“Now, everyone is going to have a role to play in this protest,” he continued. “It’s early in the day still. Some of you will work on fliers to tack around the school and outside in various neighborhoods around Philadelphia. I’ll need someone working on the social media aspect of things, as we definitely need an event page and a hashtag running through everything. As for me, I’ll alert local media. Everything about this protest will be perfect.”
Shawn walked around the room, handing out assignments to the members of the club, a majority of whom begrudgingly accepted them before walking out of the classroom to work. Social media here, fliers there.
“You four,” Shawn said, pointing at Sarika, Leila, Mikey, and Britt. “I’ll need you to flier up the school, which shouldn’t take all that long, and get to work on some signs. You can meet us over at the center with them on Saturday. Try to come a little earlier? 3:30 would be great, so we can distribute materials.”
“Sure, Shawn, but—” Leila started.
“Don’t worry,” Shawn said, smiling, a dimple on the corner of his mouth. “I’ve got this. You just worry about signs and fliers and keep an eye on your park, while I fuss over the logistics. This isn’t my first rodeo.” He leaned over on the table. “Look, I know this is important to you. And I, well, I fucked up. I hope this makes it up to you. I’m not totally an inconsiderate monster, I swear.”
Leila smiled.
“I appreciate that, and I know,” she said. “It’s a good start.”
LEILA: Good morning!
LEILA: Hey we’re planning out the protest this afternoon, you at work?
LEILA: You around at all?
LEILA: Hey! You there? We’re on our way to pass out fliers near the Trust.
LEILA: Heading to that café I told you about.
LEILA: Come on, you should come to this thing. I want you there.
LEILA: Landon, everything okay?
LANDON: Hey. Yeah sorry, won’t be able to make it.
LANDON: Send me pictures, let me know how it goes.
LEILA: Sure? You okay?
LANDON: I’m fine, really. Don’t worry.
LEILA: K.
XVIII
Leila wiped the sleep from her eyes and shuffled through the stack of fliers on the kitchen table. They were printed on colorful paper, each practically see through, like the recycled, brown paper towels in the school’s bathroom. She made a mental note to ask Shawn where he found this kind of printer paper. It was the same as the flier she’d seen back in Adam’s Café when he first walked in. He’d been nice, he was trying to fix things, trying to build some sort of friendship out of the mess he created, and he was clearly making some sacrifices to come through for her.
But Landon. Radio silence. After everything they’d been through together, he’d just gone quiet.
Leila held up a flier and angled it towards her light box for a moment. The bright light shone right through the paper, and she added it back to the stack. She took her phone out, but before she could turn it on, she blinked at the dark screen, surprised. In the vague reflection, she saw something different on the side of her face.
Her birthmark.
It seemed to have grown a little, the pale spot spread a little higher on her cheekbones. But that was impossible. She scratched her head, fussing with her scarf, and when she pulled her hand away, noticed a few strands of hair coiled around her fingers.
What was happening? She glanced out the window towards Major Willow in the yard. The soft, green sphere of leaves was turning red and yellow. Some of the bark on the thin trunk looked a bit paler, and like it was peeling. Her heart ached. It was far too soon for the little tree to be changing color. And shedding bark wasn’t a good sign, either.
“Hey, Leila?”
She turned and spotted Jon standing in the door of the kitchen, his hands awkwardly clasped around one of her fliers, his eyes darting about nervously. She put down her phone.
“Can we, uh, talk about these?” He held up one of the fliers, a light-green one, and made his way over to the kitchen table. He slowly pulled out a chair and sat down next to her.
“What’s up?” Leila asked, putting the sheets into a folder. She reached under the table and unplugged her light box, and then slid the folder into her backpack. “You look all . . . you don’t look good.”
“Ha, thanks,” Jon said, smiling. “Look, Liz and I really love your spirit, Leila. We do. How you care about the environment and the world around you. Most kids your age, well, frankly they couldn’t care less.”
“Tell me about it,” Leila groaned, thinking about the “members” of B.E.A.C. who didn’t want to do a thing until their credit was threatened. “You, um, sound like you’re building up to a really big ‘but’ moment.”
“And you’re also incredibly perceptive,” he said, shaking his head. “What can you tell me about all this?” He placed the flier on the table and slid it across, so it sat in-between them on the polished wood surface.
“It’s a project B.E.A.C. is taking on,” Leila said, feeling her heart quicken and warmth pour over her skin. Did he know about the dryads? Her biological mother and father? Of course, she hadn’t posted about it anywhere and barely texted anything about it with Sarika or Landon. He couldn’t know, there was absolutely no way he knew. Liz either. And she wanted to keep it that way. She’d seen enough made-for-TV movies about adopted kids seeking out their birth parents to know it could hurt the adoptive parents, no matter how much they claimed it didn’t bother them. And the fact that her biological mother might be a mythological being living in the woods and keeping Philadelphia’s greenery alive would be a stretch way too far.
“Yes, but, why?” Jon asked. “Why this particular place?”
“Have you been there?” Leila asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, no, but—”
“There’s this old, historic mansion on the land,” Leila started, sighing. “It’s gorgeous, and just needs a little TLC. Just because it’s abandoned doesn’t mean it isn’t worth taking care of. There have got to be people out there that would appreciate it, if only they knew it was there.
“And then there is this grove of trees, Jon,” Leila continued. “Oh, this grove. Once you push out past the gardens, which if they were maintained and fixed up would be gorgeous, there’s a hidden nook that is just beautiful. Old trees, ancient, thicker than anything else in that entire park. How can anyone justify cutting down what feels like an old-growth forest in the middle of a city park? It’s maddening.”
“Look, Leila—”
“And mice!” Leila exclaimed, pulling out anything she could that didn’t make her have to say something about the magic that was actually there. “There’s some kind of endangered field mouse out there. That should make it against the law, Jon. Never mind just saving the place because it’s beautiful.”
Jon stared at the flier. For someone who loved to tell jokes, he was unusually quiet. His mouth was in a thin line, and he nodded slowly as Leila spoke.
“What is it?” Leila asked. “Jon?”
“Look, I . . .” Jon sighed. “Leila, you know I’m on a few boards around town, leftover from my law days. And one of them is the city’s Center for Horticulture, the people that are planning to build something over there. And I’m not sure how good it’s going to look if my . . .” he looked up at her and sighed. “If my daughter is out there protesting what they’re trying to do. It’d be cute, maybe, if you were, like, seven and trying to save some trees. But you’re almost an adult. And you’re on the Internet with these things and . . .”
He buried his head in his hands.
“I’m not going to ask you to not do it, but I need you to help me understand the why of it,” he said, slightly muffled by his hands.
“So, if you’re on the board,” Leila started, sitting up a bit more, her mind spinning, “can you stop all this?”
“You still haven’t given me a why,” Jon said, looking back up and staring at Leila.
“Jon, you need to go there to understand,” Leila said, shaking her head. “The grove, oh, it’s so beautiful. And the old gardens. The ancient home. The mice! People need to know about it.”
“Yes, but why? What’s there that’s—”
“You don’t just throw stuff like that away because it’s been abandoned!” Leila yelled.
“Leila,” he sighed, sounded exhausted. “This is the willow tree all over again.”