Forays in the Forest

CHAPTER NINE

“Dammit!” Divine hissed, dropping the stone—now in two pieces—to the boards between her legs with a thud.

“I take it that attempt didn’t go as planned either?”

“No.”

Divine leaned back against the seat boards, turning her chin to the sky. Grey clouds floated mistily above, as if the world had slowed down even though urgency tickled Divine’s muscles. Rain was in the air; she felt pressure in her forehead.

This was her third attempt at reshaping two separate rocks to be conjoined like the letter V. Either she fused them incorrectly or failed to fuse them at all, while the magic singed her fingers. The latter was this last attempt. At least they had found the horses again, gnawing on a clump of yellowing grass further toward their destination, which meant they could ride in the cart rather than pulling it.

“If I might make a suggestion.” Saph bent from her hip, leaning toward Divine without taking her eye from the horses. “I’m no healer but perhaps you should try material that is more…bone-like.”

While her tone was teasing, it still stung like when Divine and other Soulshields were reminded that their wells were shallow; that the Swords of the Goddess were better suited for the task. That she didn’t know what she was doing.

“Ah, there’s the beauty.”

Divine straightened at Saph’s statement, looking ahead once more. Forward and off to the left, deep green and reflecting stabbing rays at them from the sun, sat a crescent-shaped lake. It reminded her of her Goddess’s symbol, though this one was in the opposite direction: a waning moon.

“You think that’s the lake on the map?” Divine nodded toward the reed-encircled water.

“Only lake I know of that’s this shape. If there’s one elsewhere, it’s too far away to be worth my trouble; though traveling with you would certainly be a welcomed diversion.”

Divine tucked her hair behind her ear. She’d thought the sparks flying between them had been all but snuffed out, at least on Saph’s end. Finding out Saph was still attracted to her lifted a weight that had settled unnoticed on Divine’s shoulders. Perhaps Saph’s affections did not depend on Divine’s success at finger fusion.

The cart turned off the main road onto an even more disused lane, keeping the lake to their left. Divine could barely spot the worn tracks in the soil beneath the grass and wandering weeds. Now closer, she could discern the green tint of the water was from an abundance of long green hydrilla whorls. The worn tracks led into a copse of trees painted in burgundy, the first entry point into a larger wood. She sniffed the air once, then again deeper.

Saph raised her eyebrow. “Do I need another spinetooth leaf?”

“No! It’s nothing like that. I’m just smelling my talisman. It’s a good result.”

“I’ll trust you on that. Could you imagine if others could smell talismans and you got stuck with the one that smelled like wulf shit?”

Divine chuckled. “I’ve started to wonder if I can…sense danger? It sounds stupid saying it out loud.”

“Does your talisman smell differently at times?”

“That’s what I’m not sure about. When the ursavara attacked, the scent was intense. But it could just be normal for reconnecting to it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t dismiss messages from the universe. She’s always communicating, but we don’t always listen. We’ve forgotten how.”

The cover of the branches made the air chillier as they pressed forward, and Divine was glad for the warmth of her long jacket.

A few minutes into the wood, they encountered a fallen tree in their path and stopped while Saph chopped the trunk with her axe into manageable pieces. Divine snagged an armful of branches and put them into the back of the wagon.

“Planning our evening fire?” Saph asked, back in the wagon, clicking her tongue at the horses to send them on a steady pace.

“Yes, but mainly wanting to have a supply. What you said earlier made sense. I think wood might be better for mimicking bone.”

“Glad to be of some use in the efforts to get my hand back.”

Guilt grabbed Divine’s chest before receding in the wake of Saph’s smile.

They drove on, the trees creaking and the leaves rustling in a symphony of minute sounds. The pair chatted about the scenery rather than anything of consequence. Saph thought, based on the crude map, they would reach a clearing by early evening.

“Is there a deity of creatures in your pantheon?” Saph asked. “If so, I’d like to offer some prayers to not have another encounter with ursavara or the like.”

“That would be prudent, but no.”

“A shame. Maybe there’s one in a far west undiscovered land who just hasn’t come by to build their tower.”

Divine scoffed. “Deities don’t just show up all of a sudden.”

“They came from somewhere. Though I doubt it’s that continent in the sky.” Saph tilted her head back as if she could spy the landmass through the trees. “I have half a mind to go on one last quest after this. Do what no one has ever done. Set foot on Zenith. I’ll get a really long rope, shoot it from a Kellas canon, and then find one of those four-armed creatures of myth—boradain, that’s the name—and have it use its multi-arms to pull me up in a basket.”

Divine didn’t have the heart to remind her that boradains wouldn’t understand her request as they were creatures without sentience, and since Saph’s expression radiated mischievous excitement. She looked like a pirate in search of treasure with her gleaming green eye and her purple eye patch.

“The healers. The ones who couldn’t fix your eye. Is that why you’ve never chosen a deity? Not that you have to pick a Goddess or God to worship.”

The silence lingered long enough that Divine thought Saph wouldn’t respond. “My parents followed the old ways—”

“The old ways?” Listhinci had used that term as well.

“Before there were Gods and Goddesses, there was one force in all of Alistraysia. So no, we never attended any of the temples. But time taught me that there was no benevolent force, or Goddess, out there. Not with the way I was treated, by strangers and family alike. No disembodied ethereal voices, no apparitions of immortal bodies came to me.”

“But the magic,” Divine began, her mind juggling multiple counter arguments like a minstrel learning to sing while playing.

“Oh, I don’t deny there’s some sort of magical energy out there. But why not from just being ? Why must its source be something requiring worship?”

“I guess…I guess my experiences with my well had always been proof enough. Not everyone can access magic and—”

“Not everyone can wield an axe or write a song. But those are not attributed to religious devotion.”

Divine stiffened as if she could buffet Saph’s words by making her muscles into armor. But rust had already begun to form. If Divine was honest with herself, it had happened even before she met the Goodly One and the Iguion. It made no sense that human-adjacents would be abandoned by the pantheon, to exist as forever unblessed. But if magic could be used by anyone, did that mean Divine had other powers, but had somehow gotten locked in to only having a restorative type? Did it have to do with the talismans? Divine’s hand slipped into her pocket and she squeezed the smooth gift from Listhinci. There was a connection between what the Goodly One and the Iguion had told her but she didn’t know enough.

“Why do they live on a floating continent anyway?” Saph asked, seeming oblivious to the war raging in Divine’s thoughts.

“They only do sometimes. When they want to be close to us or have a task. Most of the time they are in a place beyond our world. The afterlife where souls go.”

“The domain of your Goddess. Nice of her to let everyone in.”

“It’s more of a place for all of them, but only she has the power to send souls back. But you don’t believe any of this so nevermind.”

“Hm.” The tavern owner exhaled before her gentle hand rested on Divine’s knee. “Don’t let my doubt distress you.” Saph’s hand caressed her leg at the knee. “I hide it away most of the time. Those who believe in the old ways are few. But something about you turns my words into a confessional, when I would much rather engage in actions that cause…pleasure.”

Saph’s hand had worked its way up Divine’s thigh and her fingers trailed the inside of her leg. Divine’s stomach tingled as a similar response grew between her legs. But Divine couldn’t shake the thought Saph didn’t believe Divine’s magic came from her Goddess. And maybe Divine didn’t either. It would invalidate half of Divine’s life.

She squeezed her hands together. “I think I need to stretch my legs.”

A grin grew on Saph’s lips. “I can help with that.”

Divine twisted a ring on her finger. “I think I need a little walk.”

The amusement faded from Saph’s face, and she nodded. “Sure. The horses could use a snack.” Then the grin was back, large and teasing. “Don’t stray too far. I don’t think I can expose my breasts at the trees to save you if you run into trouble.”

Divine couldn’t suppress her laugh and shook her head, remembering the Soulsage while they were retrieving her talisman. As she climbed out of the wagon, her thoughts turned to the heated kisses shared in the alleyway after, and a shiver coursed through her body, recalling how that event ended with Divine in Saph’s bed.

Forcing herself to not turn around for a repeat, Divine stepped off the path and into the trees. She let her feet carry her, though she didn’t know where she was going, crunching through leaves as she worked to calm her mind. What Saph said creased her brow as she examined why she believed what she did.

With a huff, Divine kicked a fallen branch.

“I don’t know anymore,” she grumbled, then flipped the tail end of her coat out of the way so she sat on her pants beneath a tree.

Two tree roots sprawled on either side of her like knobby knees, the white bark shedding from the blanched trunk behind her. She thought it might be diseased, as this type of tree usually had smooth bark. Divine picked up a stick and began snapping smaller pieces from it, though they crumbled more than popped. Focusing on one problem could calm her mind.

She was no closer to understanding how she’d restored Saph’s hand, nor how to put it back to the way it was. Something extraordinary had happened at her behest.

She let her head fall back with a dull thud to the trunk behind her. Nothing to do but breathe, like the early days of exploring her magic. Divine took a slow breath through her nose, the scent of earth and leaves attached to the cool air around her with a hint of sweetness beneath it. The rosy scent of her magic. She wasn’t using it at the moment.

Divine looked around, remembering the teeth and claws on the ursavara and the choking scent of her magic that had woken her. She held her breath as she searched the trees and branches for anything warning of imminent disaster. Nothing stirred, just the natural swaying of branches and the twitching of leaves. She relaxed against the tree. Maybe she was too hopeful, thinking her well had grown. The overpowering scent of rose during the ursavara fight might have been a coincidence and not some newfound harbinger of impending danger.

Focusing her flutterwing trails of thoughts, she picked up the smaller pieces of the white branch she’d snapped near her boot heels. She held two pieces together an arm’s length away and narrowed her eyes.

She dipped into her well, finding it cool and calm, and like scooping her hand, she brought back a palm full of power. She imagined pouring it over the sticks like melted wax, hot with magical energy. The sticks melded, blurring at first, like haze on the horizon of a boiling summer day, then became one thicker stick. Divine let the corner of her mouth tug up in satisfaction. At least she could do a simple melding. If a fractured bone needed fusing, she might be able to do it without a companion healer now.

The musk of a fresh bloom filled her senses, the fruity undertone barely detectable, but undeniably the perfume of her magic. Divine’s chest swelled, as if the air was feeding her more power. She snatched up the remaining sticks from the ground and held them in her left hand, a broken bundle. Again, she dipped into her well, but this time she tried to meld two sticks of the group. A lump of wood formed in her fist before it dropped from her hand to the ground, disappearing into the leaves.

She expelled her breath in a puff, but searched the ground, quickly finding a branch with several lateral branches attached. Instead of breaking them off, she held the stick before her as it was and tried to remember how she had remade Saph’s hand in the first place. Divine searched her memory and the unseen weight in her chest for the exact thoughts and emotions of that moment. There was helplessness; a complete emptiness that there was nothing that could stop the inevitable, like with her mother. There was fear; fear that Saph would die—the same fear she had in the final days of her mother’s illness. And a fear of losing how she felt around Saph.

But there was a caring strength, knowing something must be done to help her. Divine had known she needed to act. She pushed herself further without planning or questioning and she did it because she cared for Saph. She would have done the same for her mother if she had been able to. In that moment, Divine knew her mother wouldn’t have blamed her. Why had she blamed herself all these years?

Divine focused on the pale branch and thought of Saph; of the expressions dancing from her eyebrows to her lips, her whip-crack sarcasm and wit, the muscles in her arms as she chopped wood, the curve of her breasts and the weight of her hips pressed against Divine’s, the taste of her mouth.

Divine plunged into the depths of her well, inhaling the magic until her lungs might burst. The depth seemed infinite. She willed a lateral branch V-ing on the right side to bend toward one another and they responded. As they neared, Divine no longer looked at white wood but the white bones of a hand. Golden threads spilled out like spiderwebs and lashed the two bones together, disappearing into its pores. Divine blinked and the bones turned back to a branch. The former V now a thicker single offshoot.

Grinning, the Soulshield pushed herself from the ground, dusting bits of leaves and earth from her pants. Magic coursed through her veins, hot and urgent. The world smelled like a garden, and she swayed under the invisible blanket of blooms before regaining her balance.

As Divine grew closer to the road, she noticed an intermittent thudding sound. Stepping around a tree, she saw the source. Saph raised her arms over her head, dropping the double blade behind her head, then launched her axe. It spun through the air, blades over handle, before wedging into the trunk of a fallen tree. Divine took careful steps as Saph pulled one of the four-inch blades of her weapon free.

After the next launch, Divine leaned her shoulder against the smooth white bark of the nearest tree, crossing her arms and legs in her best nonchalant pose. The tree was one of the few nearby that wasn’t crumbling or half on the forest floor.

“Hey, beautiful.”

Saph spun around, her eye wide before relaxing into a smile.

“Hey yourself,” she said, stepping toward Divine. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. All that stuff about Gods and Goddesses. I didn’t mean—”

Divine waved her hand like brushing moths away. “Never mind. I think I’ve figured out how to get your hand the way it used to be.”

“I know.” Saph held up her hand, with the long and ring fingers fused.

Divine’s mouth dropped open. The bones she had seen were real.

Divine picked Saph up at the waist and twirled her around. “I did it!” she laughed.

“Yes, but how? You weren’t anywhere near me.”

“I think the boundaries of my well are imagined ,” Divine said, setting Saph back on her feet. She grasped Saph’s hand, weaving their fingers together. “I had a revelation.”

Saph tilted her head. “That sounds ominous. Did you eat one of those tree mushrooms and I should watch out for you as you suffer hallucinations?”

“I’ve been so tied into the past of what could have happened with my mother that I haven’t given permission to myself to make things happen now.” She kissed the back of Saph’s hand. “In situations right in front of me.” She kissed Saph’s wrist.

Saph brushed a strand of Divine’s hair behind her ear. “Give me more of this Divine.”

“I let go of imagined limits and focused on what I wanted.”

“I like it when you’re spontaneous…and wanting.”

Growling, Divine grabbed Saph’s waist and rotated her so that her back pressed into the smooth white tree trunk. She followed with a kiss pressed urgently to Saph’s lips. As their lips parted, Divine whispered against Saph’s mouth, “I want you.”

Divine leaned forward for another kiss but Saph’s hands pressed gently against her shoulders.

Divine scanned Saph’s face, holding her breath.

“I’m sorry about my reaction to my hand. You didn’t deserve the guilt I put on you.”

“You had every right.” Divine kissed Saph’s neck.

“But the phrasing I used when you healed me and talking like that about your faith. I could have expressed how I felt about my hand, and my opinions, in a way that informed you but also respected you.”

Divine trailed kisses down Saph’s shoulder before responding. “Your questions made me think. If some of it doesn’t make sense, then maybe I can make my own sense of it. All I know is that you filled my mind and I did it. You’re all I want to think about now.”

Saph moaned as Divine bit her earlobe.

“I still feel bad about how I approached it. Let me make it up to you.”

“What did you have in mind?” Divine grinned.

Saph spun her around to where Divine’s back was now pressed against the tree and planted kisses from her neck to her chin, stopping a breath away from her lips, mouth open and tempting.

“I have ideas,” she intoned, her eye locked on Divine as her hands found the clasp at the front of her pants. Slowly she untied the strings, the vibration along the path through the eyelets teasingly coursing through Divine’s skin. Saph nipped Divine’s bottom lip between her teeth as one hand slid inside the front of her pants and the other slid up the side of her shirt.

Divine moaned, taking Saph’s top lip between hers. They traded warm lips and tongues as Saph’s hand cupped Divine’s breast, squeezing in rhythm with the light finger brushes between her legs.

Divine’s fingers entwined in Saph’s black hair, but as she moved her hands slowly down toward Saph’s breasts, the woman caught her hands in her own and shoved them over Divine’s head against the bark.

“Can’t I,” Divine whispered as their mouths parted for breath, “touch you as well?”

“Uh uh,” Saph breathed her hot decline against Divine’s neck as she leaned in to bite her earlobe, her tongue playing with the rose stud there. “Later, darling. I want to please you until you can no longer stand.”

Divine moaned, tilting her chin up. She took a trembling breath, the familiar scent of sweet wood tickling her nose from Saph’s hair. The other woman trailed her hands down the length of Divine’s body as she knelt in front of her. Divine trembled with want. Saph slowly tugged her pants down to her ankles, followed by her undergarment. Her hands free again, Divine ran them through Saph’s hair, grasping strands tighter as another shudder coursed through her body at the movement of Saph’s tongue between her legs.

“What if someone sees?” Divine whispered trying not to moan too loudly.

Saph’s tongue paused and Divine nearly shouted to keep going.

“The road hasn’t been used in years. And if someone does come, let them watch. The world needs more pleasure.”

Saph’s tongue again, warm and wet, mixed with her own growing wetness and Divine could only breathe heavily in response. Her head rolled back as more moans escaped her lips and she spread her legs wider, Saph’s hands squeezing her buttocks.

Through the trees above, she saw sluggish clouds caressing the sky. Birds darted overhead as Divine’s body bucked against the bark and she cried out to her Goddess.

* * *

Still levitating above the trees though they rode in the wagon, Divine glanced sideways at Saph’s profile as they passed into a clearing before the next forest, amazed such a beautiful woman found her interesting.

“Stare all you want, darling. It gives me power,” Saph said, still facing forward.

Divine twisted her moon stone ring and looked down at the scrawled map from the unknown magic user. “The map looks like our destination is the other side of the trees. Not much further.”

“I agree. We probably have a few hours of light left.” She jutted her chin at the horizon where the golden clouds hung. “Between our morning walk, cutting fallen trees, and spreading limbs,” Saph said as her hand slid up Divine’s thigh, “we made terrible forward progress.”

“At least we have supplies. We don’t have to hurry back.” Divine cringed at the desperation in her voice and stared at the cracker she was spreading jam on with a knife.

Saph rotated and placed a hand on her cheek. “Don’t worry, love. Just because we complete our quest doesn’t mean we have to go our separate ways. Unless…unless your temple needs you back?”

Divine squeezed Saph’s hand. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. And with being on review with the temple, I don’t know if they would have just given my habitspace to someone else. I don’t know how to prove I wasn’t hiding Madeline.”

“Do you have any other family waiting for you?”

Divine crunched the cracker in her mouth. “My father left shortly after my mother returned from Solhavn, when her illness turned worse. Apparently, I have a half-sister. I heard my mother crying over a letter from him. Never met her. And I don’t care if I never see him again.”

Divine nearly stabbed the map with the jam knife, then placed the map into her pocket out of harm’s way.

Several moments of silence passed and they drew to the forest’s edge; a line cascading weeping branches bent under an invisible weight, like rain frozen in time. Saph slowed the cart beneath a canopy of thin, dangling branches. When the wagon stopped, she faced Divine.

“What is it with families, hm? You’d think unconditional love and support would naturally be part of their nature. Well, you can stay with me if I haven’t made that clear.”

Divine sneezed into her elbow. “You have an extra room?” She glanced above at the still-green leaves, hunting for the late apple blossom pollen her nose detected.

“My bed can fit two, darling. I thought date number four back there would make that evident. Unless you prefer Sylus. He won’t mind either.”

Divine laughed. She inhaled the scent of honeyed flowers, like the pink-striped rose climbing the trellis near the door of her childhood home, and coughed. She was about to ask for a poetry recitation when there was a pressure on her ribcage, her feet left the wagon, and she was flying. She gasped, wrestling her hand against…she frowned down at her stomach. Boughs laden with yellow wrapped around her torso. They pressed her back against something solid.

Divine heard Saph shout as she pried her hands against the unyielding bark.

“You felled my brother,” it grated, its voice lined with the sound of rustling leaves as it reverberated through Divine’s body. “Now I will fell you.”

Divine squirmed, wriggling in the tree’s grasp, which tightened, digging into her ribs.

“This is a sacred grove. How dare you enter!”

“We didn’t know,” Divine grunted, pushing against the branches. Several yellow leaves dropped, floating below, dotted with a few dark spots or holes. “And we didn’t fell your brother.”

“You chopped his remains to splinters!”

Divine’s tipped her head to the side. “You mean the tree across the path? It was already there! We needed to pass and cleared our path. If that was your brother, I am sorry. His soul would have already been released.”

“We can’t be blamed for his death, you bumbling oak,” Saph grunted, a soft thud accenting her proclamation.

“By the color of the leaves, I think it’s more of a poplar.”

“Darling, this is not the time to boast your plant knowledge.”

“Knowledge…danger on the map. Who said that?” Divine mumbled, shaking her head as a thought fluttered just out of reach. “There was red text on the map here…” Divine muttered.

She shifted one arm and pushed it down between the branches and against her side. She was just able to reach her pocket and withdrew the map. It was even more crinkled, but she placed it on the branches like they were a table. The reflection of leaves in her spreading knife made her think about the artist in the bazaar.

Divine’s breath hitched. She placed the knife on its edge, just like the mirror the artist had used. She yelped as the e’s righted themselves in the reflection. “R-E-D-L-E…is Elder, backward!” Divine rotated her shoulders in the tree’s grasp, searching for a face but finding gnarled branches and bark. “Who is your God?” she called, tilting her head back.

A thud below made Divine lean forward. She saw Saph raise her axe in a wide grip and swing it horizontally, followed by another thud. The tree roared.

“Don’t hurt it! It’s a servant of one of the Tranquil Gods.”

“Tranquil?” Saph’s voice cried. “Doesn’t seem very tranquil to me!”

“They’re supposed to be guardians or scouts.” Either something was wrong with this one, or Divine was drawing the wrong conclusion from the memories of ornately illustrated pages.

The ground boomed and the tree shuddered. Divine swiveled and saw Saph rolling out of the way, a large branch falling as the tree moved the opposite direction. Straight out of myth, the Elder continued to rumble variations of its previous accusations.

“Look out!” Divine called.

A root shot out of the ground and snaked toward Saph. The woman dove over the growth and rolled out of the way. She spun and hacked her axe at it like chopping firewood.

“Look for a glowing purple gem! It should be its heart. You can hit it and stun it.”

“How do you know this?” Saph called as she ran out of sight beneath the tree.

“It’s the tree’s soul, sort of. Remember that story I told you of Elders? From the bestiary—” The branches tightened around Divine’s waist, squelching her breath out. “Just look for it!”

As she reached into her magic well, Divine wondered how much stronger the tree’s grip would be without her Goddess’s protective charm. Though she couldn’t see Saph, Divine focused on creating a shield against the Elder’s swinging boughs, like with the ursavara. Divine envisioned Saph’s body, then a hazy barrier rising like a miniature waterfall.

The magic flowed from her well and she hoped her first attempt at a barrier from a distance wasn’t a failure. But the air smelled as if her head lay on a pillow of roses, and she straightened her shoulders; she could do anything.

“There’s a black one!” Saph called.

Divine frowned. “Black?”

“And I’m hitting it, but this walking paper ream isn’t taking the hint.”

Divine wracked her brain. If one of the Tranquil Gods helped create this, how could they stop it? Her mind blanked on potential deities and she shook her head. “See if you can cut it out.”

Divine flared her nostrils as if the extra space could grant her a fuller breath, and dipped into her well again. The faint sound of steel on wood filtered through the leaves. As the sound ceased, so did the Elder’s movements. Divine pushed herself out of the wooded grasp and climbed down.

Saph stared at her hands where rested a fist-sized multi-faceted onyx. “What is this?”

“I think another Goddess or God asked the Goddess of Souls to grant sentience to this tree.” Divine cupped her hands before her and Saph placed the gem in her hands. “But flora souls aren’t really souls. Not like yours or mine…” her words trailed off as she thought about what her temple said about human-adjacents, and how agitated the First Servant of Souls had been at Divine healing that plant. “But if I can heal plants, they must be—”

“All Souls. Bound in Old Magic,” Saph finished. Then to Divine’s stare added, “Everything has a soul. Even a tree or a bird. All Souls. And trees have ancient souls from living for so long. So my parents always said. I always thought it was just folklore of our belief system.”

Divine nodded. “Remember the water drop and the watering can story? It’s all real. It must, it must”—Divine stumbled, piecing Saph’s knowledge into the framework of the bestiary stories— “grant the tree consciousness borne of the Old Magic within. It became an Elder. Here I thought they were just morality lessons.”

Turning the dark gem over in her hands, she pressed it between her palms and closed her eyes. Like healing a bramble slice in a leg, Divine focused on pouring her well’s magic over the gem. When her eyes opened, she rested her gaze on its purple facets and beamed.

Together, the women returned the jewel to the knot in the tree’s side. The branches quivered and the leaves rustled, holes mending and spots disappearing on the waxy yellow foliage.

The Elder groaned. “My apologies, rootless ones.” The vibrations of its voice were gone, but the rustling seemed to carry the words, surrounding them. “Thank you for treating my dark spots.” Leaves brushed the top of Divine’s head and she ducked. “The scent of a Goddess is on you. Who do you serve?”

“I serve the Goddess of Souls,” Divine answered, scratching the part in her curls. Could he smell the roses, too?

“She and my master made a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Saph asked.

“None were to pass through the Willow Way. Though someone tried.” Its branches sagged like the willows behind it. “Or many. I do not remember. My brother and I,” the tree said as his leaves shuddered, “turned away many wanderers. But these, they cut my brother.” The tree uttered sounds like branches tapping and bowing against each other, “And I pursued them but did not find them. I don’t think.”

A muddled memory. Saph and Divine exchanged looks, the tavern owner tapping her nose bauble.

“Remind me not to ask you to remember what wines I need to order from Nelithor. Do you recollect why you were trying to kill us?”

“Yes…yes, I was still looking for them when you came. I mistook you.”

“Hey, no worries, Leafy. Sorry about your brother. Stay safe.” Saph walked toward the wagon but Divine lingered.

“Who is your creator?” Divine asked.

“The Goddess of Standing Water I believe is the name she chose. Her lake is an eye to Willow Way for your Goddess.”

The crescent shaped lake. Why would either deity need to keep watch on this place?

“Can you remember anything about the people who were here before? The ones who…hurt your brother?”

The leaves rustled on an intangible gust. “One was a human female. The other”—the tree seemed to reflect—“had a trace of the God of Storms. But it is all like clouds in the sky.”

“Well, I have a guess who the female was. And if I’m right, she muddled your memory. More should return in time. But I don’t know why she would be out here. Do you know how your soul gem became corrupted?”

“It is difficult to say. A rage grew within me slowly over the seasons. I do not remember when my reasoning ceased. Perhaps it is natural for one who has been enchanted since the grove was shoots.”

“We are seeking a house on the other side. Do you think we could…” Divine swept her hand toward the willows.

“The clearing beyond the grove is what I protect. Why do you seek it?”

Divine told him about the quest in the chest and the maps.

“I don’t remember a human going into the house. But perhaps it is part of this muddling. I owe you, rootless-one. You may pass. And if you have need of me…”

Divine nodded. “I know where to find you. Do you have a name?”

“I like what your other one called me. Leafy.”