Rowan Deeproot's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Rowan Deeproot pressed one root-thick hand against the heartwood grove and felt nothing move. The ancient trees stood gray and silent. Long ago, they had breathed colored mist across the whole land, magic that flowed free as water. Rowan wanted that back more than anything. But the grove had slept since before Rowan sprouted, and no living treant had ever seen the mist rise. Rowan didn't know what waking it required. So Rowan stood at the center of it, unable to begin. Rowan traced the dead bark, searching for a mark, a hinge, a hint. Nothing. The trees gave back only cold silence. A treant should feel kin to old wood. Rowan felt like a stranger at a locked door. "You'll wear a groove in it, standing there." Rowan turned. The neighborhood baker crossed the moss toward the grove, flour still dusting her apron. Faye Bellman came to every doorstep with fresh bread, and somehow always knew things no one had told her. Rowan had never mentioned the grove to a soul. Yet here she was, holding a warm loaf and watching Rowan too closely. "You want to wake them," Faye said. Not a question. Her smile stayed put, but her eyes stayed flat. "Every treant tries, once. Then they stop." "You know how it worked," Rowan said. "The mist." Faye tore the loaf in half. Steam curled up. "I know someone who saw it flow. Once." She held out Rowan's share. "There's a hollow oak past the ferns. Old thing, gnarled, split down the middle. Something small lives inside it now. A mushroom person. Barely comes to your knee." "A myconid?" "It watched the grove die," Faye said. "It remembers the mist. It remembers what fed it." She brushed flour from her hands. "It won't talk to just anyone. But it's the only thing left that saw." Rowan took the bread. "Why tell me this?" Faye's smile finally reached nowhere near her eyes. "Because you're the first one in years who hasn't given up yet. I'm curious what you'll do." She turned back the way she came. "The oak leaks light at dusk. You won't miss it." Rowan watched her go, then looked at the grove one last time. The trees were still dead. But the door was no longer locked. Somewhere past the ferns stood a hollow oak, and inside it, a small witness who had seen the mist flow and lived. Rowan wrapped the bread and started walking toward the ferns. For the first time, there was a direction. The old fear had a shape now: convince a creature that had watched everything die to help wake it again.