The Tree Shepherd's Daughter

by Gillian Summers

  She thrust her hand into her pocket to shelter it, to stop the trembling. It touched the rose quartz, and the buzzing and tingling receded. Had it been the rock? She pulled her hand away.

  A nearby box beckoned, the grain of its wood pronounced, like veins on pale skin. She longed to touch it. Her fingers tightened into fists and she thrust her hands back into her pockets, grabbing for the rose quartz. The wood sense faded again, allowing her to appreciate the beauty of the furniture. She gasped with pleasure as she saw a group of benches and chairs. Twisting vines had been used to hold the rustic pieces together, making them look like court furniture for a forest fairy kingdom. Gleaming crystals sparkled from knots on branches and from crannies created by the binding vines. She was never going to drop the rock again.

  Something furry rubbed around Keelie's ankle. Startled, she cried out and tried to back up, then tripped. Hands in her pockets, she couldn't regain her balance and landed, hard, on her knees. Not again, she thought, dismayed. Her cell phone clattered onto the stone and split into two muddy pieces. The rose quartz went flying.

  After a while, the pain subsided enough that she could breath again, although the buzzing was back. A huge orange cat sat nearby, gazing at her with huge eyes the color of leaves. Its look seemed knowing, as if it recognized Keelie and knew why she was here. And resented her, she thought.

  "Believe me, I don't want to be here," she muttered, rubbing her sore knees. Two falls in one morning. She wasn't usually a klutz. The cat blinked and looked away with typical kitty disinterest.

  Keelie sat back, stretching her legs out. Her knees throbbed and her pants were scuffed. A little speck of blood had soaked through on one knee. Ouch. She was afraid to look. A wave of nausea overtook her. Not from the sight of blood. She could handle that. It was the wood, pressing in around her. She scrambled for the rose quartz and sighed with relief as her fingers closed around it.

  "Are you okay?"

  She looked up. Ms. Talbot stood over her.

  "I'll live," Keelie said, feeling a little more like her California self. "I'll definitely have some bruises, though." Chunks of dried mud coated the floor where she had fallen. "At least it knocked some of this mud loose."

  "You wouldn't be muddy if you'd stayed with me," Ms. Talbot said.

  A slim, long-fingered hand held part of her slimy, mudcovered cell phone out to her. She reached for it, but the phone vanished, and the cool fingers clasped her stained and filthy hand. She looked up, startled.

  The slender man from the shadows stood where Ms. Talbot had been a moment earlier. She forgot to breathe as she looked into the familiar, yet strange, image of her own face. He had the same weird green eyes, the same bone structure, the same hair. Here was the source of her looks. Not Mom, with her straight black hair and almondshaped brown eyes. Keelie's throat constricted.

  She wanted the warmth she saw in those eyes to be for her. Would she betray Mom if she let him claim her? She'd wanted this moment since she was little. Mom knew it. Keelie swallowed, and then said it.

  "Dad."

  "Keelie." She felt his fingers tremble slightly against hers. His eyes were wide, looking at her as if he was memorizing her. His hand tightened around hers.

  She suddenly remembered him holding her high up by his shoulder, safe with his strong arms around her. How little had she been, that she could sit in the crook of his arm? They'd walked through woods filled with giant trees, and he pointed out the names of the trees in the lush forest canopied in bright fall colors. He'd pointed to an alder tree and said that a dryad lived in it. Why did she suddenly remember that?

  Mom's face flashed through her mind. She saw again the little wrinkle that formed between her eyes when she disapproved of something. Keelie felt weak and silly for giving in to this need for a father. Just because she felt sorry for herself was no reason to call Zeke Heartwood "Dad," a word that to her was as full of love as "Mom." A word that had to be earned.

  How could it be possible to want love from someone who had abandoned you when you were a toddler? Laurie would've laughed at her if she'd been here. She would have told her not to be so needy.

  Her cheeks grew hot. She didn't want her father to see her cry. She quickly snatched her hand out of his and stood up. She hitched her messenger bag over her shoulder and reached her hand out for her cell phone.

  He searched her face with those woodland green eyesthe same color as hers, unusual enough that strangers asked her if she wore colored contact lenses. She'd secretly been proud that this was something she'd inherited from her father. A piece of him that was a part of her forever.

  Sometimes Mom would stroke her hair and say, "Keelie, you have beautiful eyes." She'd have a faraway look on her face. Mom's brown eyes could be cold and dark, like little rock chips, and there was usually very little wistfulness about her.

  Her father handed Keelie her cell phone and the battery. She snapped it together and shoved it back into her bag, not bothering to wipe it clean. "Where's Ms. Talbot?"

  He seemed disappointed. Good. What did he expect, a love-fest?

  "She left," he said, still kneeling on the flagstones.

  The blood drained from Keelie's face. Her lips felt cold and stiff. She didn't care for Ms. Talbot, but she was her last connection to the life she shared with her mother, and now she'd abandoned her at this medieval freak show.

  "She didn't say goodbye," she cried, and hated the piteous sound of her voice.

  Her father stood up, towering above her. "She said she had to catch her plane back to California. Don't worry, Keelie, it's going to be okay. I won't leave you."

  "Again, you mean?" Keelie fought back tears. His hurt look made her feel good. She'd been hurting for two weeks. Take that, Zeke Heartwood. That's what happens when you uproot someone and force them to leave their home.

  A woman cleared her throat. "Excuse me, but how much is this dresser?" She looked at Zeke, waiting for an answer.

  The woman had bleached blonde hair with half an inch of roots showing, and she wore a laced leather vest with no blouse underneath and a long leather skirt. Mugs, a sword, and a leather pouch hung from a black belt with silver spikes. She wore wide leather bracelets, Xena-Warrior-Princess style, bristling with silver spikes.

  None of the costumed women Keelie had seen so far had been dressed so outrageously.

  Her father seemed to study Keelie's reaction, then turned to the lady. "I'll be right back to answer your questions. I need to see to my daughter."

  Despite her resolve to be less needy, a lump formed in Keelie's throat when he called her his daughter.

  "Let's go up to our apartment," he said. Our apartment.

  One of the mud players who'd teased her earlier entered the shop. He carried a paper grocery sack with a mound of yellow fabric sticking out of it. He looked a little sheepish when he saw Keelie.

  "Hey, Zeke," he said, casually eyeing the woman in black leather. "I thought your daughter might like to borrow these. Seeing how folks might mistake her for one of the Muck and Mire Show Players in her present garb, we thought we'd seal her fate." He grinned and handed the bag to her father.

  Zeke opened the bag and pulled out a pile of fabric. He shook it, and the material fell open to reveal a tunic that seemed clean but was dirt-stained to a dingy brown, and a huge, full yellow skirt. He turned it around, examining it.

  Horrified, Keelie saw that the skirt had big, red hand prints painted on the backside. The last item he removed from the bag was no better-a purple bodice with frayed pink ribbons. On the front and back were big square patches with huge zigzag stitches.

  "That can't be for me," she whispered.

  "You'll need garb for every day," her father said. "You want to fit in, don't you?"

  "Fit in where, the circus?" Heat crept into her cheeks at the thought of walking around in that hideous outfit.

  The mud guy laughed, but her father frowned at her, as if he'd suddenly realized that daughters weren't all sugar and spice. Take th
at, Keelie thought.

  "They're clean," Zeke said. "You'll only have to wear them until we get you something else. Thanks, Tarl."

  "You aren't going to make the poor kid wear that Tech nicolor clown outfit, are you?" The bleached blond Renaissance biker babe looked outraged.

  The mud man shrugged. "Whatever. Just trying to help."

  Yeah, Keelie thought. Help her be ostracized. She'd keep her normal clothes on forever, if she had to. She began to feel itchy from the dried mud sticking to her skin, though. She'd kill for a hot shower.

  "Honey, you'll only make her a laughingstock if you make her wear those rags. She needs decent garb." The blonde caught Keelie's gaze and shook her head. Men, she seemed to say.

  Keelie smiled at her for the help, even though the woman's concept of decent clothes was probably illegal somewhere. Funny that the walking fashion nightmare stood up for her. She looked from the mud man to her father to the biker babe. She would never fit in with these people. And she didn't want to live in a pretend world, playing dress-up.

  The medieval biker babe started to wander away, browsing through the furniture. Zeke looked relieved. Tarl the mud man followed her around with his eyes.

  "Hey, I'm camped down at the Shire," he called to her. "Mine's the big Viking tent with the wooden dragon out front. Stop by for a beer later."

  The woman looked him up and down. "Sure. I'll come by. After dark, okay?"

  Keelie was nauseated. The thought of these two ancient and homely relics doing it was too gross.

  Zeke didn't seem to notice anything weird. "Thanks for the clothes, Tarl," her father said. "I appreciate you coming to the rescue." He exchanged a knowing look with Tarl the muddied nutcase.

  What was that about? Maybe it was about how Zeke was now saddled with a daughter? Some "just us guys" thing? Or maybe it had to do with the Rennie biker babe. Ugh.

  She looked around the shop at the female shoppers who'd occasionally gaze at her dad with hungry looks in their eyes. Yeah, she'd definitely cramp his lifestyle.

  Tarl the mud man smiled at Keelie, but she didn't return it. She turned away and pretended to look at her nails, then noticed the dirt caked under her French manicure. Ew!

  "I'll see you later, Zeke. And you, too, Keelie."

  Keelie acted as if she didn't hear him. She knew she was being a brat, but she didn't care. Let old Zeke figure out what he'd gotten himself into. Maybe he'd ship her back, like a Christmas puppy that grew too big. She pictured herself arriving at LAX with a note pinned to her shirt: "SORRY. DIDN'T KNOW GIRLS COULD BE SO OBNOXIOUS."

  She ran her hands along a wooden chair. It hummed with energy underneath her hand. She snatched her hand back and stared at the chair. Her wood reaction was much worse here. Mom had said it was an allergy from her dad's side of the family. Now wasn't the time to ask, though. She could see she'd really ticked off the old man.

  "Let me show you where you'll live," her father said. He looked tired.

  No, now was definitely not the time to ask.

  "Come on, you can change upstairs." He handed her the grocery sack, the ugly clothes stuffed back in.

  Reluctantly, she accepted it. Not that she planned to change. Not into those clothes. Not into his daughter. She was her mother's daughter. She would always be Keelie Hamilton. She was stuck being a Heartwood, but it was just another name to her. She was Katherine Hamilton's daughter.

  "What's the Shire?"

  "No place you need to go." He nodded at a woman as he passed by. "It's the campground for Faire workers who don't have sleeping space in their shops."

  "Why can't I go there?"

  "Because I said so."

  She laughed. He stopped and looked at her.

  "What? You think you can tell me what I can't do? Get over yourself, old man."

  "I know this is very different from L.A. But you don't know how different it really is. Until you do, you'd better stick close to home."

  "Home is 125 Hemlock Drive, Los Angeles, California. I'd love to stick close to home, Zeke."

  His shoulders tensed, but he turned and walked on.

  As she followed her father through the maze of furniture, she ticked off a mental list of her life goals: finish high school, attend college, then law school. She would become a lawyer like Mom had always wanted her to. Maybe she'd make partner one day. That had always been Mom's dream, and she'd throw herself a party when it happened.

  "Did Ms. Talbot tell you anything about my luggage?" she asked. "The stupid airlines lost everything."

  Her most valuable possessions were inside those suitcases. The tangible objects that connected her to Mom: the purple jumpsuit that Keelie had worn on the first day of kindergarten, her tattered Boo-Boo bunny, and the scrapbooks with Mom's pictures. She didn't think she could look at them right now, but she wanted them back.

  He shrugged. "She gave me your folder. We didn't really have time to talk. She said everything I needed was in the file: vaccination record, birth certificate, and school transcript."

  Sudden tears trembled on her lower lids. She widened her eyes a couple of times to spread the tears around so that she didn't have to wipe them away. Everything he needed to know about her, in one folder? He didn't know anything about her. He'd missed most of her life. Now her mother's attorney had reduced her existence to three pieces of paper. Keelie turned her head. She wouldn't cry. She would never let her father see her cry.

  Thunder boomed, and rain splattered the saturated ground. Crowds cheered from the jousting field, too excited or too dumb to get out of the rain. Keelie wondered if her golden knight had won.

  Lightning forked across the black clouds, the brightness blinding her for a second. Fire burned her. Her head felt as if it were splitting. "Help," she cried. "In the meadowfire."

  Dimly, she saw her father, mouth open, staring at her. "What? Fire, where?"

  Keelie clutched her head, trying to hold back the pain. "There's a tree on fire. In the meadow. It's calling for help." Her father took off running, leaving her there, alone, and without an aspirin. What was going on? Was she getting voicemails from trees now? Where the heck was this meadow?

  She sat on the flagstoned floor, not trusting the nearby wooden chairs, in case they sent messages through her backside. She didn't know where to go, so she'd wait for her father to return. She knew where she ranked on his priority list. Dead bottom.

  As soon as she could, she'd call Laurie and get their plan moving. Keelie had to get back to California.

  three

  "So what should I call you? Zeke? Lord Heartwood?" Keelie sat on her father's overstuffed green sofa, swaddled in a leaf-colored quilt, a mug of hot tea in her hands. Her straggly wet hair tickled her cheeks as she looked around the apartment above the shop.

  It had taken him two hours to return, and it would serve him right if she died of pneumonia. At least she'd be with Mom.

  "Call me Dad."

  "How about not?"

  "Knot's the cat. I'm your father."

  "Well, you don't act like one. Why'd you take off like that? It was just a dumb tree."

  His smile faded. "How did you know that the tree was on fire? Did you see the lightning bolt hit?"

  Keelie was relieved he'd supplied the answer. "Yeah. And I saw smoke."

  He didn't look like he believed her. "I ran because fire is very serious up here. We live in a forest. If it had spread, our lives would be in danger."

  "Oh. That's the first thing anyone's said that makes sense in this wacky place."

  From the window beside her, she could see the jousting arena at the bottom of the hill. The jousters were gone, and the field was empty except for a couple of workers picking up garbage.

  She wondered if her golden knight had won and pictured him bending down for a kiss from the girl with the perfect Goldilocks hair. She frowned. Bad image. She needed to imagine him kissing her.

  What was she thinking? She wouldn't be here long enough to hold his hand, much less kiss him.
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br />   "So, what'll it be? Dad?" Her father was still angling for a title.

  "How about not?" She'd already called him that, but it was a mistake. She'd been swept away by the moment. "Dad" sounded so intimate, so close. Everything they were not.

  "How about Father, then?" He picked up his own mug, embellished with a leaf motif.

  "Formal, but acceptable," she said. "Do you prefer Zeke or Lord something or another when I talk about you to others?"

  He grinned at her. "Lord something or another? Now who's being formal?"

  She grinned back. Despite her recent dark mental trend, she was usually pretty nice. And she was pleased that they were having their first normal conversation. She didn't want him totally out of her life. Where would she go for holidays?

  She wondered what kind of freak show Thanksgiving celebration they'd have here. It would probably include that evil hairball.

  After her father's return she'd fallen into a mud puddle as she was preparing to climb the shop stairs. Her capris were soaked, stained with brown slime, all because that stupid shop cat tripped her again. On purpose, she was sure of it.

  As she sat in the cold puddle, her underwear glued to her skin, she'd seen the cat run up the steps past her father, who gave him a stern look before he jumped down gracefully to join her.

  Her father reached down to scratch the cat's ears. He lifted his chin and purred, eyes closed.

  "What's with that cat? I never knew you had one."

  He sighed as if already exhausted from dealing with her. "You have to watch out for Knot. He's a sneaky cat."

  She looked at her father, incredulous that he owned a cat. He'd had time for a cat, but not for a daughter? "You know Mom was allergic to cats."