Daniel trusted Mark, but that hadn’t stopped him from being afraid when he took the shaman’s hand. Magic wasn’t in his blood like it was in Mark’s. Daniel was, at heart, an ordinary man who had been adrift in extraordinary circumstances. His strength of character and ability to adapt was uncommon and a credit to him as a person, but this was still so far beyond his comfort zone.

He’d literally asked for this though.

Too bad Daniel was starting to think that he didn’t know what he’d been asking for.

Daniel had sort of seen or felt magic when it got really strong. Mostly he’d seen it in the spirit realm where everything was really just magic anyway, but there were also places where death magic stood out to him because he had some affinity with that energy. Being a ghost and all.

Doing magic seemed so… magical, as dumb as that sounded. Literally the stuff of tales and wonders. Sure, it came with some gritty realism that took some of the shine off, but Daniel hadn’t been raised on that sort of magic. He’d been raised on fantasy novels, fairy tales, and Disney.

Yes, he loved Disney. They were good stories with good music and more depth than expected for movies marketed at kids, likely to keep the parents from pulling their hair out after the fiftieth viewing in a row. The world needed more wonder and optimism and happy endings in it.

So when he managed to convince the shaman equivalent of a college major to help him out, Daniel had been excited.

He still was excited. But also extremely terrified.

When Mark pulled Daniel into the tree, Daniel thought it would be like passing through any other physical object, or maybe it would take them through to the spirit side. It wasn’t.

Instead, Daniel felt like he’d been doused in ice cold water from head to toe. He hadn’t felt heat or cold since he’d died, not really. This sudden intense sensation where there had been none before sent Daniel into a form of shock, mind locking up and body freezing. If he’d had a heartbeat, he’d have been worried about it stopping. He certainly didn’t breathe.

Riordan and Mark and Frankie talked about talking to spirits, but it didn’t seem so bad. Daniel had seen the shaman sometimes literally talk at a spirit, like Frankie’s big bird friend or when Lucinda summoned an octopus to make an illusion or when Riordan talked at a tree. And sometimes they talked to a spirit. Those moments left Riordan shaken, but they passed so fast and didn’t seem to be damaging or anything, just overwhelming.

Now Daniel knew what overwhelming meant.

The pressure of the cold around him crushed Daniel, compressing him tighter and tighter just by existing in such density. In comparison, his existence was a thin wisp of air, ineffectual and easily scattered. A presence towered over him, looming large, far larger than life.

Daniel filled with awe. He was so small, so insignificant, compared to something this primal. It reminded him of watching a storm blow in over Lake Michigan, towering clouds and strong winds that tossed the lake waters and chilled them to a steely gray. The lake never gave up its dead, the saying went. So many boats and lives lost to those storms over the centuries.

And yet, breathing in a storm wind and seeing those clouds approaching like battleships, Daniel would get lost in the beauty of it all. He’d be chilled to the bone, but grinning out at the water until his folks made him come inside.

A long time ago, glaciers formed the great lakes. It ground rock into fine soft sand that persisted even now, millenia later. These primal forces moved and shaped the earth, making treasures out of scars. Humanity worked wonders of terraforming of their own, but it never undermined the sheer terrible awe of nature.

The tree spirit wasn’t a glacier or one of the great lakes, but it was far more than Daniel was. He felt it in his bones that he no longer had, a connection that followed the tree’s roots deep into the ground. For a brief time, his blood had stained the soil beneath its branches and seeped down into the roots. His body had been buried in these woods, mixing with the earth, a rebirth in death.

Daniel was already a part of this tree in a small way and that opened up… everything to him.

He’d seen nature at work but now he was nature. He was a seedling growing to a sapling to a strong sturdy tree. He was the leaves and the sun and the breeze. He felt birds on his branches and bugs in his bark.

Daniel had never had bark before.

The storms from the lake rolled in, dropping water on his leaves which filtered it so that it didn’t wash out his roots. His roots drank deeply, pulling up nutrients into his sap. Winds blew and seasons changed and snow fell and Daniel felt it all.

Joy filled him and the ghost let go of his fear. He laughed in sheer delight, the sound a mere rustle of leaves in the forest.

Underneath this surreal experience, Daniel began to feel an answering joy. The tree was watching him, Daniel realized, experiencing all of this right alongside Daniel. The memories belonged to the tree, who shared them with him to create a bridge of communication, but the memories became new as the tree felt Daniel’s reaction to them.

There were no words in this communication. Emotions and memories and concepts layered over each other in intertwining streams. Daniel struggled to sort them out and then realized that he couldn’t. It was simply beyond him to pick out everything being shared with him.

Instead, like those storm winds he loved, Daniel let it wash over and through him. He’d placed himself at the mercy of this storm and chosen joy instead of fear.

The emotions cleansed him. A wind washed through the foggy rooms of his spirit and blew out the smoke and dust. He might be a wisp of wind compared to the storm, but he was a refreshing one. A soothing breeze that fought off the dark parts of the world, scattering the dark.

Such strange thoughts and feelings came over Daniel in this state. He couldn’t feel Mark or the physical world or anything but the tree and the conversation between them.

A spirit’s conversation was an exchange of power. Words filled him, as much as they could be words without sound or sense. It wasn’t knowledge or command that the spirit gave Daniel, but questions. So many questions.

Daniel knew what it was like to have questions. He was a modern middle-class American. He grew up in an individualistic culture that valued forging one’s own path to prosperity. College had honed that drive further, teaching critical thinking and showing him both what the world was and what the world should be or could be.

He hadn’t wanted to be a doctor. His life would have revolved around the suffering of others. He may have been trying to ease it, but he would have failed too many times for his heart to handle. Every success would be whisked away, only to be replaced with another suffering patient. That was not the life for him.

He had still been pondering a better path. Journalism drew Daniel because it was a quest for truth. He probably would have gotten jaded by the false aspects of the trade, the way opinion could spin truth into something strange. But the desire for knowledge, especially about the complexities of the human experience, was part of him.

Magic awed him. Nature delighted him. Humanity intrigued him. There was so much good in the world.

Even though he’d been in the wrong place and the wrong time and experienced some of the worst of the bad that could happen, Daniel believed that most people and things were generally good. Wonderfully, ecstatically good.

His existence grew increasingly stronger with each passing moment. He grew from a wisp to a breeze to a wind to a gust. Daniel felt full and awkward, stretched but not to the point of breaking. It was like Thanksgiving, where he would eat his fill and then go back for pie before sitting on the couch in a food coma for a few hours, surrounded by equally lethargic family members.

His spirit waddled around with its glut of power, trying to digest it. Fortunately digestion was a natural process. Otherwise Daniel would have no idea where to begin in making that power filling him into his own.

Was this magic? Or just a firming up of his body? Daniel could sense things but it was like tasting and smelling something for the first time. He had no reference for what the source was or what any of it meant.

Still, this was a magical experience all his own. Something shared between little normal dead Daniel and a real nature spirit. This was his fairy tale. Now he just needed his Disney ending.

Endings were new beginnings. Daniel felt the tree absorb his thoughts, flowing them through it, and come to some strange decision. He couldn’t get words out of this communication and had little experience translating the mix of emotions and memories and impressions that he did receive.

And yet, Daniel sensed the tree come to a decision and offer him… something.

It had already empowered him. Daniel would be more solid, able to temporarily influence the physical world. This was the minimum of the bargain. Daniel didn’t dare hope for more, and yet…

His dreams were not so small. If Daniel was being honest with himself, he longed for some magic of his own. Being magic-adjacent was like standing in a restaurant, only able to smell the feast. There were reasons that humanity, which so loved magic, might turn to death magic when nothing else worked.

The tree spirit had something. It wasn’t a physical thing from what Daniel could tell. Maybe a spell or a change or a concept? It was something the spirit did not make and did not want, but had collected because it did not want to leave it where it was found. So it stuck in the spirit like a rock in the way of its roots, hindering growth to help others.

This thing could help Daniel do magic. It was dangerous in the wrong hands, but Daniel was kind. He would not abuse it.

As a ghost, Daniel was a creature of the Veil, not the spirit realm or the physical realm. He couldn’t generate magic of his own. If he’d been a mage, he might have some power lingering in his well after death, but it would quickly be used up. By the same token, death corruption didn’t stick to him the same way, especially since he’d been beyond the Veil, even if he chose to return in the end.

Daniel wondered about the gift, but then firmed up his resolve. Just because he had power didn’t mean he had to use it, right? The spirit agreed with that sentiment and Daniel sensed that the gift wouldn’t harm Daniel. So there was no reason to say no. It took something that hinder the spirit and turned it into something that helped Daniel.

Daniel held out his hands and then swept up the offered power into his winds.