Sarika stared at Leila through all of this, her eyes unwavering.
She squeezed her hands and let go to fuss with something inside her jacket. She plucked out her smartphone, her fingers nimbly jabbed away at something unseen, and then she put her phone back.
“Don’t worry, I canceled on my adoring public, just for you.”
Leila’s phone buzzed. Sarika smirked as Leila turned hers on.
“How do you already have nine retweets?” Leila asked, turning off her phone and wiping away a stray tear.
“What can I say? I’m popular on the Internet.” Sarika grinned. She stood up and pushed the chair in. “Well. I’d like to see all this for myself, so let’s get out of here.” Before Leila could protest, Sarika darted her way over to the barista station to grab her satchel.
“Sorry, Mr. Hathaway, something’s come up!” Sarika shouted as she made her way to the front door. She looked at Leila and motioned for her with her hand, mouthing “hurry up.”
“I’ll be back next weekend or during the week sometime, sorry!”
“Wait, what?” Mr. Hathaway shouted from the kitchen of the café, pans and pots clattering as he made his way out and behind the counter. “Where are you going? Sarika!”
“I’ll make it up to you, I swear!” Sarika shouted as she swung the front door open, holding it for Leila, who hurried through as the bell chimed above them.
Outside, Philadelphia was already bustling, even in a neighborhood that generally didn’t have a lot of people walking around or commuting here and there.
“Wait, wait,” Leila said, rushing up to Sarika, who was making her way over to the bicycle rack outside Adam’s. With a pang she looked at the empty spot next to Sarika’s bike, where bits of yellow paint chipped against the black metal, left over from scrapes with Marigold. Her bike was still a mangled mess in the backyard, and she’d left Liz’s bike at the house. It had taken forever to clean after going to the park to meet Landon and its ride in the back of his truck on the way home. She wasn’t in a rush to dirty it up again.
Sarika was fussing with the locks on her bike when she looked up at Leila.
“What?” she asked, unhooking her lock, and then glanced at the empty spot where Marigold was usually locked up. “Oh, that’s right. So how do you propose we get to your magical garden?”
“Are you sure you want to go?” Leila asked. “It was a lot to take in.”
“I’m not going to let you face this alone, whatever it is,” Sarika said, resolutely.
Leila gave Sarika a friendly nudge, and pulled out her phone. She stared at it for a beat.
“What is it?” Sarika asked, nodding at Leila’s phone.
“It’s just, I’ve already asked him for help. Landon. Like, yesterday,” Leila said, looking down at the glowing screen. “And it was an intense day.”
“So?” Sarika asked, shrugging.
“I just don’t want to seem all ‘princess’ or ‘damsel in distress,’ you know? Is it normal to call a guy, like, the day after we first hung out?”
“Leila. There is nothing normal about this situation,” Sarika said, grinning. “I don’t think you can Google for advice on whether or not you should call a guy you’re maybe interested in after you’ve seen magical mythological beings in the woods outside an abandoned historic mansion together. That would be a very niche think piece.”
“Fair enough,” Leila said, smiling. She scrolled down to Landon’s name on her phone and hit “dial”.
Sarika Paprika
@TheSarikaPaprika
Sorry #SarikaTheBarista fans! Something’s come up. I’ll be back to @AdamsPhillyCafe this weekend! First one to RT gets a coffee from @WithouttheY!
8/24/17, 9:47AM
38 Retweets 7 Likes
Stallwood @WilhelmStalw00d 9m
@TheSarikaPaprika @AdamsPhillyCafe noooooooooooo! cc @krummali
Allison @krummali 7m
@wilhelmstalw00d @TheSarikaPaprika @AdamsPhillyCafe there go my plans for the afternoon! Ugh!
Sarika @TheSarikaPaprika 5m
@wilhelmstalw00d @krummali @AdamsPhillyCafe sorry guys! You were the first to RT this though, so coffee on @WithouttheY next time you’re in! ?
XVI
“So, where’s your owl friend?” Sarika asked as they made their way down the trail towards the Thomas Mansion and the grove where the dryads lived. Landon had thankfully picked them up at the café and driven them out here. Today he wasn’t dressed in his uniform, but some ripped jeans that looked as though they’d been on endless hikes, paired with a black t-shirt with Hedwig from Harry Potter in the center and the word “HERO” in fancy typeface below the illustration.
Landon smiled sadly as they walked, and moved closer to Leila. There it was again, even without his park ranger uniform on, that smell of sawdust, sweet and surprising.
“He’s resting, back in the Trust. He’s been a bit out of it lately, not sure why,” he said with a soft shrug. “Yesterday was a good day for him despite the, uh, unusual circumstances he found himself in.”
“Not used to magical tree spirits?” Sarika asked.
“It’s just up ahead,” Landon continued, seeming to ignore Sarika’s joke and looking back towards the trail. “Some people were here a bit earlier today, some contractors. I heard it over the CB.” He tapped the walkie-talkie on his hip. “I might not be at work, but it’s nice to keep up with what’s going on. Kinda hard to turn it off sometimes.”
“I know what you mean,” Sarika said, pulling out her smartphone and flipping through something on the screen. “People are not happy that I bailed on the café today.”
“Sorry about that,” Leila said, resisting the urge to take out her phone and look at her mentions. Ever since Sarika had said she wouldn’t be at Adam’s, her phone had been lighting up with alerts.
“Eh, it’s just the Internet.” Sarika shrugged. “They’ll forget all about my horrific deed by tomorrow morning, despite the fact that I am clearly a monster. Not coming in to make them coffee, how do I live with myself, you guys? How?”
“Seriously, you should be—” Leila started, and then stopped.
The path leading towards the mansion had been widened since the day before. A number of the shrubs and trees that had blocked their way or made things awkward for them yesterday had been cleared. Off to the side of the now-widened trail were the remains of the plants and brush that had been cut from the trees or ripped from the ground, the brambles almost making a wall along the trail.
“Wow, they really have already started working up here,” Landon said, looking over the trail and the bushes piled along the way. “This was all in the road just yesterday.”
“The dryads,” Leila said, her heart beating madly. She darted up the trail.
“Leila, wait!” Landon shouted.
“Come on!” she heard Sarika yell as she rushed forward, her feet hitting the now-clear dirt path harder with each angry step forward. She still had too many questions. What was her father like? How did she end up in foster care in the first place? She had a chance to finally connect with a part of who she was, and she wasn’t about to let some fools with axes and sheers ruin everything.
Not just for her, but for the world.
Philadelphia wasn’t really the world, she knew that. But the dryads’ claim that their demise would bring about the crumbling of the city shook her, even if she wasn’t quite sure she believed any of it yet. It brought up too many questions. Were there other mythological creatures throughout Philadelphia, or even the world, that clung to life and subsequently supported all of ours? If there were dryads in the wilderness, were there mermaids and sirens in the sea?
The questions pounded against Leila’s skull. The pain from her bike accident still thundered inside, blending with her more practical, slightly less magical concerns. She imagined Sarika’s family having to leave their home, the old group home being shut down, Jon and Lisabeth having to leave their lives and their careers. Would the air became unbreathable? The soil ruined? What was it that would happen, exactly?
She ran.
For herself.
For her friends.