Heart of the Forest
By Ian Creasey

ll day the forest grew quieter, until only the thunk and chip of iron axes echoed among the trees. Near the forest's edge, two manlike shapes watched the woodcutters at their grisly work. One of the hidden onlookers was the weathered brown of an old oak, his eyes the green of spring leaves. The woodwose felt the sting of each axe-blow like a gnawing frost that cracked roots to topple trees. But unlike ice, the humans attacked in all seasons.

No longer , he vowed. He had summoned wolves, more wolf-packs than ever hunted here before. As they arrived and settled in the undergrowth, the presence of so many predators subdued all the forest's creatures. No rabbits stirred; no birds sang.

In the unnatural hush, the woodcutters looked about nervously, taking turns to keep watch. Sunset stained the sky the colour of blood. The woodwose wanted to wait until they packed away their axes with tired arms, ready to head home. But his anger spilled over into the wolves, and a howl cut through the evening air.

The woodcutters ran toward a heap of broken branches. Their leader poured fire from a bottle, and a flaming barrier sprang up with unnatural speed.

The wolves burst from the forest, into the cleared ground where stumps protruded like a pox on the face of the earth. One fell, an arrow in its eye. Others staggered as stones and arrows grazed them. The men stood with the flames shielding their backs, their weapons poised.

Beside the woodwose, the dryad was pale as moonlight and sapling-slender. Thoughts passed between them as easily as squirrels leaping from tree to tree.

"They've grown used to these attacks," she said. "How long is it since they lost someone? How many wolves have we lost?"

"Should we send the bears?" asked the woodwose.

The dryad said, "If they can withstand wolves, they can withstand bears and all the rest. They are determined."

"So am I," said the woodwose. "This can't go on. Taking firewood is one thing, but they want the whole forest for farmland."

The wolves circled the men and their fire, probing for a weak point. One man picked up a burning branch and shied it at them. The wolves scattered, but at the woodwose's insistence, they returned to the siege. Another fell to an arrow. It was obvious that they had to attack straight away, or be picked off one by one.

"This is foolish," said the dryad.

The woodwose felt her restlessness. He felt the wolves' rage and fear, their unwillingness to attack armed men. He felt the death of all the trees cleared over the past days and years, like a wolf feeling phantom pain in a leg lost to a trap.

A concerted howl made the woodcutters brace themselves for an onslaught. Then the wolves melted away, slinking back to the forest, returning to their dens and dreams of deer.

"Let's try your way," said the woodwose.

*          *          *

In the morning the dryad again stood at the edge of the forest. She had often stood here, watching humans. They didn't spend all their time chopping down trees. She'd seen children playing in the fields, and heard music beyond the hedges, sweeter than birdsong. Twice she'd visited a nearby orchard, and looked in at farmhouse windows, fascinated by the busy lives inside.

Now she faced a more important journey. She stepped into the open, feeling the sun beat down upon her skin, but the woodwose called her back.

"How long do you think you would survive away from your tree?"

The dryad hadn't considered this. She took the tree as much for granted as a tree takes the sun and rain. "The village isn't so far away," she said.

"It's far enough. And you may have to go further. The human realm is like the forest: power lies at the centre."

"That's what I must find to stop them attacking us. Are you saying I can't go?"

The woodwose sighed; a gust of wind brushed the treetops. "I will have to drain some of the forest out of you. Not all, but enough to weaken your bond with the tree. Enough to leave you an empty husk, into which the humans can pour their language. You will need to talk to them, become one of them. But remember your mission!"

"How could I forget?" said the dryad. She pointed at the expanse of rotting stumps, some of whom had been her friends.

The woodwose touched her arm. Through him her awareness encompassed the whole wildwood, from mountain pines to mist-drenched willows bordering the marsh. In the dreaming heart, mighty trunks buttressed the sky and harvested dew from passing clouds. At the edge she sensed the woodcutters' butchery as a missing note in dawn's birdsong. Everywhere she felt the sun on uncounted leaves.

A shadow fell. She no longer foraged with wild boar deep within the wood. She could not feel the sap rising in nearby trees, or tiny births and deaths in numberless burrows between the forest's roots. Her perception retreated to her body. She was alone, unable even to sense the moss under her feet. The dryad had never felt so isolated. She clutched the woodwose, heedless of the splinters that flaked off his rough skin and pricked her hands.

He spoke, and she barely heard his thought rattle in her emptiness. "Go now. Remember!"

Dazed, she staggered out of the forest. The rising sun dazzled her eyes. She straightened and walked forward a few steps. For the first time, the forest did not pull her back. She didn't have to creep along woody hedgerows and slink into orchards, always keeping trees nearby. Instead the open landscape seemed to draw her into it. The vast horizon was disconcerting, yet exciting. She felt like a young frog emerging from the tadpole's pool, with a whole world to explore.

The dryad followed the path she had seen the woodcutters take, the dusty ground hard and warm under her bare feet. She heard cows, dogs, and other sounds she didn't recognise. She looked forward to learning what they all meant.

Stone houses clustered like fallen acorns, in a village smaller than she'd expected. The first inhabitant she met was an old grey cat, who gave her an incurious glance as he lazed in the sunshine.

She heard a startled cry. People came out of the houses to stare and jabber at her. The dryad opened her mouth, wanting to respond, but no words came. The villagers only gabbled louder at this. Some came close and grabbed her, poked her. She smelled their pungent male sweat. The dryad shrank back, feeling like a hind surrounded by wolves.

A tall grey-haired woman approached, her voice cutting through the commotion. She pushed the men back and wrapped a long blue cloth around the dryad's body. Then she led the dryad down the street, down another, and into one of the houses.

Inside, a pleasant smell of grass and flowers came from small plants in pots of soil, from containers of all sizes, and through a far window. The dryad walked to the window and looked out upon a garden. Some of the plants she knew—garlic, raspberries, mint—but most she did not.

She turned at the sound of the woman's voice. Again she tried to reply, but could not. With a gesture the woman bade her wait. For some time she busied herself among her plants and other possessions, selecting and rejecting. The dryad looked on with curiosity, tugging at the rough cloth the woman had tied around her. The unfamiliar feel made her skin itch. But all the humans wore similar garments, so the dryad supposed she would get used to it. She was eager to fit in.

A man entered the room. He looked familiar, and the dryad tried to recall him. She hadn't seen him this morning. Yet everything before today was dim in her mind. She delved in her memory, and found the forest, the trees being cut down.

He was one of the woodcutters. The dryad cried out, a harsh noise like cracking wood. The humans turned to her, breaking off their conversation. The woman smiled encouragingly. She spoke, but the dryad still could not reply.

The woman looked at the man, who nodded and opened his mouth. She took a large green leaf — of a kind unfamiliar to the dryad — and pressed it on his tongue. After a few moments she removed it and placed it in water. She added several other ingredients, crushing them and stirring the mixture, humming to herself. The water darkened to a murky brown. She sniffed it, then gave it to the dryad.

The dryad took the pot, delighting in its smooth texture. The woman mimed, Drink . So she did. Although the liquid had no particular taste, it set her tongue twitching.

The woman said, "Can you understand me?"

"Yes," replied the dryad, marveling at the transformation of the woman's jabber, now as clear as the honking of geese.

"I have lent you Gib's speech." She gestured to the man, who stood mute, plainly not understanding what they said. "It's only temporary, mind you. He'll want it back. My name is Alda — what's yours?"

There were no names in the forest. The dryad shook her head helplessly. "I have none."

Alda frowned. "Where are you from?"

The dryad could not reveal her origin. Humans were the forest's enemy: a woodcutter stood in the room with her. "I don't know," she said.

"What do you remember?" asked Alda.

"Nothing before you found me," said the dryad, almost truthfully. The forest was a dream, fading in daylight.

"Do you have anywhere to go, anyone looking for you?"

"Not that I know of."

Alda sighed. "Then you'll have to stay here, for a while at least. I'll put the word out—someone must know something about you. Till then, I'll look after you." She smiled. "But now, unless there's anything else you want to say, Gib needs his speech back."

She brought out another leaf. The dryad opened her mouth and surrendered her borrowed words.

*          *          *

As the seasons turned, the woodwose felt the villagers cutting further into the forest, pushing the edge back and back. He was used to the death of trees in the occasional gale, but the human storm raged every day. There was no regeneration. The men took away the timber and slashed the undergrowth. Then they brought horses to help remove the stumps from the ground, tearing up the stubborn roots and exposing the dark soil. As the roots disappeared, so did the forest's awareness. The woodwose could only watch from afar as children walked the new ground, picking up all the stones and piling them into boundary markers. Later the earth had its first taste of the plough, and he didn't even feel it. The land was lost, wrenched from the forest's domain.

The woodwose, attuned to slow rhythms of growth and decay, found impatience a new experience. He longed for the dryad to halt the clearances. How had she fared? He only knew that her tree flourished, so she still lived. Had she met difficulties? Since she'd entered the human realm, the villagers continued to hack and burn, and more hunters kept arriving in the wood.

Today's hunting party had come from far away. He saw their strange furs, and mounts finer than the village plough horses. Unlike the villagers, these men didn't keep to the edge of the wood. The woodwose summoned a white stag to tempt them further in, and enjoyed foiling every attempt to take it.

Late in the afternoon, the humans gave up and started back. The woodwose disoriented them by changing the lie of the land, a power he had in the depths of the wood. He made the ground treacherous under their feet, the undergrowth thick and tangling. He summoned phantasms to loom in the dusk, monstrous horrors with too many mouths and too many teeth. Huge spiders spun clammy webs across the way. Branches fell upon the hunters turned hunted. The scared humans fled as fast as they could, and the woodwose's powers diminished as they neared the forest edge. He strove to split the party, shifting the terrain to let most get ahead while keeping the stragglers back.

He had kept his target among the rearmost. Now he struck. The ground gave way under the horse and the human spun off, landing awkwardly. The others didn't notice. Their way cleared and they raced onward, leaving their fellow behind. The woodwose let them go. He had his man. Although he knew little of humans, he could spot the pack leader.

The man groaned in pain, clutching his leg. He yelled, but rustling branches drowned out his cries for help, and his companions had hastened away in panic. He sank down onto the leaf-covered forest floor.

Any of the forest's larger predators could finish him off. The woodwose was tempted, but he had a better plan. He would send a messenger to the dryad to remind her of her task. And if she couldn't find the human leaders — why, one of them lay right here.

The woodwose sent the man another phantasm, a pale vision of beauty crowned with flowers, who pressed him down into sleep.

*          *          *

It was a grey blustery day in the marsh, where the land was too wet to grow crops and too dry to catch fish. After a bright start, the air had filled with a fine drizzle, and the wind blew harder than the bellows in the smith's forge.

She was cold and damp, and her back ached from bending to collect herbs. Every plant had a use. Even the ones she didn't recognise, she put in her basket, confident that Alda would know them or discover what they were good for. Plant names filled her head: starflower, woundwort, marshweed, blue light. She had never known so many words. Now she had a word for herself: Linnet. This was also the name of a bird, which had confused her at first, though Alda taught her that a word could mean many things, just as a herb could have many virtues.

In the desolate marsh, Linnet felt her solitude more keenly than the biting wind. She craved company. She wanted to listen to people, to understand them, to forge a bond with everyone she met. She wanted to go home to find talk and laughter. Linnet checked her basket. It was only half full, but the weather was bad enough to excuse returning. Indeed, Alda would probably scold her for staying out so long in the wet. Linnet was proud that she could anticipate this. She plucked a final kingcup, then set off back to the village.

As she passed a field that had once been woodland, she saw a movement by the hedgerow. Something approached, something four-legged with pointed ears and teeth.

"Wolf!" There was no-one nearby to hear her shout. She dropped the basket and reached for her knife.

The wolf halted at the sight of steel. Linnet was surprised to see that it held a twig in its jaws. An oak-leaf dangled incongruously from the side of the wolf's mouth. It dropped the twig and lay down like an obedient dog.

What was it doing? Linnet remembered Gib's tales of the forest's tricks. Gib had himself been attacked by wolves, and today he'd joined a search party looking for someone who had gone hunting and not come back.

Linnet backed away, but the wolf got up again and paced her, keeping close. The wolf's gaze beat at her like the fierce wind. What did it want? It had no words to tell her, or she had too many to hear it. Yet she felt a connection. She wanted to approach the wolf, to look deep into its eyes.

She yelled and waved the knife, as if steel could break the spell. The wolf wouldn't lure her into its jaws. She picked up a handful of earth and threw it at the wolf, then followed that with another, and another.

The wolf turned and loped off toward the forest. Linnet watched until she could no longer see it. Then, moved by a sudden impulse, she looked for the twig that the wolf had left. When she picked it up, a vague image appeared in her mind of falling trees and a man lying in leaves. She shivered and dropped the twig into her basket. When she got back she would ask Alda about the strange encounter.

Linnet headed home, only to find the house empty. She searched the shelves for an infusion to calm her down. Later, Alda returned from a birthing, but there was no sign of Gib. Linnet decided not to tell Alda about the wolf just yet: it would only add to her worry. She busied herself with making rabbit soup, adding leeks, parsnips, rosemary and ginger. The well-stocked garden made the tastiest food in the village.

Night drew in, and the smell of soup filled the house. Alda sewed, while Linnet watched and imitated her on practice scraps. She was keen to learn everything she could.

At last Gib returned, tired and hungry. "I'd have been back hours ago if I'd had my way," he said as they sat down to eat. "But the fancy folk insisted we keep searching while there was still light to look by. So we ended up coming home in the dark." He shivered. "The wood's changed since I grew up."

Alda touched his hand, and said, "Are you going back tomorrow?"

"Have to, love. He's royalty. We have to find him, or the body, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much work doesn't get done. They say he heard about all the wolves and the bears, and came for the hunting. Well, something's hunted him all right."

Linnet said, "He's not dead." Then she wondered why she was so sure. They turned to her, and she shrugged. "Just a feeling."

Alda said, "If they would give me something of his, I'd make a charm to lead them to him."

"They fear what else you might do with it," said Gib. "Princes can't be at the mercy of —"

Linnet thought he nearly said witches. Alda was a healer, but there were other words for that. Linnet wondered what the city folk feared. "What can alchemy do?" she asked.

"Too much," said Alda. "And now it's time we all got some sleep."

Before she went to bed, Linnet slipped the twig into the pocket of Gib's brown cloak. It might be a charm, she thought, though nothing happened when she touched it in Alda's house.

Later she dreamed of the wolf, of living in green shadows where she never spoke. In another dream, people surrounded her and she kept trying to tell them something. At first they couldn't hear her, and when they finally paid attention, the words had leaked out of her mouth and she couldn't speak. The crowd all carried bright shining knives.

She woke in sunlight with the knowledge that she had to do something. Yet, when she sat down to breakfast, she couldn't remember what it was. It had been banished by the smell of herbs, by Alda singing as she baked bread, by the fat old cat rubbing against her leg.

All morning, Linnet was so restless that eventually Alda sent her to work in the garden, where she dutifully plucked out weeds and hacked back over-vigorous plants. At midday, she spotted a group of people approaching, carrying someone on a litter. She rushed inside to tell Alda to expect a patient.

"They scorned my offer to find him, and now they want me to heal him?" Alda sighed, and began sorting through her jars.

When the party arrived, Alda took one look at the prince and put him to bed. The courtiers crowded round. "Will he be all right?" "What can you do for him?" "When will he recover?" "We need to go back tomorrow." "We should have gone yesterday."

"Tomorrow? He's not going home for a week at least."

The local baron, who had hosted the hunting party, offered to take the prince back to his manor.

Alda said, "He's not fit to go anywhere just yet. Give him a few days to throw off the fever."

"Then take good care of him, for your health depends on his," said the baron. Linnet thought he looked threatening, until his face softened into concern. "If he needs anything, send for it."

"There is one thing," said Alda. "They say the king never carries money. Does that extend to Prince Everild? To his nobles?"

The baron gave her a sour smile and a small purse of silver.

Alda applied unguent to Everild's bad leg, and prepared remedies for reducing fever and soothing pain. Yet, though he might be a prince, he wasn't the only sick person in the neighbourhood. While Alda went off on her rounds, Linnet attended the royal patient.

She brought him water, tended to his needs, and listened while he raved. For the first day and night, he imagined himself still in the forest. He cursed his horse for throwing him, then begged forgiveness. "The spirits in that forest would spook anyone. Leave off!" He flailed at imaginary phantoms, then tried to get out of bed, as if to crawl out of the wood. Linnet tucked him back in. On the second day, he saw the room better, and didn't struggle out of bed, though he had a hard time distinguishing her from remembered forest spirits. The next day, when he thanked her for bringing him some soup, she knew he neared recovery.

"Who are you?" asked the prince. "You remind me—" He broke off.

"They call me Linnet," she said.

"But where did you fly from? Are you the healer's daughter?"

Linnet shook her head. "Alda has been very kind. She took me in, but no-one knows who I am." She sensed that Everild was bored, bedridden in a small village away from all his friends and courtiers, so she told him of meeting Alda, of learning to speak, of getting to know the villagers, even of the twig-carrying wolf.

"This is a strange place," Everild said. "The forest is old.... Did I tell you that when the wind lashed the leaves, it sounded like a storm at sea?" He had, but it meant nothing to her. "It takes two thousand trees to build a frigate. I'll send my shipwrights to check the timber, and mark some for felling."

"You'll use the local woodcutters?" asked Linnet, not wanting Gib to lose work.

"Oh yes. I wonder if they can float the logs to Pellon?" he said, and fell asleep.

Later, as his fever receded, the prince passed the time by telling her about life in the palace. By day he learned the rule of the kingdom, and evenings brought dances, concerts, plays. She hardly knew what any of these were, and hungrily soaked up the snippets he told her.

"You know, there's lots of people in Pellon," said Everild. "It strikes me that someone there might know who you are."

Linnet had been longing to suggest this. She felt a deep desire to go to the city, to befriend its people and become close to the prince — as if the village had only been a rehearsal, and now she stepped onto the stage.

*          *          *

More trees fell, and the cleared land wasn't even ploughed. The logs went into the river, disappearing downstream. The woodwose could see why the villagers claimed farmland, but this new assault baffled and enraged him. It appeared that the humans — formerly an irritation, one the forest could endure as it had fires and drought and creeping ice — were now bent on annihilation.

The dryad had done nothing to save her home. What had gone wrong?

The woodwose delved deep into the forest's heart, calling its power forth. Some way into the wood, ivy and creepers shrouded an oak tree. One of the creepers began to grow, snaking along the ground until it reached the edge of the trees. Under the woodwose's impetus, the creeper poked out into a new field — part of the forest only last year — and seemed to sniff the air. It slowly grew across the furrows, picking up speed as it became more confident of the dryad's direction.

When the creeper had stretched past the village, it rooted itself into the soil. For several days it rested and replenished itself from the sun, the rain and the earth. Then it began growing again. Eventually the creeper reached the wall of a city, where it stopped and rooted outside the stone warrens. Next day, the woodwose sprouted forth, holding an acorn.

The smell! Woodsmoke and uncomposted excrement vied to disgust him. Many other stinks drifted from the city, most unfamiliar and none wholesome. The woodwose looked at the great hive the humans had built. The dryad lay in the heart of their domain. Perhaps the plan proceeded — or perhaps it needed help.

He concentrated on the creeper's umbilical link to the forest, summoning the strength of bears, the sharpness of thorns. His head filled with birdsong, red toadstools, the slow wisdom of the ancient wood. When he stepped into the city, all that would began to fade.

He was glad of an excuse to delay. His shape was almost human, if a little too gnarly, but he couldn't go naked. He waited until a cart-load of garments came out of the city gate, then caused a nearby bush to grow shining golden fruit. When the driver ran to investigate, the woodwose slipped unnoticed to the cart and stole some clothes.

The woodwose dressed himself, and straight away, felt the dead stuff weighing him down, blocking out the sun and wind. Stepping onto the city's cobbled streets, he felt cut off from the life-giving soil. He wanted to run back to the creeper, but he knew he'd have to learn to bear the emptiness. He just hoped his isolation wouldn't be for long. Indeed, it couldn't be. He could not long survive it.

The noise! Like a waterfall, everywhere. Like the yearly mating croaks of a myriad frogs, all the time. People bellowed as if in competition with their rattling, banging devices. The barrage of sound echoed off the stone streets and walls, and every turn led into a busier thoroughfare.

In his hand, the acorn twitched slightly. The dryad's link to her tree was weak — because it was so far away, or because she had little left of her forest nature? He had to reawaken her true loyalties, and get her to stop the incursions.

The woodwose followed the acorn's pull along streets that widened into avenues. He was surprised to see trees on either side. He had expected to find the humans living in a stone desert, barren of greenery save that on their dinner plates. The woodwose walked up to a birch and touched it, listening.

Nothing. The trees were tamed, caged in stone.

He walked on, sensing that he approached the dryad. Seeing a large building set in spacious grounds, he felt sure he had found her home. Guards stood by the outer wall, weaponed and armoured, aggressive as soldier ants. The woodwose kept his distance and waited till nightfall, trying to ignore the numbing effect of stony solitude. Silver lights like captured stars began sparkling all over the city. He kept to the few shadows, stealthy as a fox, while walking round the wall and noting the varying tug of the acorn.

The woodwose discarded his stolen clothes. He became a climbing vine, then grew up and over the wall. In the gardens beyond, the flowers and shrubs had a little life to them: nothing like the forest's vigour, but not totally subdued. Maybe the dryad had helped. Feeling a little more optimistic, he grew up the side of the palace.

The glass window was closed. He rotted the frame enough to let him slip through. Inside the room, he budded into his usual form and swayed on his feet. He'd used too much strength — he no longer had the whole forest to draw upon.

He saw dead wood everywhere: the bed, the chairs, the table, the cabinet, the wardrobes. Clean and sterile, it supported no fungi, insects, or nesting birds. The dryad, arrayed in blue and gold, regarded another similarly dressed figure. He realised that the other was her reflection, as if she looked into a pool mounted on a wall. She whirled round, drew breath to scream, then let it out slowly as recognition dawned in her eyes.

"How goes the mission?" he asked, his thought passing to her in the old fashion.

The dryad looked blank for a long, long moment. She sat down on the bed. "Oh yes, the mission," she said at last. She spoke in human words, but he understood her thoughts. "Not well, not well at all. It's difficult to carry out a mission when you can't remember what it is."

"How could you forget?" the woodwose cried.

"Now that you're here, you must already know how the human realm erodes you." She paused, until he nodded reluctantly. "And you removed much of my forest essence."

How he regretted that now! It seemed clear that he had taken too much. "That was why I sent the wolf, to recall your true nature. It didn't work, but it's not too late. I can still do it now." He walked from the window toward the bed, hand outstretched, holding the acorn.

The dryad leapt up. "Back!" she said. "Back or I call the guards."

He stopped, bewildered. "What's wrong? Why have you turned against me?"

"Didn't you ever think that I might like being human, being Linnet?"

"How could you like the enemy?"

She laughed. "Oh, quite easily. Let me show you." Linnet went to an adjoining room and came back with an armful of clothes as fine as her own, though different in style. "Put these on," she said. "I'll take you to the ball. It'll be fun — no-one will know who you are, and Everild will be jealous."

The woodwose thought it best to play along, and try to comprehend what had happened to the dryad. Humans only brought death and destruction. What could induce her to embrace them?

He dressed under her critical eye, and submitted to being washed, combed, and squirted with the smell of last season's flowers. They left her rooms and walked through the corridors of the palace, whose inhabitants nodded to Linnet while giving the woodwose curious sidelong glances.

They entered a crowded hall with a shiny wooden floor. Banners decorated the walls, streamers dangled from the ceiling, and wreaths framed the food and drink on tables round the edge. The crush of people stirred an instinctive panic that the woodwose tried to suppress. Odd sounds came from a dais at the far end, where several men manipulated devices. The noise sounded vaguely like birdsong, though he didn't want to imagine what birds might produce such blares and squeaks.

Linnet gestured to a servant, who returned a moment later with two glasses full of a pale liquid. "To excitement!" she said. At her prompting, the woodwose drank the fermented grapes.

She said, "You don't know what excitement is, do you? Plants don't get much of it. As for animals: mating and hunting, I suppose."

He was surprised at this. "Don't you remember rain-calling, creating new flowers, watching the wisps dance in the twilight?"

"No," she said. "It doesn't sound like much—"

The noise grew louder and more regular. People started moving around in pairs, and Linnet drew the woodwose close to her. "Feel the music: let it move your feet."

They danced. At first the woodwose let her lead, but he soon grew accustomed to the moves, which reminded him of the courtship rites of birds. He saw that the other dancers were indeed paired male to female. The music stirred his sap — he began to enjoy the thrill of moving as one, holding and being held. Yet the experience was not so novel. After all, every creature had a mating ritual.

After the third dance, they stopped to rest. A tall white-shirted man approached, carrying three coloured bottles on a tray.

"Would my lady care to partake?" he asked.

"Doran, you know I love to partake," said Linnet. "But are any of these fresh?"

"I've just brought this back from the sea," he said, pointing to the blue bottle. "Very few essences are fresher than that. Certainly not close to home."

He gazed at Linnet with a knowing half-smile. At her nod, he removed the bottle's mermaid-shaped stopper. On the end of the fishy tail clung a pale blue drop, which he shook into Linnet's drink. He repeated this for the woodwose, whom he gave a long, piercing stare. Then he moved on, and the woodwose felt the relief of a mouse dodging the owl's swoop.

The band began another tune, for which all the couples split and reformed into groups. The woodwose turned to Linnet. "Is this it?" he asked. "Is this all your excitement?"

Linnet frowned. "Of course not! This is just one evening. Tomorrow there's theatre, or poetry, or masquerade. The palace has all kinds of music and art. Then there's gardening, shopping, conversation—a million things. Every day something different, for the rest of your life. Don't you ever get bored in the forest, dear? Don't you ever long for something other than trees? Drink up! Haven't you ever wanted to see... the sea?"

She finished her drink and threw the glass over the side. The hall had vanished; they stood by the rail of a ship, anchored in a sunny bay fringed with golden sand. Musicians played from the bridge as dancers crowded the deck. Thunder boomed across the sky, and the sailors scurried to reef the canvas. The shore had gone: waves crashed over the deck with all the force of the open sea. Would the prince make it home after his long exile? The lookout cried warning of a looming vessel with a black flag and a steel prow. Pirates! The ship shuddered under the impact, and began listing. The waves swept them overboard, into sharks' waters, but they were borne up on a sea-monster's back and deposited on an island somewhere in the uncharted ocean. There they made huts and conversed with a thousand-year-old crab in the coral lagoon, who explained the principles of alchemy and foretold the end of nature. Rescued by passing merchants — blown off their course to the spice isles — they hunted whales and seals in the cold waters, but enormous blue-white icebergs threatened to stave in the hull, and so they turned south once again, into the floating islands, and passed messages and seaweed recipes between the hermits who lived there, one to each. They became entangled in a war between flying fish and diving birds, but the ship was ballasted with treasure now, and they decided to head for home. One warm autumn evening they found the familiar beach and followed the music to the palace, where the prince led the dance.

"Stay with us," said Linnet.

The woodwose still felt the briny clothes sticking to his adventure-scarred body. He could smell the sea — or only fish tidbits on the side-tables. The raucous seagulls became giggling duchesses, and the imprisoned sun hung from the ceiling on a chandelier. What had just happened? He sank into a nearby chair, more grateful for its solidity than repelled by the murdered wood.

Linnet said, "Do you really want to go back and spend the whole winter watching leaves rot? You can become human: you already have the shape. I'll get you a position at court. We'll have fun together — that was only the tiniest taste. We can go anywhere. We can be anyone. We can have anything."

The woodwose stepped to the nearest window and sent a silent signal, then turned back to Linnet. "Does that include asking the prince to protect our forest?"

She shrugged. "I could ask him, but it would be difficult. He's building a fleet. Then there's the farmers who need land, the saw-mills wanting timber, and so on."

"But the trees are disappearing! So many dryads have died — doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Do you protect the deer from the wolf, the slug from the hedgehog?" she asked.

"That's a natural cycle. And if all the deer were in danger, yes I would protect them."

"There are plenty of trees left. I've seen maps: you go all the way to the mountains and beyond."

"Humans live on the other side of the mountains, and everywhere else too."

"Then you must learn to deal with them."

"That's what I tried to do," said the woodwose bitterly, as the window-frame cracked behind him. "But it seems that all my creatures are killed or seduced. Have you no loyalty to your home? Aren't you worried what will happen when the farmers chop down your tree?"

Linnet looked him in the eye. "I wouldn't feel a thing."

The woodwose doubted that, but the proof would be too late. "So, having infiltrated the humans, you're not even going to try to stop them."

"That was a stupid plan."

"It was your plan." The woodwose remembered that the dryad had always liked watching humans. He should have guessed that living among them would feed her deep-rooted fascination, while the plan withered.

"It could never have worked. We didn't know humans well enough."

"You know them too well now," said the woodwose. The creeper writhed across the floor to his foot, connecting him to the heart of the forest. "But it's time you came home."

The woodwose grabbed her with the strength of tree roots splitting rock. He forced her mouth open, popped the acorn inside, and followed it with the wildwood.

*          *          *

Linnet waved frantically at Doran. Then the taste of the acorn overwhelmed her.

She saw the hall's wooden floor sprout into the forest it had once been. The dancers glided through the trees like wraiths, as if they could still hear the music. "Doran!" she called, without seeing him. She felt trapped; she tried to follow the dancers, but to her, the trees were solid. They moved to block her way if she didn't watch them to fix them in place. She began running through the wood, searching for the edge. A howl cut through the air. She ran faster, all direction lost, flight her only thought. Wolves howled behind her, around her. Soft, wet leaves yielded underfoot, slowing her down, reducing her to the crawl of nightmare. Her arms bled from a dozen scratches, and her mouth was choked with cobwebs. She couldn't breathe—she could go no further. There was no way out, and the grey wolves loomed.

Unwillingly, she stopped. She closed her eyes, raised her arms, and grew leaves. Her feet sank into the soil, gnarling and splitting. Hair became ivy, tangling round her trunk. Her thousand fingers reached into the sky. The wolves scattered, and she rested. She was home. She had a feeling that someone would miss her, but she couldn't remember who. No, she knew now: Everild was the enemy. He would come to chop her down. She should stop him, persuade him to leave the wildwood alone.

She felt alone.

A man approached, his white shirt stark against the wood's green and brown. She recognised the bottles he carried. Doran peered at the trees as if looking for something or someone. She tried to call him, but couldn't speak. There were no words in the forest, only centuries of silence.

He passed by, and she was desolate. Nothing ever happened here: no music, no laughter; nothing new, only old tree-trunks falling. In despair she sighed, and her leaves whispered sorrow to the breeze. Then she began whipping her branches against the wind. The white figure turned at the noise of creaking wood and rustling leaves. He looked up at her frantically waving boughs.

Doran came to her, and took steel from his pocket. He bored a hole in her trunk. Sap dribbled out, which he collected in a green bottle. It didn't hurt, not even when her bark began flaking away, revealing pale skin and a blue dress. As the bottle filled, the forest faded like phantoms at dawn. He plucked her last acorn for a stopper.

Linnet combed her hands through her hair, and watched the dancers in the hall whirling like cogs in a musical engine. She felt newly clear-headed, as if recovering from fever or a moment of dizziness. Too much drink, perhaps.

Doran steadied her with his arm. "Do you feel all right, my lady?"

She smiled at him. "Yes.... I felt faint for a moment, but I'm better now." Linnet felt wonderful. The music, the colours, the people—the prospect of a lifetime of all this — made her feel happier than she could say.

The alchemist was carrying a green bottle full of fresh sparkling essence. He carefully put it aside on a nearby table, then bent to pick up a withered stem of some vine or other.

"How did that get in here?" asked Linnet.

Doran dropped it next to the bottle and pointed at the window, whose frame hung crookedly. "A job for the carpenter. But work is for daytime; night is for pleasure. Shall we dance?"

The tune was lively, and their steps crushed the few dead leaves that had drifted onto the dancefloor.