“What happens if the maentwrog breaks free?” she asked Pick softly, shivering with the feel of those eyes watching.
Pick cocked an eyebrow and frowned. “I don’t know. It’s been a prisoner of the tree for so long that I don’t think anyone knows. I also don’t think anyone wants to find out.”
Nest was inclined to agree. “So we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. What can I do to help?”
Pick jumped down from her shoulder to her arm, then scooted down her leg to the ground. “Bring me some salt. One of those big bags of the stuff they use in the water conditioners. Rock salt, if that’s all you can find. I’ll need a bag of compost, too. A wheelbarrow full. A bag of fertilizer or manure is okay. Pitch or tar, too. To fill in those splits.” He looked at her. “Do the best you can. I’ll stay here and work on strengthening the magic.”
Nest shook her head in dismay, looking back again at the tree. “Pick, what’s going on?”
The sylvan understood what she was asking. He tugged up his shirtsleeves angrily. “Some sort of war, I’d guess. What does it look like to you? Now get going.”
She took a deep breath and darted away through the trees. She raced down the narrow trail, heedless of the brambles and the stinging nettles that swiped at her. Even without hearing him speak the words, she could feel Pick urging her to hurry.
CHAPTER 12
Ten minutes later, she was racing up the gravel drive to Robert Heppler’s house. Cass Minter was closer, and Nest might have gone to her instead, but Robert was more likely to have what she needed. The Hepplers lived at the end of a private road off Spring Drive on three acres of woodland that bordered the park at its farthest point east, just up from the shores of the Rock River. It was an idyllic setting, a miniature park with great old hardwoods and a lawn that Robert’s dad, a chemical engineer by trade but a gardener by avocation, kept immaculate. Robert found his father’s devotion to yard work embarrassing. He was fond of saying his father was in long-term therapy to cure his morbid fascination with grass. One day he would wake up and discover he really wasn’t Mr. Green Jeans after all.
Nest reached the Heppler property by climbing a split-rail fence on the north boundary and sprinting across the yard to intercept the gravel drive on its way to the house. The house sat large and quiet in front of her, a two-story Cape Cod rambler with weathered shingle-shake sides and white trim. Patterned curtains hung in the windows, and flowers sprouted in an array of colors from wooden window boxes and planters. The bushes were neatly trimmed and the flower beds edged. The wicker porch furniture gleamed. All the gardening and yard tools were put away in the toolshed. Everything was in its place. Robert’s house looked just like a Norman Rockwell painting. Robert insisted that one day he would burn it to the ground.
But Nest spared little thought for the Heppler house today, Pick’s words and looks weighing heavily on her mind. She had seen Pick worried before, but never like this. She tried not to dwell on how sick the big oak looked, the rugged bark of its trunk split apart and oozing, its roots exposed in the dry, cracked earth, but the image was vivid and gritty in her mind. She raced up the Heppler drive, her shoes churning up the gravel in puffs of dust that hung suspended in the summer heat. Robert’s parents would be at work, both of them employed at Allied Industrial, but Robert should be home.
She jumped onto the neatly swept porch, trailing dust and gravel in her wake, rang the doorbell with no perceptible effect, and then banged on the screen impatiently. “Robert!”
She knew he was there; the front door was open to the screen. She heard him finally, a rapid thudding of footsteps on the stairs as he dashed down from his room.
“All right already, I’m coming!” His blond head bobbed into view through the screen. He was wearing a T-shirt that said Microsoft Rules and a pair of jeans. He saw Nest. “What are you doing, banging on the door like that? You think I’m deaf or something?”
“Open the door, Robert!”
He moved to unfasten the lock. “This better be important. I’m right in the middle of downloading a fractal coding system it took me weeks to find on the Net. I just left it sitting there, unprotected. If I lose it, so help me …” His fingers fumbled with the catch. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going swimming with Cass and Brianna. Matter of fact, I think they’re waiting for you. Didn’t Cass call you at your house? What am I, some sort of messenger service? Why does everything always depend on … Hey!”
She had the screen door open now, and she dragged him outside by his arm. “I need a bag of compost and a bag of softener salt.”
He jerked his arm free irritably. “What?”
“Compost and softener salt!”
“What are you talking about? What do you want with those?”
“Do you have them? Can we go look? This is important!”
Robert shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Everything is important to you. That’s your problem. Chill out. Be cool. It’s summer, in case you hadn’t noticed, so you don’t have to …”
Nest reached out and took hold of his ears. Her grip was strong and Robert gasped. “Look, Robert, I don’t have time for this! I need a bag of compost and a bag of softener salt! Don’t make me say it again!”
“All right, all right!” Robert was twisting wildly from the neck down, trying not to move his head or put further pressure on his pinioned ears. His narrow face scrunched up with pain. “Leggo!”
Nest released him and stepped back. “This is important, Robert,” she repeated carefully.
Robert rubbed at his injured ears and gave her a rueful look. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I’m sorry. But you have a way of bringing out the worst in me.”
“You’re weird, Nest, you know that?”
“I need some pitch, too.”
Robert gave her a look. “How about a partridge in a pear tree while we’re at it?”
“Robert.”
Robert stepped back guardedly. “Okay, let me go take a look out in the toolshed. I think there’s a couple bags of compost stored there. And there’s some salt for the conditioner in the basement. Jeez.”
They trotted out to the storage shed and found the compost, then returned to the house and went down into the basement, where they found the softener salt. The bags weighed fifty pounds, and it took both of them to haul each one out to the front porch. They were sweating freely when they finished, and Robert was still griping about his ears.
They dropped the compost on top of the softener salt, and Robert kicked at the bags angrily. “You better not grab me like that again, Nest. If you weren’t a girl, I’d have decked you.”
“Do you have any pitch, Robert?”
Robert put his hands on his narrow hips and glared at her. “What do you think this is, a general store? My dad counts all this stuff, you know. Maybe not the salt, since that doesn’t have anything to do with his precious yard, but the compost for sure. What am I supposed to tell him when he asks me why he’s missing a bag?”
“Tell him I borrowed it and I’ll replace it.” Nest glanced anxiously towards the park. “How about the pitch?”
Robert threw up his hands. “Pitch? What’s that for? You mean like for patching roads? Tar? You want tar? Where am I supposed to find that?”
“No, Robert, not tar. Pitch, the kind you use to patch trees.”
“Is that what we’re doing here? Patching up trees?” Robert looked incredulous. “Are you nuts?”
“Do you have a wagon?” she asked. “You know, an old one from when you were little?”
“No, but I think it might be a good idea to call one for you! You know, the padded kind?” Robert was apoplectic. “Look, I found the compost and the salt, and that’s all I …”
“Maybe Cass has one,” Nest interrupted. “I’ll call her. You go back out to the shed and look for the pitch.”
Without waiting for his response, she darted into the house and through the hall and living room to the kitchen phone, the screen door ban
ging shut behind her. She felt trapped. It was hard knowing what she did of the park and of its creatures and their magic and never being able to speak of it to her friends. But what if they knew? What would happen if the maentwrog were to break free of its prison? Something that terrible would be too obvious to miss, wouldn’t it? Not like the feeders or Pick or even Wraith. What would that do to the barrier of secrecy that separated the human and forest-creature worlds?
She dialed the phone, chewing nervously on her lower lip. This was all taking too much time. Cass picked up on the second ring. Nest told her friend what she needed, and Cass said she would be right down. Good old Cass, Nest thought as she hung up the phone. No questions, no arguments—just do it.
She went back outside and sat on the porch waiting for Robert. He reappeared a few moments later with a bucket of something labeled Tree Seal that he said he thought would do the trick. He’d found an old stirring stick and a worn brush to apply the contents. He dumped them on the ground and sat down beside her on the steps. Neither of them said anything, staring out into the shaded yard and the heat. Somewhere down the way, off toward Woodlawn, they could hear the music of an ice-cream truck.
“You know, I would have been all right yesterday,” Robert said finally, his voice stubborn. “I’m not afraid of Danny Abbott. I’m not afraid to fight him.” He scuffed at the porch step with his shoe. “But thanks, anyway, for doing whatever it was you did.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she told him.
“Yeah, sure.” Robert smirked.
“Well, I didn’t.”
“I was there, Nest. Remember?”
“He tripped over himself.” She smoothed the skin on her knees with the palms of her hands, looking down at her feet. “I didn’t touch him. You saw.”
Robert didn’t say anything. He hunched forward and buried his face in his knees. “All I know is I’d rather have you for a friend than an enemy.” He peeked up at her and rubbed his reddened ears gingerly. “So we’re off to patch up a tree, are we? Jeez. What a treat. Good thing I like you, Nest.”
A few minutes later Cass arrived with Brianna, pulling a small, red metal wagon. They loaded the softener salt, compost, and bucket of Tree Seal into the bed and headed back down the drive, Nest and Robert pulling the wagon, Cass and Brianna helping to balance its load. They followed the road out to Spring, then turned down Spring until they reached Mrs. Eberhardt’s blacktop drive, which ran back through her lot to her garage at the edge of the park. They were halfway down the drive when Alice Eberhardt appeared, yelling at them for trespassing on private property. This was nothing new. Mrs. Eberhardt yelled at every kid who cut through her yard, and there were a lot of them. Robert said it was Mrs. Eberhardt’s fault for providing them with a shortcut in the first place. He assured her now, giving her his “don’t mess with me” look, that this was an emergency, so the law was on their side. Mrs. Eberhardt, who was a retired insurance adjuster and convinced that all kids were looking to get into trouble, but especially the ones in her yard, shouted back that she knew who Robert was and she was going to speak to his parents. Robert said she should call the house before seven, because his father was still doing nights in jail until the end of the month and his mother would probably go off to visit him after dinner.
They reached the end of the driveway, detoured around the garage to the back of the lot, and set off into the park. The woods began immediately, so they moved to the nearest trail and followed it in.
“You are really asking for it, Robert,” Brianna observed, but there was a hint of admiration in her voice.
“Hey, this is how I look at it.” Robert cocked his head, a savvy bantam rooster. “Each day is a new chance to get into trouble. I don’t ever pass up those kinds of chances. You know why? Because even when I don’t go out of the house, I get into trouble. Don’t ask me why. It’s a gift. So what’s the difference if I get into trouble at Mrs. Eberhardt’s or at home? It’s all relative.” He gave Brianna a smirk. “Besides, getting into trouble is fun. You should try it sometime.”
They worked their way deeper into the woods, the heat and the silence growing. The sounds of the neighborhood faded. Gnats flew at them in clouds.
“Yuck.” Brianna grimaced.
“Just a little additional protein for your diet,” Robert cracked, licking at the air with his tongue.
“What are we doing out here?” Cass asked Nest, plodding along dutifully, one hand balancing the sacks of salt and compost in the swaying wagon.
Nest spit out a bug. “There’s a big oak that’s not looking too good. I’m going to see what I can do to help it.”
“With salt and compost?” Robert was incredulous. “Tree Seal, I can see. But salt and compost? Anyway, why are you doing this? Don’t they have people who work for the parks who are supposed to patch up sick trees?”
The trail narrowed and the ground roughened. The wagon began to bounce and creak. Nest steered around a large hole. “I tried getting hold of someone, but they’re all off for the Fourth of July weekend,” she improvised.
“But how do you know what to do?” Cass pressed, looking doubtful as well.
“Yeah, have you nursed other sick trees back to health?” Robert asked with his trademark smirk.
“I watched Grandpa once. He showed me.” Nest shrugged dismissively and pushed on.
Fortunately, no one asked her for details. They worked their way along the trail through the weeds and scrub, swatting at bugs and brushing aside nettles, hot and miserable in the damp heat. Nest began to feel guilty for forcing her friends to come. She could probably handle this alone, now that she had the wagon and the supplies. Robert could go back to his computer and Cass and Brianna could go swimming. Besides, what would she do about Pick?
“You don’t have to come any farther,” she said finally, glancing over her shoulder at them, tugging on the wagon handle. “You can head back. I can manage.”
“Forget it!” Robert snapped. “I want to see this sick tree.”
Cass nodded in agreement. “Me, too. Anyway, this is more fun than doing hair.” She gave Brianna a wry glance.
“Is it much farther?” Brianna asked, stepping gingerly around a huge thistle.
Five minutes later, they reached their destination. They pulled the wagon into the clearing and stood looking at the tree in awe. Nest wasn’t sure if any of them had ever seen it before. She hadn’t brought them herself, so maybe they hadn’t. Whatever the case, she was certain from the looks on their faces that they would never forget it.
“Wow,” whispered Robert. Uncharacteristically, he was otherwise at a loss for words.
“That is the biggest oak tree I have ever seen,” Cass said, gazing up into its darkened branches. “The biggest.”
“You know what?” Robert said. “When they made that tree, they threw away the mold.”
“Mother Nature, you mean,” Cass said.
“God,” Brianna said.
“Whoever,” Robert said.
Nest was already moving away from them, ostensibly to take a closer look at the oak, but really to find Pick. There was no sign of him anywhere.
“Look at the way the bark is split,” said Cass. “Nest was right. This tree is really sick.”
“Something bad has gotten inside of it,” Brianna declared, taking a tentative step forward. “See that stuff oozing out of the sores?”
“Maybe it’s only sap,” said Robert.
“Maybe pigs fly at night.” Cass gave him a look.
Nest rounded the tree on its far side, listening to the silence, to the murmur of her friends’ voices, to the rustle of the feeders lurking in the shadows back where they couldn’t be seen. She glanced left and right, seeing the feeders, but not Pick. Irritation shifted to concern. What if something had happened to him? She glanced at the tree, afraid suddenly that the damage was more extensive than they had believed, that somehow the creature trapped within was already loose. Heat and fear closed about her.
??
?Hey, Nest!” Robert called out. “What are we supposed to do, now that we’re here?”
She was searching for an answer when Pick dropped from the tree’s branches onto her shoulder, causing her to start in spite of herself. “Pick!” she gasped, exhaling sharply.
“Took you long enough,” he huffed, ignoring her. “Now listen up, and I’ll tell you what to do.”
He gave Nest a quick explanation, then disappeared again. Nest walked back around the tree, gathered her friends together, and told them what was needed. For the next half hour they worked to carry out her instructions. Robert was given the Tree Seal to apply to the splits in the trunk, and he used the stirring stick and brush to slap the pitchlike material into place in thick gobs. Cass and Brianna spread the compost over the exposed roots and cracks, dumping it in piles and raking it in with their hands. Nest took the conditioner salt and poured it on the ground in a thin line that encircled the tree some twenty-five feet out from its base. When Robert asked what she was doing, she told him she was using the salt to protect the tree from a particularly deadly form of wood bore that was causing the sickness. The pitch would heal the sores, the compost would feed the roots, and the salt would keep other wood bores from finding their way back to the tree. It wasn’t true, of course, but it sounded good.
When they were done, they stood together for a time surveying their handiwork. Robert gave his theory on tree bores, some wild concoction he said he had picked up on the Internet, and Brianna gave her theory on Robert. Then Cass allowed as how standing there looking at the tree was like watching grass grow, Brianna complained about being hot and thirsty, and Robert remembered the program he was downloading on his computer. It was not yet midafternoon, so there was still time to go swimming. But Nest told them she was tired and thought she would go home instead. Robert snorted derisively and called her a wimp and Cass and Brianna suggested they could just hang out. But Nest persisted, needing to be alone with Pick, distracted by thoughts of the maentwrog and tonight’s meeting with Two Bears. The lie felt awkward, and she added to her discomfort by saying that Gran had asked her to do some additional chores around the house. She promised to meet them the following day in the park by the Indian mounds after church services and lunch.