A low growl echoed through the trees.
Geoff twisted, and his blood chilled. The night howlers were stirring. The girl’s loud curses and noisy trek through the forest were like a beacon to the beasts that came out after dark.
He twisted again when he heard another loud yelp and a splash.
The girl appeared from the other side of the creek, the lower half of her pants and boots soaking wet, her eyes wide and wild, her stick held out like a blade. She stumbled, skidded, and fell to her knees at the base of Elder Oak. Her lip quivered as she whispered, “I’m not afraid. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s just… just forest noise. Forests have noises. Bálint is always talking about the hullabaloos he hears when he is out in the woods.”
Elder Oak moved.
Geoff hung on as the ancient tree—so still and majestic for most of the year—lowered his massive limbs and gently cradled the girl. She gasped as she was lifted off the ground, her limbs stiff, her eyes round.
“I’ve gone loco,” she muttered, dazed. “Or dead. I must be dead.”
Elder Oak chuckled, his laugh like wind rustling through a thousand leaves. “Well now, you don’t look dead to me.”
Geoff climbed onto a nearby branch and leaned forward to study her. She clung to the tree like it was a lifeline, her gaze locked on Elder Oak’s face in wonder and disbelief.
“Are you… real?” she whispered.
“As real as the tears on your cheeks,” the tree said kindly. “Though I admit, the branch you’ve chosen as a sword is a little… modest.”
Geoff snorted at Elder’s teasing.
The girl flushed and clutched her stick tighter. “It’s temporary,” she muttered.
Geoff smiled at the defensive tone in her voice and the flash of defiance in her eyes.
He didn’t know who she was… or where she’d come from.
But one thing was certain:
Magic had brought her here.
And he intended to find out why.
Chapter Nineteen
Alice sat stiffly in the cradle of Elder Oak’s gently swaying limbs, struggling to make sense of everything.
She blinked again, as if by doing so she could somehow reset the world and wake up in the treehouse back home on Valdier with Bálint and the others scheming about what they were going to do next.
“This… isn’t real. Trees can’t talk,” she whispered.
Elder Oak rumbled with amusement. “Not all trees, but a good many of us can—if you know how to listen.”
Alice turned her head toward the voice, wide-eyed. “You’re alive.”
“I certainly hope so,” the tree said, his voice like wind in old leaves, rich and amused. “It would be quite inconvenient to be otherwise.”
“No—I mean, of course you’re alive, but… I meant… alive-alive. Talking. Thinking. Walking.”
“Ah,” Elder Oak chuckled, the sound like rustling branches after rain. “So your trees don’t do any of that?”
“Not where I’m from,” she murmured. “I’m… from a world far, far away.”
A hiss of breath came from a fork near the tree’s head. Alice scrambled backwards—startled when a tall, brown-haired boy suddenly appeared and glared at her. She watched in muted shock when he crossed his arms.
His golden-brown eyes were narrowed with suspicion, his jaw tense. “You’re an alien,” he said flatly. “You came to harm our world.”
