“I don’t know.”
“And why do the kids have to be the ones to destroy this tree? Why can’t you or I go? I want to go in their place. Maybe you can write that into your story, or imagine it, or whatever it takes, and bring the kids home. Maybe if you think it, it will happen.”
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“How do you know? Have you tried?”
“Yes, I tried to picture myself there and them back home. It should be me there; I should have to battle this thing that’s tearing me up inside, not them. But nothing happened. I don’t think I have control over this story anymore.”
“What was the story going to be?”
“I don’t know exactly. All I had was a premise, a foundation for a story about this island with the two trees, a good one and an evil one. But I’d get these headaches each time I thought about the evil one. So I didn’t take the story any further and I didn’t think it would go anywhere. Now it feels like the story is going somewhere, but I’m not in control of it.”
“But you did conjure up this evil tree to begin with, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you know something about it, then. What are the children going to have to do? How will they destroy it?”
“I don’t have that level of detail,” Daddy admitted. “I told you, I stopped thinking about this part of the story. I just know there’s a terrible beast that lives down in the mud below the tree, tangled up in the roots, or…he’s a part of the roots, of the tree, I think. He controls the roots and the demons who live scattered on the tree. He’s their master. I think the children will have to confront and kill him.”
“How will they ever do that?” Mommy asked. Her voice was shaking and she looked to be on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have made the island. I shouldn’t have created this story or the evil tree. I’ve put them in danger.”
Mommy sighed and grabbed Daddy’s hand. “Don’t say that. You wouldn’t have taken this story so far if you had known this would happen. This is clearly something bigger, something beyond our control. We just have to pray they’ll defeat this horrible thing that’s causing you all this pain and get home safely.”
Daddy suddenly grimaced and clenched his jaw as a searing pain ripped through his head.
“Just rest,” Mommy said. “Close your eyes and rest. That’s all you can do now.”
He closed his eyes and a few minutes later he was asleep. Mommy knew his body was exhausted from fighting the sickness and hoped the children would be able to save him. She laid her head down on his shoulder, cuddling up against his body which felt warm with fever. That’s when she glanced up and saw the tears streaming down his face. She wasn’t even sure he was fully conscious, but he was weeping for his children. Seeing Daddy’s tears made Mommy’s eyes water as well. She had never felt so helpless in all her life, and in her desperation, she could only think of one thing to do. She leaned in close to Daddy’s ear and whispered, “Hurry, brave little children…Daddy needs you.”
23
TO THE FAR EDGE OF THE FOREST
Maggie shot up. It took a moment to recall where she was. Dawn’s light was rising outside the cave, though it was a gray morning as the storm from the previous night had lingered. A slight rain still dripped through the trees and off their many leaves.
She turned in the other direction, into the recesses of the cave. Had she been dreaming when she heard Mommy’s voice, or had it come from somewhere back…there?
She glanced at her siblings sleeping beside her. “Lucy…Connor…wake up.” She nudged them when they wouldn’t stir.
“What is it?” Connor asked in a scratchy voice as he slowly got up and stretched. The back of his thick hair was disheveled, as it usually was in the morning. It reminded Maggie that he was just a little boy, as she was a little girl, unlike the weapon-wielding warriors they had become on this journey.
Lucy arose too. “Yeah, what is it?”
“I think I heard Mommy.”
“What?” Connor asked. “What do you mean?”
“I heard her voice, coming from back there,” she pointed deeper into the cave.
“I think you were probably just dreaming,” Lucy said. “But even so, what did she say?”
“She said to hurry, and that Daddy needs us. I wonder if he’s getting sicker.”
“Lucy’s right,” Connor said. “Just a dream.”
“She probably did hear your mother.”
The children turned. Revin was at the mouth of the cave. A few of the wolves stood panting behind him. “Off now, friends, you have our gratitude.”
The wolves gathered in a pack and darted into the trees. Revin entered the cave, his hands full of berries. He laid them on the ground beside the ashes of their fire. “I gathered these for your breakfast. They’re safe to eat.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said coming to retrieve some. “I’m famished.”
“What did you mean that she heard our mom?” Connor asked.
“It is possible for signs and whispers to travel between your world and this one. The Giver of All Things allows these to pass from one side to the other to give proof of the other’s existence and to show they are bonded together in a mysterious way.”
“Like the lantern Lady Mysteria had me light,” Lucy said, munching on the berries. “Remember the queen said Daddy and Mommy would see it.”
“And now I’m hearing Mommy from the back of this cave?” Maggie questioned.
“I do not know,” Revin said. “I’m only telling you it is possible. But whether you heard her or not, the message is still true: we should hurry.”
The children scarfed down their breakfast and gathered their things as Revin waited for them outside. They weren’t sure he had slept at all; he was awake tending to the fire when they fell asleep and had set out early to gather their breakfast before they awoke. But if he had experienced a sleepless night it didn’t show, for he stood at attention, peering into the trees and looking as though he was poised for the journey ahead. When the children joined him outside the cave, he nodded to them and moved out. Maggie looked one last time into the cave before following Revin and her siblings deeper into the wood.
They anticipated a long journey since Revin had said it would take another day to reach the far edge of the forest. The terrain was harsh and the brush grew thicker as they moved onward. They felt safer with Revin than they had the day before, but his awareness of what might prowl behind the next tree had them on edge. Every so often he would urge them to be quiet or huddle them in a place to hide, or speak with a bird or chipmunk to gather intel, as if more enemy patrols were constantly lurking in the corners of this dark forest.
They paused only once to rest and eat lunch, sitting in a small clearing and each leaning against tree trunks. No one spoke during the break, either from exhaustion or timid nerves or both. In the silence, a rumbling came from beneath them, an earthquake-like tremor.
“What is that?” Maggie asked, bracing herself against a tree. Lucy did the same and Connor stood up, reaching for his sword.
“The sinister roots,” Revin answered, remaining calmer than the children thought he should’ve. “They travel beneath the land of the island, especially in these parts. They are on the move again.”
The children glanced to the rumbling ground, imagining the thick roots pushing and tearing their way through the mud like a giant earthworm, or like a submarine navigating the undercurrents of the sea. They wondered if members of the Shadow Army were riding on the roots, hitching a ride below the island like passengers on a subway.
The tremors lasted another five or ten seconds. When silence fell back over the forest, Revin said, “That’s enough of a rest. We need to keep moving.”
Towards the end of the day, the children kept their eyes turned up, searching for open pockets in the canopy to discover how close they were getting to the Shadow Tree. But the upper layer of the forest was like a blanket, block
ing their view of the sky. It was only hours later when they knew they were getting close as glimmers of sunlight began to pierce the thinning canopy.
Revin signaled for them to crouch low and navigated them to a row of bushes on the edge of the forest. He stopped and remained perched there, allowing the children to catch up and hide with him. When they arrived, they peered through the brush at a sight they had once longed to see but now wanted nothing to do with.
For several hundred yards, an open stretch of dry, cracked land, like a desert, extended before them, with no green in sight. It was a drastic and abrupt change from the lushness of the forest. A thin layer of sand and dust swirled in the wind, wafting up in the region between them and a line of dirt mounds rising about twenty feet in the air. They looked like giant anthills, except instead of ants scurrying about there were thousands of the demonic-like creatures the children had battled in the forest. The mounds were open in the front and back, like arches, covering holes that led into the mud. Members of the Shadow Army were going in and out and standing guard beside them.
These were the bunkers that Revin had told them about, positioned in a semi-circle around the base of the Shadow Tree. They served as Radicle’s first line of defense. Beyond the dirt mounds a massive wall constructed of logs and sharpened at the top into razor points circled the tree. There was only one opening in the wall which led to the trunk, but it, too, was guarded by at least a dozen creatures. It became apparent to the children why Revin’s plan was for them to enter the tree from the top. It would be impossible to infiltrate these defenses on the ground.
Their eyes then turned up, and it seemed their vision would have to climb forever as they took in the towering tree. Its appearance did not resemble a normal tree layered in bark and dotted with foliage. Instead, it looked like a giant piece of petrified wood, something that caught fire and left behind only a black, fossilized skeleton of a tree, without the flesh of green leaves.
Yet what it lacked in beauty it made up for in size. The trunk was at least the width of football field, with a circular staircase carved into it that spiraled all the way to the top. Every fifty feet or so, the stairs would pass by a kind of doorway—a hole—that led inside the tree. In other places, the stairs broke off onto pathways that ran along the many branches jutting out from the trunk, branches so large they would tower over the largest trees in the forest. Except, the branches were not like ordinary tree branches; they looked more like wings of a castle, with guardrails formed from thick twigs. This gave it the look of a fortress built by hand rather than a natural growing plant.
Members of the Shadow Army moved up and down the staircase and in and out of the trunk’s doorways and out onto the branches. All the way up, hundreds of them scurried around like termites, going about some duty, and others climbed up and down the long, brown vines that ran up and down the trunk like bungee cords, a second way to navigate the tree outside of the central staircase.
Lucy’s eyes began to water as she took in this display of power. She glanced down at the little knives that Sir George had given her and her feeble arms, wondering what sort of chance she had to combat what lay before her. Why had the queen summoned them to complete a mission that was so helpless? They were never going to be able to save Daddy against a force like this.
Connor noticed Lucy was shaking. He looked over to Maggie, staring stone-faced at what lay before her. He put his arms around them. “We’ll be alright, girls. One step at a time. We’re not going to have to fight all those nasty creatures. If we stick to the plan, we’ll barely have to fight any of them. Okay?”
Both girls nodded. Connor turned to Revin. “So now we wait for nightfall?”
“Yes, within the hour.”
Revin and the children climbed farther into the bush. It swallowed them up and kept them hidden. While they waited, they dug into the food pouch and ate more bread and drank more water, knowing this would be their last meal for a while.
As they ate, they peered through the brush. They couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the army was forming into rank and file, as if they were about to march off somewhere. They gathered in packs of about fifty with a few of them, presumably generals, forming soldiers in straight lines.
“What are they doing?” Connor asked.
He was surprised when Revin didn’t answer at first. He stared forward and finally said, “It appears they’re gathering for battle.”
“What?” Connor said.
“Do they know we’re coming?” Maggie asked.
Revin shook his head. “No, this isn’t because of you. They’re preparing to march west to the village and the castle. Radicle must feel the time is right to launch his final assault. His brother roots are at their strongest. They can finally reach all the way across the island and penetrate the mountain. We knew this day would come. He will carry much of his army with him on the roots beneath the mud, and the rest will march through the forest. They will seek to destroy the queen’s forces so that the Mysteria Tree will have no protection from the sinister roots.”
For the first time, the children thought they saw an uneasiness from Revin.
“Listen to me,” he said, turning to them. “I must journey back to warn the queen.”
“What?” Connor said. “No, you have to help us get on the tree and…and…help us get down it.”
“The plan has changed. You must do this without me. But providence has brought us this gift. Most of the Shadow Army will be marching off into forest. This will work to your advantage. Few will be left behind and many of the roots will be extended across the island. Radicle will be left vulnerable. We will use this moment and exploit our enemy’s pride. In his hatred for the Mysteria Tree, he will leave himself nearly defenseless. But you must fulfill your mission. Do you hear me? Use your training. You will be fine without me. I will gather the queen’s knights at the edge of the forest to delay the attack as long as possible, but we do not have the strength to fend off this attack for long. We will only survive—the Mysteria Tree will only survive—if you can destroy Radicle. Killing him will bring down his whole army and the roots.”
“How much time will we have?” Lucy asked. “How long will it take them to reach the village?”
“They will march through the night and attack at dawn.”
“But it took us a day and a half to journey across the island,” Maggie said. “Don’t we have more time than that?”
“You are but children,” Revin said. “You stopped to rest, eat, sleep. These are strong beasts. They will sprint through the trees without stopping, and the sinister roots can travel beneath the mud at speeds much faster than the three of you can muster.”
A particularly large member of the Shadow Army moved out in front of the others. He roared, pounded his chest, and lifted his dagger into the air. The army screamed, shaking the ground with their bloodcurdling shrills. Lucy and Maggie covered their ears.
When the screaming ceased, they began to march forward.
Revin grabbed Connor by the shoulders and pointed to a nearby tree. “Take your sisters and climb to the top of that tree. The gliders are stuck in the branches. When night falls, fly to the top of the Shadow Tree.” He turned to Maggie and Lucy. “You two will have to take out the guards up top. Have confidence. You can do it. Once you do that, descend the tree without being seen. Sneak your way into the mud and find Radicle. Now, go! They’ll be upon us in minutes.”
Revin leapt out of the bushes and disappeared into the forest. His abrupt departure flustered the children. They wondered if they would ever see him again, or if they would be able to complete their mission without him. But Connor knew they didn’t have time to think about that.
“Come on!” he said.
They climbed out of the bush and crawled on the ground over to the tree Revin had pointed to, trying to stay out of the sight of the marching army. Once they reached the trunk, they jumped up into the branches and began to climb.
They were about thirty feet up w
hen the first of the army entered the forest. The children paused, wondering if their movement would give them away. Connor, Maggie, and Lucy watched from the branches as demon after demon tore off into the trees. They kept coming, so many of them, like a swarm of locusts. How could Revin and the queen’s knights withstand such a force? The battle would be ten to one, not to mention the Shadow Tree’s roots that would rise from the ground like tentacles.
It took nearly thirty minutes for the formations to move out of sight. Once the coast was clear, the children continued their climb, but as they moved higher into the tree, they heard the rumble of the sinister roots churning again beneath the land.
24
A FLIGHT TO THE TOP
Dusk had fallen over the island by the time the children reached the top. Only faint glimmers of sunlight hung in the air, allowing them to take in the view as they sat perched in the crevice of a large branch. Behind them stretched miles upon miles of trees, while before them they could see the Shadow Tree and the immensity of the sea extending to the bottom of the sky.
It had occurred to Connor that with so much of the Shadow Army gone now, they might be able to enter the tree from its base and go below the mud quicker. But Revin had instructed them to still climb the tree and find the gliders. It seemed prudent to follow his directions, and even from so far up, Connor could still see dozens of demons left behind, guarding the bunkers and the base of their master. Without Revin’s help, Connor didn’t think those were good odds for him and his sisters.
Upon reaching the top, they had found the four gliders wedged in the crevices of various branches. They were easy to spot because of the fluffy albatross feathers, gathered in a clump like a nest. The gliders were folded up like a paper airplane could be folded flat. Once the night grew darker and they felt they could not be seen by anyone standing on the Shadow Tree, Connor and the girls pulled them up above the canopy to stretch them out (leaving behind the fourth since Revin was no longer with them).
The Island of Two Trees Page 13