Corrie

Celao wrung his hands together, looking around nervously. Edie took a half-step closer to him. She didn’t particularly want to be close to him—even under a human glamour he seemed slimy—but he looked like he was trying to escape, and she wanted him to know that wasn’t going to happen. “Don’t take me back there,” he said.

“Oh, is that what you want now?” said Ever. She didn’t really sound like she was asking a question. “You just grabbed my ankle so I would take you away with me, right?”

He grinned brightly. “Yes! That’s exactly it!”

Edie swallowed. “Um, we haven’t actually seen Leila. I thought you might have. She said she would help you out if she could.” What was going on here? Ever obviously thought that nothing was unusual with Leila, so why couldn’t they find her?

“Really?” Ever blinked in surprise. “I never heard anything about that.” She looked around nervously. The bushes beside her seemed to be shaking a little bit. “Let’s get out of here to talk, though. Leila’s tree should be fine.” She started moving, walking quickly away from the bushes.

Edie hoped it wouldn’t be too much of an adventure. But then, she didn’t really know what she was hoping for. She wanted to find Leila, but what possible conclusion could there be? Either something had happened to her or she’d taken the memory blocks off Edie on purpose, and either way, Edie had to get an explanation as to why she’d put them there in the first place. It was possible that someone else had somehow gotten in to her brain to place them, but that wouldn’t be a good ending, either.

The waiting seemed to stretch on. The woods were almost silent; there were very few birds and animals running around in the middle of December. Edie saw Corrie begin to move around, looking at the leaves on the ground and at the things growing around them, but even her footsteps were quiet. Edie stared at the tree until she thought she saw something move, but after a moment she realized it was actually her eyes watering slightly from holding them open for so long. She blinked the moisture away.

Finally she sighed. “Maybe she won’t come out with all of us looking at her. Or can’t.”

“But it has an aura like a person… or at least like a faerie,” said Dawn. “Wouldn’t that mean she has to be in there?”

“Maybe not,” said Corrie. “It’s a much more magical tree than anything else. It’s a faerie tree.”

“It’s almost as much a part of Leila as the part that moves around,” said Edie. “It’s not just a tree. It’s also her home and sometimes her body.”

“So it could just have picked up all the magical essence from being around her all the time?” asked Roe.

Edie didn’t really like doing trance anymore, after they’d discovered that the book she’d learned it from had actually been written by a faerie to give them bad information, but now she figured she had to do it. If there was anything unusual to see, she would be the second most likely person to see it—though she’d never looked at either Leila or her tree in trance before. She still knew Leila better than anyone else.

This time they didn’t get lost. It only took a few minutes to reach Leila’s tree, even with a few slight detours to get around tree trunks and underbrush. And Edie felt relieved when they came close and she began to recognize the plants around the tree. She might have gotten lost, but at least she hadn’t completely forgotten the area.

“Should we investigate the court faeries first?” Roe asked as they walked into the woods, Edie in the lead. “Maybe find Ever? She should be able to tell us something, even though she didn’t say anything about Leila in her note.”

Edie shook her head. “I don’t think we should talk to her until we have to. We don’t want to get her in trouble, after all, and there’s the alarm. We have to be careful not to set that off.”

“So where are we going?” asked Naomi.

“Leila’s tree, right?” Corrie asked.

A few hours after their meeting with Professor Lal, Edie, Corrie, and Dawn met their other friends for dinner. They gathered everyone together and explained as concisely as they could what had happened and what they wanted to do. Edie didn’t talk much. Her head didn’t really hurt anymore, but it was as though she could feel the ghost of the headache, or the remnants of the barriers in her mind.

“May I check for more memory blocks?” Professor Lal asks. “If you can tell they are there, perhaps I will be able to as well.” Dawn marveled that she actually sounded concerned.

“Yes,” said Edie. “Please. If there’s anything else…” She took a deep breath. “I want to know.”

Dawn gave her an encouraging nod. Obviously she didn’t like thinking about what might be hiding under there, but she knew it might be important. Professor Lal touched Edie’s head again, and Edie first tensed, then relaxed.

“Is there anything else?” Corrie asked anxiously.