chapter thirty-four

I slept for five days before they found me. At first, I thought the pressure on my roots was a dream, but the pain of the metal ax biting into my roots shocked me awake. I curled my injured root close and flexed the rest, toppling my attacker onto the ground. As my awareness moved closer to the surface, I began to make out their words.

"Ha! Pay up." A man's voice.

"Okay, you were right," said a second man. "The tree's magic." "What do you think, Mike?" asked the first. "Wizard of Oz?"

"Nah. The fighting trees were more willowy. The branches bent down like vines to wrap around the scarecrow, remember. This is oak. Narnia, maybe?"

"I don't recall C. S. Lewis' trees killing random farmers and burying their bodies."

They thought I had murdered Frank. I started to withdraw again, retreating deeper into the heart of the wood. It didn't matter what they believed. Frank was gone. Let them cut down my tree.

"If you ask me, we should be looking into the ex," said Mike. "Maybe she never got over losing Frank. 'If I can't have him, no one can,' and all that. She sounded crazy enough to do it."

"I'm more interested in that girl, Lena. The one Frank was shacking up with. Marion said Lena tried to kill her once. Wouldn't surprise me if she killed him, too. If she was a witch, it would explain the magic we picked up."

"A witch who used her power to ruin Frank Dearing's marriage and trick him into letting her work his farm for no pay, year after year?"

"What about Dungeons and Dragons? Don't they have some kind of spell or scroll we could use to figure out what this thing is? The old man locked the main rulebooks, but there's a new supplement out. It might not have been cataloged yet."

As the pain from the ax eased, so did my fear. I could hear the fondness beneath the men's banter. Their presence made me yearn for companionship. My isolation was a physical pain constricting my very core, worse than any ax. In isolation, I had been content to sleep, but now that others had arrived, the loneliness was suffocating. Before I realized what I was doing, I stretched myself from my tree and stepped lightly onto the dirt.

A young man pulled a gold-bladed sword from a scabbard at his side while the other raised a tiny gray-and-black pistol. A nylon backpack sat open on the ground a short distance away. It seemed to be stuffed with books. The ax rested against the base of a tree.

"Lena Greenwood?" asked Mike, keeping his sword ready. "I didn't kill Frank," I said.

"You did something," said the man with the gun. "Whatever magic you used, the Porters felt it all the way over in Chicago."

Mike lowered his sword, but I noticed how his friend stepped to one side, keeping a clear line of fire. "We aren't here to hurt you. We've talked to your neighbors. We know how Frank treated you. If you were acting in self-defense

—"

"No!" Why wouldn't they believe me? "I loved him."

They looked at one another. "How long did you live with Frank?" asked Mike.

The question confused me. "I've always been with Frank."

"John, why don't you give Doctor Shah a call?" Mike sheathed his weapon and smiled. While John unclipped a cell phone from his belt, Mike extended a hand. "Would you mind coming with us to talk to a friend?"

I didn't have the willpower to refuse.

"Don't worry," John said as he dialed. "Nidhi's nice. You'll like her."

AUGUST HARRISON'S FRIENDS WEREN'T the only ones who could counter magic. I peeked down at the phone as I typed out the message. Found killer. Hostages. Need distraction and automaton.

My phone tried to correct the last word to "airmen." I fixed it and hit Send, then brought the phone to my face. "We're coming out. Call the wasps back."

I waited for the insects to retreat from the door. An answering text arrived a few seconds later. Understood.

I stepped onto the porch. "The wendigos, too."

"In time." Harrison sounded every ounce the gentleman now that he believed he was in control. He stood behind the SUV's hood, watching me. "Your friends will be free to go as soon as you've joined us."

An aborted squeak made me whirl. Deb froze, a guilty expression on her face, then slowly wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She was moving better, and her knife wounds had stopped bleeding. She swallowed, grimaced, and offered me a halfhearted shrug.

I looked past her to the empty birdcage. "You didn't."

"Hey, if that woman hadn't stabbed me when all I was trying to do was help, maybe—"

"What is wrong with you?" I yelled. "Nothing, anymore."

I was tempted to shoot her myself. "When this is over, you're buying this family another bird."

My phone buzzed with another text message. I glanced at the screen. I didn't have time to deal with Deb. With a disgusted glare, I turned back to Harrison. "Sorry about that. We're coming out." A low double-beep signaled another incoming call as I descended the steps. When my foot touched the bottom step, I pretended to stumble. I caught the rail with one hand. With my other, I tapped the phone, bringing Nicola Pallas into a three-way call with August Harrison.

Even with the phone away from my ear, the opening bars of Pallas' song felt like she had plugged an electrical cable directly into my eardrums. I flung the phone into the grass and clung to the rail with both hands while I waited for the world to stop spinning.

As unpleasant as that tinny melody was for me, how much worse must it have been for August Harrison, who had his phone clamped to his ear. Pallas' bardic magic dropped him with the first notes.