Steward of the Blood

Nate Kenyon and James A. Moore

Christian Burr watched his son run across the pebbled drive to the foot-high grass. What a mess, he thought. Of course, it had been a long time. But for some reason he had imagined the house the same as always, with the sweeping drive, sparkling pond, lawn lining the edge of deep green forest. Wild animals had always been prevalent here, darting out from the thick cover of the trees at dusk and dawn, deer drinking at the water’s edge, fox cubs slipping through the twilight. When he was a boy, he’d sworn he had seen a wolf more than once in the mist of early morning.

He couldn’t imagine that now. Even the forest looked empty and neglected.

“Sammy!” Susan had stepped out of the passenger side of the car but held on to the open door. “Don’t go running off yet! We don’t know what’s there!”

The five-year-old boy continued on his stumbling way, now into even higher grass that reached above his waist. Burr imagined the blades suddenly wrapping around the boy, pulling him down and slithering over his mouth.

When Sammy’s mother called his name a second time, he stopped, looked over his shoulder at his parents, and sighed.

“Sometimes I want to tether him,” Susan said. “From the looks of this place I probably should.”

She was right. Burr stared at the sprawling house. Even after what he’d been told by the executor of his grandfather’s estate, he was shocked at its condition.

“It’s in bad shape, I’m afraid. But that couldn’t be helped. Your grandfather was a stubborn fellow, and it was his wish that you not be contacted until five years after his death.”

“Are you telling me my grandfather died five years ago? And nobody told me?”

“I understand this is a shock. I tried to have the court see him as feebleminded, but that didn’t work. Believe me, Arthur was anything but, and everyone around here knew it. He left specific instructions. No one was to come here. And no blood relations were to be told of its condition.”

Five years, Burr thought. It was hard to imagine that this kind of decay had happened that quickly. The farmer’s porch was a weathered claw of wood. The paint was peeling, gutters hanging loosely from the eaves. Brambles grew high and tangled around the back corners and hid whatever cracks might be running through the foundation.

Susan looked at him over the roof of the car. “Are you sure your grandfather didn’t leave it to you to punish you for something?”

Burr smiled at her, hiding his own growing sense of dismay. His grandfather had always loved riddles and practical jokes; perhaps this was his last one. Susan smiled back with less enthusiasm, before turning and leaving the safety of the car (somewhat reluctantly, he saw) to rescue Sammy, who had wandered a bit farther away and gotten himself tangled in brush along the edges of what remained of the lawn.

Burr glanced through the open front door into the backseat. Lisa was looking out the window at something only she could see. As they left the house in New York that morning her rage had been like a hurricane. She hadn’t spoken to anybody since. He understood her anger at being uprooted; change didn’t suit her. A child with her condition needed to be surrounded by a comfortable, well-known environment. Parenting a girl with special needs had proven even harder than he’d imagined. Lisa was often in her own world, governed by rules nobody understood, least of all him.

“Why don’t you come and explore with Sammy?”

To his surprise she opened the back door and got out, and he was left staring at her back as she walked away, fifteen-year-old shoulders rigid.

Burr turned back to the house and found himself standing alone. The worst events of the recent past faded away; the loss of his job, their money troubles, the death of close loved ones, all lost in a whirl of memories and time. He felt the house pulling at him, a strangely physical ache.

Glen Ridge.

He was still standing there, ghosts chasing themselves around in his head, when he heard the car making its way up the drive.

THE DEVIL, AS they say, is in the details. The house was a shambles, with grass high enough that, as he drove toward them, Rodney Talbot could barely make out the child wandering through it, or the attractive woman who chased after the little one. Aside from the new master of the house, the only one he could see clearly was the daughter, a beauty in her own right, and the one who had what his old friend Arthur had always called “the sight.”

That left Christian Burr, father, husband, and only surviving heir to Arthur’s estate, standing alone by his car.

How long had it been since Talbot had seen Christian? The boy had been a teenager. It was after Arthur had made Talbot his business partner but before he’d become the executor of his estate, and certainly before Talbot knew Arthur was . . . well, that the man he called his best friend was different.

Arthur Burr was not normal. He never had been. But he’d been a good man in his own way. He’d owned this little mountain town once upon a time, supervising the construction of nearly every home and providing protection for generations of families—while receiving valuable things in return, of course.

And where was the money that the man had earned over that very long lifetime? Talbot’s lips pulled into a thin, weary smile. He knew, of course, but was not allowed to say. Not yet.

Christian was staring at his Cadillac as Talbot came to a stop, a puzzled expression on his face. Arthur’s grandson was older now, but his expression was much the same as always. That was the boy’s trouble, really. He was as much a dreamer as his grandfather but without the resources to allow him that sort of mentality. Talbot was familiar with the problem. It was the way of the blood, trickling down through the line until it found a pool in which to gather.

Problems could also present opportunities.

Talbot slid out of his comfortable car and stood on legs that preferred sitting whenever possible. Getting old was never a pleasant notion, and he had done all he could to delay the inevitable, but just lately it was worse. Arthritis guaranteed that. The wind caught his thinning hair and tried to pull it from his scalp. The appropriate level of hair gel made it stay in place, even if it also gave him a slightly greasy look that he disapproved of, not that it mattered anymore. He still dressed himself in finery, but he also knew that no woman was looking at him with an eye toward courtship.

There had been a time when he would have made Christian stand on the other side of his massive oak desk and wait patiently while he sorted through a thick sheaf of papers in his briefcase. That too had changed with age. These days he preferred to be done with theatrics and merely handle matters quickly and efficiently. The time for drama was long past in his eyes. Not so with Arthur. Talbot had every intention of following the rather obscure demands of his best friend—at least at first—but he didn’t have to enjoy it.

Very well, Arthur. One last time we shall play your games. Talbot reached into his custom-tailored suit jacket and pulled a thick envelope from the inside pocket.

“Can I help you?” Burr was looking at him with a slightly perplexed expression that would have never been found on his grandfather’s face.

Talbot smiled. “I think, my good man, that you have that the other way around. I’m the executor of Arthur’s estate, and I’m here to help you.”

Burr smiled, his face a full decade younger as the expression eased the tension in his features. “Mr. Talbot? We spoke on the phone. I wasn’t expecting to see you.” Burr offered his hand and Talbot took it, pleased by the firm grip. Damn, but he looked like his grandfather had in his prime: the bright, piercing eyes and a strangely icy tint to his skin, as if he was perpetually cold. It was almost haunting.

Talbot smiled back. “I thought I would give you the keys in person.” He patted the envelope in his other hand and the metallic tinkle of the ring of keys sounded dully through the thick paper. “Along with a few final words from your grandfather. Arthur requested that you read it yourself.” He paused a moment. “He wanted to make sure that no one else confused the matters he wished you to consider.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Burr took the envelope and seemed surprised by the weight.

“Well, you know your grandfather, Christian. He was a man who liked to handle things a certain way, with a bit of mystery thrown in.”

Burr nodded. “I meant to ask you, Mr. Talbot: what happened to my grandfather’s body?”

Rodney Talbot looked away, his eyes moving over the grass and line of trees that stood like motionless soldiers about to march upon the helpless interlopers. “He asked to be buried out there, in the forest he loved,” Talbot said. “An unmarked grave. It was his dying wish. I didn’t see any reason not to grant it.” Talbot motioned to the envelope. “Now, go ahead and open that, if you like. You may be surprised at what you find.”

COLORS SWIRLED BEFORE her in the air like oil on the surface of a pool. She reached out and dipped her fingers through them, watching streaks of blue and orange trail from her fingertips, mix, and form faces with mouths open in silent screams.

Sounds assailed her from all sides, the tick of sunshine off pebbles, a hiss of insect legs moving in the tall grass, the squeal of dust dancing beyond the passage of the car that had stopped near her father.

A few more steps and she reached the edge of the abyss. Somewhere beyond her feet was the source of the strangest sensations, wafting up like a cloud. The darkness before her was only a wall, built to protect and conceal; she could see that much clearly. But she could not see all that lay beyond, and it puzzled her.

The rage early in their journey had been about this change, her frustration over her inability to see what was coming. But something was coming, something important. All her life, she could sense things that others could not. Inanimate objects spoke to her; music played through living creatures; spirits gathered in places of death. There was a world beyond the one that most people knew. She felt it, every day.

Just as she felt the others gathered within the forest, thousands of them, watching from places that hid them.

Waiting for her to arrive.

CHRISTIAN BURR TOLD Talbot to head home, that he preferred to read the letter later and on his own terms. Looking for privacy, he left Susan to tend to the children outside and found his way into the house.

Once inside, he felt better almost immediately. Past the sagging remains of the porch, the structure appeared to be fairly sound; remarkably so, in spite of its appearance. The interior was in much better shape than the porch. Immediately ahead of him the stairs led up to the second floor. To his left was a study, to his right an archway into the living room. They used to have the Christmas tree in there during the holidays, Burr thought. Memories flooded over him. He could remember them wheeling the piano into this little front room and they would all gather around near the tree and sing carols in his grandfather’s native Czechoslovakian tongue. That tree was always a living one; his grandfather had insisted on it. After the opening of presents and the meal, Arthur would take him alone into the forest and they would plant the tree somewhere in a weighty and somber ritual filled with words that Burr did not understand. He had always sensed the ritual was more important to his grandfather than the holiday itself. Arthur Burr filled nearly every other waking moment with jokes and wordplay, winks of an eye, riddles that left everyone stumped for hours on end. But he never joked about the planting of that tree.

Strange. He had forgotten about that until now. Another memory flitted at the edges of his consciousness, something important he couldn’t quite remember. Distracted, Burr stepped into the living room, dust swirling in the still air. All the furniture was exactly the same. He could hardly help feeling angry at the state of everything. Why hadn’t somebody notified him sooner? His grandfather had loved this house. Perhaps Burr could have seen to it that the place was kept up.

Of course he could never have afforded that, not after being downsized and their recent money problems. Everything had seemed to happen all at once, the bad news rolling in day after day until he’d very nearly broken under the weight. His own parents’ death in a terrible car accident six months ago had been the worst of it. He’d tried to reach his grandfather then, without success. Now that made more sense; Arthur was already gone himself, as it turned out. The news of the old man’s death had been another blow, and to find out that he had actually died years before had made it even more bizarre and disturbing.

They had had no other choice but to come here, city slickers forced to relocate to this isolated mountain community five hundred miles from home. Driving through the town center had felt like going back a century in time. People had stared at the car as they rolled by. They had stopped for gas at the only station available, and a mention of Arthur Burr had gotten nothing but a shrug and muttered breath from the attendant. Christian’s grandfather had practically built Glen Ridge with his own hands, and had been beloved, as far as Christian had ever heard, but apparently the courtesy always shown him did not extend to his descendants.

This is our home now, for better or for worse. Fate had seen to that.

The envelope could not be put off any longer. Burr took a chair and sat down in the sunshine, pulling the contents free with trembling fingers. The letter he set aside for now, drawn to the other papers; at first, genealogy reports that appeared to trace the Burr lineage back to the Czech territories. It appeared that his grandfather had changed the family name from Burian to Burr when he came to America around the time of World War Two. With that came the memory that had eluded him earlier: his grandfather telling him Czechoslovakian legends as bedtime stories. One in particular, about a giant forest creature called a Leshy that could take any shape, had terrified him to the point of sleeping with the light on and the covers pulled up to his chin, quaking at the blackness beyond the bedroom window.

But all that was lost as Christian Burr focused on the bank statements beneath the genealogy reports. For a moment his brain refused to process what he was seeing. The number seemed to be a mistake. Eight million dollars? How was that possible? Arthur Burr had been a builder, overseeing construction of a good number of the houses in town, and had certainly been comfortable enough, although Christian had never really bothered to understand the details of his business. He had never imagined that his grandfather had been this successful.

My God. He let out a sigh, then a small whoop. This changed everything. Everything.

Only then did he turn to the letter.

My dear boy, where to begin? There are secrets that you must understand. I am gone, and yet I remain, a tree that has lost its leaves but still stands tall and rooted to the ground. Now I must provide Braille for a blind man. So, to begin, riddle number one:

What bends without breaking,

gives shelter without roof and walls,

warms after death,

sighs without breath?

Forgive me for my wordplay, but that is my nature. It is too easy to be handed the answers before you begin. There is power in the journey and the discovery.

I remember your father’s awakening after you were born. He was born blind too, much to my chagrin. I could not travel to your home (I never traveled in that way, do you remember this?) and so I met you when your parents came to visit when you were three months old. Your father said the light of stars was held in your eyes, that he saw this when you came from the womb. He was right, and yet he was wrong; it is not just the light of the stars, but the sun and moon and all that is holy about this world. That is what is kept within you, within all of us.

That light is passed, one to the next. And once every few generations, it is allowed to shine forth. It is your job to assist with the transition.

I have rules for you. You must rebuild this home, and once it is rebuilt, you must live here with your family for the rest of your life and never leave. You must allow the children access to the woods at any time, no matter how dangerous that may appear, and accept without hesitation whatever happens as a result.

You must become, my dear boy, a steward of the blood.

Once you have settled here you can never leave Glen Ridge again.

That may seem harsh, but I think you will find everything you need at your fingertips, and more. If you do this, the account I have set up for you is accessible; if you do not, Mr. Talbot will remove that access permanently.

One last riddle for you:

Reaching stiffly for the sky,

I bare my fingers when it’s cold.

In warmth I wear an emerald glove,

And in between I dress in gold.

Find the answers, and you will see the light.

BY NOW THE boy had likely seen the details contained within the envelope. Talbot had hoped to watch Christian’s reaction and gauge how to proceed from there. But plans change, of course, and Rodney had already decided that it was time to move things along a bit more quickly.

Talbot walked through the woods as the bite of arthritis began to fade away, feet settling exactly where they needed to in order to avoid the thorns and nettles catching on his fine suit, shoes never once falling prey to mud or stones that would have scuffed the polish. He had been trained in the ways of the woods. He had learned many, many things over the long years.

When Arthur Burr had first settled in town as a young man, before everyone’s perspectives had changed, he had been ridiculed for being different. Arthur had been much like his lovely great-granddaughter. Back then they’d called a man like Arthur “slow-witted” and “addled.” Now they might say “autistic.” None of the terms were right, of course.

Things had certainly changed, all right. Talbot smiled. He’d been a child when they met seemingly by chance in these very same woods. Back in those days he had never even dreamed of owning a suit. He’d had exactly two pair of pants and neither had been owned by him the first time around. He let his fingers drift across the leaves of the closest tree, a birch with peeling bark that looked like flaking, mummified flesh. The wind sighed around him and several wasps buzzed nearby. He did not fear the wasps, never had and likely never would. Arthur had shown him a great number of secrets over the years, and he understood the woods better than most could ever comprehend.

Things rustled through the trees, and then came the soft, careful padding of a wolf. He waited patiently for the animal to come closer. The beast was a large one, old and scarred. It looked at him with clear, intelligent eyes, and he looked back. “It’s been a while since I saw you, hasn’t it?” The wolf brushed itself along his hand, and he rubbed his fingers through the thick fur. The winter coat hadn’t completely fallen away yet, but it would soon enough. He tugged a soft tuft of shedding fur from the animal’s flank and let it drift away in the wind.

“Arthur knew your name, didn’t he? Your real name, I mean. Of course he did.” The wolf gave no response save to nuzzle his hand.

Arthur had shared a great number of his secrets, but not all of them. It wasn’t a matter of friendship; it was a matter of keeping the trust of others. With the right names, a man could very well make demands of the creatures of the wild. If a man knew the right words, the right way to go about it.

That was why he never feared the wasps. He’d learned the right words to deal with them a very long time ago. Arthur had taught him that and many other things.

He thought of the man’s smile, the simple, carefree actions that had caused so many people to think that Arthur was deranged. What was the word that people used that made them both laugh so often? Bedazzled. That was the one. As if the world around him was simply too much for him to comprehend.

He closed his eyes and looked at the world the way Arthur had shown him so long ago. It was a very different world indeed. With his eyes closed and his sight open, he stood and walked, and the wolf walked with him.

He covered the distance—almost a mile—with ease. And finally, although it took some time, he found the right spot.

Despite his advanced years, he crouched close to the ground and then leaned back against the coarse bark of the gigantic tree, resting the side of his face against the wood. The wind sighed across him, a gentle caress that made him think of the red-haired beauty both he and Arthur had loved so dearly. In the long run, she had chosen Arthur, had borne him a son. That was all right. There had been a time when the love he felt for her was reciprocated, and he had never held much of a grudge for her choices and couldn’t have held a grudge against Arthur had his life depended on it.

Nearly two hours passed before he let himself rise from where he’d been squatting. Most would have been in agony from sitting in one place, in so awkward a pose, for as long as he had. Rodney Taylor was not most people.

The wolf was long gone. Where it had been, the ground was cold to his touch. That was all right. He had not been napping. Nor had he been lost in dreams. He had been doing as Arthur had asked.

He allowed a tight, small smile. There was warmth, and a little sadness too. Soon he would have to depart from Arthur’s well-laid plans. It was regretful, but necessary. But not yet.

“Now for the next part of this. Time for awakenings, I think.”

The words he whispered were not known to many humans. But those words were heard, and very clearly at that.

Soon the wind picked up, and the clouds began to gather.

Rodney made it back to his car before the storm came in earnest. Of course, he’d planned it that way. It was a storm that he’d designed.

THE STORM CAME up through the valley, turning the mountaintop into a shadowy, cloud-shrouded beast and tossing the leaves of trees with a sound like a long, drawn-out hiss. The sky lowered overhead, icy-gray sheets of rain visible in the distance as the old farmhouse seemed to huddle in the foothills.

Christian Burr was still sitting in the dining room and lost in thought, the contents of the envelope strewn across the table and his grandfather’s letter in his hands, when he heard shouting.

He went to the front porch. Susan’s voice cut through the wind like a knife, high and full of panic. Sammy. Money and riddles forgotten for the moment, Burr shoved the letter in his pocket and leaped down the steps. Susan was standing near the edge of the small pond, hands cupped to her face, screaming into the growing wind. But it wasn’t Sam she was calling for; the boy stood clutching his mother’s leg.

Susan spied Burr, scooped up Sam into her arms, and ran to her husband. “Lisa’s gone,” she said breathlessly, spots of red on her otherwise pale cheeks. “I got distracted near the water, turned my back, and . . .” She shook her head. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

Burr scanned the immediate surroundings, his eyes moving over their old Subaru wagon and its empty backseat, the house, the ragged lawn. There weren’t many places to hide. Unless . . .

He turned to the wood’s edge, a chill creeping over him. The trees ran in a thick line, but a faint, worn path led through the tall grass. Could Lisa have been tempted to explore there? Anything was possible.

“The storm,” Susan said. “Chris, please . . . you have to get her back before it hits.”

He nodded. “Take Sammy and get in the house,” he said. “She couldn’t have gone very far.”

Burr didn’t wait for an answer. The wind grew even fiercer, with a smell like ozone and mud as he ducked his head and ran through the grass, following the path toward the forest. At the edge of the trees he paused; in the soft dirt there he could clearly make out a partial shoeprint.

Lisa had gone into the woods.

Burr glanced back at the house. Susan and Sammy were nowhere to be seen; hopefully they had listened to him and made it inside. The storm seemed to race through the valley, more clouds boiling up and bursting with rain. It had come up so fast. He had only minutes before it would be upon him.

Burr entered the woods.

Inside the first line of trees, the wind was softer, buffeted by the thick canopy of leaves. It was even darker in here, and he moved forward cautiously, calling out Lisa’s name with no response. The path appeared to continue on, faint but visible, meandering left and right around trunks and clumps of brambles. The air smelled of rich earth and decay, along with something else he couldn’t place. He had a sense of things lurking beyond the edges of his sight, watching him, and he quickly grew claustrophobic and disoriented. He turned, looked behind him, the path suddenly gone; where had he entered the woods? It should only have been twenty or thirty feet away, but instead he saw nothing but branches and leaves.

Burr called out for his daughter again, pushing forward through the gloom. Now he could have sworn he heard whispers, too soft for him to make out any words. Perhaps it was the wind in the treetops.

Your grandfather is buried somewhere in here. Burr stopped short, heart pounding. A notion that had seemed quaint, if a bit odd, now felt more unsettling. He could be walking over Arthur’s grave right now.

“Lisa!” Burr shouted. “This isn’t funny. Come out, right now!”

No answer. He pushed through heavy branches, feeling blind in the growing dark, a twig snapping back across his face and making him wince. But nothing was there except more branches, more leaves.

Movement came from the left.

He stepped forward again and almost stumbled over something. Burr crouched to find a pair of girl’s sneakers, half hidden in old leaves. A few steps farther on he found a shirt, and then a pair of jeans.

Thunder cracked the sky, rumbling through the valley and sounding slightly muffled through the trees. Wetness dripped from above onto Burr’s head as the first raindrops began to fall.

Then he heard Lisa scream.

THE WORLD HAD changed.

Lisa Burr had felt it as soon as she stepped through the forest wall. The barrier that had hidden things from her fell away as if she were shedding an old skin, and she felt everything click into place. She had suddenly awakened from a terrible dream. The forest was still thick, but she could see everything clearly in a way that transcended sight. It was not “sight” as she had known before, but something more, something deeper that incorporated her very essence.

She was still aware of the sounds, colors, smells, and tastes that normally assaulted her senses, and yet she understood each and every one of them and their places in the world around her in a way she never had before. It was like magic, and along with it came a great sense of satisfaction, a purpose that had been denied her for the first fifteen years of her young life.

The forest was speaking a language, one that she finally understood.

The human clothing she wore felt terribly constrictive. She took off her shoes. The soil beneath her feet gave off a rich chocolate hue wherever it was most fertile. Leaves above her head passed knowledge along through a sound like whispers in the dark, and the drops of rain that had begun to patter down sang of their journey from the heavens as they quenched the parched roots below. A fox barked a warning as she moved, a bitter scent from the creature’s glands wafting out as a red cloud; without thinking, she responded, soothing the animal’s fears with a hum that began low in her belly and sounded like the buzz of bees.

Lisa removed her shirt, then her jeans, repulsed by the toxic, chemical smell of them. The fox came forward and nuzzled her hand. Almost immediately, she sensed movement all around her. Other animals emerged from their hiding places, one by one: three squirrels chattered about her appearance as they darted down a thick pine branch; a deer came picking his way on spindly legs; a porcupine waddled forward, spines down in a gesture of acceptance.

Others came behind them, dozens, hundreds; the woods were full of them, and Lisa could feel them all calling to her, welcoming her to their domain.

She stepped forward into their embrace, her entire body tingling fiercely. The falling rain caressed and nourished her as it sang, roots of plants and trees digging into the soil and drinking deeply, pulsing with new life. Animals that had nuzzled at her suddenly parted as one, and another padded forward silently on giant paws; a wolf, its shoulders nearly taller than her own waist. She sensed both its power and its acceptance of her, the knowledge that she was completely safe here but also that this creature expected something important from her.

She let the wolf lead her forward through the woods, her feet finding the right path without thought, avoiding sharp objects with ease. At some point she sensed her father pierce the barrier of the trees behind her, heard him calling to her, but she did not hesitate. Several animals slipped away, circling back, but most of them continued along with her, a massive and nearly silent march through the woods like a somber parade, meant to bear testament to something she could not quite grasp. Not yet.

Lisa slipped through undergrowth and branches like a ghost as they went deeper into the forest. Finally the thick trees gave way to a circular clearing. In its center stood a massive tree, its naked branches stretching toward the dark sky. Rain clouds had lowered themselves until they appeared to nearly touch the bony, wooden fingers, and the tree’s gnarled, rough bark glistened wetly. There was almost no light, but Lisa had no need of it; she could see everything far beyond the limits of her eyes.

The rain washed away the last of the chemical stink that had permeated her skin, and she stood naked and whole, spreading her arms wide like the tree, embracing the world around her.

She was shocked when another human form stepped out from the shadows. She recognized him as the man who had come to visit her father in the big car, but she had not sensed him standing there, even though she had felt everything else around her.

“K noze,” the old man said. “Hodnej.” The huge wolf padded across the clearing to stand at his side. “Welcome, “ he said, smiling at Lisa. He spoke without saying a word aloud, and yet she understood him clearly. “Blahopøejeme k promoci! It is time for you to awaken, Lisa Burian.”

CHRISTIAN BURR STUMBLED through the thick trees, pushing away the branches that stung his face. The scream had been Lisa’s, he was sure of it; who else would be out here in the storm? His heart pounded with fear, body charged with adrenaline as he tried to keep going in the right direction. It was nearly impossible. Everything in the forest served only to confuse him, the sounds of dripping rain, the shadows that seemed to dance and change as he moved, the grasping branches. He could become lost out here very easily, he realized, with the forest stretching on for miles.

With that thought came the memory of his grandfather’s stories about the Leshy, the legendary Slavic forest creature that protected the forest and confused travelers who were ignorant enough to trespass on his lands. A Leshy could appear to be an ordinary human but could take any living form, his grandfather had said, from the smallest insect to the largest animal. It could protect crops and livestock in exchange for tribute and worship, and if a human befriended one, he could be taught the secrets of magic.

But a Leshy could also make you disappear forever if you did not obey its wishes.

Why had he thought of that? He hadn’t remembered those stories since he was a boy, but now they seemed fresh in his consciousness. Burr pushed on, listening for any signs of his daughter. His mind kept worrying at the details of his grandfather’s bizarre letter and set of instructions, and the riddles it had contained:

What bends without breaking,

gives shelter without roof and walls,

warms after death,

sighs without breath?

And the second one:

Reaching stiffly for the sky,

I bare my fingers when it’s cold.

In warmth I wear an emerald glove,

And in between I dress in gold.

Trees, Burr thought suddenly. The answer to both is trees. He stopped, looking up through the dripping rain at the canopy high above him. The leaves were thick, branches intertwined. Above that the storm raged; he could hear the wind and the rain lashing at the forest, but down here it was calmer, quieter, and he began to get the sense that he was not being led astray at all, that he simply had to get his wits about him and begin to listen more carefully.

Find the answers, his grandfather had written, and you will see the light.

With great effort, Burr cleared his mind of the clutter and confusion that had gripped him from the moment he realized Lisa was missing. Almost immediately, he sensed something coming. Flitting through the cover of the treetops came a flock of birds, hundreds moving as one as they passed over his head. He sensed and heard them but did not see a single one until a small sparrow alighted on a branch directly in front of him, cocked its head in the dim light as if studying him before flitting to the next branch, and then the next, leading him on.

Christian Burr slipped forward, following the birds deeper into the forest.

“IT’S THE SYNTHETICS.” The girl looked at him for a moment, barely seeming to comprehend that he had spoken, and then looked down at herself, as if suddenly realizing that she was unclothed before him. Rain glistened on her glowing flesh. “I did the same thing when I first became aware of how bad they smell, how they feel when they touch the skin.” He smiled softly. “These days all I wear are clothes I have specially made. All natural. Cotton fabrics and silk. Even the buttons on my shirt and jacket are custom.” He pointed. “Wood and stone and occasionally bone.”

The girl frowned slightly. She was a beautiful thing, and he could sense the power starting to build in her, growing like the clouds that were even now rising to greater and greater heights above them. A thrill ran through him, one he tried hard to suppress.

“Your great-grandfather was my best friend. I think he would have liked to meet you under different circumstances, my dear, but it has to be this way.”

She looked at the tree. To most people it might merely look like another oak, but he knew better, and judging by her expression she did too.

Talbot smiled and nodded his head. “That’s right. He’s here.” His hand caressed the thick bark of the tree. Five years since he’d buried the acorn inside his best friend’s chest, making sure to pierce the meat of the heart as he’d been instructed to do. Five years since he’d buried the body himself, jumping through nearly endless legal loopholes in order to properly guarantee the secrecy of the final resting place. These days secrecy was almost impossible, but he’d managed. There was truth to the old saying about money talking, and even though the majority of Arthur’s fortune had been put into trust, he’d left enough to grease the proper legal wheels.

Lisa came closer to the tree, not speaking. Her eyes stared at the powerful, vibrant oak. He knew what she saw. Arthur had taught him over years what came to her instinctively. She could see the raw, magnificent power that was Arthur’s spirit locked within its branches.

The woods here were protected. Rodney had seen to it. He had done so much over the years, because he loved Arthur and because he understood his best friend. Trust funds had been established, taxes paid, and more funds set up to guarantee the legal protection in perpetuity. All of this Rodney had willingly done to ensure that the family would be protected and cared for.

And yet when all was said and done, he had been left alone, set adrift, taught so much and yet not enough. Not nearly enough.

Lisa put her hand on the bark of the tree and closed her eyes, communing with her great-grandfather for the first time, truly communing with him as only a few people would ever be able to understand.

She had eyes and she could see. That was her birthright.

It was also Rodney’s gift, and he felt a flare of jealousy that he’d tried so very hard to suppress. He felt it—and reveled in it.

The words were uttered very softly, and the trap he’d laid was triggered.

The girl was beautiful, no two ways about that. She had features that were so similar to Magda’s, Arthur’s wife. To the woman Rodney had willingly surrendered to Arthur when their love was so evident.

And that, too, made his actions easier.

Talbot began to undress. He hated his fleshy, pale white belly, his flaccid, shriveled penis and wrinkled skin. He was ancient, his cells dying one at a time; his body ached now, and he could feel death standing behind him all the time, waiting for the right moment. Not yet, Talbot thought. Not yet.

He slipped a knife from the pocket of his pants. Lisa’s hand tried to pull back from the tree, but nothing happened. Her sweet, innocent eyes flew wide, and her mouth drew down in a frown of unexpected pain.

“Don’t fight it, sweet girl.” Naked now, Talbot put a hand on her shoulder, but she was too busy struggling to notice. “The more you fight, the more it will hurt; and Arthur never wanted you to feel pain.”

Her skin was warm and soft, but the muscles beneath her flesh jumped as if electrified. Her brow was stippled with sweat, and her breaths came out as tiny, frenzied gasps.

“Arthur told me that you were the next Leshy and that I was to bring you to him. And so I have.” He spoke softly to her, his voice barely a whisper. “But I have to tell you, I don’t think you’re quite the right choice for that. I think it might take someone with more experience.” He brushed her ear with his lips and she tried to flinch away, but the binding spell was working. His eyes traveled along her arm, looked at where her hand and forearm had already been covered by the same thick bark as that which covered the tree that housed Arthur’s spirit. A low groan came from her and she tried to sag, but her legs were held in place by the binding spell, and no matter what she tried, there was no escape for her.

“It’s nothing against you, sweet Lisa. I think you are a lovely child and I’ve watched your family from afar for a very long time. But I am growing old now, without Arthur’s help, and I need to remain vital. I need to remain strong.”

His hands ran along her shoulders and down her arms, keeping the knife’s edge against her skin. He stopped his progress down the length of her forearm just shy of the bark that was swallowing her flesh.

“I found the ritual. It took a lot of time and research, and believe me, it took a lot of money. You are the Leshy, Lisa. But thanks to the words, the proper care and processes, I can bind you to Arthur. You remain the Leshy and as long as you live, I retain the Stewardship.”

He let the blade bite, just enough to draw blood.

Oh, how she fought. Lisa pulled as hard as she could and actually shook him off for a moment, but in the process she offended the power that bound her and it retaliated. A flaring light rippled across her skin and the bark swarmed like a thousand hungry ants, crawling up her arm and covering her shoulder, her breasts, her stomach. Lisa’s eyes flew wide and she screamed. Rodney could feel her pain and frowned. The cut should be shallow and not dangerous, just enough to share a few drops. He did not want this. Quite to the contrary, he wanted her happy and healthy.

“Please, child. Don’t fight. I never wanted you to suffer.” Talbot shook his head as he sliced his own forearm and let the blood drip onto her skin, mixing with her own. “Arthur would not approve.”

CHRISTIAN BURR FOLLOWED the sound of the birds.

At some point he had closed his eyes, but it made no difference. The sound led him forward, and he found that his feet knew exactly where to step to avoid roots and sinkholes, rocks and brush. He ducked around branches without a single mishap, and as he did his mind seemed to expand, soaring over the forest and watching from far above. He felt the rain pounding down and the wind shaking the trees, but underneath it all he was sheltered like a fetus in the womb. With the rain his spirit was washed clean, and he found himself listening to the sounds of the forest in a way that seemed intimate.

But it wasn’t just sounds, Burr realized; it was scents and other ways the forest connected to him that he had never imagined. He let these lead him deeper, and when he emerged on the edge of a clearing and saw the gigantic tree at its center, he was not surprised.

Nor was he surprised to see the huge wolf watching him from the other side with luminous eyes and lolling tongue, or the countless other creatures of the forest creeping forward from its edges.

But what did surprise him was the image of Rodney Talbot, stripped naked, caressing the nude form of his fifteen-year-old daughter as she stood fused to the tree, her hands and arms all but disappearing into the thick bark.

Revulsion washed over him, and rage flew fast on its heels. He stepped out, into the clearing. “Get away from her,” he said.

For a moment, he thought Talbot didn’t hear him. And then the man turned his head, and Burr saw the forest reflected in his face. His eyes were tinted green, his lips blue. His skin had begun to take on the texture of the bark that was absorbing Burr’s daughter, one cell at a time.

Talbot looked at the wolf and made a guttural sound, like a river rushing and tumbling over rocks, and the beast took a step toward Burr, then another, growling deep in its throat as Talbot turned back again and focused his attention on the girl.

THE SOUNDS OF the forest had changed.

Before they had been lilting, sweet, beckoning her forward; but as she touched her great-grandfather’s shell, the sounds had begun to nip at her like playful dogs. The man had spoken and the song had changed again. Its bite had teeth and it hurt. It meant to catch her now, to bind her and never let her go.

She tried to pull away, but it was no use. The living bark had begun to flow over her flesh. Somewhere deep within the beat of the tree she felt another presence, one with a powerful, deep and ancient voice. But it would not come to help her, not anymore. It was too far gone and bound to the roots that had buried themselves so deep in the soil.

Just a short time ago, she had finally understood herself fully for the first time; her disability, as her school counselors had described it, wasn’t a limitation at all, but a gift. She had felt herself emerging like a butterfly from a cocoon.

But now that gift had become her prison, and the same power that drove it was being used against her.

Lisa screamed, a very human sound, and felt the man come up behind her, violating her with his hands as they moved across her shoulders, pulling something from her that hurt worse than anything else. He spoke the ancient words and the feeling intensified, a drawing out like blood being sucked from a wound.

The pain was too much to bear. The man’s voice had gotten louder now, a rhythmic chanting that tore at her again and again. She tried to yank her feet free, but it was as if someone had driven spikes through her heels; when she looked down she saw that roots had sprouted from her flesh, wriggling like snakes as they found the soil and dug in.

The giant tree shivered, once, twice, three times. Talbot shrieked in triumph as the bark enveloped Lisa’s face and the world began to fade away.

CHRISTIAN BURR STOOD his ground as the wolf approached. The warning growl left his legs weak and his heart racing ever faster, and he felt himself beginning to lose control. He still wasn’t sure what was happening, but it seemed impossible. What he had seen didn’t make any sense. His daughter was being absorbed. . .

Burr felt the familiar panic that always overtook him when the stress got to be too much, and the detachment that went along with it was close behind. He had never been good at dealing with intense situations; he had wondered, after Lisa had been diagnosed, whether he had just a little bit of what she was born with and had passed it along in a more concentrated form.

She is a Leshy.

There is no such thing. And yet he could feel the truth like some monstrous wild creature bursting through the forest. His grandfather had been one too. Now it was time for another to take over, but it would not be him.

He was simply a steward of the blood.

The wolf was close enough to touch. Burr could smell its wet, sulfur smell, see the glint of its long, sharp teeth. Unbidden, words sprang to his lips: a phrase his grandfather had taught him as a young child while they planted the Christmas tree, words that sounded like gibberish but that he had been made to repeat, over and over.

“Klid je les, poslouchat stormy.”

The wolf paused. “Steal život od cizince, a dej mi to,” Burr said. The wolf took another step forward, panting, and stopped, cocking its head as if listening.

There was more to the ritual, but Burr couldn’t remember it. He looked at Talbot. The man had continued to change. He was swelling in size like a bloated tick, his hands still on Lisa’s shoulders, his head thrown back at a grotesque angle. His hair had changed from silver to a thick brown, and his flesh had lost the barklike pattern and begun to take on a bluish tone. His eyes were the color of summer grass.

Burr considered trying to run past the wolf, but it was already too late. Lisa was almost completely shrouded in bark, a cocoon of living armor that turned her arms to branches and absorbed her legs and feet until they appeared rooted to the ground. Burr could barely make out his daughter’s features, but what he saw was frozen in horror.

Talbot screamed again in triumph, a look of ecstasy on a face that had turned thirty years younger. At that moment, the wolf gave a snarl and leaped at the man with bared teeth.

The weight of the huge animal knocked Talbot’s hands away from Lisa and the two bodies tumbled to the ground, one human, one animal, with the animal quickly gaining the upper hand before Talbot slipped a knife free from beneath him and plunged it deep into the wolf’s side.

The huge beast howled, and Burr felt a white-hot flare of pain in his chest. Above them the clouds seemed to open up, a great crash of thunder shaking the forest floor and lightning cracking across the sky. Burr felt the other animals in the forest cry out in wordless agony, thousands of them, along with the trees that seemed to shiver as wind whipped through the valley.

Burr thought he saw something move in the center of the clearing as a sound like the ancient moan of a shifting mountainside rose up to envelop them all. He stepped toward his daughter, the final phrases of the tree-planting ritual finally bursting forth from his throat like a cascade: “A máte koøeny dlouho a tvùj duch žije dál! Mùže lesa a chránit vás a krev svázat ducha!”

RODNEY TALBOT WAS on fire.

The blood of the Leshy had mixed with his, and it felt as if a million insects crawled beneath his skin. His mind expanded to fill the clearing and then the entire forest, and he felt the connection of every single creature, every tree. After all these years, the remainder of Arthur’s secrets and knowledge were being passed along to him.

The feeling was glorious. He reveled in it, throwing his head back as his body began to change, feeling the rain course down his face. His howl was without words, an animalistic sound of triumph and awakening.

Dimly, he heard someone else speaking aloud in the ancient tongue. And then something knocked him to the ground, breaking his connection with the Leshy. Rage filled his mind as he felt the rough fur of the wolf above him, its hot breath at his throat. “Zvíøe,” Talbot growled. “Tvá krev rozlije!”

He fumbled for the knife and stuck it deep into the beast’s side, feeling its blood pump in a hot gush across his chest. He struggled with the weight of the body across his own as the wolf’s life ran out of it and seeped into the forest floor.

Rain poured down in buckets when Christian Burr spoke once more.

Thunder shook the ground as Talbot looked up in shock. Arthur was moving, his huge, grizzled branches reaching toward the sky, as if to embrace the lightning bolt that streaked down to earth to strike.

The bolt sizzled with energy as it hit the largest outstretched branch with a tremendous cracking sound. The branch broke in half, tumbling toward where Talbot lay helplessly pinned beneath the body of the wolf. He had the time to see the rough spears of wood protruding from its broken end racing toward him.

No, he thought. Not this, not now. . .

CHRISTIAN BURR WATCHED as the huge branch tumbled down. It was nearly twice the size around of a man’s chest, and its jagged end hit Rodney Talbot square in the face.

The man’s head disappeared in a cloud of red pulp, driven cleanly from his shoulders and crushed into the ground beneath the branch’s weight. The headless body jerked, then lay still as the branch tumbled onto its side with a crash that shook the forest.

Another moan rose up from somewhere deep within the ground, a sound like a whale in the ocean depths. The fierce storm began to subside, rain fading to a steady patter, lightning and thunder receding into the distance.

One by one, the animals emerged from the trees around the clearing, picking their way forward to where Lisa Burr still stood rooted in place. The forest hummed with energy as she shook once, then twice, the bark cracking from her skin and falling to the ground.

Lisa opened her eyes and spread her arms wide, drinking in the rain and the animals’ presence, a light smile on her face.

Christian Burr ran toward his daughter.

Around them the animals waited, watching. The wind continued to howl, and the trees shivered with the wind’s demands.

And on the ground the body of Rodney Talbot was taken by the forest. The rough bark that covered his skin was almost identical to that of the great tree nearby and where his blood had flowed a moment before there were now roots, fine filaments reaching into the ground.

Christian held Lisa in his arms and spoke softly to her, small nonsensical sounds of comfort that she responded to as she held on to him in return. But Lisa wasn’t crying. She was smiling, her eyes wide with a primal joy.

AS TWILIGHT FELL three days later, and the darkness grew deep and the sounds of the waking forest drifted across the old farmhouse, the people of Glen Ridge came calling.

It began with a trickle at first; a knock on the door announced the arrival of James Footer and his two young children with a wax-topped jar of fresh honey, the children gaping at Lisa from behind their father’s legs. Ten minutes later, elderly widow Joan Sunland came with a wrapped box filled with linens for their table, placed a wrinkled hand on Lisa’s head, and then left without a single word. Five minutes after that came Terri and Steve and Giles, neighbors from Old Farm Road, along with their families, bearing fresh vegetables from their gardens. Terri ran a specialty clothing shop in town and brought organic blouses and pants for Lisa to make her more comfortable. She had served Lisa’s great-grandfather, Terri said proudly, and was happy to be able to continue the tradition now.

That seemed to be the end of it, and Susan had put away the produce in the fridge and they had already gone up to bed when the sounds of vehicles could be heard below. Susan went to the window and stood motionless for a long moment.

“Come here,” she said to Burr, her voice little more than a whisper. “You won’t believe it.”

He went and peered through the glass. The road that wound up toward the house was full of cars, a long line of them and more coming, twinkling headlights snaking all the way up to their front steps.

Burr went down to greet them, but it was soon apparent that they hadn’t come for him. He got out of the way as the people laid their gifts at Lisa’s feet. She stood radiant before them in a way he’d never seen before, the power in her seeming to thrum so that every person who set foot near her could feel it.

There was no point in trying to refuse the gifts, and no one would accept payment for anything. Susan began to help move them to other rooms, and while she did, Christian Burr slipped out the back. He walked through the moist grass, under the moonlight sky to the forest’s edge, and followed the path inside.

He could remember how often the neighbors and friends of the family had come by to see his grandfather. It had never seemed particularly unusual when he was a child, and now, in hindsight, he remembered his grandfather’s stories and understood better why they came. The Leshy can be kind. The Leshy can be cruel. That is the way of Nature and that is the way of the Leshy. When the Leshy is kind, it is best to say thank you.

It wasn’t bribery, not really. It was simply the tradition that had grown in the old country and that was now carried onward in Glen Ridge, a town that had always prospered since Arthur Burr came along.

Burr followed the path deeper into the woods, moving through darkness without a single misstep. Earlier that day he had found the rest of his grandfather’s papers in the basement. These papers were now a tool for reaching Lisa and teaching her. She would never be like other children; he knew that and he understood it better now. But she needed to be reminded that she was part of two worlds, and Christian suspected that was where he came in.

The Leshy was the protector of the woods, and in turn, he would serve as her steward, to keep her safe from a changing world that failed to understand the old ways.

Your father said the light of stars was held in your eyes, that he saw this when you came from the womb, his grandfather had written. That light is passed, one to the next. And once every few generations, it is allowed to shine forth. It is your job to assist with the transition.

It was the natural order of things, really.

Sometime later Burr reached the clearing. The huge tree, now missing a limb, reached upward toward the pregnant moon. There was no sign of the old man Talbot’s body. He was gone, absorbed by the forest he had sought to control. The oddly shaped tree where he had been reached toward the greater tree as a child reaches toward its father.

The great oak did not seem interested in reaching back.