Dreamwood

by Heather Mackey

  Pete, who’d finally woken up, shambled over to them, still barefoot. “Did you tell my parents you were coming after us?” Pete asked without so much as a good morning. His face looked pinched and his eyes squinty; clumps of his hair flew up as if while he slept his head had grown scores of stubby brown wings, all trying to take flight.

  Angus’s eyes flickered over him. “No.” He looked at Pete as if unimpressed by what he saw. “I heard some story about how you had volunteered to take Lucy down the coast toward San Francisco. And I decided to keep your secret safe.”

  So Pete was not in trouble for lying to his parents. That was good. Lucy looked encouragingly at Pete, hoping he would see it that way. She remembered how Pete had stood up to the raven men, and how he’d crossed his arms in Governor Arekwoy’s office, almost daring the Lupines to mess with him. For someone who got spooked by any old ghost story he certainly was cocky around people. And now she tried to smooth things over.

  “You found us just in the nick of time,” she told the timber baron before he could draw the wrong conclusions about Pete. “We were in a real pickle.”

  “We were doing all right,” Pete said. He did not sit down but continued to hover nearby, making vain attempts to control the chaos of his hair.

  “For the moment perhaps.” Angus turned from Pete, who he obviously found lacking in manners, and back to Lucy. He ran a hand rakishly through his dark hair. “But luckily we’re here now. And we have plenty of food. Plus, we have other items of interest as well.”

  He indicated the paper he was studying, and Lucy leaned forward to get a better look.

  “I was only able to find one map of the Thumb,” he said, smoothing the paper out on a mossy tree stump. “I had to make this copy from the Pentland Historical Society. The map they have is one of the few surviving documents from the lost settlement.”

  Lucy loved maps, especially ones that had any hint of mystery to them, and she could think of no map more exciting than one from a lost settlement. She shivered deliciously as she bent over it, imagining that this crisply drawn copy was actually the stained and crumpled original, smuggled out from the doomed settlement with great effort and passed from hand to hand as secretly as a treasure map.

  “And no one knows what happened to them?” she asked. She remembered the disquieting line from her father’s notebook: He killed them all.

  Angus stretched out his long legs. “Any number of things might have done them in. Disease. A bad winter. But people in Saarthe don’t want such a boring explanation. It has to be curses or evil.” He looked up to the sky, as if hoping somewhere to find the strength to deal with such idiocy. “The truth is, they were living on the edge of civilization, nearly cut off from the mainland. There doesn’t need to be any mystical explanation for bad luck.”

  Such a simple truth, but Lucy was struck by this. Her father always looked to the spirit world to explain trouble—all the invisible currents of grievances and emotions that made houses unhealthy, crops wither, and factory equipment fail. But maybe sometimes bad luck was just that and no more. She looked at the timber baron’s proud face. He doesn’t let the unseen world govern him, she realized, he simply does what he sets out to do. The thought was both thrilling and troubling—it felt disloyal to her father—and she bent her head to the map, trying to get her feelings back in order.

  “The Lupines say the dreamwood spirit killed them,” Pete countered, putting his back against a tree.

  “Some of them think that,” Lucy corrected.

  Angus gave a tight smile. “Fortunately I don’t put too much stock in stories like that,” he said dismissively. “And what happened a hundred years ago matters little to our business today.”

  Pete shook his head. “I suppose that’s what you think.”

  Lucy couldn’t understand why Pete was being so disagreeable. She pointed to a squiggle on the map she thought was the river.

  “Is this where we are?” she broke in.

  Angus leaned forward. “My guess is here.” He stabbed a finger at a spot two-thirds of the way to the tip of the Thumb. “And this should be the old settlement.” He pointed to a triple line enclosing some triangles.

  There were other strange marks on the map, and Lucy was determined to puzzle them out. “What are these little stars?” They were scattered about the Thumb.

  “I’ve no idea,” the timber baron said. “But my hope is they mark dreamwoods. The people who lived here used to harvest them. We should be closing in on one of these marks soon. But this map isn’t drawn to scale. And so far, even with it, we’ve been wandering in the dark. Our compasses don’t work, and even Silas, who could tell you which way was north after being spun around blindfolded, can’t seem to get his bearings here.”

  He looked at her expectantly, and Lucy realized in a heady rush that he was hinting that he needed help. Of course, he wouldn’t come right out and say he couldn’t find his way—not in front of the others. Their nervousness and unhappiness with the expedition was thick as smoke. But she could help Angus lead them. Her hand reached for the leather cord around her neck.

  “Dang it!” Pete exclaimed suddenly. He hopped about on one foot, wincing. Lucy leaned out of the way, trying not to get stepped on; but it was a bit like trying to avoid a deranged jack-in-the-box.

  “What’s the matter?” She snatched her foot away before he could smash into it.

  “I stepped on something.” Pete groaned and shut his eyes. He put one hand on Lucy’s shoulder and leaned into her as if he’d fall over otherwise. “Can you help me back to my things?”

  Lucy got to her feet, helping support him, while Pete made terrible huffing noises. She tried not to react to the sun-bronzed arm draped across her shoulders—an effort made easier by the fact that Pete continued to groan loudly in pain. “Come on, then.”

  Angus watched impatiently. “You should think about wearing some shoes,” the timber baron pointed out.

  “Good advice,” Pete called over his shoulder as he hopped on one leg.

  Pete’s arm was heavy around Lucy’s neck, but it grew lighter the farther away they got from Angus and his map. And Lucy did not think Pete was a very good actor—his emotions flashed across his face too easily.

  They reached his blanket and Pete collapsed onto the ground.

  “So what was that about?” she asked as Pete made a show of rubbing his injured foot before putting on his shoes.

  “Nothing,” Pete said innocently, looking up at her from where he sat, tying his shoelaces with excruciating slowness. But he had wanted to get her away from Angus. Why?

  “What’s the matter with you?” She put her hands on her hips. “Now we’ve got a real chance of finding my father—”

  “We always had that,” Pete interrupted. He cocked his head in Angus’s direction and lowered his voice. “It’s not like we need him for it. You’re the one with the compass. All he’s got is that lousy old map.” He looked up at her and his face was suddenly earnest. “I think you should keep your compass to yourself.”

  Lucy rubbed her temples. She remembered their trip to Pentland and the reverent way Pete had mentioned Angus Murrain’s name. She sat down beside Pete. “I don’t understand. I thought you looked up to him.”

  Pete snorted. “That was before he wouldn’t give Pa more time to pay him back. Instead he bought our house out from under us, and cheated us on the price.”

  She remembered the day Angus had come. You’ve been more than fair, Gordon had said.

  “Your father didn’t think he’d been cheated,” she pointed out.

  “My pa got ruined.” Pete yanked hard at the laces on his boots. “Course he didn’t want to admit that. I don’t trust Angus Murrain farther than I can throw him.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Lucy said primly. “But Angus Murrain hasn’t done anything to me. In fact, he invested in my expedition
.”

  “Your expedition? What?” Pete forgot he was supposed to be injured as he jumped to his feet.

  Straightaway Lucy wished she could take the words back. But there was no help for it. “You laughed at me, so I struck a deal with him.”

  “What kind of deal?” A heavy, angry look came into Pete’s face.

  Lucy pulled at the fringe on her tunic. She realized she should have told Pete—why hadn’t she done that at the beginning? He’d surprised her by wanting to come. And then there’d been the excitement of getting started. She hadn’t thought it would matter to Pete. Though now of course she saw that it did.

  “He gave me fifty dollars for supplies,” she admitted. “And I said he could have half the dreamwood I brought back.”

  Pete’s jaw hardened. Then he laughed unpleasantly. “That’s a good deal for him. He puts in fifty dollars and gets a fortune back.”

  Lucy bit her lip. Put this way it did sound like she’d made a poor deal—she just hadn’t thought that way at the time. But she didn’t want to admit this to Pete. And besides, if she hadn’t gotten that money they wouldn’t have gotten their antimorpheus drops. Pete had no idea how much the little vial in her pack cost. “Is that what you’re sore about?” she asked. “When I talked to him I didn’t know you were coming. If I’d known—and if I’d known how you felt about him—I wouldn’t have done it. I know you need the money. I’d have let you have all the dreamwood.”

  Pete lifted his chin and his expression got stonier—she’d said the wrong thing. “That’s not why I’m sore. I’m sore because I trusted you.”

  Lucy’s stomach sank—she could tell from Pete’s tone this was a much worse offense. “And I trust you,” she began tentatively.

  “No, you don’t. Otherwise you’d have told me something this big.” He snatched up his blanket from the ground and began angrily to fold it. Lucy looked up at him, feeling that if he would just listen she could explain everything.

  “I didn’t mean to keep it from you.” She clasped her hands together, pleading with him. “It just happened.”

  “Maybe so,” he said with a dark look. “But I guess it’s easy to have all the answers if you don’t tell anyone anything.”

  Lucy felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She thought for a second about apologizing again, then threw that thought away. Someone who made her feel so awful didn’t deserve it. She stood up and faced him. “So you do think I’m a know-it-all. Those things you said at the river—that’s how you actually feel.”

  His eyes flickered dangerously—the river still a fuse between them. “And you think I’m just some country boy who can’t keep up with you.”

  She took in a breath, bouncing on her feet with anger. “That’s not true.”

  “Lucy,” Angus called. “Can you spare a moment?” He was waiting expectantly with the map. Waiting for her thoughts and advice. She would much rather be with the timber baron right now. But if she went over there, Pete would think everything he’d said about her was true.

  “Go on back to your partner,” Pete said as if he knew what she was thinking. “Seeing as how they’re getting half the dreamwood, the least they can do is feed me. I’m going to find some breakfast.”

  He stomped off. But by then everything was already packed up with the others waiting for them—and so they had to go on. Pete shot a knifelike glance at her. She had made him miss breakfast. If she’d wanted to make him angry at her, she couldn’t have found a better way.

  They walked for several hours, up and down a series of steep hillsides, as they tried to make their way to the Thumb’s high point. Angus wanted a vantage point to look down from, hoping to see their way from his map. But the slopes were choked with fallen timber, and it was slow going.

  Even though she was still upset with Pete, Lucy kept her vitometer inside its pouch. She should just bring it out and read the way forward. Several times she had almost done that. But at the last moment, she’d hesitated, grasping the cord around her neck. And as the day wore on, Lucy felt it would be awkward to suddenly reveal her secret compass, and so she kept it hidden inside her tunic.

  Pete was not speaking to her. Instead of getting over his grievance, he was settling into it, testing it—she would say something and he would merely grunt a reply—like someone breaking in a new pair of boots. Gradually, he’d fallen to the back of the group, while Lucy walked on ahead with Angus.

  Silas and Jank were in the middle, making an odd pair. Silas was compact and quick, with a suspicious face beneath his fiery crest of hair. His eyes darted at every noise, and he continually thrust his hands into the pockets of his dirty leather vest, bringing out a protection stone like Pete’s, which he fingered obsessively.

  As they walked, he kept up a running commentary: “Leaves of four, settle a score. That there’s Widder’s Nuckle. Make a tea of it and you’ll be dead before you can take your boots off. Hear that? That’s the call of the blue-breasted tolliver; if one of those crosses your path it’s thrice bad luck. Throw salt over your right shoulder quick as you can or you’ll be sorry. Wolf-face newts heal chilblains, but you have to catch the buggers first . . .”

  And then there was his opposite, Jank, almost comically big and muscular, though it seemed all his muscles had squeezed out his vocal cords, for he was woefully inarticulate except on the one subject that excited and terrified him: the devil.

  Periodically he would give them all a fright by stopping abruptly and crying out, “There it is. The devil in the woods! There!” Then he would unsling his massive ax and plant his feet while his small eyes glared tremblingly at his unseen foe. These were episodes—Lucy quickly learned—you simply had to wait out. For nothing devil-like would appear and Jank would eventually grunt, fasten up his ax again, and resume tramping through the forest with that dead-eyed gaze of his, saying nothing to Silas’s constant chatter.

  Not so Cranbull. He walked behind Silas and tried his best to ignore the little man, but it was an effort beyond his abilities. About every five minutes Cranbull harrumphed and hocked spit, usually aiming in Silas’s direction. Now and then he would simply stop and announce “bull pucky” to something Silas had said. Lucy was afraid the two would come to blows.

  Angus paid them no attention. He helped Lucy over a series of logs, so the two of them were ahead of the others.

  Gradually their lead increased. Lucy couldn’t help turning around now and then to reassure herself that Pete was still following them. When last she looked back, Jank—impossible to miss in his red-and-white-checkered shirt—was having another spell of his, and as he stood there, twitching his ax, the others stood frozen in place lest he suddenly turn on them. But the timber baron saw no reason to wait. He kept walking, and Lucy, feeling important that she was by his side, walked with him as they climbed higher up the slope.

  “Your father told me something of his research before he left,” the timber baron said. “He said he was writing a book about the history of ghost hunting in the American States.”

  Her father had long spoken of wanting to write such a book, and Lucy always assumed she would help him research it. But since arriving in Saarthe she had seen how little he’d thought to tell her of his actual plans. She said rather grumpily, “I suppose that’s why I was put in school in San Francisco. So I wouldn’t interfere and he could write in peace.”

  Angus looked at her with amusement. “I think he worried that he would stand in your way and interfere with you.”

  That didn’t make any sense. She stopped with one moccasin braced against a fallen kodok branch and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Stand in my way? How?”

  The hillside was steep and even Angus’s breathing was labored. He seemed glad to have a reason to stop.

  “A ghost clearer?” he asked her, raising his eyebrows. “In this age of modern science and technology? Not exactly the sort of father one would wish for.”
>
  Lucy’s cheeks burned. This was what the girls at Miss Bentley’s had said, though in much crueler words. “He helped people.” She scowled at him.

  Angus rolled up the sleeves of his sweat-stained shirt. “Less and less. He told me electricity was putting him out of business. All the electric lights and currents we have around us are disrupting the spirit world. Ghosts are dying out, so to speak.” He allowed himself a modest smile at this clever expression.

  “Yes, but some ghosts persist,” Lucy said, planting her feet.

  “Perhaps. The only people bothered anymore by ghosts are the eccentric and weak-minded. Or the poor who light their homes by burning trash or snake oil.” The timber baron rested a hand on a nearby kodok; Pete and the others still hadn’t caught up to them. “But this is what I don’t understand. Instead of turning to something current and modern—for instance he could have done great work in the study of energy and charges—your father decided to look back. He went further in the wrong direction, standing in the way of progress, almost as if he wanted to ensure he’d never be a success.”

  Lucy didn’t answer, thinking of the Maran Boulder. Had her father been standing in the way of progress then? He certainly had wanted to save the boulder from the railroad. What would it mean, Lucy, she remembered him saying, if there are concentrations of the Od that were found in certain places? In rocks or rivers, perhaps trees. Things we don’t usually think of as alive. What is that power source? How could we understand it? But the railroad hadn’t wanted to understand it, they’d simply dynamited it.

  Angus smoothed back his dark hair. “I remember we were in the Climbing Rose, and he told me he’d left you in San Francisco. Even in a place as superstitious as Saarthe he had trouble finding work. He wanted the reward so he could afford to keep you in school.”

  “Keep me there?” Lucy was stunned. How many more knuckle raps and hours of being made to stand in a corner would she have accumulated in another year at Miss Bentley’s? “So he never meant to send for me?”