A Taste of The Birthing Tree, Book VII by William Burt

THE BIRTHING TREE

BOOK VII in the “King of the Trees” series

By William D. Burt

© 2010 by William D. Burt. All rights reserved. Cover and text illustrations by Becky Miller.

Rights to all illustrations transferred to the author, William D. Burt, from Becky Miller, by assignment.

WinePress Publishing (PO Box 428, Enumclaw, WA 98022) functions only as book publisher. As such, the ultimate design, content, editorial accuracy, and views expressed or implied in this work are those of the author.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without the prior permission of the copyright holder, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Scripture references marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60615-043-6
ISBN 10: 1-60615-043-X


Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2010922018

 In memory of Gordon Patterson, husband, father and educator; servant of God, and friend to all. Earth has lost a worthy soul, and Heaven is the richer.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

(I John 4:18, NASB)

  

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PROLOGUE

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ever should I have challenged these mountains alone. I have come to loathe the barren rocks and shrill winds of this place I call, “the Mountains of the Moon.” Only the moon’s light tempers its rugged desolation.

Ifor’s trail has since grown cold. I fear I shall never catch him now, for he must have turned aside long before crossing the plains. He may do us much harm with the book he stole from Winona. My only hope is to find a way through these mountains to a land where neither sorcerer nor turncloak can easily reach us. Perhaps then my people can live their lives without the threat of slavery.

When the moon looms behind these jagged peaks like a grimacing gork’s face, the cursed yeggoroth come out to hunt. Their horrible screeches and howls echo madly from cold stone. So far, those bloodthirsty creatures have not heard or smelled me, but the higher I climb, the more exposed I am to the sky.

Two nights ago, I was certain the yegs had found my hiding place beneath an overhanging rock, such was the racket they raised. Instead, I witnessed a fierce aerial battle between a pack of batwolves and some winged beasts more wondrous than any animals I have yet encountered in these unexplored regions.

Silhouetted against the moon’s pocked face, these creatures of the griffin kind resemble lions with owls’ heads and wings. The ferocious beasts tore through the yowling yegs as easily as my sword cuts through the crusted snow that slows my steps.

Foolishly, I left my refuge for a better vantage point from which to observe the fray. Swooping down, a yeg struck me from behind, and I hit my head on a stone. When I awoke, I found an invisible, trebly hooked crook rolled up in my cloak beside me.

The events following my brush with the yeg are so fantastic I have never related them to another living soul. Perhaps my knock on the head inspired this tale, which I have written down on strips of papery birch bark. When I doubt my sanity, I reread those sheets of bark and touch the three-pronged staff, which led me to a king mightier and nobler than I. As the sorc Swiftwing instructed me, I am burying this wondrous crook to prevent the king’s enemies from stealing it. When the time is right, I will unearth the hooked staff and follow it to the king’s hidden treasure.

In the event, however, that I fall in battle or for some other reason am unable to restore the king’s prized possession to him, I charge you who are reading these words to take up the three-pronged crook and carry on in my place. If you fail, Lucambra may be lost beyond all hope of recovery. May Gaelathane bless your labors and speed your way to the Mountains of the Moon.

In the Tree’s service, Elgathel, King of Lucambra.

Chapter 1: The Hallowfast Besieged

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lang! Clang! Someone was ringing the Hallowfast’s new doorbell! Elwyn son of Rolin leapt out of bed and threw on his tunic and trousers against the early spring chill. Grabbing his lightstaff, he rushed out the door and down the winding staircase, joining several half-dressed Greencloaks.

“Make way for the rest of us, Opio!” shouted Emmer.

The stout Lucambrian obligingly flattened his bulk against the wall, allowing Elwyn and the other Greencloaks to squeeze by him. Breathing heavily, Opio followed them to the landing at the bottom of the stairs. The bell’s jangling grew even louder, as if some mischievous Lucambrian child were playing a prank.

“Who could be out and about at such an early hour?” Elwyn wondered aloud as he helped Gemmio unbar the massive door.

As soon as they opened it, a grim-faced Rolin pushed his way inside, followed by Windsong the griffin. The king’s long green cloak was smoking, and Windsong’s wing feathers were darkened with soot. A foul, acrid odor clung to the shivering pair.

Elwyn cautiously poked his head outside. He heard a thump, as of a heavy object falling to earth. For a second, the grass blades in front of the door blurred. Then they came back into focus.

Whipping out his lightstaff, Elwyn pointed it at the patch of grass. Yellow tongues of fire leapt forth to meet the staff’s light-beam. Even as the flames died, a petrified dragon appeared on the grass. Stinking smoke still curled from its gray, gaping jaws.

“Will we never be rid of these camouflaged creatures?” Elwyn muttered as he slammed and barred the door. “I can’t help wondering how they avoid crashing into one another.” Turning to his father, he said, “I petrified a cam-draig on the front step.”

“Good! You probably dispatched the same beast that was chasing Windsong and me,” Rolin remarked. “At this rate, we’ll be buried under dragon statuary.” Removing his singed cloak, he poked his finger through a ragged hole in the burnt fabric. “Drat that cam-draig,” he growled. “He spoiled my best cloak and nearly made breakfast of me and my mount in the bargain.”

“Why didn’t you use your lightstaff on him?” Elwyn asked.

“He was a smart one,” the king replied, rolling his cloak into a bundle. “He flew right above us, so close I could hear him breathing. If I had petrified him, he would have landed on us.”

“That draig must have been toying with you,” said Emmer. “If he had been hungry, he would have plucked you right out of the sky. A pox on that turncloak Larkin for opening Gundul! If it weren’t for him, those dragons never would have escaped in the first place. Now we can’t even go outside to fetch water.”

“I, for one, dislike being cooped up inside this stuffy old tower instead of hunting conies and squirrels,” Windsong said.

“I don’t blame you,” said Opio. “We are all growing restless. I don’t think I can face another dish of moldy vegetables. If only that cam-draig hadn’t spoiled the queen’s birthday banquet!”

“It’s a blessing nobody was inside the dining hall when the dragon stuck his snout through the window,” Gemmio said.

“Yes, but think of all the food he charred with his hot breath,” said Opio wistfully. “What a waste of good vittles.”

The pesky cam-draigs had held the royal family hostage in the Hallowfast all winter, and its occupants had “tower fever.” No one had yet devised a plan for outsmarting the wily dragons. Two weeks earlier, one of them had attached itself upside down to the Hallowfast’s outer wall with its head hanging just over the door. The creature’s chameleon-like skin mimicked the tower’s stonework so perfectly that nobody realized the dragon was there.

In the end, the cam-draig gave itself away with a fiery sneeze, and Sigarth handily dispatched it with his lightstaff. Even so, the petrified beast just missed him as it fell away from the tower.

Other draigs had taken to circling the Hallowfast on leathery wings, in hopes of nabbing an unwary two-legs hanging laundry out a window to dry. Marlis had nearly met her end that way.

“What were you two doing outside so early in the morning?” demanded the queen, who had just clattered down the stairs.

Rolin sighed. “I had hoped to catch the dragons sleeping. Instead, one nearly caught us unawares. It was all we could do to escape. We couldn’t get back into the tower through the sorcathel, because more draigs were guarding it. That left the door. Windsong and I had our hearts set on some nice, fat trout, too.”

“Bother the trout!” Marlis declared. “I’m just glad you and Windsong have arrived home safely, thanks be to Gaelathane. It’s a good thing we installed that alarm bell by the door, too.”

Throwing her arms around her husband, the queen made a wry face. “Phew!” she said. “You stink of dragon’s breath. Since we are short on bath water, I’m afraid you’ll have to scrub yourself with some mint leaves. Now, let’s all go upstairs and enjoy a leisurely breakfast. Our resourceful cook tells me that he has prepared something extra-specially tasty for us this morning.”

“More Turnip Surprise,” grumbled Opio. “I can hardly wait.”

However cleverly Cook prepared them, turnips were difficult to disguise. Elwyn couldn’t stomach another bite of those mushy, pasty-white tubers. Aptly named, the lowly roots seemed to “turn up” at every meal—even in the breakfast porridge.

Since the dining hall still reeked of dragon, the Lucambrians took their morning meal in a cozy room adjoining the kitchen. After the banquet disaster, this breakfast nook’s outer window—like all the others in the Hallowfast—had been walled up with stone and mortar, courtesy of Toefoot and his friends. Afterwards, the gnomes had gone off to delve tunnels in the mountains.

Elwyn glumly reflected that he and his family were leading a gnome’s sunless existence inside their gloomy, torch-lit tower. Outside, the sun could be shining in a clear sky for all anybody knew. The prince yearned for just one breath of fresh salt air.

He and his companions entered the room to find Bembor, Meghan, Mycena, Gwynneth, Timothy, Medwyn and Scanlon already seated at the table. Hunger had carved hollows in every face, yet the Tree’s light still shone in the Greencloaks’ eyes.

Elwyn was surprised and pleased to learn the breakfast menu did not feature turnips in any form—baked, boiled, fried or stewed. Instead, Cook had sweetened the drab oatmeal mush with the last of the honey in the musty pantry. There was even a pitcher of thin chestnut “milk” to pour over the porridge.

Balancing bowls, spoons and saucers in his arms, Cook flounced into the room. A cheery cherry-clanner, he maintained a reliably rotund figure, whether he ate turnips or cake. “Has anyone seen the key to the scullery?” he asked sheepishly as he set the table for thirteen. “I seem to have misplaced it again.”

No one had seen the key. As if the dragons weren’t bad enough, small items around the Hallowfast were vanishing with alarming regularity—especially keys. The king set clever traps to catch the culprits, but they had outfoxed him at every turn.

“We can’t blame Larkin this time,” Scanlon remarked.

“Despite what he did to us and to Lucambra, may Gaelathane have mercy on that wretch’s soul,” said Mycena fervently.

“Could the glynnies be at fault?” Timothy suggested.

Gwynneth shook her head. “I have never known them to steal,” she said. “Besides, they have become our dearest friends.”

After Bembor had asked Gaelathane’s blessing on the meal, everyone dug into the pot of mush. Elwyn kept a watchful eye on his two sisters, certain that at least one of them was plotting to launch an oatmeal war. If so, he wasn’t about to be the first casualty. His mop of red hair made an easy and tempting target.

When stomachs were pleasantly full, the conversation turned to the unpleasant topic of dragons. Everybody agreed that lightstaffs were useless against a foe that could so cunningly blend in with his surroundings. The draigs were most dangerously invisible on moonless nights, when their skin turned a coal black.

“They breed faster than we can petrify them,” Emmer lamented, waving his spoon. “They’re devouring all the game, too.”

“Then why do they kill animals such as squirrels and leave their carcasses uneaten?” said Elwyn. On one of his rare excursions outside the tower, he had come across a family of squirrels lying under a fir tree as if sleeping. However, they were quite dead. Except for a few tiny punctures, their bodies were unmarred.

“It’s us I’m worried about, not a bunch of squirrels,” Opio growled. “We’ve nearly run out of water, not to mention rations. Someone needs to replenish our provisions, and quickly, too.”

“Are you volunteering, Brother?” Gemmio dryly asked him.

“I would if I could,” said Opio with wounded indignation. “Unfortunately, I am hobbled with a severely sprained ankle.”

Rolin said, “You saw what happened to Windsong and me this morning on our fishing trip. We nearly became dragon bait. If we can’t forage in Lucambra, we should try a different world. So far, I haven’t seen any cam-draigs in our Thalmos spasels.”

“I’ll go!” Elwyn cried. He jumped at any opportunity to escape the Hallowfast, even if it meant doing battle with dragons. Besides, he had personal reasons for wishing to visit Thalmos.

His mother frowned. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to send the heir to Lucambra’s throne into certain peril,” she said.

“If someone doesn’t go soon, we’ll starve,” Elwyn argued, his face flaming to match his hair. “We can’t send the king, since he’s needed here. Besides, I’m the swiftest runner in our family.”

“I used to claim that distinction,” said Gwynneth ruefully.

“Please, Father?” Elwyn pleaded. “At my best speed, I can reach Broadleaf the Thalmos-torsil in two minutes. I’ll shine my lightstaff into his branches to petrify any cam-draigs hiding there.” Rather than flying after their prey, the slothful dragons preferred to perch in a tree and wait for supper to come to them.

“Very well,” said King Rolin with a sigh. “Perhaps while you make for Broadleaf, we can arrange a little diversion on the sorcathel to draw away any dragons lurking around the tower.”

“I suppose that would be a good plan,” Marlis conceded. “Just don’t dilly-dally, dear boy. And while you’re in Beechtown, don’t look down your nose at any eligible Lucambrian maidens that may cross your path. Many of our people have been staying in Thalmos until it’s safe to return to the Land of Light.”

Elwyn groaned. His mother sounded just like Aunt Glenna. “What if I decide to marry a Thalmosian girl?” he said archly.

Marlis scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal and pretended to flip it at him. “You may marry a naiad, for all I care. Just make sure she loves Gaelathane and doesn’t track water on my floors. As the heir apparent, you have the responsibility of preserving the royal line. Thus far, I haven’t seen you taking that obligation very seriously—unless you have been courting someone behind my back.” Her eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

The eyes of everyone at the table fastened on Elwyn. His face warmed, and he squirmed in his seat. “I’d rather hunt and fish and pick mushrooms,” he confessed. “Most girls are boring.”

His father firmly reminded him, “Nonetheless, you still must find a proper wife. You cannot allow the pursuit of personal pleasures to interfere with your princely duties. Please keep your mother and me informed of any likely prospects. And don’t forget to ask Gaelathane for His guidance in this crucial matter.”

“Yes, Father,” Elwyn meekly replied. “I can’t think of anyone suitable at the moment.” Inside, he was seething. He didn’t want to marry just any girl who batted her eyelashes at him. The life of a prince, he reflected, was not all pomp and tournaments.

“What about Kyleah?” Meghan innocently piped up.

Elwyn flinched. How had his sneaky sister known about the sugarmaster’s daughter? Had Meghan been spying on him?

Bembor winked at him, and Elwyn’s parents exchanged hopeful glances. “Kyleah?” they chorused. “Do you mean Kyleah of Mapleton, daughter of Larissa, Queen of all the Wood Folk?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Elwyn growled in as deep a voice as he could muster. He glared at Meghan. “Kyleah must be ten years younger than I. She’s just a child. Now, please stop playing matchmaker. I can find a girl my own age without any help.”

“I’d say you already found one,” Gwynneth said. “Otherwise, why have you been climbing so many Thalmos-torsils?”

Elwyn’s oatmeal spoon clattered into his bowl. Gwynneth’s guess was perilously close to the mark. Why couldn’t he have been blessed with like-minded brothers instead of nosy sisters?

“I’ve been hunting sponge mushrooms there,” Elwyn lamely answered. “Lucambra’s weather has been too dry for mushrooms to grow. Now stop pestering me with your silly questions!”

In truth, Lucambra had long been withering in the grip of a severe drought. Even summer thunderstorms were growing rare. When the sky flashed at night, it meant the cam-draigs were on the prowl, looking for prey. The dragons were always hungry.

Though he would rather die than admit it, Elwyn had been secretly keeping an eye on Kyleah. For the past three or four springs, he was always the first in his family to make passage—to the wooded hills above Mapleton. He was also the last to leave Thalmos during leaf-fall, at the risk of stranding himself there. Winter’s bitterest weather could not drive Kyleah from his mind.

Perched in a maple up the hill from Kyleah’s rebuilt cottage, Elwyn could watch her comings and goings at leisure. It would never do for him to drop by her house unannounced without some sort of plausible excuse—and he couldn’t think of one.

He also took care to return home with mushrooms.

Gwynneth saw right through him. “Sponge mushrooms grow under cottonwoods along the Foamwater,” she reminded him. “The velvet-stem mushrooms you’ve been bringing home grow on maple trees in the Tartellans.” She smiled sweetly in triumph.

Elwyn immediately saw the wisdom in changing the subject. “It’s a good thing we broke into Larkin’s home-tree last fall,” he said loudly. “Otherwise, we never would have recovered our stolen lightstaffs and Winona’s parchments. Have you learned anything new from those parchments, Great-Grandfather Bembor?”

Bembor chuckled. “Not as yet. Aside from trying out a few of the queen’s tasty mushroom recipes, I haven’t had time to examine her jottings further. Besides, these old eyes of mine don’t work so well under torch light. I need real sunlight to read by.”

“I’m sure the dragons would love to find you reading by a window,” Medwyn quipped, and everyone laughed. The breakfast party’s mood sobered as Lucambra’s high chancellor offered a prayer on Elwyn’s behalf for safe passage to Thalmos and back.

Afterwards, Marlis gave her son several of Gannon’s empty honey sacks, along with a shopping list and a fistful of gilders. “Now off you go!” she told him, playfully shoving him out the door. As he turned back to wish her and the other Lucambrians farewell, a spoonful of oatmeal caught him full in the face.

“A perfect shot, that was,” crowed Gwynneth, grinning at him. Then she retreated into the kitchen and slammed the door.

Offering his boyhood friend a helpless shrug, Timothy said, “Your sister does as she pleases, and it pleases her to plaster you with mush. I’ll see you to the door and bar it after you. I’d love to come along, but I’m supposed to help stage the diversion.”

After cleaning the oatmeal off his face, the prince took Timothy down the stairs to his room in order to retrieve his lightstaff. Next, they descended the stairway to the landing, where Timothy paused to remove a slender chain from around his neck.

“I want you to have my griffin-whistle on your trip,” he told the prince, and he handed Elwyn the silver whistle on its chain.

“Thank you!” said Elwyn, looping it over his neck.

Timothy unbarred the door, and Elwyn cracked it open. Smelling no sulfurous dragon’s breath, he slipped outside. The door boomed shut behind him, and its heavy bar thudded home.

A Taste of Kyleah's Mirrors, Book VI, by William Burt

KYLEAH’S MIRRORS

BOOK VI in the “King of the Trees” series

By William D. Burt

© 2007 by William D. Burt. All rights reserved.

Cover and Chapter Illustrations by Terri L. Lahr. Text Illustrations by Becky Miller.

Rights to all illustrations transferred to the author, William D. Burt, from Terri L. Lahr and Becky Miller, by assignment.

WinePress Publishing (PO Box 428, Enumclaw, WA 98022) functions only as book publisher. As such, the ultimate design, content, editorial accuracy, and views expressed or implied in this work are those of the author.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise—without the prior permission of the copyright holder, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Scripture references marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

ISBN 13: 978-1-57921-903-1
ISBN 10: 1-57921-903-9


Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007923043

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.”

(1 Corinthians 13:12, NASB)

 

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PROLOGUE

A

choo!” Having blown the dust off the dented metal box, the Finder sneezed. Didn’t these brutish Thalmosians ever tidy up their cellars? This one was crammed with all sorts of useless articles, from broken beehives to chunks of rotten wood. The musty space smelled of beeswax, wilted carrots and sprouting potatoes. A pile of those revolting, pasty tubers lay on the table where he had found the box. He shook it. Inside, a few paltry coins clinked. How anyone could have wallowed in such squalor and still sit upon Lucambra’s throne was an absolute outrage.

Licking his lips, the Finder leered to himself. While the half-breed and his witless wife were searching for their fickle eldest daughter in some backwoods torsil world, it was time to clean house in the Hallowfast. Climbing a rickety set of shelves, the Finder found some dusty parchments at the top. Replacing them with a suitable souvenir, he clumsily clambered down with the brittle sheets, his heart thundering in the cellar’s confines.

For years, he had been poking through the Hallowfast’s dark corners, looking for some long-lost weapon or talisman that would tip the balance of power in his favor. Ironically, the key to victory had finally turned up in despised Thalmos, not in Lucambra.

In his oft-repeated tale of finding the seventh soros, Gannon’s son had let drop that he had found something more than his grandmother’s box lying on the cellar shelves. Armed with that clue, the Finder had returned to Beechtown, where he discovered the priceless relics just where the half-breed had left them. The fool! Those yellowed parchments would yet prove his undoing.

Now the Finder lacked only Elgathel’s reforged sword. That revered symbol of royalty was missing from its hook on the back of Lucambra’s throne. No king could rightfully rule Lucambra without Elgathel’s legendary blade. Realizing the pretender must have taken the weapon with him, the Finder had flown into a destructive frenzy. After his wrath was spent, he vowed he would one day hang his cloak in the throne room, sword or no sword. Only Emmer and his mooning granddaughter stood in his way.

Clutching his trophies, the Finder climbed out of the cellar and dropped the trapdoor back into place. The cabin was silent. Gannon was conveniently visiting his busybody sister down in Beechtown. The Finder detested busybodies. When he became king, he would exile Lucambra’s gossips to some bleak world and let them bore one another to death. To prevent his own exile, he had taken the precaution of copying Rolin’s torsil maps, which marked the location of nearly every torsil in Western Lucambra.

The cabin’s door creaked as he cautiously opened and closed it. No two-legs, tree, bird or beast raised the alarm. Whistling tunelessly, he set off to climb the nearest Lucambra-torsil.

That night, the Finder sat perched on a stool in the cramped hollow of his oak tree. Looking forward to roomier quarters, he peered at the chart etched on the wall opposite him. At the top, the name “Elgathel” was carved in bold letters. At the bottom, his own name appeared. Let others clutter their homes with faded murals of the One Tree. His family tree held far greater promise.

By candlelight, he examined the parchments, and the blood roared in his ears. Though some of the staves were smudged or faded, he was sure the riddle spoke of him. Very soon, he would seize the crown, sword and throne of Lucambra, Land of Light.

Chapter 1: Kyleah’s Tears

U

seless! That’s all you are and that’s all you ever will be!” Kyleah’s face burned as she picked herself off the slick sugarhouse floor and hobbled out the beckoning door.

“And take this with you!” Kyleah instinctively ducked as a sap-bucket sailed over her head. Moments earlier, her makeshift wooden crutch had slipped on a film of water and had overturned the pail, spilling fresh, sticky maple sap across the floor. Unable to catch herself in time, she had landed heavily on cold stones.

Outside, Kyleah wept, her tears dimpling the new-fallen snow. No matter how hard she tried, she always seemed to get in the way. This March morning, her stepsister Gyrta was already in a foul temper since Barlomey, Kyleah’s brother, had used Gyrta’s best comb to smooth the tangles out of the horse’s tail. Knocking over the sap-bucket was all the excuse Gyrta needed to vent her wrath on Kyleah. The sugarhouse would be off limits the rest of the day, unless Kyleah wished to be thrashed with her crutch.

She trudged up the snowy slope toward her home. Behind her, fragrant steam billowed through the door and roof vents of the sugarhouse, as if the building were ablaze. Kyleah loved working inside the rambling old shed at this time of year, when gallons of maple sap frothed in the big copper cauldrons suspended over roaring fires. It was hard, hot work feeding the hungry flames, but Kyleah always looked forward to her favorite treat: a bowlful of fresh snow drenched with maple syrup straight out of the spigot.

“Maple snow” had been their father’s invention. As the sugarmaster, Branagan son of Carrigan was responsible for boiling down the maple sap to just the right consistency. If overcooked, the precious sap would crystallize, caramelize or even burn and have to be scraped out of the cauldrons; if undercooked, the syrup tasted bland and watery. Branagan’s batches always turned out just right. By all accounts, he was the finest sugarmaster Mapleton had ever seen, and Kyleah was proud to be his only daughter.

She wished he hadn’t saddled her with such a shrew of a step-mother. Dolora spent more time primping than disciplining her unruly daughters. At seventeen and fifteen, Gyrta and Garta took after their mean-spirited mother. They were taller and stronger than Kyleah, who was twelve. The two delighted in tormenting her behind Branagan’s back. Once, she had caught them smearing grease on her crutch. Telling on them only invited swift revenge.

Kyleah dashed away her tears with cold-stiffened fingers. If only her mother Larissa were still alive, life would be different! Maybe the accident might never have happened, and Einwen . . .

Whump! Something cold and crunchy struck Kyleah’s right ear, and she went deaf. “Barlomey!” she yelled, knocking the snow out of her ear. “You know you’re not supposed to throw—” She ducked as another icy snowball whizzed past the other ear.

Stooping, she scooped up a handful of snow and molded it into a ball. She would teach that boy a lesson! He was just nipping back through the sugarhouse door. Aiming at him, Kyleah let fly.

Unfortunately, Gyrta was right behind Barlomey. Smack! The snowball hit her full in the face. She shrieked and staggered back inside the sugarhouse. Losing her balance, Kyleah toppled into a snowdrift. Now she was in for it! Gyrta would never believe the snowball was meant for Barlomey, and she would not rest until Kyleah was black and blue. Kyleah wanted to sink into the drift and never come out again until the last snowflake had melted.

Sitting up, she spotted Gyrta emerging from the sugarhouse brandishing a long-handled stirring paddle. Murder and mayhem were written all over the blond girl’s proud, sharp-featured face, leaving no doubt as to what she intended to do with the paddle.

Sugarmen stirred their evaporating maple sap with wooden paddles to keep it from burning on the kettle bottoms. Applied to other bottoms, those paddles left spectacular bruises. Kyleah grabbed her crutch and struggled to free herself from the snowdrift’s clinging embrace. Then footsteps munched through the snow, and Barlomey’s mop of curly black hair swam into view.

“What are you doing down there?” he said, his brown eyes laughing. “Hurry up; you don’t want Gyrta to catch you!” He pulled his sister out of the snow and shoved the crutch under her arm. Then he brushed her off. At nine years, “Barley,” as he was known, enjoyed picking on his sisters, especially Kyleah. Still, she loved the rascally boy. He was her flesh and blood, after all.

“I’ll never outrun Gyrta!” she cried. “Can’t you toss some snowballs at her to slow her up? I promise I won’t tell Father about the maple-sugar bears you stole and hid under your bed.”

Barley’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing in my—?” Then he saw Gyrta plowing toward them through the snow. “Come on!” he yelled, and he began dragging Kyleah along, protesting.

Swish. As swiftly and smoothly as swans gliding on a lake, a sledge slid up with the jangle of harness bells. Perched on the driver’s seat, Branagan pulled back on the reins. “Whoa, Sally!” he called to the mare. Dark-haired and clean-shaven, the sugarmaster was a solid man with boulders for shoulders and forearms as thick as knotted barge-cables. Kyleah shrank back. Muffled in a thick ermine coat, Garta glared down at her from beside Branagan.

“How nice of you, dear little sister, to take my place collecting sap-buckets in the sugar bush,” Garta sneered. She stepped off the sleigh just in time to catch the fat snowball meant for Kyleah.

“Oooh!” Garta screamed at Gyrta. “You horrid little minx, I’ll get you for that!” Surging through the snow, she knocked down her sister. Blonde hair and white snow mingled as the two girls tumbled down the hill, kicking, punching and biting each other.

Barley’s freckled face broke into a self-satisfied smirk, as if he had orchestrated the brawl all by himself. Branagan clucked his tongue in mock outrage. “Tsk! Tsk! Such a fuss over a snowball!” he said, helping Kyleah into the sledge. She huddled on the seat beside her father, her teeth chattering. Usually, she wore light clothing when working in the hot, steamy sugarhouse. Now she was thankful for the woolen trousers and fur-lined boots she had pulled on that morning to ward off the lingering winter’s chill.

In truth, she didn’t mind the cold, so long as she could spend time with her father. Beneath his crusty gruffness shone a love as bright and genuine as a newly polished copper syrup cauldron.

“Shouldn’t you go down there and separate Gyrta and Garta before they hurt one another?” she asked him. “I’m afraid they’re going to blame their fight on Barley and me. It’s just not fair.”

He winked at her. “I’d rather separate a couple of quarreling polecats. I’ve learnt to let those two settle their differences by themselves. Remember, I have to live with their mother.”

Barley climbed up behind Kyleah and clung to the seat. Then Branagan flicked the reins. The empty buckets in back rattled as the sledge leapt forward, heading higher into the Tartellan hills.

“These will warm you up,” Branagan told Kyleah. He wrapped a fur-tipped cape around her shoulders and pulled a wool cap over her head. She thanked him as her shivering gradually subsided.

“Gyrta and Garta are always picking on me,” she confessed. “I wish I were strong and sure-footed enough to stand up to them.”

Branagan sighed. “Maybe one day you will be.”

A few snowflakes drifted down from a slate sky, but spring was already shrugging off its winter’s coat. The streams were thawing and running high with snowmelt. Warm breezes were wandering up from the valley of the Foamwater like flocks of wayward geese. Kyleah loved the promise of spring, when all nature awoke from its hibernation and stretched itself, bearlike. First, the fuzzy pussy willows burst like caterpillars from their brownish bud-cocoons. Then the daffodils nodded farewell to winter and turned their golden faces toward spring. The poplars were next, opening their sticky buds to perfume the air with their spicy-sweet balm.

She also loved sledging through the woods with her father. The evergreen air tasted brisk and clean, free of the chimney haze that hung over Mapleton. “Through the snow, higher we go!” rang the sleigh bells. “Through the snow, higher we go!” sang the sleigh’s runners as they hissed over the fresh powder. Presently, Branagan stopped the sledge beside a snowy clearing, where the eternal white blanket muffled all sound but the mournful tinkling of hundreds of tiny bells, each one lamenting a lost soul.

Winter was the safest season of the year, when the Prowlers slept in the forests above Mapleton. No one had ever seen a Prowler and lived to tell the tale, but many townsfolk had glimpsed dark shapes hulking through the woods on moonlit nights. As soon as the trees leafed out, prudent people stayed indoors after dusk.

Whoever or whatever the Prowlers were, they could snatch their prey—usually a girl—through a second-story window as neatly as neat, leaving only a few scratchy tracks behind, if any. And they always seemed to know right where their victims slept.

So many boys and girls had gone missing over the years that parents took to hanging small brass bells around their young ones’ necks to foil would-be kidnappers. Since each bell’s tone was unique, a sharp ear could track down any particular child by the sound of his bell. “Belltown,” the village came to be known. Each spring, the hills resounded with the ringing of the children’s chimes. By autumn, some of those bells had already fallen silent.

Now they rang again, but not because carefree children were playing tag, throwing snowballs at one another or making snowmen. These bells rang in the fitful wind that prowled the Grieving Ground, as it was called. Branagan often visited this spot before sledging on to the sugar bush. Like so many boat oars standing in river sand, neat rows of stirring paddles lined this patch of snowy earth. Each stirrer represented one of Mapleton’s boys or girls, men or women who had vanished. Jingling and jangling, brass bells on leather cords hung from most of the paddle blades.

“Soon, we’ll be staying inside after dusk,” Branagan said as he helped Kyleah down from the sleigh. “Then you’ll have to wear your bell. I wish your mother had been wearing one that night.”

Kyleah made a sour face. “I hate wearing that thing! Bells are for sheep, not for people. Besides, the cord rubs my neck raw.”

Branagan turned a stern gaze on his daughter. “‘Either thou shalt bear the bell, or the paddlewood shall wear it,’” he told her, quoting a time-worn proverb familiar to all Mapleton’s residents.

He was right, of course. Anybody spending time out-of-doors without a bell was “asking for a paddle,” as the villagers put it.

Kyleah braved the gauntlet of faceless paddles with her father and brother. She and Barley read out the names engraved on the weathered blades. Linnae . . . Timmon . . . Daniella . . . Larissa.

Stopping before the Larissa-paddle, the three bowed their heads in silent grief. “Why did you leave us, Mother?” Kyleah murmured. Tears blurred her vision as she recalled happier days.

One April evening when Kyleah had just turned eight, Larissa had stepped outside to pick a few lilacs for the table. When she failed to return, Branagan went looking for her. He found only some scattered, smudged tracks leading toward the dark forest.

Ding! Kyleah tapped the paddle’s bell. Some people believed that ringing those bells would bring back the lost. Though many of the Grieving Ground’s wind-wakened bells had rung out the months and years till their paddles rotted, not one of the missing had ever returned. Kyleah’s eyes burned as she knelt before her mother’s paddle and read the messages scratched into the wooden handle. Please come back! Where are you? We will always love you.

Branagan gently scraped the snow away from Larissa’s paddle and straightened it. Then he moved on, tears streaking his face.

Kyleah wistfully rang the bell again before she went in search of another snow-bound paddle. This one bore the name, “Anna.” After her sister Einwen’s death, Kyleah had found another dear friend in Anna daughter of Dyllis. Full of girlish secrets, spirited Anna had helped ease Kyleah’s loneliness. Then one hot summer’s eve, Anna had left her bedroom window open. The next morning, her bed was as cold and bare as an empty sap-bucket in January.

Kyleah rejoined Barley and Branagan, and the three sledged onward. A sharp wind knocked snow from the fir boughs, stinging Kyleah’s cheek where the cruel carriage wheel had struck her.

The fall following her mother’s death, a horse-drawn, runaway carriage had mown down Kyleah and her twin sister, Einwen. The wagon’s onslaught had scarred Kyleah’s cheek and crippled her right leg, leaving Einwen limp and lifeless in the merciless road.

After a mile or so, the stolid firs gave way to pure stands of sugar maples. Branagan drew the sledge up beside one of the trees, which was decorated with a splash of red. Each sugarman in the village marked his trees with a distinctive color of paint. This tree also sported a sap-bucket, which hung from a wooden tube or spile protruding from the maple’s trunk. A slab of slate lay across the bucket’s top to keep rain and debris from falling into the sap.

Barley tromped through the snow to the tree. After taking off the cover, he carried the brimming bucket back to the sledge, where Kyleah exchanged the full pail for an empty one. Seeing her marred face mirrored in the clear liquid, she quickly turned away, reminded of the accident. In her hazel eyes and reddish-brown hair, she also saw her beloved Einwen’s reflection.

She dipped a finger into the pail and tasted the sweet sap. The sugaring season’s first sap always tasted the best, like fresh dew sipped from a budding rose. Even so, it still took forty gallons to make a gallon of finished maple syrup. Much more sap went into the making of the shaped maple-sugar candies Barley so coveted.

Barley hung the fresh bucket over the spile and replaced the slate cover. He and Kyleah repeated this routine with one maple tree after another. The sledge was jingling to the next tree when Branagan suddenly hauled back on the reins and jumped out. Kyleah clumsily followed. She found her father standing beside a maple, scratching his head. At the tree’s base sat a sap-bucket; the spile had been pulled out of the trunk and lay beside the bucket.

“Who would do such a thing?” Branagan grunted in disgust. “No sugarman I know would steal his neighbor’s sap. But why would any thief take out the tap, too?” Bending down, he retrieved the hollow spile and empty pail from the trampled snow. With a wooden mallet, he drove the spile back into its taphole. Then he rehung the bucket on the spout. A few drops of sap dribbled out of the tap and plunked satisfyingly into the pail. Plock! Plock!

Branagan found several more maple trees missing their spiles. Muttering under his breath, he and Kyleah replaced the spouts and rehung the pails. Then they returned to the sledge and Barley, who was sampling some of the sap. Moving deeper into the sugar bush, they resumed replacing full sap-buckets with empty ones.

The back of the sleigh was nearly full of sloshing buckets when Branagan pulled two burlap sacks from under his seat and motioned to Kyleah and Barley. “Time to set more spiles!” he said. “Bring along a few buckets, and we’ll tap some new trees.”

Barley grabbed two empty pails, while Kyleah took one of the bags from her father. Her crutch crunched through the snow as she followed Branagan and Barley on foot into leafless groves of untapped maples. Here the trees grew so thickly there was no room for a sledge. Kyleah’s foggy breath hung lazily in the biting air, like steam billowing through the sugarhouse doors and roof.

Branagan set his sack down next to a maple. “This one looks old enough,” he said. Kyleah knew that tapping a tree younger than about forty years could weaken it. Her father always took care of his trees. From the sack, the sugarmaster removed a short bow, a six-inch iron drill bit and a flat stone. He wrapped the taut bowstring around the drill. Then he fitted the bit’s blunt end into a shallow hole in the stone. Pressing the sharp end against the tree trunk with the rock, he began to saw the bow back and forth, twirling the drill first this way, then that. Kyleah had often seen a similar arrangement used for starting fires under the cauldrons in the sugarhouse, using a wooden rod instead of a metal one.

Soon, cream-colored wood shavings were curling out of the taphole Branagan was making in the trunk. After he had bored a couple of inches or so into the tree, he pulled out the drill bit.

“Hand me a spile, will you?” he asked Barley.

The boy dutifully opened Kyleah’s sack and handed his father one of the taps. Branagan thoughtfully weighed the spout in his palm before handing it back to Barley. “I’ll let you drive this one in,” he told the boy. Barley’s face split in a toothy grin. Hefting the wooden mallet, he smartly pounded the tap into the tree.

“That’s deep enough,” Branagan said, taking back the mallet.

He examined his son’s handiwork. “You’ve done a fine job, too,” he allowed with a slow smile. “Now hang the bucket.” Sap was trickling into the swinging pail when Branagan reached into Kyleah’s burlap bag and presented her with a second bow-drill.

“While Barley helps me,” he told her, “you go up higher and set some spiles yourself. It’s about time you learnt to tap the sap.”

Kyleah nearly dropped the bow-drill. Mapleton’s women could work in the sugarhouse, but they weren’t permitted to set spiles in the sugar bush. Why was Branagan violating this unwritten rule?

Scarcely believing her good fortune, Kyleah limped away with her bag and some buckets before her father could change his mind. Farther up, she came upon a grove of untapped maples. Beneath their outstretched limbs, shadows sullenly defied the bright sun.

Laying the bag and buckets next to a promising tree, she set to work boring a taphole in the trunk. However, she could not work the bow-drill properly. Every time she twisted it, the bit came loose and flew into the snow. After a half-hour, she hadn’t made a dent in the maple’s tough bark. Exasperated, she plopped down on the snow and wept bitterly. How could she return to her father with the news that she had failed to tap even a single maple tree?

Filled with a sudden fury, she grabbed a spile and shoved it into the scored spot she had left on the trunk. The tap slipped into the tree as smoothly as a knife slicing through soft cheese.

Befuddled, she stared at the spile. With trembling fingers, she pulled on it, and it slid out as readily as it had gone in. The short wooden tube appeared undamaged. Kyleah pushed the tap against the trunk in a different place, and it slipped in again. Around the tree she went, thrusting the tap into the trunk in high spots and low spots, where the bark was thin and where it was thick. When she pulled out the spile, it left no trace of a hole behind.

She took another tap from the bag and pressed it against the trunk. This spout popped into the tree as readily as the first. In a frenzy, Kyleah dumped all the taps out of the sack and tried each in turn. The maple obligingly let them all in with equal ease.

The spiles were magical. They had to be. Kyleah had hit upon a secret worth more than all the gold in Beechtown’s treasury!