Rowan Deeproot's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Rowan reached the ferns at dusk. Faye had promised the oak leaked light past them, and the leaves ahead glowed faint gold. But the ferns had grown thick since anyone last walked here. They knotted together in a green wall. Rowan tried the treant's way first. Rowan sank roots into the soil and pushed them under the ferns, feeling for open ground toward the oak. The fern roots gripped back. They tangled with Rowan's own, coiling tighter the harder Rowan pushed. Rowan strained until bark creaked, then stopped. The ferns had won that contest before it began. "You can't shove through those." Rowan turned. Faye stood behind, apron still dusted with flour, a small cloth bundle in one hand. She had followed. Rowan hadn't heard her come, and Rowan never did. "They root deeper than they look," Faye said. "Cut them, or you don't pass." She held out the bundle. Rowan unfolded the cloth. Inside lay a slender knife. Its blade seemed made of moving mist, pale and swirling, cool against Rowan's palm. "Where did you get this?" Rowan asked. "The shop by the moss road. They keep odd things." Faye did not explain further. She rarely did. "It cuts what ordinary blades slide off. Ferns like these, mostly." Rowan closed one hand around the misty hilt. A treant hated the thought of cutting living green. But the oak waited beyond, and the witness inside it. Rowan knelt and set the blade to the first thick stem. The knife slid through without effort. The stem parted clean, no tearing, no fight. Rowan cut again, then again. The fern wall opened one stroke at a time. Sap ran, and the smell of it filled the air, sharp and wet. Rowan worked until a gap yawned wide enough to pass. Through it the hollow oak stood plain at last, split down the middle, gold light bleeding from the crack. Rowan lowered the knife, breathing hard. Then the light in the oak moved. Something small shifted inside the split. A shape no taller than Rowan's knee stepped to the edge of the crack and stared out. Round cap, thin stalk of a body, eyes like two dark seeds. The myconid had watched Rowan cut a path straight to its door. It did not smile. It did not come forward. It looked at the fallen ferns, at the swirling knife in Rowan's hand, and drew back a step into the dark. "It saw you carve your way in," Faye said behind Rowan. Flat. Certain. "Now it knows you'll cut what stands between you and what you want." Rowan looked at the blade, then at the frightened shape in the oak. The wall was gone. The witness was in reach. But the creature had shrunk from the sight of Rowan clearing the path, and now its door hung open on a stranger holding a knife.