Shadows of the Redwood

Shadows of the Redwood - By Gillian Summers

Acknowledgments


Much of the research for this book was done online. However, huge thanks to Dexter Henry for walking the big woods and shaking the redbark dust from his hiking boots, giving us a timely addition to our redwood knowledge, and, as ever, to Wendy Davis of the National Park Service, our tree-huggin’ muse. Special thanks to our agent Richard Curtis, and to our creative and patient editors Brian Farrey and Sandy Sullivan, our enthusiastic publicist Marissa Pederson, and to Amy Martin, the queen of back-cover blurbs. And much Ren Faire love to Kevin Brown for blessing us with his gorgeous covers. Keelie is ever so grateful.





Trees [are] like silent witnesses to history as it goes by.

—Loreena McKennitt, NPR interview





The spring air was brisk and smelled of green buds and rising sap. Keelie Heartwood buttoned her acorn-embroidered sweater as she closed the post office door and stepped out onto Edgewood’s breezy Main Street. She held five envelopes in her left hand, and one very special envelope in her right.

It was a normal-looking paper rectangle, except for the black embossed return address that read Talbot and Talbot. Her mom’s law firm, the one that had sent an attorney to personally escort her to her father at the High Mountain Renaissance Faire last year, after her mother died. That day, Keelie thought her world had ended, and it was true in a way. Gone was the spoiled California mall brat. And though she still missed her mom terribly, now she had a father she adored and a totally different lifestyle. So different that her Los Angeles friends would never recognize her.

For one thing, she was an elf. Well, a half-elf. She’d always been one, of course, but it took living with her elven dad and learning that her tree allergy was really a sensitivity to magic to change her forever.

Now, though, that old life had come roaring back. She hadn’t been able to resist opening the letter then and there, and she was still reeling from the news. Mom’s house, her house, the one she’d grown up in, had been sold. Talbot and Talbot was happy to announce how much money would now go to her trust fund, but Keelie’s brain had stopped at the word “sale.”

The house was empty, of course. The lawyers had arranged to send her belongings here, to the Dread Forest in Oregon, and the furniture and Mom’s things were in storage. Keelie’s gut clenched at the thought of her life with Mom in some darkened, airless warehouse space in plain brown boxes. She’d be able to open them again one day, but the house, the gardens, the neighborhood would soon be a memory beyond her reach.

She wished she could go back once more to say goodbye. As long as her house was there, a window was open to her past. She could hear it slamming shut.

The wind picked up, showering Keelie with sweet white blossoms from the pear trees that lined the street. She brushed flowers from her sweater and absently thanked the trees for their gift. They meant well.

May your leaves shine brightly, Daughter of the Forest, they answered in tree speak, the telepathic language of the trees. Since she was a tree shepherd, like her father, Keelie could hear them. No other elves could.

Ahead, a glowing neon sign flashed “Magic Forest Tattoo,” her friend Zabrina’s tattoo and piercing shop. Keelie hurried toward it, eager to tell her friend about the letter and maybe score a cup of coffee. Dad was not a coffee drinker, and this seriously cramped Keelie’s mornings.

She pulled open the door, jingling the bell that dangled from the knob on a silk cord, and then slowed, disappointed to see that Zabrina had customers—a group of college students in “I survived the Okanogan Rapids” T-shirts. The one sitting in the dentist’s chair Zabrina used for her work looked pale. Zabrina’s brilliant purple hair shadowed the area where she was working on his bicep.

A huge pumpkin-colored cat snored at her feet, ignoring the sounds around him. He twisted to look when the bell jingled, and Zabrina looked up.

“Hey, Keelie. How’s that belly button ring working?”

Keelie touched her stomach. “It’s okay. Perfectly normal.” She emphasized the word “normal.” Her first belly button ring had been wooden, and her increasing magic had made it come to life, sprouting leaves and threatening to turn into a tree branch sticking out of her belly. Scary. This one was silver and, so far, inert.

“Good to hear,” Zabrina said. Her little smile said much more. She wore a long-sleeved peasant blouse today that covered Molly, the fairy tattoo on her shoulder that sometimes came to life and flitted around the shop like Tinker Bell’s shadow. “Need anything?”

“No, you’re busy. I’ll just grab my cat.” Keelie looked at the orange behemoth. “Come on, Knot, time to go home.”

In typical cat fashion, Knot ignored her, turning his green eyes toward the wall that was covered in framed pictures of tattoos. Knot wasn’t really a cat—he was a fairy, just as Zabrina was, and he liked to hang around with her.

“Take him with you, Keelie. He’s been chasing Molly.” Zabrina widened her eyes and jerked her chin toward her tattooed shoulder.

Keelie glared at the cat. “You are so evil.” He purred, as she knew he would. “You shouldn’t stay where you aren’t wanted.” She knew better than to drag him out, but he’d come along in a minute. He just didn’t want her to think he was a pushover. Keelie waved at the bedraggled, tired-looking white water rafters who’d come in for their souvenir tats. A few waved back, and she ducked out of the shop.

She headed south, hoping to see Barrow the dwarf at his parents’ hardware store, since she was dying to talk to someone about the letter. She crossed the street in front of the diner. A fuzzy orange blur beat her to it. Keelie knew Knot couldn’t resist seeing what she was up to.

Loud banging rang from the narrow old warehouse that occupied the space next to the hardware store, its mellow bricks covered in ivy. Barrow was in his sculpture workshop. His metal sculptures decorated many of the lawns around town, and were popular with the tourists and white water rafters.

She tugged open one of the sagging white doors (pine, from the river’s shore), and stepped into the gloom. “Barrow, you here?”

“Back here, Keelie.”

She turned toward his voice, but didn’t move until her eyes had adjusted to the dark. Barrow’s family lived underground, and this was normal lighting for him.

Her vision cleared slowly, until she saw the dwarf at the other end of the warehouse next to a wide kiddie pool, his welding torch and tanks behind him. Keelie’s eyes widened when she saw that the pool held the water sprite who lived in the stream in the Dread Forest. The little fishlike sprite was sitting on a rock in the center of the pool, her tail fins splashing lightly and her head thrown back so that her long, green, yarnlike hair flowed down to the water behind her. Barrow had a serious crush on the sprite.

“Keelie, you remember Plu, don’t you?”

Plu? She’d never learned the sprite’s name, but the bubbly sounding word fit her. “Hi, Plu. Nice to see you again.”

The sprite opened her large lavender eyes and then smiled when she saw Keelie. “I wondered who it was that could see me.”

Knot rubbed against the side of the kiddie pool.

“I’m doing her portrait,” Barrow explained. The dwarf seemed to be about Keelie’s age, even though at three feet tall he was the same height as her father’s friend, Sir Davey. Keelie had met Barrow last fall Under-the-Hill, which was the underground land where the dwarves lived (the fae had once lived there too, although in recent years only the darkest fae, such as trolls and Red Caps, remained). Dad and Grandmother had been surprised to hear of the existence of this subterranean homeland; the elves had lived atop it for centuries without ever knowing it. The trees, whose roots delved deep, had kept the secret.

Keelie drew closer and looked over Barrow’s shoulder. So far, the portrait consisted of three battered steel cutouts welded together.

“I’m just starting.” Barrow must have noticed her expression. “I’m going to curl steel ribbons for her hair.” The sprite laughed and Barrow blushed. He had it bad.

“It sounds great,” Keelie said, still not sure how it would work out. She was no artist. “I got a letter from my mom’s lawyers. They sold our house.”

“The one in the city?” Barrow pulled a heavy leather hood over his head, then dropped a thick metal shield with a tiny, thick glass window in its center over his face. “Step back and don’t look at the flame.”

Keelie backed away and turned from the slight “whump,” which was followed by the hissing roar of the welding torch. “I’d better leave you to it. See you later.”

Barrow motioned absently, his attention on his work. As she was leaving he yelled out, “Let’s have lunch before you leave for the High Mountain Faire.”

“Sure,” Keelie called. She couldn’t talk to him until that torch was extinguished. “See you later. Bye, Plu.”

She trudged back to where she’d parked her father’s battered pickup truck. No one had time for her today. Keelie didn’t want to whine to Dad about the sale of the house, as if she was yearning for the life she’d had before, and Grandmother wouldn’t understand. She climbed into the truck, waiting for Knot to take his usual seat beside her, paws on the dashboard so that he could watch the road ahead. She started the truck up and headed through town, then turned left at the first crossroad and started up the mountain.

Keelie shivered as she passed the tall trees that marked the beginning of the Dread Forest, and grasped the rose quartz crystal that she kept clipped to her belt loop. The Dread, as it was called, was a powerful magic that the elves had laid upon the forest long ago, to make humans feel a powerful, unfocused terror and run away as fast as possible. By successfully keeping humans out with the Dread, the elves had kept the forest pristine for centuries. As a half-human, Keelie was not as affected by the Dread as a full human would be, but it still made her nauseated and afraid. So, as Sir Davey had taught her, she drew on her rose quartz to channel Earth magic, which boosted her other powers and helped her resist the Dread. Without the crystal, she wouldn’t be able to live here with her father.

The lessons she’d taken with Lord Elianard, over the winter, had included a section from ancient books on the elven use of Earth magic. Keelie had picked up some tips about Earth magic that even Sir Davey didn’t know. Of course, now she was stuck carrying around a huge book of charms and spells that she had to work through, but it was worth it. For one thing, she’d learned to boost the power of the rose quartz with elven magic, so now she could just clip the crystal to her belt and still be covered by its effect. She had also made extra charms and stashed them in the house, the truck, and even around the forest so she’d never be without one.

After a while the Earth magic charm was self-sustaining, and Keelie was able to let the crystal dangle once more from her waist. The woods were beautiful, thick with tall, ancient trees. The high canopy and shadowed floor held all kinds of life, and Keelie felt as if she was an important part of it.

Soon, the gray stone stable of the elven village loomed ahead, and she parked in the graveled lot next to it. The building housed the Silver Bough Jousting Company’s horses in the off-season. This was also where supplies and deliveries were dropped off, before the human delivery drivers quickly left, screaming all the way down the mountain.

Keelie walked around the building, which smelled faintly of horses even though all of them had been trucked to California for the start of the Juliet City Shakespeare Festival. Sean, the head jouster and Keelie’s sort-of boyfriend, had been so busy preparing for the trip that they’d barely seen each other in weeks.

She batted aside the thought that if he’d really wanted to, he could have made time to be with her. At least he hadn’t been with Risa, who had been his fiancé for, like, five minutes last fall. Keelie tried not to think about that either. The curvy elf girl was joining the Ren Faire circuit for the first time this spring, selling handmade herbal products, and she was starting in Juliet City.

Keelie had wanted to go to Juliet as well, mostly so that she could be closer to Sean, and also to her friend Laurie, who lived in L.A. (although L.A. was not exactly next door, being hundreds of miles to the south). But now that Risa was going to be at the Festival, Keelie had a second reason to go there. And the envelope in her hand made three.

But instead, she was stuck in Oregon, plowing through the Lore Books that Lord Elianard had assigned her, as well as working through the massive and massively boring book of charms and spells, otherwise known as the Compendium of Elven Household Charms. Lord Elianard expected her to have it memorized by the time they rendezvoused in Colorado at the High Mountain Faire. It seemed Keelie’s life was happening elsewhere while she was stuck here.

She walked behind the stone and timber homes of the village elves until she reached her house. Zekeliel Heartwood—her dad, master carpenter, tree shepherd, and current Lord of the Forest—had built this two-story craftsman-style house for his bride Katy, Keelie’s human mom. Now Keelie called it home. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else … except for that little house in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, where she’d lived with Mom.

“Dad?” No answer. Knot shot upstairs, and Keelie left the other mail on the kitchen counter and went back out, the folded Talbot and Talbot letter in her pocket. The village was quiet today. Many of the elves had left for the various fairs they worked across the country.

The air smelled sweet and full of life, and under her feet was the hum of living things. Deeper below, she could hear the heartlike thrum of the underworld. Under-the-Hill, just a hundred feet below her.

Keelie passed the circle of ancient oaks called the Grove, which surrounded the green where the village business took place. A giant but new tree rose in the center, its roots emerging from the broken pieces of petrified wood that had formed the Elven Council’s meeting place, the Caudex. Someone had made a pavement out of the fragments of the Caudex, and they still resonated with power.

The tree’s branches glittered with hanging chains, wind chimes, and bits of crystal. Her name was Alora. She had come from the Wildewood Forest in New York, an acorn in Keelie’s pocket. As a treeling she’d loved to wear Keelie’s earrings and other shiny jewelry, which she delightedly called “twinkles.” But the treeling had grown with magic, and was now the Great Tree of the Dread Forest. Her place on the Caudex had sealed the presence of the Dread in these woods and restored the balance of magic in the forest.

Leaves swished and branches rattled as Keelie approached the ancient trees and Alora. The trees greeted her, some friendly, some with indifference, but the three oaks call the Aunties trilled their delight at her presence, and Alora at their center most of all.

“Did you bring me twinkles?” Alora asked excitedly. She spoke aloud, although no regular elves could hear her. For all her power, she was still very young.

“No, I just went to the post office,” Keelie replied. “Dad doesn’t let me drive very far, since I just got my license.” She pulled the envelope from her pocket. “I got this, though. The house I lived in with my mom has been sold.”

Alora’s spirit face pushed out of her trunk. “Your root home? Your forest mother?”

“More like the pot she was planted in.” Keelie struggled to find another way to make a tree understand what a house meant. “You’ve been in my bedroom, when you were small. You know what it was like inside.”

Alora shuddered. “A pot made from the bones of trees.”

That was one way to describe a wooden house. “I was happy there with my mom. And now it’ll belong to someone else.” Keelie felt tears burn her eyes.

“But your roots are here. Your pot is not your home.” Alora looked puzzled.

One of the Aunties interrupted, in tree speak. I don’t understand how a treeling can have more than one pot. This is your pot. We are your forest.

Keelie sniffed. “Thanks. I love you guys so much. I can’t imagine living anyplace else. But I remember living there, and I was happy because I was with my mom.”

What trees were there? Another of the Aunties chimed in.

“Um, not too many trees. My mom didn’t want me to be around them.” Immediately she knew she’d said the wrong thing. Branches started to crack overhead as the trees expressed their disapproval.

“Oh, please,” Alora said. “Pipe down, Aunties. Her mother died only a ring ago.”

We remember her, one of the Aunties said. She had brown leaves like Keelie.

Keelie tugged at her short, curly hair. Leaves?

“Have you spoken with your father?” Alora asked. “He has much to discuss with you.”

“Uh oh. What’s up?”

You’re not in trouble, but he has a boon to beg of you, the Auntie said.

“A boon? A favor, of me? What kind?”

We can’t say, the Auntie replied.

Alora ran a slender branch across her mouth, as if zipping it up. The older trees rustled their branches at the human-like motion. They thought that hanging around with Keelie had corrupted their Great Tree.

“Okay, if you won’t tell me, I’ll go find Dad. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Bring me back some twinkles,” Alora called.

“Right. You’re already wearing my entire jewelry box.”

It was truly weird that her best friend was a tree, and that when she wanted a pair of earrings she had to climb up and dig them out of a branch. Good thing there weren’t any magpies in the forest, or her jewelry would be scattered all over Oregon.

Keelie headed back toward the house, wondering where her dad could be at this time of day. With the Ren Faire season coming up, she thought he might be in his woodshop, and sure enough, that’s where she found him, finishing up an armchair made of bent willow twigs.

Her dad was wearing a long tunic of fine golden linen, no doubt a gift from one of the elven ladies who followed him around just as human women did at the Ren Faires. Dad was a chick magnet. At least they’d held off a little when she and Dad had first moved back to the Dread Forest; they probably were disconcerted to find him with a teenaged daughter.

“Keelie, right on time. Give me a hand with this.” He gave her a cloth and put a bowl of lemon oil polish between them. Keelie dipped the cloth in the oil and started to rub it into the chair while Dad worked on the other side. She pushed away the vision of the shallow stream and dappled forest which came to her as her fingers touched the willow’s wood.

“I got a letter from Talbot and Talbot today, Dad.”

“Really? Tax stuff?”

“No, they sold Mom’s house in Hancock Park.”

“Oh, good. Took long enough.” Dad scraped at a blemish in the wood with his fingernail.

Keelie bit her lip.

Dad straightened. “I know the house meant a lot to you, but it couldn’t sit empty waiting for you. Someday, if you want it again, you can find the owners and make them an offer. It won’t be gone forever.” He opened his arms and swept her into a hug. “Home is not a house.”

Keelie hugged him back, loving the feel of his strength. When Dad had taken her in when Mom died, he’d loved her unconditionally, and Keelie suddenly realized that she was making a big deal out of the house sale. But there was little of her mother in the Dread Forest, and Keelie wanted to feel surrounded by her mother’s presence one more time. Somehow, she had to get to Los Angeles.

“Alora said you had something to tell me.”

Dad stopped rubbing polish into the wood and straightened. “I do. I, too, have received an important message. Viran, the tree shepherd of the Redwood Forest, is missing. A few of the strongest shepherds are gathering there to help find him. The Redwood Forest is the oldest of the new world’s forests, and the shepherd of the sequoias must be very strong, for the trees are so old that their power could drive a weak one mad. We fear for Viran. No one has seen him in weeks.”

“Why don’t you ask the trees where he is?”

“Good point. But the trees don’t know, either. Or they aren’t telling.”

“What do you mean, not telling? Trees don’t lie.”

Dad looked grim. “I said the forest is very powerful. Do you know how the trees here can show their faces, and sometimes root walk?”

Keelie nodded. She saw the trees’ faces all the time, and root walking was something she’d seen for herself in the Wildewood Forest, and not in a good way. Trees had dragged their roots out of the ground and moved around as if they had feet, a scary sight. It got even more frightening when they attacked.

“Well, in the Redwood forest, the tree spirits can take the form of people, and interact with people. Their spirits walk among the elves.”

Keelie stared at him. “You’re serious. They can do that?” She pictured tree spirits chasing her around.

Dad nodded. “They’re quite powerful. Of course, most humans don’t see it. You’ll find them wise and independent. Their tree shepherd is most unusual.” He started polishing again. “I’m supposed to open the Heartwood shop at the High Mountain Faire the day after tomorrow, and I can’t change that commitment. So I want you to go to the redwoods in my stead. While you’re there, you can set up a Heartwood shop at the Juliet City Shakespeare Festival. We’ve never been there, and there’s space available.”

A million thoughts sped through Keelie’s mind. This was perfect! Running a faire shop was a piece of cake for her now, and she could also go see her former home. Would Laurie, her old school friend, drive up and take her to L.A.? But how could she take her father’s place, since he’d said that only the strongest tree shepherds could deal with the redwoods? And how was she going to get to Juliet City?

Keelie only voiced some of these thoughts. “How can I drive myself all the way to the redwoods? They’re down on the California coast. And do you really think I’m powerful enough to deal with the ancient trees?”

Just at that moment, Grandmother appeared in the woodshop’s doorway. “I will attend to the Redwood Forest. Keelie can tend to the festival.”

Keelie looked at her grandmother’s stern face, which was framed by tightly braided silver hair. Keliatiel Heartwood was dressed in linen robes embroidered with forest motifs, every inch still the Lady of the Forest.

“Your grandmother knows the redwoods of old,” Dad explained. “She will deal with the trees and the other tree shepherds. You will learn much from her.”

Goodbye, L.A., goodbye, fun. Keelie looked once more at her stuffy, old-school grandmother.

Grandmother’s eyes swiveled to meet hers. “I drive.”

Life sucked.



Two days later, Keelie stood staring at the skimpy candy selection in the Gas-A-Minute, fifty yards over the California state line. Two kinds of chocolate bar, dusty-looking, foil-wrapped mint patties, and chewing gum brands she’d never heard of. That was it. Not a sour gummy anything.

Keelie stared at the rack, trying to summon up a little appetite. She deserved a treat, and nothing here was treat-worthy.

She glanced outside. No sign of Grandmother, who’d lost every bit of elegance the minute they’d pulled into the gas station parking lot. She’d pushed the driver-side door open and had raced to the ladies’ room, leaving Keelie to turn the car off and wait.

At least they were finally in California. The first two stops had been in Oregon.

“You want some chips instead?” The woman sitting behind the counter, reading a magazine, had been watching Keelie.

Keelie considered, then chose a bag of SunChips. “I’ll take these, please.”

The woman stood to ring up her purchase. “You can quit looking outside. She’s still in the restroom.”

Keelie bit her lip. Had she been that obvious?

“Older women sometimes have to go a lot,” the woman confided, speaking as if she had personal experience with the problem.

“You don’t know my grandmother.” Keelie paid for the chips and went back outside, holding the metal bells that dangled from the back of the plate glass door so that they were quiet. Their jangle had made her shudder when she’d entered, or maybe it was because the whole building was made of concrete, steel, and glass. Even the counter was plastic.

She let the door close behind her and inhaled the fresh outdoor air. It smelled different from Oregon, and the trees murmured to her of rain and fog. She hadn’t noticed a difference in the tree smells before last summer, when the trees had called to her and she’d discovered that she could talk to them, along with all sorts of other strange creatures that lived in forests. Her half-elf blood had gotten her into so much trouble lately.

She was glad for this road trip, even if Grandmother hadn’t let her get near the steering wheel even once.

A screen door screeched shut behind her, and Keelie turned to see Grandmother exiting the little wooden bathroom. Keliatiel walked calmly, with dignity, not like an old lady who’d spent fifteen minutes in a gas station bathroom.

Keelie walked toward her, their paths crossing just short of the truck.

“Are you ready?” Grandmother pulled open the truck door and climbed in, her linen trousers barely wrinkled under her long, leaf-embroidered tunic.

“Of course.” Keelie took her place next to her and pulled out the road map.

Juliet City, California, was just seventy miles ahead.

An array of colored crystals was arranged on the dashboard. Sir Davey had taught Grandmother to drive using the crystals, and they guided her better than any GPS.

Grandmother ran her hands over the crystals and the truck’s engine turned over. Two minutes later they were back on the road south, headed toward the redwoods.

Keelie leaned back in her seat. All she hoped to get out of this journey was a last look at the house she’d shared with Mom, and maybe a glance at her old school.

“You thought the trees in the Dread Forest were old, Keliel, but you have not seen anything like the redwoods,” Grandmother said. “They make one feel insignificant.”

A roaring echo filled Keelie’s ears, and an odd, musky scent filled the car. Help us, tree voices chorused. Help us, Keliel. Just as suddenly the noise was gone, leaving Keelie’s ears ringing with the sudden silence.

She looked quickly at Grandmother, but the old lady drove on, and behind them, Knot snored on his kitty cushion. Keelie had been the only one to receive the message, yet Grandmother was in charge of this mission.

Whatever it had meant, the trees sounded desperate. Keelie was suddenly determined not to let them down.