"Die." There came an extreme pressure on Kaymie's neck, and the look in Fay's eyes told her that this was where it would end.
Darkness closed in around her. The brightness in her head had become an ember, and as she felt it, behind closed eyes, it began to go out.
You are Queen, she thought, and you have lost.
Shame came to her then. She had barely learned of her heritage, the true formation of her life, and here it was being taken from her. No—that was not it. She was letting it be taken from her by a monster. The survival of an entire people had depended on her, and she had failed them. It did not matter that she had only just learned of her powers. That was no excuse. The task had been placed squarely on her shoulders and she had failed. She felt sadness not so much for herself but for all those who had come before her, all those who had battled evil and had died if necessary to preserve an ancient way of life. Here she was, hardly knowing of it and allowing it to be snuffed out. She felt soiled, evil herself.
She opened her eyes weakly and saw Fay's triumphant, depraved face above her. Her eyelids closed again.
The ember became a spark and grew. It fluttered into life again, even as life drained away from her. She blew on it with her mind, nurtured it, pushing it to full fire.
It roared into flame.
Kaymie opened her eyes, and saw a last look of doubt bloom in Fay's eyes. Then there was a burst of great light followed by blackness.
Am I dead? she thought. Then I have failed. Then there was light again.
And the sounds of birds.
22
"Kaymie?" a voice from far away called. It was a female voice, and for a moment Kaymie cringed back in fear. But the voice was not that voice.
Kaymie opened her eyes.
She was weak, so weak she could not move her body. She blinked her eyes. Above her was bright light, a brightness which quickly softened to the color of a robin's egg. The blue of a clear sky.
There were no trees, no darkness, above her.
Only a blue sky with a single white cloud moving majestically across it.
She turned her head slowly.
There were two faces, unfocused for a moment and framed by the backdrop of a line of widely spaced trees gently moving in the wind.
"Kaymie, you're all right!"
The two faces focused into Ellen and Seth, bruised but real.
"Thank God we found you," Ellen said.
"Oh Mom!" Kaymie cried, throwing her arms up at her mother's neck.
"I know," Ellen soothed, "I know, baby." Seth, holding Boris tightly, was trying to smile through tears. "We looked in the school, and you weren't there."
"Dad's dead, Mom," Kaymie blubbered out. Ellen stiffened for a moment, and then resumed rocking Kaymie in her arms.
"I know, Kaymie," she whispered.
Kaymie pulled away to arm's length and looked deeply into her mother's eyes. "It's all right now, Mom. Everything is going to be all right. There are a lot of bad things that won't happen now." Kaymie's tears had dried, and Ellen was surprised to see that her baby face was gone, and in its place the face of a young and very strong woman.
"I believe you, Kaymie," Ellen said evenly. "I believe you."
They hugged once more.
In the spring, after a winter of many changes, Kaymie returned to the woods. Things were as they should be in spring. The air was cool and sharp; it was late in the day and the warm sky was fading toward orange twilight. It was darkening in the woods.
My woods, Kaymie thought.
She knew now who she was. And there was work she had to do. The work, long neglected, of a people. She hoped that she would not fail.
She moved lithely through the forest, pausing for a moment at the spot where her father lay buried and then walking on until she broke out into a small clearing. She knew this was the place. A taint of blackness moved into her heart at the sight of the huge oak; but a shard of fading sunlight broke through the foliage overhead and the dark moment passed.
The oak was dying. She put her hand lightly to its frayed bark and felt the poison running through it. She felt a pang of sorrow at the tree's pain, but knew that this was as it should be, must be. This tree had been poisoned from within.
She ran her hand around the surface of the rough bark, searching. Then, finding what she sought, she stood back.
Yes, there it was in the wood, etched in pain and madness—the outline of a face, tortured and insane, the face the only visible part of a vein that ran deep within this suffering oak. Above that twisted visage, two gnarled tree limbs that looked very much like outstretched arms reached toward Kaymie in either hate or pleading.
Kaymie looked into the face for a few moments, and then, opening the doors of her mind, reached out and folded those two limbs back into the trunk of the tree. They vanished within. Somewhere, far off, she thought she heard a whispered cry, the sound of light clawing on wood.
Then, stepping back into sunlight, Kaymie watched in silence as, with a sigh, the huge oak folded slowly, painfully into itself and, with a tremor, sank slowly into the ground. The only mark of its passing was a dark spot—upon which, Kaymie knew, nothing would ever grow again.
Kaymie stood for a moment over this spot and then moved off. As she turned, there above her and rising up above the trees in the late blue sky stood the white face of the moon, calling down to her above the wood.
Campbell Wood Page 12
