“I’m not going anywhere, so take your time.”
So I told him. Everything. The good and the bad. Well, at least all the bits I could remember. Because after all, if you can’t trust your family, who can you trust? Blood is thicker than water, or something.
Dad paced back and forth in front of a giant dead tree. “So let me get this straight. This richy-rich brat made a wish that broke all the ties to our original stories and rewrote the rules of magic. And then you got suckered into doing her dirty work to fix it. For free.”
“Well, sort of…”
“And in the process, you had your life essence stolen by the Storm Witch and shoved into an opal necklace, which you also didn’t get to keep.” He stood still with his hands on his hips, jaw ticking and lips pursed.
I squirmed under his glare. “You see, like I said, it’s complicated. There’s—”
“Ah, yes, I know. You got stabbed in the back by your friend.”
I stood up, meeting him eye to…well, chin because he was still a lot taller than me. “Not by. For. I saved her. I did a good thing,” I said, pounding my chest.
Dad put his hands on my shoulders. “And what did you get for it? Did this princess give you a kingdom?”
“Well, no.”
“Maybe some riches?”
“No, cuz, you see, I sorta needed to redeem—”
Dad’s grip tightened. “Says who? You did the right thing, and that book doesn’t even count it. No, for your bravery and loyalty and trouble, you have the Grimm Reaper after you, then resurrection, death, resurrection, repeat. And all your so-called friends abandoned you without offering any help to save your temporarily immortal soul.”
I stepped back and pointed to my boots. “Dorthea said she’s working on it, but that’s why she used her Storymaker magic to make these boots to keep Morte away.”
Dad’s face clouded even more. “What have I always taught you about these so-called muckety-mucks? If you want something—”
“You’ve got to take it for yourself,” I finished and droned on, “ain’t nobody looking out for you ’cept you.”
“That’s my girl,” Dad said, ruffling my hair. Then he squatted low. “Now let’s take a look at these magic freak boots. Maybe we can sell ’em at the market.” He poked, prodded, and tugged.
Before I could say anything, I was on my rear, and he was yanking with all his might.
“Owowowowowow!” It felt like he was trying to amputate my leg.
He let go. “It’s stuck.”
“Ya think? Leave them be. Right now they’re the only things keeping Morte away from me. Plus they’re not freak; they’re unique. Fierce haute couture.” I stuck my leg out and admired the foresty fashion.
Dad’s eyes widened, and he bit his lip. “Those monsters, what have they done to you? My merry girl wouldn’t be caught dead saying something like that.”
A wave of shock hit me. Then shame as I looked into his disappointed face. Then horror that he was right. To make matters worse, I realized I knew what haute couture was. Without a second to lose, I scrambled at my throat for the bag of sap and upended the thing to my mouth.
Not even a drop.
I shook it, then gave it a good look to see what was clogged. I felt like hurling. The drinking skin was empty, a giant hole cut right through the center. About the right size for a hook.
“It’s gone.…” I grabbed my dad’s shirt. “A tree. I need a tree.”
Dad pried my fingers off. “Look around, kiddo. You’re in a forest.”
“No.” I explained the sap medicine. “Verte said she took the leaves and the last of the sap from my tree. If I can figure out what she meant, then maybe I can find more.”
Dad pointed to the withered giant ironwood at the end of the decrepit camp that used to be my home. “Remember the stories I used to tell you about the forest? How the trees grew up from the blood and iron of the Holy Grail War?”
I didn’t answer but rushed over to inspect the tree.
“Supposedly, that is the first ironwood. Sprouted from King Arthur and the black prince’s heart blood. Don’t you remember this at all?” Dad’s voice lowered, losing its melody. No longer the fading warmth of autumn, but the sad bleakness of winter, his voice was grim. “You’d climb that tree and beg me to tell you tales. I could hardly coax you from its limbs.”
If I tried to climb the tree now, I was betting it’d snap in two. The trunk was blackened and gnarled. The limbs drooped to the ground like a willow, like an old man with stooped shoulders. I pried the bark loose, but the underneath was dry. No leaves, no sap. Nothing.
Dad came up behind me and put a hand on my back. “It started to die the day you left.”
I pointed to the rest of the camp. “And the rest? Where are the boys?”
“We all searched for you for years.” He shook his head. “They didn’t make it back. Everything fell apart.”
He didn’t say it, but I could hear his unspoken because of you.
My insides felt like they were rotting.
I am a child of the trees…
And the trees were all dead.
I sank to the ground. “What am I going to do?” My fault. It was all my fault. I didn’t need the magic mirror to tell me what my future was anymore. Soon I wouldn’t even remember any of my past.
“I’m gonna help you make it right,” my dad said. “You can’t save the boys, but we can sever the bonds that keep stealing at your soul.”
“How?” I kept blinking to keep the burning in my eyes from turning into tears.
“There’s only one piece of magic pure enough to break any binding spell and purify any curse.” Dad ran his thumb across my cheek. “You and me, merry girl, we’re gonna pull a heist with a bigger score than ever before—we’re gonna steal Excalibur.”
“Rule #2: In every story, the hero has a mentor who will guide and impart great wisdom on their journey. These mentors are often magical, sometimes animal, but nearly always rather cranky.”
—Definitive Fairy-Tale Survival Guide, Volume 5: Heroes
18
Camelost
There it was again—a glimmer of hope, a sprout of belief…right before a heel squishes it out.
“Hate to break it to you, Dad, but someone beat you to it. Excalibur’s already been taken. You were at the museum. It’s gone.”
He stood up and walked toward the lake. “It’s not gone. Lost. And lost can be found.” After reaching into his pocket, he pulled out what looked an awful lot like the compact magic mirror. “With a little help.”
I was about to school him on the manic-depressive mirror’s quirks, but instead, Robin Hood robbed from the wicked to give to the lake—or more precisely, he robbed from me and tossed it in the lake.
That got me to my feet. “What are you doing? How are we supposed to find Excalibur now?”
“That second-rate trinket couldn’t track something as powerful as the holy sword of many names. To do that, we need to ask the woman who bestowed the kingmaker in the first place.”