The Girl and the Grove
Page 25
Leila waved him off, letting herself slide down the wall and onto the floor. Sarika knelt down and wrapped her arms around her.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? I’m talking to you!” Landon shouted from somewhere outside the crumbling mansion, his voice fading as he moved farther away. Leila tried to push herself to her feet to look out the shattered window at what was happening outside, but the movement made her cover her own mouth to stop herself from shrieking.
“Don’t, don’t,” Sarika said softly. She stood up slowly and looked out the window, standing on her tiptoes and leaning against the wall. “He’s chasing someone.”
“Get back here!” Landon yelled from farther away. A few additional unintelligible shouts carried on the wind as Sarika sunk back down and nuzzled Leila. Leila’s head was still throbbing with pain, and now her stomach was, too. It radiated throughout her body.
Leila closed her eyes, breathing in slowly, and listened.
Nothing.
Silence.
They were gone. The voices of the dryads. Of her birth mother, and the two creatures who were essentially her biological aunts. What had happened to them? Had the developers cleared out the grove? Was everything dying around her because they were gone?
Was she next?
She squeezed her eyes shut until her head started to throb again.
Footsteps.
Leila opened her eyes and spotted Sarika jumping to her feet and peering back out the window. She squatted back down at her side and took her hand. Landon bounded into the mansion with his fists balled up, his eyes hard. He looked down at Leila with a mixture of fury and concern.
“Sarika, help me out.” He bent down and put his arms under Leila’s legs.
“Wha-what are you doing?” Leila muttered.
“Getting you off the ground,” he said, as Leila looped her arms around his neck. He hoisted her up, and the pain in her chest and head boomed. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “It’s going to be okay.” He turned quickly to Sarika. “We have to get Leila the hell out of here.”
“Why?” Sarika asked, as they started walking out of the mansion. “Who were you chasing? What is going on?”
“Some kind of poison. Maybe weed killer? I’m not sure what it is,” Landon said firmly. “It’s everywhere. We’re not going to find any animals here.”
“What?” Sarika exclaimed. “Why? Why would they . . .” she faded off, and Leila looked down at her from Landon’s arms. Sarika’s expression went cold, and she shook her head.
“They know,” she said, softly. “Whoever it is, someone told them what’s going on here. They know what our people are looking for.” She stopped and stooped down to run her hand over the ground.
“Sarika, don’t!” Landon cried.
She lifted her hand up to her nose and squinted. She immediately whipped her hand back and forth, and wiped it on her jeans.
“The poor mice. The other animals around here, your owl. What do we do?” Sarika asked.
“We keep Leila away from it. It’s clearly hurting her,” Landon said resolutely. “Let’s get out of here.” He turned to walk away from the mansion, and Leila could feel the world around her spinning as he moved back and forth. She swayed in his arms.
“N-no.” Leila muttered, trying to move out of Landon’s arms.
“What?” Landon asked, stopping. “What’s wrong?”
Leila pointed back towards the mansion.
“We can’t leave,” she said, feeling like she had to force her voice out. “The, the dryads. We need to see if they’re . . . if they made it.” She coughed out the last few words and Landon held her tighter.
“Leila, I don’t think—” he started.
“We’re not discussing it,” she said as sternly as she could. “I’ll crawl there if I have to. If you take me home, I’ll find a way back.”
Landon looked over at Sarika, who shrugged in response.
“She’s stubborn,” she said, and Leila could hear the smile in her voice. “Let’s go.”
_____
“Karayea!” Leila gasped as they walked into the grove. It took so much energy to even raise her voice. Landon took slow steps, each cautious and careful, muttering about how slippery and slick the soil around them was. He slid on the dead leaves a few times, and each time his foot made a quick, squishy sound against the earth Leila felt his hands grip her tightly, his strong arms flex around her as he cradled her against his chest. She pushed her head against him and took a deep breath, but the smell of sandalwood and sawdust had been replaced with a raw, harsh chemical smell that seemed to permeate the air around them.
“Do you . . . do you smell that?” Leila asked, pressing a hand against Landon’s chest.
Landon looked at her and then at Sarika with a worried expression on his face.
The dark soil that they could see under the leaves that surrounded the grove was tinted an off, pale-blue color, and specks of the liquid stained the stone ring around the dryad’s trees. They all still bore the red Xs from the developers. The dryads’ trees were barren, their leaves gone.
“Tifola! Shorea!” Leila shouted as loud as she could. She coughed and shook her head against the pounding in the back of her skull. Sarika darted ahead of Landon, and they walked into the grove.
The trees were silent.
The woods were quiet.
The sounds of wildlife that normally scampered about most of Fairmount Park were simply gone. Leila looked around, moving her head slowly. No squirrels, no birds singing in the nearby trees. No insects lazily buzzing by her face.
Nothing.
“Let’s get closer,” Leila muttered.
Landon walked towards the three oak trees, which stood tall and quiet in the middle of the stone ring. He held Leila close as they approached the trees, and she stretched out from his arms to run her hand over the surface of the middle one, where Karayea dwelled.
“I wonder how long they’ve been poisoning the ground here,” Leila said, her fingers caressing the hard bark on the tree’s surface. “She wasn’t acting the same the last time we were here, and the others . . .” She looked at the two trees, neither of which had awoken even the last time they had come to the grove. “What . . . what if they’re gone?”
“I don’t know,” Landon said, shaking his head. “Will the park really wither up?” He looked up at the sky, towards the canopy, and then around, taking Leila with him for the spin. “I just, I can’t imagine it. The city with no trees. No breathable air. No people.”
And no me, Leila thought.
A rustling.
A soft breeze shook the empty branches in the trees, and the center tree split open.
Landon stumbled back a little at the resounding crack from the tree, and Leila could hear his feet sliding against the slick earth. She winced, preparing for the inevitable impact against the ground, when Sarika darted over, grabbing and steadying him.
“Whew. Thanks,” Landon muttered as he regained his footing. Leila smiled at Sarika, who then gawked at something behind her. Leila turned around to spot Karayea watching them from inside the split oak tree.
“Hello, children,” she said, her voice old and haunting. A soft smile appeared on her weathered, bark-like face.
“You’re alive!” Leila exclaimed, despite the pain that pounded in her head at the effort. “I thought, I thought that was it. All of this.” She waved at the poison on the ground from Landon’s arms.
“The soil,” Karayea said, the power gone from her voice. “It’s in the soil, spilled upon the earth. Our power is fading, I feel the life in your city draining away.”
“I know,” Leila said. “All the trees, the leaves are falling off everywhere. Birds are leaving. It’s all over the news. But no one understands why it is happening. But we’re . . . we’re going to take care of it. We’re goi
ng to tell the right people, and they’ll clean it up. We . . .” she faded off.
Would anyone clean it up?
They’d come to the woods to get evidence of the endangered mouse. They’d brought the traps here to capture them and show people. They would tell the press, present their proof to the board and Dr. Cordova’s team.
Leila looked around at the blue-ish earth, at the soil covered in poison. It glimmered on the ground like weed killer. She closed her eyes, shaking her head, but couldn’t hear a thing. The silence of the woods, barren of life, of animals. It was the loudest of noises.
“It is fine, my sapling,” Karayea said, reaching out a hand, her arm made of brambles and branches, her fingers small twigs with tiny leaves bursting from them. Her leaves had gone from bright green to a dull brown, and as she ran her fingers over Leila’s face the leaves crumbled off her hands, breaking and dissipating into the wind. Leila looked at Karayea’s once bright-green eyes, which had faded to brown.
“Why . . . why is this happening to you? Why now? After all this time, to find you and now to lose you. It isn’t fair! It isn’t right.”
“We had some time. It is likely more than most,” Karayea said, her incredibly human eyes sad and wet.
“What about Leila?” Landon choked out, holding her close. “What will happen to her? With all of this?”
Leila stared into Karayea’s fading brown eyes.
The dryad didn’t have to say it.
She knew. With that look, she knew.
“She’s one of us,” Karayea said, lowering her arm. “Just like all the trees surrounding these woods. Tall and bordering the rivers, thin and struggling in the human’s cities . . . all of them . . . this whole park, as you and your friends have called it. As we fade,” she gazed at Leila with a pained expression, “so, my dear, do you.”
Leila’s heart hammered in her chest as she glanced up at Landon, whose eyes were already watering.
“No,” Sarika said, taking a step forward. “No. No. No. We will clean everything up here ourselves if we have to, chain ourselves to you and the other two. No bulldozer is going to come in here and tear you from your home. There are three of us, three of you—”
“Two,” Karayea barely whispered.
A pause, full of silence.
“What?” Sarika asked.
“There are . . . two of us.” The dryad walked over to the two trees that stood behind hers, her limbs creaking and groaning, and ran her hand over the one that had held Tifola. “I’m afraid my sister did not survive. I felt her leaving this world, returning to the Earth, just days ago.”
Karayea turned and looked to Leila.
“You should know,” Karayea said, walking towards her oak tree, her movements slowed and measured. “I have valued this time we have had, short as it may have been.” She stepped inside her tree, and with loud cracks and snaps, it began sealing up but stopped halfway, leaving her exposed from her torso up.
“My sapling.” She reached out from the tree, and again, ran her hand over Leila’s face as Landon held her out towards the dryad. “I wanted so much more for you. A real life, among the humans. I never wanted you to know of this. I should have never called you here. But I watched you. I listened. Through the trees and the wind, as you grew and blossomed, and I knew you would want to help those other than yourself. This is who you are.”
Leila sniffled back, closing her eyes, tears streaming down her face.
“It was always about more than just you and me . . .” Karayea said, pulling her arm back. “But at the same time, it never was.”
“What do I do?” Leila asked.
“I’m not sure how long I have,” Karayea said. “This ground, this soil . . .” she sighed, and the wind rustled around them. “I’m stronger than my sisters. My sister,” she corrected herself, her eyes closed and pained. “If these woods aren’t mended . . .” She looked at Leila, her eyes hard and worried, washed with concern and fear.
“If you only had a few days left in this world,” Karayea said, her voice gone quiet, “how would you spend them?”
Sarika stared forward intently, fire brewing in her eyes. Landon’s mouth was turned up into a forced line, as though he was holding back something, and his eyes were watering. Just like that, it was the old him again, trying to hide who he really was, only this time it was so easy to see through it all. Leila felt his arms around her, holding her tighter and tighter with each line of conversation with Karayea, as though she might float away and up into the sky without his grasp. She glanced down at Sarika, who stared forward intently, fire brewing in her eyes. Her thoughts wandered off to Jon and Liz, back at home.
How she’d called Jon her dad, and how he’d never asked for it.
How Liz desperately wanted to be called Mom, and how she’d struggled with the word for the person who deserved it most.
Her heart felt as though it was trying to wrench itself from her chest.
“I think I’d spend them just like this,” she said, nodding. “Maybe say the right things to the right people. As often as possible.”
“Then go,” Karayea said, the tree starting to seal up around her. “Say those things. Don’t leave one word unsaid, one word forgotten.”
Leila glanced up at Landon, then to Sarika, her thoughts again wandering.
“I won’t,” Leila said, reaching out to Karayea. The dryad held her hand, giving it a soft squeeze, before vanishing inside the tree. “I promise.”
_____
“What do we do?” Sarika asked, tears welling up in her eyes as Leila settled into the passenger seat of Landon’s truck. “I can’t lose you. I won’t lose you.”
“I don’t know,” Leila said as Landon closed the door and made his way around the truck. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I think I know where we can start,” Landon said, as he got into the truck and fastened his seatbelt, his movements quick and precise. “We need to figure out who this is.” He pulled out his cell phone to show a photo to Leila and Sarika. “This is the person who was in the grounds earlier, with the bottles of poison. I managed to get one somewhat clear photo before . . . what is it?”
Leila glared at the phone, and when she looked up she saw a similar fury washing over Sarika’s face.
“What?” Landon insisted.
“We know that person,” Sarika snarled, as she kicked the back seat of the truck. “Hell, I can’t believe this.”
“Who?” Landon asked, taking his phone and staring at the photo. “Who is it?”
“Just drive,” Sarika said. “We’ll explain on the way. Looks like we don’t need that mouse. We just caught ourselves a rat.”
THREAD: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
SUBFORUM: PHILADELPHIA
PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by A Dash of Paprika
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 6:02PM
The protest this weekend by the Thomas Mansion in Fairmount Park is canceled.
We’ll post more updates when we have them, but please, PLEASE do not go there. Construction is starting soon, and poison has been sprayed on the ground to presumably eliminate any “pests” and overgrown plants in the area. We don’t want any of you getting sick, so please, stay home.
WithouttheY and I will be sending out DMs to everyone who planned to attend, and if any of you know each other IRL, please reach out and let one another know.
RE: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by Dr. Cordova
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 7:15PM
My God. I hope you’re all okay! Be sure to clean up and take a seriously long shower. Any sign of the field mice?
RE: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by WithouttheY
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 7:17PM
No, we tried. I’m afraid t
here’s not much else we can do.
RE: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by Dr. Cordova
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 7:25PM
That is tragic. Just tragic.
RE: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by WithouttheY
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 8:02PM
It’s okay, Dr. Cordova, check your DMs and emails. We’ll be in touch regarding some other projects.
RE: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by DeLaJessica
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 9:02PM
LOL.
RE: PROTEST CANCELED, DANGER (PLEASE READ!)
Posted by A Dash of Paprika
AUGUST 28th, 2017 | 9:12PM
Karma is a bitch, Jessica. Remember that. Banned.
XXVII
“Is this the one?” Leila asked, leaning against the cold metal of the lockers that lined the hall. Today was the day. The last day. Her body ached with every movement.
“Yeah,” Gwen muttered, staring at her feet.
“Are you . . . are you sure you want to be here?” Shawn asked, looking up and down the hallway.
“Yes,” Gwen said, her tone a little more resolute. “I’m sure.”
Leila and Shawn leaned against the lockers as Gwen fidgeted awkwardly, her eyes fixed on the cold, hard floor for what felt like an hour. She resisted the urge to pull out her phone and check the time, making quick glances at Shawn and Gwen to pass the time, small nods between the three of them, as the clock ticked down. Everything hinged on the moment being just right.
Jessica and Rebekah pushed through the pair of double doors at the end of the relatively empty hall, their conversation unintelligible but clearly interesting, their tone sarcastic and smooth.
“Here they come,” Shawn said softly, speaking out of the side of his mouth.
“You ready?” Leila asked.
“Hell, yeah,” Shawn said resolutely.
“Gwen?” Leila glanced over, but received no response. The girl stared at her shoes, breathing quickly. “Hey, Gwen.” She looked up. “You’re doing the right thing, you know that, right?”