“Thanks,” she said. Her stomach was queasy as the full impact of what they’d done washed over her. She was on the run, a fugitive. She was lost.
“I’m starving. Let’s check the fridge.”
The kitchen was stocked with food. The groceries from the local Duane Reade appeared to be recent, perhaps even as early as today. They might have just missed the people who had put supplies in the house.
Taimi was starving, too. The hot dog they’d eaten wasn’t enough to hold them over.
“Let’s eat and then figure out what we’re going to do next. We should get some sleep. We’ve got planning to do.”
She nodded, even though part of her wondered if she’d made the right choice.
Darkness was coming too fast. Ranger glanced at the sky, willing the sun to stop moving over the horizon. Yet it came, higher and higher and then started its descent down toward the other side, and night. Nighttime when she would once again become a tree.
He checked his phone again but there was no message from his aunt. For two people on the run, with no school and nothing to do, they were at loose ends. Almost bored, if two people scared for their lives could be bored.
“What do we do now?”
“We should stay inside, in case they tracked us to this area. Your mom is a witch, after all.”
“Yeah.” She picked up the remains of the pre-made cold-cut sandwich they had shared.
It sat heavy in his stomach, along with regret and pain. He had an idea what she was thinking. She was as trapped in this house as she had been as a tree. Only the location was different.
“What’s it like being a dragon?”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “There’s nothing like it in the world. The sense of freedom. Up north where we go sometimes, in Canada, my parents have land where I can fly. They used to take me up there, but things got busy these last two years.” He debated how much to tell her and then just said it. “They’ve been trying to figure out a way to rescue you. That’s why they sent me to Lizzy. She moved into your apartment building when that last tenant had to leave so we could get close to you. People have been aware of your situation for some time and put plans into motion to help you. That’s where I came in.”
She gazed at him in what appeared to be surprise, and a strange mix of fear and anticipation. “Ranger, what did this accomplish? I’m off the roof but I’m still spelled. It’ll be dark soon. How do we fix that? It’s only until I can stop turning into a tree that I’ll be free.”
“I don’t have any idea how to make this right,” he admitted, feeling inadequate, like he had failed her somehow. “We, I guess, didn’t expect to have to move this fast. We assumed we had more time, then your mom got so mad…but it’s done. We’ll figure it out.”
He glanced at the house. She would have to stay in the yard tonight, where there were other trees. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. He would shift into his dragon to protect her, if necessary, and guard over her with fire and claws.
There was no escaping sunset.
Chapter 5
The compulsion began as the sun started to vanish.
“It’s time,” she said, regretting they’d hung around the house all day. They could have gone to the sights—any of them. Instead they’d stayed here where it was safe—except there was no such place.
“Do you have to?” Ranger set aside the pack and followed her out to the backyard. The trees in the yard rustled as though in greeting. He looked at Taimi, a question on his face.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said, feeling the sun going down. She was compelled—she had to do it.
“Come on, Taimi, you’ve got to fight it. She put this spell on you. You don’t have to turn back into a tree at night. You don’t. It was something she did, not who you are. Hamadryads were never meant to live this way. Resist it. Please.”
She sank to her knees. The birds tweeted overhead in the trees. They weren’t far enough away. Taimi could already feel the need to shift back into tree form as the sun began to sink. It was who she was.
“I can’t.”
Ranger shook her, as a mother might remind a recalcitrant child. Miranda was her mother and she’d left, just taken off in Ranger’s talons without saying goodbye. She was a bad girl, a terrible teen, ungrateful and sullen…
“Taimi, stop it.”
Only then did she realize she was uttering the words out loud.
“She has brainwashed you—maybe she’s influencing you right now. Taimi, you were never meant to turn into a tree every night. It’s not who you are. Please. I can’t do this by myself. I can fly you away but that won’t make a difference. You’ve got to help me. You can do it. You are strong. You are powerful.”
She was none of those things. Already bark grew within her, the leaves getting ready to sprout once she transformed into her other self. She yearned to become a tree, to lay down roots and wave her branches in the gentle breeze…she needed to.
NO.
The voice boomed through the trees like a cannon. For a moment she wondered if it was her imagination, but Ranger shot to his feet, hands clenched as though he would fight whomever or whatever had made that noise. His gaze penetrated the darkening area although a thin shaft of light remained over the horizon.
She rose to her feet, amazed they were still feet and not roots, and joined Ranger. Every step was a struggle, every movement as a human reminded her to be a tree. It was what she was meant to do.
As though a violent storm had swept in, all the trees in the yard rustled at once, swaying to an unseen gust, their branches and leaves snapping back and forth in furious rhythm. The earth groaned, the forest floor shifting under their feet. Ranger grabbed Taimi’s hand and tugged her to him. Bark ran over the back of her palm.
She was going to turn any moment now. Stiffness began inside of her, heralding the shift to her other form. Part of her welcomed it. It was so familiar, like an old friend.
“I said no!”
Taimi peered from Ranger to the trees but couldn’t see anyone else.
“This is beneath you, daughter. Do not allow a witch to tell you what you should be.”
Taimi blinked. Beside her Ranger stiffened, his body tightening.
“She can’t help turning into a tree. Do you think she wants to?”
There was a heavy sigh from somewhere outside them.
“I did not mean you, human who smells of fire. I meant the other, the one who has occupied my sister’s mind and done this thing to her.”
Sister?
She didn’t have time for discussions. Any moment she would turn into a tree. Leaves were already dancing inside her belly and she had to let them out.
“Not sister in the sense that you humans think of. Sister. We are all sisters.”
There was the outline of a human form in the wood of the nearby tree. She blinked, sure she was hallucinating, but the shape remained.
“We are dryads and not a Hamadryad like you. You are rarer, and therefore to be protected. We could not get to you in that garden rooftop, but we were aware you were there. Did you not question why the two of you were sent to this place? We arranged that with your aunt. Taimi, what was done to you was a tragedy. It is unnatural for one such as you to be forced into one form or the other. You have the power to be what you will. Your strength and your tree are one, whereas we are mere dryads. You are special and unique, and that woman stole your power from you. Fight it. We will help.”
With that, the form solidified, and two others emerged from the branches of the oak and maples in the yard. The trees sighed as the women separated from them. Taimi gasped. She had read that such things were possible and wished that she could be like those other dryads, but she had only ever been one or the other. Tree or human.
She could feel the change come over her. The sun’s decline was all too swift now, and she could no longer fight the compulsion. She railed against the force in her mind, but it began to take her and Taimi went under
like a drowning person, unable to resist the magic spell.
She fell to her knees, clutching her head, as the dryads surrounded her.
“No!” Ranger cried as branches shot out from Taimi’s arms and her face began to transform. “Fight it!”
She had been a tree every evening since she was a baby. He had been a fool to think that she could stop the shift just by sheer will. He had gotten her away from her mother, but he hadn’t fixed the problem.
“Stand back,” the older woman said. He roared, more like his dragon self than his human and the two other dryads flinched.
Ranger could hardly bear to watch while the girl he liked turned into a tree. She wouldn’t be mobile and that meant if her mother found her, she couldn’t get away. He would stay and guard her, of course.
She continued to lengthen, her torso stiffening and turning brown with bark. Ranger stretched out an arm to her. But she was a teenager, as was he, and they didn’t have the power to combat this spell. He had been stupid to think taking her from the rooftop would solve all their problems.
“Do something,” he said, and the woman gave him an impatient glance.
“I’m trying to. The compulsion is strong.”
She beckoned to the other dryads and they surrounded Taimi. All that was visible on her face were her eyes, pleading with him. He was a dragon, not a warlock, and he couldn’t fix this. He had his fire and his flight, and neither was appropriate for this situation. He could carry her anywhere, but he couldn’t stop her from being a tree.
The older woman began chanting, and the three of them put their hands on Taimi’s torso, that was now a trunk. Her arms were shifting to branches and the transformation crept up her face. Taimi’s frightened features disappeared behind twigs.
He couldn’t identify the language the woman was chanting—maybe it was Gaelic or Scottish. The women chanted as Taimi transformed, her arms and legs becoming branches and roots, her face and body turning into leaves and flowers, and she was on the verge of converting into her dogwood self: skin gone, face submerged.
Then she stopped changing.
He could glimpse the outline of her face against the bark, but that was all. She couldn’t blink or speak but she was still in there, even if she was ninety percent tree.
Ninety, but not a hundred percent.
He held his breath. The women continued to chant, holding hands and surrounding Taimi.
The older woman shot Ranger a glance. “Touch her,” she ordered and motioned him toward Taimi. “Touch her and do not let go.”
Ranger stumbled forward and hugged her, wrapping his arms around her trunk. “Please,” he whispered, hearing her leaves rustle above him. “Fight it, Taimi.” The dryads continued their chant. “For me. For us. You have so much strength in you. Help me to help you. I can’t do this alone.”
With a crack that shuddered along her entire trunk, Taimi began reversing to her human self.
She was sprawled on the ground when she returned to herself again. The sun was gone, and the moon was rising.
She had rarely viewed the moon, except on the Internet and through her tree side. Under different circumstances, she would have delighted in observing the planet and feeling the cool touch of that silvery orb on her skin. Taimi extended her hands. They were still green and brown, the hint of bark and leaves fading as she watched. Ranger offered her a hand and helped her to her feet. Then she studied the rising moon and the dryads who still stood, hands clasped.
“I…” she faltered and stumbled. “It’s nighttime and I’m me. The sun is down. I’m not a tree.”
The woman who had emerged from the oak smiled, a welcoming expression that shifted something inside Taimi. It—she—felt familiar. “Of course you are, my dear. You are a Hamadryad. You and the tree are one. There is much you will need to learn about who you really are.”
She had grey hair that still showed streaks of black, evidence of its long-ago color. She had a solid human body which suited the oak she had come from. Her clothing, if that’s what it was, was in green and brown colors and draped over her in the fashion of a cloak. She couldn’t tell in the still-rising moonlight if it was fashioned from tree material or human.
“How did you do it?” Ranger kept a protective arm around her, his fingers hard on her shoulder. She could feel heat rise in him, a human manifestation of the dragon within. She pressed on his hand in a silent plea for him to ease up. “How did you break the spell?”
The woman stepped forward, her body as graceful as her tree form. She may be older, but she had the same grace as the younger dryads who flanked her. It was clear who the leader of this stand of trees was. The air chilled as their star lost its grip on New York City. She lost the silhouette of the leaves of the other standing trees.
“Those of us who are local dryads have been long aware of your imprisonment on the roof. We have been trying to come up with a solution. This was a spell we were not sure would work. We do not have the power of the witches.” She turned to Ranger and inclined her head to him. “We did not expect a dragon. Thank you. What is your name?”
He gulped and swallowed and made a sketchy bow as though the tree woman were royalty. “Ranger, Miss, um, ma’am, um…yeah. Ranger.”
“Ranger,” she said and the trees in the nearby yards sighed, swaying in the air, though there was no wind.
“Are all of them dryads?” He asked it with the kind of tone reserved for the horror a child might feel at being asked to spend Christmas at his least favorite aunt’s.
“No. Just the three of us. But there are many dryads throughout the city, in the parks—and of course Central Park has many. I would not say that all of the dryads cared about our sister’s captivity, but many of us did. We have been watching and waiting. Thank you, Ranger, for freeing one of us from her terrible captivity.”
Taimi remembered all the years with Miranda. There had been love there, maybe twisted, but Miranda loved her. Now all that had come to an end. It brought a strange sort of melancholy to Taimi’s chest, a tightening that she wouldn’t have been able to explain if asked. She should hate Miranda, and a part of her did, but the woman was the only family she’d had for close to two decades and that was not an easy thing to let go of.
“She’s my mother,” she said, surprising all of them.
The dryad nodded as though she understood the confusion raging inside of Taimi. “Yes, of course, but she is also your kidnapper and your jailer. Come. It is nighttime. She will be expecting you to be easy to find. You must make plans for your next journey.”
Taimi glanced at Ranger, whose face had gone pale.
“Where should we go? She’s sixteen. I’m seventeen, neither one of us are adults. I don’t care so much for myself, but I can’t bear the idea of Taimi hurt. She’s been through too much.”
The older dryad inclined her head. “You are correct in all you say, dragon shifter, yet that is not all there is to the story. Now that you have done this thing and gotten her down, we can help. Taimi, it will not be easy, and you will need bravery, but we can assist you.”
She turned to Ranger and waved toward the door. “We can take it from here. You need not concern yourself any longer.”
The dryad was already turning away as though he had been dismissed.
“What did you say?”
“This is dryad business. You may go.”
He stood in front of the woman who had been a tree and folded his arms.
“I don’t think so, lady. I don’t care who you are, Taimi and I are in this together.”
He glanced at her for confirmation but Taimi stayed still. Then she seemed to come into herself and bobbed her head.
“Ranger got me out of there. Without him, I’d be waiting for the sunrise to be human again. I owe him.”
“You are a Hamadryad. You are greater than you are aware.”
“And I’m a dragon.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it, tree lady.
The woman sighed as though Ranger had just
shifted a heavy burden to her. Taimi wasn’t a liability. She needed him and he needed her, and they were going to do this together.
“Very well. There is no time to waste on squabbling. We are safe for the moment. Taimi, we must ensure that Miranda has no other way of tracking you.”
He wasn’t sure he trusted these dryads. This could be another sort of trap. They were in Hoboken, not so far away that Miranda didn’t still have influence. Or these women may have their own set of ulterior motives. People rarely did things for sheer altruism.
Ranger removed his cell from his pack and checked it. Three texts from his aunt, all with status updates. They had a friend watching the building and there had been activity. Police had been called in. After all, Ranger and Taimi had not gone to school that day. Soon there would be a missing person’s report out for them. Or maybe an Amber Alert.
“First order of business is survival. Although you are not a tree at this moment, the spell is not shattered. We need to solve the problem of where you go next. Taimi, let’s go inside so I can examine you.”
Taimi glanced at Ranger but went with the woman. Once they all stood in the living room, the dryad took Taimi’s shoulders and closed her eyes. The room grew silent as the woman mouthed words of what seemed like a spell. Ranger found himself wondering if she was a witch as well. Too many of that kind these days. If he never saw another witch, he would be fine with that.
After what felt like an eternity, the woman opened her eyes.
“She has no visible method of tracking you. There may be other ways, but I believe for the moment you will not be discovered here.”
Taimi yawned and Ranger forced himself to say nothing. He wanted to take her and run hard and fast—or fly—far away from here. He would get out of the city and away from the woman who had imprisoned Taimi all those years, as well as the dryads. They could do it alone. They would be fine.
“Your mom has called the cops,” Ranger announced.
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