foot harder into his chest, her slim heel gouging his ribs. Brendan ignored the pain. He concentrated as hard as he could. He felt the thing stir. His mind was filled with a huge and powerful voice… The thing was speaking to him, but it wasn’t really a voice. More like an intention, a question.
Help me! Brendan shouted with all his might.
He got through. There was a ripping, popping sound of something tearing loose from the ground. Orcadia yelped in surprise as a tree root as thick as a man’s arm coiled around her ankles and yanked her from her feet. Brendan gasped for breath, hauling himself erect. He watched in wonder as the scene unfolded before him.
The oak tree was moving. The root circling Orcadia’s feet wound tighter and moved higher to grip her waist. As Brendan watched in amazement, one gnarled limb of the ancient oak bent down and entwined Orcadia’s arms, pinning her to the earth. The tips of the branches dug deep into the dead leaves and into the soil, completely immobilizing the flailing Faerie Sorceress. She struggled mightily but to no effect. The oak’s limbs were filled with strength, the wood unbreakable. The grinding and popping of the woody sinews was like a series of gunshots in the crisp winter air.
Brendan couldn’t believe what had happened. “Did I do that?” he whispered.
“The tree did it,” came Greenleaf’s voice, obviously in some discomfort. Even stranger, the teacher’s voice was coming from Orcadia’s mouth. “You asked it to help you and it did.”
Suddenly, the flames that had been blazing all around were extinguished. In fact, no sign remained that there had been any fire at all. The clearing was restored to how it had looked before Orcadia had wrought ruin upon it.
To Brendan’s astonishment, BLT leapt up from the leaves and flew to his shoulder. “Nice one, boss!” she cheered, pumping her fist.
“BLT! You’re okay!”
Brendan looked down and was shocked again to see that Orcadia was melting away. In her place lay Greenleaf, trapped beneath the tree’s limbs, his clothes rumpled and smeared with dirt. Titi melted back into her normal shape, flitting down to rest on Greenleaf’s chest, dusting leaves from his jacket with fastidious flicks of her wings. Despite his situation, he smiled up at Brendan.
“We played a little trick on you, I’m afraid,” Greenleaf chuckled. “A glamour to make me appear as Orcadia. I had to frighten you into using your powers. Obviously, you haven’t lost them. You just need to have a little incentive.”
“But the girl?” Brendan sought out the place where the park warden had fallen and saw only a raccoon waddling away.
“An improvisation on my part,” Greenleaf said. “I made you see a girl in place of the raccoon.”
Brendan shook his head in disbelief. Then another thought struck him. “Wait a minute. I talked to a tree!”
“Ah, indeed.” Greenleaf nodded. “That actually did happen. It’s quite amazing. Ki-Mata will be very excited to hear about this. Apparently, you also have a latent Talent for manipulating the green world. Remarkable!”
Brendan tried to absorb this news. “I can talk to birds. I am a Warp Warrior. I can Compel people, and now I can talk to trees!”
Mr. Greenleaf grunted. “And I think it would be an excellent idea if you would talk to this tree again and tell him to let me go.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay.” Brendan closed his eyes and thought hard. He reached for the mind of the tree. He could still sense it, but somehow it was slightly out of his reach.
“Uh-oh…? Brendan scratched his head. “I’m not sure I can.”
“Of course you can. Just try.”
Brendan closed his eyes and tried to shut out everything but the sound of the tree. He concentrated for a minute. Then another. Finally, he threw up his hands.“I can’t do it! I can feel the tree’s mind, but I can’t seem to get through.”
“Oh dear,” Mr. Greenleaf frowned. “I don’t relish lying out here for the next few days.”
Brendan snapped his fingers. “I know.” He reached into his pocket and drew out the small block of smooth wood that was his Faerie cellphone. Og, his Artificer uncle, had fashioned it for him to replace the one that was fried during his last adventure. All his old electronic devices had suffered a similar fate. In the end, Og had made him a new watch and an MP3 player out of Faerie-friendly materials. The watch served as a sort of glamour projector, as well as a timepiece. He had trouble maintaining a reliable Human disguise but was getting better all the time. The watch was a useful backup for when he dropped his concentration.
Tapping the centre of the block, he waited for the faint glow of the keyboard to appear and started to dial. “I’ll call Kim. She’s a pro with vegetation, isn’t she?”
“No!” said Greenleaf with uncharacteristic desperation creeping into his voice. “Not Ki-Mata! I’ll never hear the end of it!” Greenleaf and Ki-Mata had a rather adversarial relationship. Though both were participating in Brendan’s Faerie education, they often had differing opinions about what form that education should take. Ki-Mata would revel in Greenleaf’s predicament.
“I’d say you haven’t got much choice.” Brendan kicked one of the thick roots imprisoning Greenleaf. It didn’t budge.
“Very well,” Greenleaf sighed. “Call the she-devil.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” BLT crowed. “This is going to be good!”
Titi sneered.
^ 22. Never count on a squirel or a raccoon to have your back. Anybody with a peanut or a crust of bread can distract them.