“Maybe it’s only sap,” said Robert.
“Maybe pigs fly at night.” Cass gave him a look.
Nest rounded the tree on its far side, listening to the silence, to the murmur of her friends’ voices, to the rustle of the feeders lurking in the shadows back where they couldn’t be seen. She glanced left and right, seeing the feeders, but not Pick. Irritation shifted to concern. What if something had happened to him? She glanced at the tree, afraid suddenly that the damage was more extensive than they had believed, that somehow the creature trapped within was already loose. Heat and fear closed about her.
“Hey, Nest!” Robert called out. “What are we supposed to do, now that we’re here?”
She was searching for an answer when Pick dropped from the tree’s branches onto her shoulder, causing her to start in spite of herself. “Pick!” she gasped, exhaling sharply.
“Took you long enough,” he huffed, ignoring her. “Now listen up, and I’ll tell you what to do.”
He gave Nest a quick explanation, then disappeared again. Nest walked back around the tree, gathered her friends together, and told them what was needed. For the next half hour they worked to carry out her instructions. Robert was given the Tree Seal to apply to the splits in the trunk, and he used the stirring stick and brush to slap the pitchlike material into place in thick gobs. Cass and Brianna spread the compost over the exposed roots and cracks, dumping it in piles and raking it in with their hands. Nest took the conditioner salt and poured it on the ground in a thin line that encircled the tree some twenty-five feet out from its base. When Robert asked what she was doing, she told him she was using the salt to protect the tree from a particularly deadly form of wood bore that was causing the sickness. The pitch would heal the sores, the compost would feed the roots, and the salt would keep other wood bores from finding their way back to the tree. It wasn’t true, of course, but it sounded good.
When they were done, they stood together for a time surveying their handiwork. Robert gave his theory on tree bores, some wild concoction he said he had picked up on the Internet, and Brianna gave her theory on Robert. Then Cass allowed as how standing there looking at the tree was like watching grass grow, Brianna complained about being hot and thirsty, and Robert remembered the program he was downloading on his computer. It was not yet midafternoon, so there was still time to go swimming. But Nest told them she was tired and thought she would go home instead. Robert snorted derisively and called her a wimp and Cass and Brianna suggested they could just hang out. But Nest persisted, needing to be alone with Pick, distracted by thoughts of the maentwrog and tonight’s meeting with Two Bears. The lie felt awkward, and she added to her discomfort by saying that Gran had asked her to do some additional chores around the house. She promised to meet them the following day in the park by the Indian mounds after church services and lunch.
“Hey, whatever.” Robert shrugged, failing to hide his irritation and resentment.
“Call you tonight,” Cass promised.
She picked up the handle of the wagon and trudged off, with Brianna and Robert trailing after. More than once her friends glanced back at her. She could read the questions in their eyes. She stared after them, unable to look away, feeling selfish and deceitful.
When they were out of sight, she called softly for Pick. The sylvan appeared at her feet, and she reached down, picked him up, and set him on her shoulder.
“Will any of this help?” she asked, gesturing vaguely at the tree, struggling to submerge her feelings.
“Might,” he answered. “But it’s a temporary cure at best. The problem lies with a shifting in the balance. The magic that wards the tree is being shredded. I have to find out why.”
They stood without speaking for a time, studying the big oak, as if by doing so they might heal it by strength of will alone. Nest felt hot and itchy from the heat and exertion, but there was a deeper discomfort working inside her. Her eyes traced the outline of the tree against the sky. It was so massive and old, a great, crooked-arm giant frozen in time. How many years had it been alive? she wondered. How much of the land’s history had it witnessed? If it could speak, what would it tell her?