Willa of the Wood

by Robert Beatty

  A sickening feeling crept into Willa’s chest. It was the dead body of the padaran, the charred bones of his gripping fingers still clinging to his spear of power.

  He had run into his private rooms and blockaded his door to protect his precious human-made objects from the hands of the mob. He had gathered the looking glass and the other human-made things all around him, coveting them to the very end. He was so frightened of losing control of them that he would not leave, even as the smoke and fire came.

  The spear of power and the other metal objects had survived the fire.

  But he had not.

  She stared at what was left of her uncle for several seconds, and then she turned away.

  As she made her way out of the burned wreckage of the lair for the last time, she found a spot in the center of the destruction.

  She knelt down, dug into the ashes and dirt with her hands, and planted the tree into the ground.

  “I know, I know, you don’t want me to leave you here,” she said gently. “But you just wait and see. You’ll like this new spot when the sun rises, and the rains come, and the ashes wash down into the rivers. There will be plenty for your roots to grow into.”

  After a few moments sitting with the little tree, she rose and started to walk away.

  She took a few steps.

  But then she stopped and turned and looked back at the tree, sitting so small and frail in the ashes all alone.

  Maybe you don’t have to wait, she thought. Maybe I can give you a little bit of a head start, help you out, like you always did for me.

  She walked back over to the little tree and knelt down in the ashes in front of it.

  Then she touched her fingers to the tree’s tiny roots and trunk, and she closed her eyes.

  At first, nothing happened, but then she began to softly sing the song that her mamaw had taught her when she was six years old, the night her parents and sister died.

  The roots of the tree began to extend, reaching down into the ashes.

  “That’s it, little one,” she whispered. “Keep coming…”

  As the roots pulled the nutrients from the ashes of the past, the tree began to grow, its branches reaching upward and spreading outward, the leaves unfurling bright and green, and the trunk thickening as it reached toward the sky.

  It was a song of death and a song of life, of growth and rebirth, with words as ancient as the mist-filled forests.

  Soon the tree had grown as tall as she was, with its branches as wide as her outstretched arms. “That’s it, little one, keep coming…” she said again, and the tree kept growing. It grew and grew, until the trunk was thick, the branches strong, and the leaves reaching far above her.

  Willa smiled as the energy of the tree flowed through her body and her heart, and her own power flowed through the tree. And the moment she smiled, the branches above her head curled and turned and brightened into the shape of glittering flying birds, glowing with a bounty of blue ghost fireflies, their sparkling abundance reaching to the glistening starlit heavens above. She was sculpting like the Faeran of old.

  When she was finally done, the magnificent, glowing tree stood more than a hundred feet tall in the center of the ashen devastation that had once been Dead Hollow, the moon shining down through its branches and lighting up the world around her.

  Willa looked up at the tree and smiled with happiness. “Well, it’s a good start, little one, a very good start indeed,” she said, her heart overflowing. “I think you’ve got it from here.”

  And only then, with the little tree settled into its new home, did she rise from her knees and walk away.

  As Willa made her way out of the smoking devastation of the lair and went out into the nighttime forest, the magnitude of everything that had happened began to soak into her mind.

  The padaran—the god of the clan—was dead.

  The ancient lair of her people had burned to the ground.

  Gredic would never be able to attack her again.

  Her fellow jaetters—her rivals and tormentors—were gone.

  And the clan was shattered, cast out into the winds of uncertainty, without shelter, without a leader to bind them together toward a common cause.

  She felt it all, swirling inside of her.

  What had she done?

  Was she the one who had caused all this? Had she destroyed the Faeran people?

  Too dismayed to take it all in, she just kept walking.

  A short time later, she came upon a Faeran boy, a little bit older than her, wandering alone among the trees, a stunned look on his face. He was one of the few young Faeran she’d ever seen who still had spots and streaks like she did, instead of mottled gray skin. He had been a jaetter like her and the others, but he had never tormented her, never stolen her take.

  “Are you all right, Sacram?” she asked as she approached him, but he did not reply. And he did not look at her.

  A jagged cut dripped red down Sacram’s forehead. His shoulder was burned and bleeding. His hair was singed and his face was blackened with soot. The boy was mumbling to himself, but she couldn’t understand him, and his eyes were glazed, as if he had taken in more than his mind could absorb.

  “Sacram, it’s me, it’s Willa,” she said, touching his arm, trying to let him know she was there. He did not resist her or pull away, but he did not respond to her, either.

  “I will help you,” she said, taking his arm and leading him. “Let’s go this way, toward the others…”

  As she and the lost boy walked along together, she wondered what kind of life they would lead now. In the chaos of a scattered clan, would this boy remain a jaetter like he had been before? Would jaetters even continue to exist? Would this boy even survive the winter? Or was he one of those bees flying around looking for a hive that had been destroyed?

  She walked with Sacram for nearly an hour, down the mountain, away from the last burning remnants of the Dead Hollow lair, following the tracks and disturbed leaves that told her that at least some of the other Faeran of their clan had fled in this direction.

  “Where is everyone?” the boy asked blankly. She wasn’t even sure if he was speaking to her or himself or to someone who wasn’t there.

  “Where is everyone?” he mumbled sadly again, repeating himself over and over again.

  She knew he needed help. He had seen too much and he was suffering from clan-shock. But if she could get him back to the others, then he might get through it.

  As she walked along through the forest with the boy, she came to the decision that she wouldn’t just help him. She’d help gather all the members of the clan back together. That was what she needed to do, not just for the sake of the others, but for her own clan-shock, which she knew was lodging deep in her leafy soul with every moment that passed.

  Now that the padaran was gone, things were going to change. People were going to need help. They would need to relearn the ways of the forest. They would need to listen to their own hearts again and turn to each other, build families again. They would all need to work together, side by side, to make a better lair for themselves.

  She began to feel an unfamiliar kind of hope in her heart, the kind of hope that could only come after desolation, after destruction, a sense that maybe, just maybe, that which had forever been unchangeable was about to change.

  She picked up a scent in the air.

  “We’re almost there, Sacram,” she told the boy. “Some of the others from our clan are just up ahead. We’ll get you some food and water, and you’ll be able to see everyone, and you’ll start feeling well again. It’s all going to be all right.”

  The boy’s face did not change. It did not light up with hope. But his walking seemed to gain new strength and speed.

  Finally, she spotted a small group of twenty or thirty Faeran in the forest ahead.

  Willa held the arm of the boy as she came upon them, just to make sure he stayed steady on his feet, and to show the others that she was a friend, not a foe.

>   “I just wanted to make sure Sacram found his way,” she said as she approached. “I’ve come to help in any way I can.”

  At first, no one seemed to see her or hear her. They were just stumbling along, their eyes staring ahead or down at the ground.

  “I came to help,” she said again, more loudly this time.

  One of the women looked up, and then pointed at her and shouted, “There she is!”

  “She’s returned!” said one of the men.

  Willa’s heart leapt that they recognized her and were welcoming her among them. She was part of the clan again.

  She led Sacram over to his mother.

  “I want to help in any way I can,” Willa said. “We’ll gather everyone together. We’ll help each other forage for food and keep warm.”

  “We don’t need your help,” the boy’s mother said, grabbing Sacram by the arm and yanking him away from her.

  “Burner!” one of the men hissed.

  “Get out of here, burner!” said another, scowling and then spitting at her. “We don’t want you here!”

  “Destroyer!” the first woman shouted.

  Willa stepped back, startled and confused, her heart sinking in despair. “I didn’t start the fire,” she said, but they didn’t seem to care.

  Many of them had believed in her for a little while, and they had finally been able to see through Naillic’s blend. They had swarmed around her and protected her. But most of her allies had been struck down by the padaran’s guards, and others had been swept up in the fear of the fleeing crowd.

  Fear follows fear.

  The Faeran had lived in Dead Hollow for hundreds of years. It had been their protection, their way of life, their hive. And she had been the one who had clenched her fist and raised her voice.

  Without the lair, there would be no walls, no warmth, no protection, no clan, not the way it was before. They didn’t care what she had said or what she could do. They hated her.

  Then she saw one jaetter girl coming forward through the group. Willa felt a rush of relief. Gillen was alive! Her face was smudged with soot marks and her shoulder had been badly burned, but she looked as strong as ever, and she seemed as relieved that Willa had survived as Willa was that she had.

  “Don’t you see?” Gillen shouted out to the rest of the group. “Willa has done us a great service! She has defeated the padaran!”

  “You want us to thank her for burning down our home?” one of the older Faeran sneered.

  “She’s given us a new chance!” Gillen said, her voice filled with hope and determination. “We’re free! We’ll start over. We’ll build a new lair.”

  “Freedom is all fine and good until it snows,” one of the other Faeran said.

  “Or we get hungry,” someone said. “I’m hungry now!”

  “Willa is knowledgeable in the old ways,” Gillen argued. “She can help us!”

  “She’s a traitor against the clan!” someone spat.

  “Traitor!” called another.

  As Willa looked around her at all the faces, it surprised her that many of the older Faeran in the group appeared to hate her even more than the others. She had hoped they would remember the Faeran of old that her grandmother had taught her about, but instead they seemed the most set in their ways, the most angry that their lives had been disrupted. But she could see in the hopeful faces of some of the younger Faeran that they understood that things could be different now, that a new kind of clan could be created. When she looked at her old friend, Gillen met her eyes with a brave and steady gaze. Willa could see it. Something had changed in Gillen. Something had kindled a new courage in her, and Willa knew there would be others like her.

  “Now that the padaran’s gone,” Willa said, trying to move toward her Faeran kin, “we’ll find a better way to live…”

  “Get out of here!” one of the older Faeran hissed, and chattered his teeth at her.

  “Burner!” some of the others started screaming again. “Burner!”

  “I came to help…” Willa said, but she could see that most of the clan was against her.

  It was clear that change would come soon. Gillen and the others would lead the clan anew. They would begin to find a better way. But Willa could see that very few wanted anything to do with her.

  Sacram’s mother ran forward and pointed at her, her face wrinkled with revulsion. “She’s a clan-breaker!” the woman screamed.

  Gillen and several others tried to stop them, but it was no use.

  Many of the Faeran hissed and shouted at Willa. And then some of the men picked up long sticks from the ground and charged at her. Others hurled stones. Willa ducked down and covered her head with her hands and arms as she ran away, the stones striking her ears and neck and shoulders with painful blows.

  She ran down into the narrow gulley of a stream, scrambled beneath a fallen log, and curled into a shaking ball.

  Hiding in that dark little hole, she buried her face in her hands and wept.

  Willa rubbed her eyes, then crawled out from beneath the log. She brushed the dirt and the centipedes and the little bits of bark from her hair and her arms, and looked around her.

  She had once again been cast from her clan. What was she going to do now? Where was she going to go? Should she howl for Luthien? Should she go back to the sacred lake of the bears? Should she find the mother deer and fawn that she had met by the stream? She knew she had the knowledge and skill to live safely in the forest on her own for many years. But she also knew that a tree needed more than water and soil to survive.

  As she clambered out of the gulley of the stream and came up onto a mound of high ground, she caught a glimpse of movement across the river.

  Her heart leapt. The black panther and a dark brown mountain lion were traveling along the edge of the river.

  The two big cats were moving quickly and with determination, traveling east, as if they were on a long journey over the mountain to some distant land.

  They were such beautiful and majestic beasts, filled with a power and confidence that amazed her. She could see that they had sustained wounds from some sort of battle, but the wounds didn’t seem to be slowing them down.

  She was so glad to see the cats. She didn’t know who or what they were, or why normally solitary animals were traveling the way they were, but she loved how they were together.

  “Good-bye, my friend,” she whispered in the old language to the black panther, wishing her well wherever her journey would take her.

  After everything that had happened since the night she was shot, and as she watched the departing panther, she felt such a profound and aching loneliness, a sense that she was truly on her own now. But there was something about the panther that gave her hope as well, hope in friendship, hope in alliance, hope in a future that she knew she could not yet imagine. She knew that she wasn’t like the black panther. She wasn’t fierce of heart or sharp of claw like many of her animal friends. She wasn’t a leader or a fighter. She had never raised a weapon or struck a blow against anyone or anything, and she vowed that she never would. She was just a Faeran girl, a night-spirit named Willa, trying to find her way.

  “Willa of the Wood,” she said to herself, knowing a little better now exactly what that meant.

  She had said the words very quietly beneath her breath, but the moment she spoke them, the black panther stopped on the trail, turned its head, and looked across the river toward her. The panther’s yellow eyes stared straight at her.

  Willa’s normal instinct when she was spotted by a predator was to blend into her leafy surroundings and disappear. And it would have been easy to do here, easy to never be seen again.

  But that was not what she wanted.

  Her heart was beating heavily in her chest, but she held her blend back.

  She wanted the panther to see her.

  The panther gazed at her for a long time. Was the panther wondering where she’d come from and exactly what she was? Was the panther wondering if she would ma
ke a good ally in the fight against the dark and mysterious dangers of the world?

  Willa held the panther’s gaze with her bright green eyes.

  “Willa of the Wood,” she said again, and she smiled. She was a creature of the forest, with the lore and spirit of her grandmother within her. She spoke the old language and the new. She could sense the movement of the rivers and hear the whispers of the trees. And she thought that someday, just maybe, she and this panther might meet again.

  As the hours passed, the smoky haze of midnight flames slowly gave way to the coming dawn, with Venus, the Morning Star, rising from the black silhouettes of the mountain ridges, up into the dark blue of the glowing sky.

  As the sun began to rise from behind the Great Mountain, Willa’s thoughts turned to the humans.

  She just hoped that in all the chaos and violence of the night none of the guards or jaetters had found Cassius, Beatrice, or any of the other children as they fled through the forest and down the mountain. Keep running, she thought to her young day-folk friends, keep running all the way home.

  And then she thought about the last of the three human children to escape through the hole.

  Follow the east side of the creek and look for a small cave in the rocks, she had told Hialeah. Stay quiet and hidden until morning.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do in the world now that the lair had been destroyed, or where she was going to go, but she wanted to finish the one thing she had begun: to make sure that Nathaniel’s children made it home.

  She followed the creek toward the spot she had told them to hide.

  As she approached the area, her mind clouded with dark thoughts she couldn’t control. She’d seen so much fighting and death. What if the children never made it to the hiding spot? What if they had been attacked or recaptured?

  When she saw Hialeah crouched near the crevice in the rocks, Willa’s chest flooded with relief.

  She’s there, Willa thought. She made it.

  Hialeah had light brown skin and beautiful chestnut eyes, which made a striking combination as she stared out from the rocks, scanning the forest for danger. Her long, straight black hair fell evenly on either side of her face, and her mouth was set in a serious expression. Her plain brown dress was dirty from weeks of imprisonment and the trek down into the gulley of the creek, and it was torn where she had used it to make a bandage for Willa’s neck, but Hialeah looked strong and capable.