“Yes, Mother. I can show the way.”
Thank God. “Help me carry him into the forest,” she asked Lord Bradwell.
“And Claudia?”
Eden glanced over her shoulder. Two people were locked in a weeping embrace, oblivious to the world around them.
“She is a danger no longer. We must go.”
Together, with Donal leading the way, she and Lord Bradwell carried Hartley into the wood, to the heart of the Forest Lord’s realm, where the Grandfather Oak spread his limbs in benevolent rule.
Of course, Eden thought. The gate is here.
She and Lord Bradwell laid Hartley down. Eden stretched out on the bed of leaves beside him.
“Come, my love,” she whispered. “Your gate lies here, but I cannot open it. You must do it. Take our son, and teach him… teach him to be happy.” She turned his face and kissed him.
His lips moved on hers. He opened his eyes—those unearthly, mysterious eyes like wet summer leaves—and smiled.
“Thank you, Eden,” he said. He lifted his hand to stroke her hair. “I… cannot repay you. But I… I shall never forget you.”
She need hold back her tears only a little while longer. “Nor I you. Come.” She tugged at his arm. Her father pulled him up. Hartley faced the oak. He murmured words in a language Eden didn’t understand, and the air before the vast trunk began to shiver with eldritch light. Lord Bradwell gasped.
“The gate,” Hartley said. He looked at Eden. “Once I go… I cannot return.”
“I know.” She smiled for him. “Your life is all that matters now. And Donal’s.” She pushed Donal gently toward his father. “Donal, you will go with your father to a very special place, where you will be happy and no one can ever hurt you.”
“No, Eden,” Lord Bradwell whispered.
“Can’t you see? It is the only way. I know that now.”
Hartley took Donal’s hand. “This is a gift I do not deserve. Ah, Eden—”
She covered his lips with her finger. “You must go quickly. Quickly.” She turned her face away.
But he caught her face in his hands and turned it again and kissed her. Her tears mingled on their lips.
“You will have love, Eden. You will have it because no mortal… was ever more deserving.” He bent his head to Donal. “Will you come with me now, my son?”
Donal planted his feet. “Is Mother coming, too?”
“Not… now, Donal. We must go first. You will like Tir-na-nog—”
“Mother!” Donal began to cry, as he so seldom did. Eden maintained her composure with the greatest effort of her life.
“I will be along soon,” she said, stroking Donal’s hair. “Please, go with your father.” She nodded to Hartley, and he lifted Donal into his arms, though the effort cost him dearly.
A flash of sparkling light whirled overhead. Tod appeared, circling them joyfully.
“We go!” he cried. “We go home?”
“Yes,” Hartley echoed. “Home.”
In a heartbeat Tod had flung himself through the shimmering gate and vanished. Hartley cradled the weeping Donal to his shoulder and looked one last time at Eden. “Be happy,” he said. He faced the gate again, gathered his strength, and stepped through.
Eden fell to her knees. Lord Bradwell knelt beside her and held her like the true father he had never been before.
“It is my fault,” he groaned. “Oh, Eden, this is my doing. I did not believe that love could ever be part of what I started six years ago.”
Eden covered his hand with hers. “No, Papa.” She tried to smile. “You are not to blame.”
“I do not deserve your affection. Oh, my dear, if only I could suffer in your place.”
She shook her head. No one else could endure this unbearable loss—and she would endure, for the sake of those who still needed her. For the servants and tenants and beasts of Hartsmere.
“We need not remain here, Eden,” her father said. “I am not without resources now. I have friends and connections throughout Europe. We can travel on the continent and forget this place.”
Forget. Eden bent forward to touch the bark of the Grandfather Oak. She was obscurely comforted to feel its rough reality, to know that it had sheltered the man she loved. A part of him lived on within that magnificent old gentleman. And in this forest.