Chapter Seven

I caught up with him before we were halfway across the field. As we walked, the dark line of mixed trees grew at an alarming rate. Every stride seemed to cover twice its usual ground until we were at the forest’s edge. Every time I glanced about, the garden area appeared larger than before. The radiant outer circle and its exuberant flowery shows were terribly small now, and distant. The little stream we had stepped across had vanished.

The wall of bark and untamed vegetation loomed large and dark over our heads. The boughs and vines of those myriad species were so tightly intertwined that I doubted light could pass between their cracks, let alone the two of us. Timothy kept on his path as if he did not see the barrier. The trees bowed away from him like so many obsequious servants, revealing a narrow passage in between.

I followed close on his heels and was only a few feet past the threshold when it closed behind us, roots swimming in the dirt like snakes in water. The trees closed in.

It was dim and humid in the passage. The plants pressed in so near and so cloyingly that it could have been a tunnel under the earth rather than a passage through the wood. I felt anger and bitterness, none of it my own. I wanted to tell Timothy to warn him, but I was afraid that the moment I spoke I would be struck down by a hundred flailing limbs, my words smothered in the leaves. The sorcerer’s apprentice, for his part, sauntered on with the blithe unawareness of a master in his keep. I wondered how he could not sense the badness around us, the exact opposite of the happy energies that permeated the rest of the garden. Just as my anxiety reached the point of bursting out of me in a shriek, the darkness broke. The trunks parted ahead of us into a meadow as bright as the dawn of all things, and as beautiful.

The wall of trees closed behind us, sharp-needled pines barring our exit. I did not care.

The short grass was dotted with wildflowers the color of flame. They were a strange mix of rose and chrysanthemum, fluted in a wineglass shape. Within the cup of their petals was a warm glow so that the meadow might have been decorated with a scattering of candles, visible despite the shine of the sun above, or perhaps because of it. The ground was as soft as carpet. I followed it with my eyes as it rose into a gentle knoll topped by an oak whose trunk was wider than I was tall. It rose so high that its top was no more than a thread against the dome, defying gravity and radiating an ethereal power.

Milton sat with his back to the trunk, a book open on his lap and a dark red flask hanging from his neck like a small pomegranate of glass. Ten feet above his head hung wrinkled, wizened mistletoe, nearly golden with age, its tendrils snaking around the bole of the oak like a web.

The sorcerer did not look up at our approach. His eerie golden gaze was totally absorbed in his reading, and one hand absentmindedly fondled the crimson flask. Our footfalls up the knoll were light as breaths. Not a leaf crunched or stirred under my toes, but I had a sense that he had known where we were as soon as we entered his garden, as soon as we crossed the iron gates.

“Old Bear,” Timothy said, “you have visitors. Do be kind.”

Milton grimaced. “I have had enough of your games, Timothy. You are interrupting me when I have just thought of a new method of distilling dragon’s...” he paused as his gaze slid from his book to Timothy to me, hand still caressing the flask on its chain of white squares. “I forget myself. Please, sit, both of you.”

Dragon’s blood. He had been about to say dragon’s blood. I’ve read enough books to guess that, so why did he cut himself short?

Timothy sat cross-legged before him, smiling. I followed suit without the smile. A few orange blossoms were dancing weightless in the air around the trunk, but one seemed to remember the earth’s call and settled itself on my knee in perfect balance. The glow in the center of its cup sparked a memory, or tried to. I knew there was something it should be telling me, but all I could dredge up was fog.

Milton sighed. “Actually, it is good you have come here, Abigail. I only returned last night and there is something I must tell you.” His deep, sonorous voice was graver than usual, but I was distracted. When he had begun speaking, I tried to look at him but my eyes were continually caught by the flask. This close, I could see it was really translucent. The liquid inside was what gave it the almost purple-red of a pomegranate. He tucked it under his shirt as soon as he noticed my stare.

Timothy interrupted him. “Wait, you have not even heard what happened to her yesterday. We had a bit of an incident.”

Two gold eyes narrowed at his apprentice’s impertinence, but he was interested. “What do you mean?”

“The golem bit me,” I said and was pleased to see his whole face expand in shock.

“What? Where? How?!”

Timothy laughed. “You are late for all that. It was outside as the sun fell. One of the nine proved the old stories true when he chose our guest to bite.” I was a little offended to hear him take it so airily, but I liked seeing Milton off-balance.

“Never…” The sorcerer seemed about to choke, but then calm swept over him as absolutely as a Noh mask. “I would have never predicted this. You took care of the rogue?” He looked to Timothy.

“Dismantled.”

Milton turned his eyes on me, unsettling even in his concern. “I hope it did not hurt you too badly. Naturally, Timothy would heal any harm, but I know that is not much consolation for how it must have felt to you. I am sorry this happened, especially now.”

He was about to say more when Timothy butted in yet again. “I thought this might be reason enough to teach her one of the lesser tongues, to make certain it would not ever be repeated.”

Milton was still staid, but I could see a glimmer of irritation spark in Timothy’s direction. That suggestion had thrown him off course. He shook his head as if to disagree but then asked, “Is that what you wish, girl, to become more like us? Your father would certainly disapprove but now, maybe, it is for the best. If this fool boy would hold his counsel for a moment, I have news for you, though it is not happy.”

Teach me the lesser tongues? My ears had stopped working when I heard that request. He had said before that magic had different languages. This must have been what he wanted to ask Milton about, that he wouldn’t refuse as long as I was present. Could I learn it? Could I do magic? I had heard Timothy command the golems and it hadn’t even sounded like words, just noise. I didn’t think I could make those sounds and if I could, would they have power for me?

My mind raced. It was one thing to see others do magic, to know others have the ability. I could probably even accept that my dad was one of them. I would have to eventually. That being said, it required credulity on an entirely different level to believe for one moment that I, the girl I had known my whole life, could have that spark in me. Of course, I had wished it. I had thought about having those abilities and more, long before I ever knew they were real, but I hadn’t thought it was really possible. I hadn’t believed they would share it with me so easily, even if they could.

A grin split my face to equal one of Timothy’s. Milton blinked. “Are you listening, Abigail?”

My attention snapped back to the sorcerer, his expression oddly cautious. “I said Acton…your father is dead.”

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