by Viv Daniels
“What sort of mistake?” Archer asked from the other side of the door. “Either he told us or he didn’t. And I know he didn’t.”
She came out, pulling her curls back into a clip. “I mean… maybe there was a forest trick of some kind. Like he thought he was talking to your village but it was enchantment. That can happen.”
But Archer looked skeptical. “Of course it can. But your father was experienced in the ways of the forest. He would have seen the signs of an illusion, same as you or I.”
In fact, her father had taught her the signs before he’d taught her to ride a bike. Did the images waver, like those seen through water? Did things move and change whenever she blinked? Did she ask them questions only she would know, and they answered as if she asked whether it was night or day? She knew how to tell. It was basic forest safety.
But something had to explain why her father would have made such a terrible error. He died thinking Ivy’s mother had turned her back on them for good. It was one thing when she’d gone back to the forest. He seemed to understand it, and they still saw each other. There were plenty of people in the neighborhood, back then, who had forest lovers they saw only once in a while. As a teen, Ivy had even wondered if that’s how she and Archer would end up, splitting time between forest and town.
“But what else could it be?”
Archer said nothing, but took her hand. “It doesn’t matter now, Ivy. The barrier is down and we are here, together. Those three years are past.”
She yanked her hand back. “They aren’t! People died. Your entire village is on the brink of destruction. And it wasn’t necessary. They could have been saved…”
“Knowing the why will not change the past, Ivy,” said Archer. “What good will it do? Trust me, the answer is none.”
Ivy brushed past him and out of the room. Down the hall, the door to her father’s bedroom lay closed, as always, but she went right in. It was bigger than hers. She probably should have packed his things up long ago and cleaned it out, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t done any of the things she should have—defy her father, ask unlikely questions, wonder why even her mother, even Archer, would not have railed against being separated from her forever…
She’d believed everyone, and she did what they told her, and she stayed inside and she brewed tea and she let them box her in, bells or no bells. Ivy was tired of playing by the rules.
She yanked open his dresser drawers. “Maybe there’s an answer in here somewhere,” she said. “A letter? A journal?” Did her father even keep a journal?
Archer stood at the door, his hands crossed over his chest. “Ivy, what do you think you will find after two years? A voice from the grave? You think an answer will save you, but it will only cut you anew. Don’t go deeper into this forest. I fear what you might find.”
She slammed a drawer shut and turned on him. “Is that what happened to you? You went deep into the forest and found only darkness?”
His eyes were hard, his mouth a thin line. Archer was harder to read now, under his beard. All through the night, she’d caught him staring at his own skin in fascination, though she hadn’t been brave enough to ask him what he saw—or worse, if what he saw was himself, clearly, for the first time in months.
“Darkness isn’t only anything,” he said. “Once you let it inside, it’s everything.”
He was speaking in riddles again.
“Let it go, Ivy.”
“No. There are only two options here. Either he was tricked, or he lied to the entire town. And I can’t live with that.”
“Then believe he was tricked.” He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. But it did.
“It’s not that simple!” Ivy cried. “Everything I’ve done—the life I’ve lived, accepting being cut off from the forest—it’s because I believed my father when he told me it was dangerous. That no matter what I’d known growing up, that the forest had changed, and it was a threat to our lives. I believed him when he told me he tried to save you all, and you refused to leave.”
“He did not,” Archer said firmly. “At least, no one I know. Perhaps he told some, and they did refuse to leave.”
“Like my mother?” Ivy lowered herself to the surface of her father’s bed. Dust eddies swirled around her lap. “How is my mother? Don’t think me a monster for saying it now. Even before the bells, I almost never saw her.”
Ivy’s mother hadn’t even lived in Archer’s village. When she left the town, it was to go into the wild, to range deeper and deeper into the forest to find the plants she loved more than her own family. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise Ivy at all if her mother had rebuffed her dad. There’d never been anything he could offer, promise, or threaten that would bring that woman out of the woods.
Archer was regarding her, his moss-green eyes soaked in sadness. “Ivy…” He joined her on the edge of the bed. “I don’t think you’re a monster. There is only room here for one of us.”
“You aren’t a monster.”
“Oh, but I am. This magic… it’s broken something inside. Forgive me, Ivy, please.”
“What do you mean?”
“This whole night, I’ve been so callous. I played games with you when I should have been begging for help. I tricked you when I should have confessed every horrible curse. I bedded you, when by all rights you should have left me to die in the snow.”
“Archer…”
“You’re right. We should talk. For I haven’t told you nearly enough of the things I’ve done—of the things the whole village has done to try to survive in the face of these bells.” He sighed, and turned his face away, as if ashamed. “Before. The other solstice rites. Last night it was me. Last year, my brother tried. We thought—we thought maybe strength was the answer that time. That because he was a ranger, he could withstand the pain of battling the bells. But he could not.”
Ivy leaned back as horror dawned inside of her. “And the year before that?”
“Your mother was the first to try. She believed that because she had connections on the other side—you and your father—that she could use her love to break the barrier and make it through to you.” Archer breathed deep. “She was wrong.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two years. Two years ago, on the solstice night, her mother had died in a vain attempt to bring down the barrier of the bells. Two years ago, on the solstice night, her father had walked into the barrier and perished as well. She’d never known why until now, but it made all the sense in the world.
It wasn’t an act of despair or even an awful mistake. It wasn’t a rare flower either, but something endlessly more precious.
“He was trying to save her.” Ivy’s voice was little more than a breath. “He must have seen her there, through the barrier. Maybe he even saw her dying. And he tried to help her.”
“Your father?” Archer asked, incredulous.
She didn’t need a journal. She already had the answers. “He loved her. He always loved her, even after she left us. I was just a child. I couldn’t understand a mother who chose the forest over us. But my dad…”
She broke off. Her father had understood, the way Ivy never had, that the forest folk didn’t belong to them. That they never, ever would. Her mother might spend a few years by her father’s side, and Archer might claim to share her soul, but what difference did that make, in the end? Archer could have sex with her in the greenhouse or her bed or on a treetop deep in the forest, but that didn’t make him hers. He could tell her he’d been faithful, all those years behind the barrier, but that didn’t mean they could build a life together. He was forest, and she was town.
Archer’s arms encircled her, and she breathed him in, and only wept harder.
Until yesterday, she’d never thought she’d see her mother again, but knowing it was true—that she was gone, that both her parents had gone together—somehow, it was different.
And maybe it answered some of her questions, too. Maybe Archer was right. After all, as he’d told her last night,
his bell sickness hit hard and fast on that first day. As awful as it had been for her, it must have been instant torture for pure forest folk. Her father may have warned them about a barrier keeping them from the town, and they rejected him because why would they care about not being able to leave their precious forest? He said they’d laughed away his warnings about dark magic, and that made sense, too. Why would they mistrust their own home?
But since her father hadn’t realized the true cost of the barrier bells, he wouldn’t have warned them that the barrier would sicken them. When they discovered the awful truth, too late, of course, those who had been warned in advance might try to deny they ever had the chance to leave. She wouldn’t be surprised if the leaders of the forest folk didn’t say a word about her father’s visit. So maybe Archer was ignorant of it, too.
And even if they’d once rejected the advice to leave, that didn’t mean they couldn’t change their mind. Her mother had sacrificed everything to try. And then Archer’s brother, and then Archer himself. And though he’d survived, he’d put himself through hell to do so.
She craned her neck to look up at him, at the reddish stubble covering his neck and chin, at his sad, green eyes gazing down at her.
“You said my mother believed her love for us would help sustain her as she brought down the barrier. And I suppose she did love us, in her forest way.”
Archer’s brow furrowed and a frown tugged at his lips. “You believe the forest folk love differently?”
“I know my mother loved me differently than I loved her, differently than my father.” A distant, fickle love that hadn’t been enough to overcome the power of the bells, though Ivy supposed it meant something that her mother had believed it might.
“And what of me?” His arms had grown slack around her back and he drew back, regarding her warily.
“Yes,” she prompted. “What of you, Archer? My mother offered her love; your brother, his strength. What did you possess that you hoped might overcome the bells?”
Archer pulled away from her then, turning his face to the floor. “I had nothing.”
“I don’t understand.” She moved to put her hand on his shoulder, but he shied away.
“Everyone who had attempted the breach had died. But me? I had nothing to lose. The only people who still cared about me needed me to do this more than they needed me to do anything else. I could sacrifice everything I was in the service of dark magic, hone myself in evil enchantments. I could become nothing, until there was nothing for the barrier to burn.”
“But you didn’t.” Ivy gave him a hopeful smile. “You dabbled in darkness, but you’re still here, with me. Whatever strange magic possessed you last night, it’s gone. We defeated it, you and I.”
He looked back at her and lifted his hand to his sweater, as if cupping his heart, but when his fingers grazed the weave, he stopped. “I want to believe that dark magic can be defeated, but I’ve spent too long in the forest.”
“In the depths, where magic reigns?”
He shook his head. “No. Within earshot of your evil bells. The worst magic is not native to the forest. It’s born in the hearts of men.”
There was a loud pounding at her door. “Ivy Potter! Open up!”
Deacon Ryder. Her least favorite councilman. Everything he said sounded so reasonable… until you thought about it. Back when her father was still alive, they’d go to services from time to time, but the last time she’d set foot in the chapel was at her father’s funeral.
She shot out of Archer’s arms. “Hide.”
“He’s coming into your father’s bedroom?” Archer asked wryly, not moving.
True. Ivy wiped her eyes, and checked her reflection in the mirror. If she looked like she’d been crying, Deacon Ryder would certainly notice. Knowing him, he might even sniff out that she’d been participating in unwed fornication.
“Hide, Archer,” she repeated. “This man hates forest folk.”
“I hate him,” he replied evenly. “I remember the things he said about me and mine when I came to visit. He thought us all devils.” Archer cracked his knuckles. “Wonder what he would think of a little curse or two? I am devilish now.”
“Don’t you dare!” she whirled around and shoved him to the far corner of the room. “Just stay put. No sounds — and no curses, do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” he murmured. “Your voice is drenched in fear. What do you think this man can do to me? I brought down the bells. I am not afraid of a preacher.”
She didn’t like his tone, nor the way his words made her hair stand on end. Even without second sight, Ivy suspected Archer’s magic was rallying down his veins, and she had little doubt how dark it might be.
“Ivy Potter!” came the deacon’s voice again.
“Coming,” she called, as the deacon attempted to splinter her door. She shut the door of her bedroom tight, and hurried to the shop entrance.
Deacon Ryder stood on the stoop, his tall, thin frame bundled to within an inch of his life, and held by the collar a curious shepherd. “Ivy Potter, good morning. It seems Trapper here has taken an interest to something that came out of the woods and up your front porch.”
“So it seems,” she replied. “But like I told Mr. Beemer, I’ve got quite the lock on my door. Nothing is getting in here. I have to make sure I’m protected, you know, ever since my father died.” She patted the dog’s head and he pressed his nose into her palm, snuffling. Hopefully she could make him decide it was her scent, not Archer’s, he was looking for. “Maybe whatever it was headed back into the forest.”
The deacon eyed her and she could feel her puffy, tear-stained eyes tingle beneath his gaze. “Maybe. But that’s the second thing I came about, Ivy. We must do something about the bells.”
She feigned innocence. “We, sir? How might I help? Think dousing them with tea might start them up again?”
“Very funny, child,” he said, his tone grave. “May I come in?”
“You may,” she said blithely. “But Trapper and his muddy paws can stay in the yard.” The last thing she needed was a dog sniffing out Archer in her father’s bedroom.
The Deacon entered, and Ivy hung up his coat and scarf and offered him a cup of tea.
“None of your potions, Miss Potter,” he said, looking down his nose at the jars of loose tea mixes lining her shop shelves.
“English Breakfast?” she trilled as she put the kettle on. Was that movement in the hallway to the apartment? Careful, Archer.
“You know, Ivy, we’ve been worried about you.”
“Who has?”
“The community. All the way out here, away from all good company. Don’t you think you’d be happier closer to the center of town and away from all these trees?”
“I’m happy not having to commute to my job,” she replied, taking down a pair of mugs.
“And while the barrier’s down—well, your mom is forest folk. Wouldn’t want her coming out of the woods and snatching you.”
The teacups clattered out of Ivy’s hands. Won’t be a problem, Deacon. Turns out, my mother and father died the same night. But what she said was, “I am not a child who can be spirited away and replaced with a creature of straw and mud, sir. You may have forgotten me out here, but time moves past just the same. I’m not even a teenager anymore.” She poured the hot water over her tea bags and set the mugs on a tray with lemon, sugar, and cream.
The deacon took cream, and lots of it. The tea was nearly white by the time he brought it to his lips. Ivy grimaced and took a sip of her own plain tea. She’d almost forgotten what English breakfast tea tasted like—this was the first time in years she made herself anything other than redbell.
“Well,” the deacon said after a moment. “What about your friend?”
She choked on her sip. “What friend?”
He clucked his tongue. “Ivy, I may be an old man, but I’m not a fool. Back before the barrier, you had a friend in the forest, did you not?”
She smiled as
serenely as she could. “Many friends, sir. My father worked there, if you remember.”
He sighed. “Yes. Many friends. I’ll count it a blessing I was able to separate the youth of my town from such bad influences. What was your little boyfriend’s name? Arbor? Arrow? Something wild and pagan.”
Ivy’s gaze traveled over her visitor’s shoulder to where something wild and pagan stood in the shadows of the hall, watching her with moss-green eyes and a wicked smile.
“Archer,” she replied. “I mean, I think that was it.”
Archer frowned at her, and as the deacon leaned over to refill his cup, she rolled her eyes.
“Well, your father was quite concerned about him back then.”
Ivy swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “My father knew Archer for a decade. What could there be to be concerned about?”
Deacon Ryder gave her a look. “What all fathers are concerned about for their daughters.”
Somehow, she doubted it. Her dad was a scientist, not an overprotective reactionary. When she told him she and Archer were having sex, he’d made the appointment for her to get birth control himself. But she was not in the mood to argue about her father’s beliefs with this man this morning. “It was only puppy love.”
“Puppy love can be dangerous, too, Ivy. What if you’d ended up with a baby from your forest lover, as your father did?”
She set her cup down. “To be fair, Deacon Ryder, my mother had the baby, too.”
“Yes, and see how that turned out.” The old man gave a piteous sigh. “Many’s the night when I counseled your father on how to manage, raising his daughter all alone while his wild wife did who knows what in the forest.”
Ivy hadn’t known that either, and she doubted the deacon’s counsel included trips to the OB-GYN. “Thank you for being there for him, sir. I’m sure you helped him immensely, and I couldn’t have asked for a kinder or more invested father.” That, at least, was the truth. “He helped me understand my forest side, and my town side.”
