I held on to that thought as the first tree lowered its branches and we stepped up into another world.

  Forty-Four

  If we hadn’t been on such a dangerous mission, the trip through the trees’ overstory would have been glorious. I had heard of all the things found up in the canopy of trees, but had never seen it, and without the trees help, I wouldn’t have been seeing it then, either. I vowed that when all this was over, I would spend more time up off the ground in the tree world.

  We moved slowly to let the forest adjust to our presence and not give us away by any unusual bird or animal movements reacting to our being there. That meant we had time to stop and watch a bird feed its young, and examine a squirrel nest. We found plants that I thought only grew on the ground growing high up in the air.

  Large amounts of dirt had accumulated in some of the larger trunk spreads, and plants of all kinds were growing in them. It was as if the birds had planted their own garden.

  In other crooks of the branches, little ponds of water had gathered. We were waiting by one of those small ponds when I thought I saw something jump out of the water. I almost fell out of the tree when I realized it was a fish.

  “How did a fish get up here?” I whispered to Ruta.

  He didn’t answer me, just pointed back to the pond where I saw there was more than one fish.

  “What the ziffer?” I said, and then shut up as Niko gave me one of his looks.

  In spite of his gazelle-like body, Niko looked perfectly at home in the tree. It was weird how he almost blended into the trunk of the trees. Sometimes I had to look twice to see the outline of his body.

  Ruta also blended into the tree, but that was different. He was part tree. Niko was not. Or was he? Was he a shapeshifter or was he like a chameleon? And if he was one or the other how come I didn’t know that before?

  Niko answered me in my mind. “You hardly know anything yet, Kara.”

  I would have made a face, but it was obviously so true I had nothing to say. My big comeback was, “So teach me!”

  That was probably a mistake. Don’t piss off a fairy was one thing. Making Niko a teeny tiny bit angry was a thousand times worse. At first I thought I was in deep trouble, but instead, he laughed. “Trying,” he answered.

  I realized in that one answer he had managed to put me down and encourage me at the same time. I guess that was one reason he was a master teacher.

  “Thank you,” was Niko’s response to what I was thinking. That was the perfect response, so I had nothing else to say.

  A few minutes later, the tree did what I could only call a shiver that ran all the way from its roots, up its trunk, and through its branches. We weren’t in danger of falling off, but we all got the message. Be quiet.

  Looking down through the tree’s canopy, we saw two men. I didn’t recognize them. They were trying to be stealthy, but were not doing a very good job of it.

  Half the time they were pushing and shoving at each other. One of the men growled at the other, which made me break out in goose bumps. I would not want to be on that guy’s wrong side. Either one of them, actually.

  “There’s no one out here,” one of the men said to the other.

  “Zut,” the other said. “Might as well keep going then. Heard the Castle has food.”

  “Yea. Lots of kinds of food and people!”

  We understood what he meant. We all tuned in to Link back at the Castle as he said, “I heard that. We’ll be on the watch for them, but they will probably kill each other before they get here. Still, glad you are all in the trees and not on the ground. Great idea, Ruta!”

  Link was right. Those two would probably never make it to the Castle, but that didn’t stop us from worrying. On the other hand, the fact that they were heading that way might mean that Deadsweep had done its worst in Dalry and the danger was mostly over. Dead people or uninfected people. Which would we find more of? I was pretty sure which one it would be.

  As we moved through the trees’ overstory, I tried to focus on the beauty and power of what we saw. This was nature at its finest. Birds, animals, plants, and even fish lived in the treetops, and Deadsweep had not reached any of them. So far at least.

  I knew that once Abbadon felt he had the people of the Kingdom of Zerenity under control, either dead or dying, he would then focus on killing the rest of nature. He couldn’t afford to let it remain, because he knew that sooner or later, if left alone, nature would find a way to destroy him.

  That meant we didn’t have any time to waste. We had to stop Deadsweep and then go after Abbadon himself.

  Once we reached the maple trees in the meadow, our view changed. No longer could we see just the beauty of the canopy of the trees. Instead, we saw bodies lying in the field, and the destruction of the beautiful village of Dalry lay before us. It was so overwhelming that we all had to stop and take a breath. How could all of this happen in just a few days?

  I heard a small rustle of leaves above and looked up to see the Priscillas. They looked like they were sliding down a beam of light. I knew it was a trick of perception, but I took it as a symbol of the power of good—something we always needed to hold onto, especially in times like these.

  “We found a small group of people hiding in a room in the schoolhouse,” Pris said. “We think the Mayor may be part of the group because of what the note said.”

  “What note? How could you see them hiding in the schoolhouse when no one else did. How do you know it’s not a trap?” asked Niko.

  La looked at Niko like she was going to tweak one of his ears, but was polite instead.

  “We know about traps, Mr. Niko,” she humphed. “There was a tiny note taped to an outside window that told us he was in there. Besides, it’s in the general location of the beacon that the Mayor was carrying.”

  At Niko’s look, she added, “Yes, it could have been a trap, and someone else could have seen it, and that would have been a dangerous thing to do.

  “But neither of those two things is true. No one but us could have seen it, being high up at the top of the ceiling, and it said, “Peach Blossom, Ten Teddy said you’d know what to do.”

  I knew what La meant. Only the Mayor knew about Teddy calling me funny names, so he mixed it up to tell us that ten people were in there somewhere.

  “That’s the good news,” Cil said. “The bad news is there is a large group of infected near the schoolhouse. Some are guarding the doors. Most are hanging out in the classrooms.

  “Well then, where would the Mayor be?”

  “That’s the part we don’t know. You’ll have to go in to find out.”

  “Past the infected,” I said to myself.

  “Past the infected,” the Priscillas answered.

  Forty-Five

  “This might be a good time to use the bracelet,” Niko said.

  Everyone’s eyes swiveled to me. Not all of them were happy eyes. “I think I’ll stay here,” Ruta said.

  When no one else said anything, I said, “Okay, everyone stays here. I would feel better about that anyway.”

  I heard a low growl and saw Cahir at the base of the tree. “You too,” I said to him. I knew that Cahir and his friends had surrounded the village, and their job was not to let anyone pass.

  The two men we had seen in the woods had been trailed by one of the wolves until the two men had lain down under a tree and died. A rather peaceful death for someone infected with Deadsweep. I wondered if perhaps the trees had something to do with how easy it had been for them.

  When a wave of peacefulness passed through me, I knew that was true. I hoped if something happened to me it would be around a tree.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, Kara,” Link said in my head. “You will do fine with the bracelet. Just take your time and don’t get emotional about what you will see.”

  “What if I hurt someone?” I whined back at him.

  “I’m coming with you,” Zeid said. “Don’t try to stop me. Instead, let me be your backup, and guide if you need one.”

  We both looked at Niko who nodded at the two of us, and Ruta rolled his eyes. The Priscillas clapped their hands together looking as pleased as someone could be as they sent their friend off to try some magic that could go horribly wrong.

  Niko was lying on a tree branch looking for all the world as if nothing was going on except an excursion into the woods.

  I whispered to Zeid, “Don’t Niko and Aki sometimes remind you of snakes?”

  Zeid smiled back at me and didn’t answer, but gave me a warning look when I started to respond. Zounds, Niko was right. The things I didn’t know.

  I tucked all those feelings of frustration, anger, and sorrow away where I could reach them when I needed them to light the flame inside of me. The fire that would help me with what I needed to do. Once that was done, I stepped into the next tree with Zeid following me.

  The noise from the village had quieted down. That was not good news. It meant more people had died. On the other hand, I also hoped that it meant there were fewer people around the schoolhouse. But once we could see the building, the opposite was true. Instead, it looked as if it had become the magnet for every infected person in town. Perhaps they could tell someone was inside that wasn’t infected and they were stalking them? That was a scary thought.

  Zeid and I dropped out of the tree as Zeid threw an invisibility shield around us. It was something I had learned to do for doors and buildings. I wasn’t aware that it could be done for people or that Zeid knew how to do it either until the day before. The problem was Zeid couldn’t hold it for long over people, and it took a lot of energy, so he would be vulnerable afterward if what I was going to do didn’t work.

  As we got closer to the group, I saw something that struck fear in my heart. The Mayor was part of the knot of men guarding the door. Zeid saw him too but motioned for me to do what needed to be done anyway. Maybe the Mayor was faking being infected. Or perhaps he was infected after he put up the note. Or maybe not. It could all be a trap. There was no way to find out except to go forward with the plan.

  “Go, Kara,” Zeid whispered. I looked up at him and then mentally closed my eyes.

  Aki had drilled in me over and over again that closing your eyes was not a good idea. What would you miss as you shut the world away? Too dangerous.

  Instead, I kept my eyes open, closed down the noise in my head, opened myself to the flow of energy coming from the earth and down from the sky. I felt the power of the millions of roots and beings that made up the planet, felt the spread of trees radiating life from their being, and then touched the picture jasper stone on my bracelet.

  A small beam moved out, and I expanded it until it became a wall of energy. I pushed it towards the schoolhouse. The infected must have felt it coming, but there was nothing that they could do to stop it. I directed it until it circled the building capturing everyone inside its radiance. Then sent one last blast of energy up from the ground, and everyone fell over. I hoped they weren’t dead. I was going for stunned.

  “It worked!” Zeid said.

  He had dropped the invisibility cloak and looked drained. I could feel the residual power of the force field still vibrating inside of me, and without thinking, I touched his hand. Zeid jumped back, and I worried that I had hurt him. Instead, he smiled, rubbed his hand, and said, “Wow, that was weird, but now I feel great.”

  “Come on, we need to make sure they are all down, and find the others before these people wake up,” I said, running toward the building. Inside of me, I was elated. So far I hadn’t hurt anyone. The bracelet worked. “Thanks, mom,” I said to myself. It could have been the rush of energy or wishful thinking, but I thought I heard, “You’re welcome.”

  There was no time to think about it. We reached the Mayor first. He was out. So was everyone around him. I sent a message to Niko to come with the nets. The plan was to wrap everyone before they woke up, and then drop them all down into the chambers that the Ginete and Whistle Pigs had prepared below us.

  Within seconds, I saw Pita and his brothers coming through the schoolyard, prepared to help. As always, they were there when we needed them. I knew the Whistle Pigs were down below waiting for the bodies to be lowered to them.

  Once the roundup began, our job was to find the uninfected, if there were any, and get them safely away to the Castle.

  “Call out, we’re here to rescue you,” we all yelled, as we moved through the rooms in the schoolhouse, trying not to step on the inert bodies of the infected villagers, and watch for worms at the same time.

  My blast from the bracelet was meant to affect only the infected villagers, so, if it worked properly the uninfected, would still be able to answer.

  We were just about ready to give up, thinking that, yes, it had been a trap, when I heard a tiny voice say, “Is that you, Princess Kara Beth?”

  I thought that I would never again complain about that name. “Yes!” I said.

  We heard the squeak of a door coming from another room. When we got there, nine people including five children were waiting for us, looking frightened. I prayed they weren’t infected.

  “What happened to the Mayor?”asked one of the children I had seen a few days before. “He went to get us food, and he never came back.”

  Forgetting all about infection, I gathered the child in my arms, and we cried together.

  Forty-Six

  While the infected were being gathered and taken down to the rooms the Whistle Pigs had prepared for them, we were holed up with the drone in the schoolhouse. We tested the four adults and five children that had been hiding behind a wall in a coat closet. Thankfully, they were all free from the Deadsweep infection.

  Amanda, the little girl who had cried with me, told us that they had gotten so hungry and thirsty the Mayor had risked going out to try and find food and water. He volunteered even though he knew what could happen.

  Somewhere along the way, a worm must have found him, and he had never returned. On the other hand, he had not led the infected to the people he was protecting. He knew that we were coming, but he didn’t warn anyone. So even while he was going crazy, he remained conscious of what he needed to do to save the people he had hidden.

  That gave us hope that Mayor Tom, and maybe the other infected people, could be saved. However, based on what had happened with the other prisoners we knew we only had a few days before whatever the worms were doing to them, killed them.

  We sent the nine infection-free people back to the Castle in a Sound Bubble and then dropped below to check on how the infected were doing and to find out if there had been any progress in discovering how to stop the worms and remove them. There had been thirty infected people at the schoolhouse. That combined with the nine we found meant that there were only forty-two people left in Dalry, counting Letha and her children. The death toll was staggering. If this were happening all over Zerenity, it would be devastating.

  Ruta and Niko had found the walking sticks. One was in the tavern and one was lying outside the schoolhouse door. Niko wove a spell around each one of them, which encased them within something that looked like plastic, and then without touching them, levitated them down with him into the lab where Pita and his brothers were working. Once there, they placed them behind a transparent barrier which allowed them to examine the walking sticks without physically touching them.

  Somehow the Whistle Pigs had prepared thirty rooms for the people from Dalry. I knew that they had to use some form of magic to get them built that fast. How did they know it was going to be thirty people?

  We wished we could put the people together, but we already knew that wouldn’t work. However, seeing those poor people isolated in their rooms was hard to take. Being isolated seemed only to make them crazier.

  However, the Whistle Pigs said they were going to try all kinds of things to calm them down. We knew that the gas worked, but only for a time, and it certainly didn’t make the thought-worms leave their hosts, which is what all of us wanted the most.

  Once everyone was safe, we ate a quick meal, and then each of us went to our rooms for much-needed rest. Everyone except the Priscillas. Once again they were flying off on their own without telling me where they were going. But I had learned. Don’t ask what they were doing. When they were ready, they would tell me.

  A few hours later our group met in the planning room to discuss what to do next. Pita was there with his report. Yes, the walking sticks had carried the thought-worms.

  One of the sticks was empty of worms, but the one by the schoolhouse still had a few thought-worms left in it.

  That was a piece of good news. First that no one in our group had picked it up and became infected, and second that the sticks still had worms they could study that hadn’t been activated yet.

  “On the other hand, since the walking stick with the worms was the one found by the schoolhouse, it is probably how Mayor Tom became infected. He might have seen it there, picked it up to defend himself and in the process became infected,” Pita said.

  Niko stood. “Here’s what we know now. We know the walking sticks are carrying the worms, and that at least one tradesman is bringing them to the villages.”

  “Why isn’t that tradesman infected?” I broke in.

  “That’s a good question,” Niko said. “But a question that we might not be able to answer until we capture him, or them, if there is more than one. And, Kara Beth, you mentioned something we need to think about. Did he come from the Castle? Is it someone we know?