HOME | DD

Description
Suzie

Despite her efforts to hold them away from her body, Suzie could not stop the buckets banging against her thighs on her way down to the well. As she left the small cluster of cabins and barns that housed the five families that made up her village, she had to pass the tiny graveyard. She knew the names carved on the wooden grave markers as well as she knew the rest of the hamlet...

Two were unnamed babies who had died at birth, and the residents of the town were grateful that there were not more. There was the little boy who had been trampled by a horse a year ago and the two girls, one four, one thirteen, who had died from different sicknesses, and then there were her parents.

Jason Litlewood, twenty-seven, child, husband, father. And right next to him, so close that the villagers had unearthed some of his coffin when they buried her, was Marian Litlewood, twenty-seven, child, wife, mother.

Suzie did not remember her parents well. Sometimes she imagined that she could feel her father's laugh...for one could always feel his laughs as well as hear them, and it made others want to laugh too. She could remember the feel of his beard on her cheek as he kissed her good night...something that Uncle Simon did as well, but it was not the same.

She had more memories of her mother. In the months after her father's death, Suzie's mind had woken up and she had begun to absorb the details of the world around her. She remembered the day that her mother had struggled to her feet after lying in the dirt of her husband's grave for almost a week. She had stood and taken two steps and lived again, but just for a while. When the winter came, she fell ill with coughs that shook her whole body. A few days later, she began to cough up blood, and then she lay in bed with a raging fever. She tossed and turned in her bed for a week, calling for Jason to come back, and after almost a month of illness, the life drained from her body and she was gone.

Suzie skipped past the graveyard toward the well down by the fields. She had lived with Uncle Simon and his family for the past three years and they treated her like one of their own children. Chores kept her too busy to feel sorry for herself and she had not spent enough time with her parents enough to miss them very much.

As she reached the well, she preformed an old ritual before tossing the bucket into the dark water below. She climbed up the low stone wall onto the wooden cover that blocked the deep hole and scanned the hollow.

After her father had died, something had happened that had been the little hamlet's favorite discussion topic ever since. A human woman carrying a sword had come through the village, accompanied by an elf. They had worked hard to help the farmers replace the crops burned by Domicallia. Although everyone now detested those vegetables, it was common knowledge that the whole village might have starved that year if not for the strangers' help.

Suzie had become Willow the elf's shadow in an instant. She could not remember him, for although he had had green hair and strange ears (or so the village women said), his voice, walk and manner had reminded her so much of her father that the images blended in her head. He had promised to come back to see her someday, and though the village women told her that she was silly to hope for so much, she believed that he would keep his word.

So there she was, on top of the well, expecting today to be like every other day, when she saw something. Over the top of the hill appeared a large black shape that separated into the forms of three men and a horse.

Suzie's first instinct was to run into the village screaming at the top of her lungs, "Willow's back! Willow's back!" However, she had tried this before and things had not gone as planned.

The first time it had happened, the person had turned out to be a merchant. Everyone in the village had laughed at her and from then on, she waited to see whether the people coming over the hill carried large bundles of goods on their backs.

One time she thought she had it right. She saw someone coming who was short for a man and tall for a woman. He even had shaggy hair in need of cutting as the villagers told her Willow had, but by the time she had called everyone in the hamlet out of their houses, the person had changed and was no longer short with shaggy hair, but unnaturally tall with fiery red hair that stood off his head like flames. Again, everyone had laughed at her, and the man passed through the group without as much as a twitch of a smile.

Suzie decided that this time she would wait until she could tell who these people were before running back the hamlet, so she settled down on the well cover.

They were taking far too long coming down the hill. One man had to coax the horse to take every single step while another, shorter person who appeared to be a boy, was stepping sideways down the hill, as though it hurt him to walk forward. The final person, another boy, had his hands hidden in the folds of his cloak.

"What are you up to?"

Suzie glanced over her shoulder and saw Uncle Simon, up from the fields for a drink.

"People are coming," she said as though this answered all the questions he might have.

Uncle Simon smiled and his eyes sparkled. "I don't think it's Willow, honey."

"Humph!" she said, a perfect imitation of her uncle when he was angry. He laughed at this, as he always did, and then whipped off his hat and regarded the approaching figures.

"They don't look too good," he muttered to himself. "Suzie, run back to the house and get your Aunt for me."

"Do I have to?" she moaned.

"Yes, now scoot," he said, swatting her with his hat to prove his point. She jumped down from the well and set off for her house at a run. She found her aunt out in the barn, shoveling manure into a wheelbarrow

"Aunty! Uncle wants you at the well!"

"Well you tell him that I refuse to come. I'm scoops away from finishing this stinkin' stall and I won't be distracted!"

"But there's people coming!"

"Really?" Suzie giggled to watch her aunt decide between leaving her chore unfinished or missing the strangers. It was not a long battle. Aunt Mindy sighed.

"I'm coming." She dumped her load into the barrow and drove her shovel into the ground before hurrying after Suzie, who was already running as fast as her legs could carry her back to the well.

By the time Suzie returned, the man, horse, and boys had arrived and were gulping down water straight from the bucket.

They were an odd lot. The man had dark skin like a fairy but no hair on his head, and the two boys had their heads and faces hidden in scarves. The skin around their eyes, though, was dark and had a strange tint to it, like that of someone who has been sick for a long time, and they had dozens of wounds showing though rips in their clothes. Apart from smaller cuts that had been bandaged with scraps from a cloak, one had a broken arm and the other had cloth wound tight around his ankle. Dust from the road coated all of them from head to toe. Together, they drank two whole buckets of water before they slowed down.

"Good people," said the man with dark skin. He had a strange accent like none Suzie had heard before. "Have you heard of the Union of the Races?"

Mindy's face darkened. "Yes. They and their fort were demolished a few years ago, and good riddance I say!"

"How...what do you think of Elves?"

Suzie glanced at the two boys. They must be elves! Why else would he ask? She darted forward and, before anyone could stop her, she yanked the scarves off the head of the boy with the bound foot.

"Willow!" she cried, and flung her arms around him.

Right away, she knew she was wrong. He just sat there, didn't bring up his arms to return her hug, didn't say her name and apologize for being so late like grown-ups do.

"I'm sorry," muttered Uncle Simon as he pulled her away from the elf. "My niece, she's seven and she has far too much energy for her own good."

Now he was treating her like a baby. It was bad enough mistaking some strange person for Willow, who she was sure she would know on sight.

The elf stared at her. "You know Willow?"

However, before she could say anything, the big man spoke again.

"I'm sorry to just show up, but we need your help. Something horrible has happened and we need to get to the Fairies as fast as possible. Will you help us?"

"Of course!" cried Aunt Mindy.

"Come up to our house," Uncle Simon said.

He offered the elf with the bad foot his hand. The elf stared at it a moment, as though deciding whether it could be trusted. Hesitating just a little, he reached out, allowing Uncle Simon to pull him to his feet and help him up to the cluster of houses, the other elf and the human following a few paces behind.

Suzie's Aunt ran ahead to get a few things ready, and by the time the elves reached Uncle Simon's house, everyone in the hamlet was waiting outside the cottage door to see the strangers.

"Move over!" Simon grunted. "These men have had a long journey and they don't need more complications now! Move it! Emily, I'm going to need your help."

Simon's oldest daughter nodded and ducked inside the cottage, followed by the strangers and Suzie, who was trying to see the other elf's face to see if perhaps he was Willow.

Simon helped the elf over to the table and let him sit down. Emily started a small fire for heating water and Aunt Mindy climbed the ladder to the loft for her husband's basket of herbs, medicines, and bandages. She then exchanged places with Uncle Simon and drew the strange human into a corner to talk to him. Suzie crept behind the woodpile where she could hear their conversation.

"What happened to you?" Aunt Mindy asked.

"You said you knew Domicallia, right?"

Aunt Mindy nodded.

"The son of their leader escaped after the battle and convinced the queens and kings of Earth that it was the Elves, Dwarves and Fairies who were the enemy. Now he's the general of a massive army and he burned the Everwood to the ground and killed all the elves. They are the only ones left now."

Aunt Mindy glanced over to the table where the Elves sat, trying to look past their frozen faces for some hint of emotion.

"Birch hurt his foot when he jumped from a falling tree, and Hemlock's arm was crushed by a branch." As if as an afterthought, he added, "And I'm Rupert, one of the soldiers from Africa."

Suzie slipped away from her position at the woodpile and drifted over to the table to watch her uncle.

"Suzie, honey, please go away. I don't want you to see this."

"Please Uncle!"

"Well..."

"I promise I won't get in the way."

"Let her stay," said the elf, Birch. "She needs to learn to be brave."

Uncle Simon sighed, raised Birch's injured foot into his lap, and began to unwrap the bandages.

"You should work on Hemlock first, sir. He's much worse than I-" Uncle Simon cut him off as he drew a sharp breath.

His foot was a horrible, unnatural color and his ankle had swollen. Dirt from the road had worked its way in between the layers of cloth and rubbed his skin raw.

"Really sir, it's just a sprain, nothing more, but Hemlock-"

"Um...Dad?"

"What is it Emily?" asked Uncle Simon.

"I don't think I know how to..." she trailed off, incapable of finding the right words to describe her problem. Uncle Simon turned to look and Suzie crawled under the table.

Hemlock's arm was much worse than Birch's foot. Long, deep scrapes and dark bruises ran up and down the length of his arm and there were strange lumps in two places, a few inches above his elbow and halfway to his wrist.

"They're all broken," he stated matter-of-factly.

"We can see that!" cried Emily.

"Emily, you come over here," Uncle Simon told her. "Wash Birch's foot and wrap it up again. There isn't much more we can do."

Emily nodded and stood to switch places with her father.

"Suzie," said Uncle Simon. "Why don't you go find me four straight sticks from the yard? They should be at least as long as your arm, do you understand?"

Suzie nodded and hurried off, determined to be back as soon as possible so she would not miss anything. Just as she reached the stream where the trees grew, something that her uncle had said made her stop. Uncle Simon had told her to get sticks from the yard, but the area around the houses was devoid of trees. In an instant, Suzie realized that she had fallen for one of the oldest tricks that parents used to get their children out of the way, and was soon running back the way she had come.

By the time she returned, it was over. Uncle Simon had realigned and splinted Hemlock's bones and was arranging his arm in a sling.

"You were in a forest!" he yelled at no one in particular. "There would have been sticks everywhere! Why didn't you take a few seconds to splint his arm?"

"Sir, we were running for our lives," Birch retorted.

"I wouldn't have let them stop for me anyway," said Hemlock. "I'm grateful enough that Birch took the time to help me when he could have run and left me to die."

Birch let out a strangled, bitter laugh. "No way. I learned not to run like a coward the hard way, remember?"

"Oh yes," said Hemlock, smiling. The smile vanished a second later. "I don't suppose there's anything left of the Tree anymore."

Birch shook his head but said nothing.

Rupert stepped sideways so he could address both Aunt Mindy and Uncle Simon. "We thank you for all your kindness, but I'm afraid we're pressed for time. Madoc will move his army again as soon as possible to attack the Fairies and they may pass through your village."

Simon glanced at Suzie and then at his wife. "Mindy?"

She sighed. "I've sunken my life into this soil. The other families can decide for themselves what to do, but I'm staying here."

Uncle Simon nodded then spoke to Rupert. "If you'll agree to take anyone who wants to go with you, we'll give you our horses. We have six, and you can have them all."

"We can't accept such an offer."

"You can and you will. Emily, get them some food. Your mother and I will go speak with the others. Suzie?"

Suzie stepped forward when she heard her name.

"Suzie..." He clasped her small, soft hands in his large, work-worn ones. "I...No matter how much I wish I was, I am not your father, and Mindy is not your mother. All these families are going to be talking about what to do. Some people may go, others will stay, but since you have no family, you can make your own decision. Don't decide now, wait until later. There's a good girl." And he left her.

The next few hours went by like snails on a hot day. Suzie sat at one end of the table, watching the elves and the human eat every scrap of food that Emily set on the other.

"Why are you so hungry?" Suzie asked.

The elves exchanged glances.

"We didn't have time to stop and eat," said Hemlock in a low voice.

"Why not?"

Birch spoke. "Because, little girl, if the humans had caught us, they would have killed us, and not just by hacking off our heads, mind you. They would have cut us open, pulled out our insides, and cooked them up. And even then we wouldn't have been dead, they would have-"

"Birch, shut up," Rupert barked.

Birch shot him a dark look and went back to his bread. Suzie stared at him, confused.

"Who would want to eat your guts?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

Birch stared at her as though shocked to hear her speak. Then he chuckled. Soon the other two strangers had joined in, rising in volume until they were all laughing uncontrollably while tears streamed down their faces.

A few hours later, Aunt Mindy saddled up five of the horses and brought them to the edge of the village. Each of the strangers had their own horse, and the seventeen-year-old twins shared their horses: Liza with her ten-year old brother Daniel, and Tessa with Suzie.

Almost everyone had come to see the group off, except for Emily, who had disappeared after a long, loud argument with her parents. She wanted to travel to the Fairies with Suzie and strangers, but the reasons she gave were all vague.

"Aren't I old enough to make my own decisions?" she had asked, and though most of the village would have thought that she was, her parents had refused to let her leave.

Uncle Simon described the route for Rupert.

"Follow the road into the woods and take the path on the right until you come to the little waterfall. If the merchant who told us this was truthful, then someone should be on duty there to point you in the right direction. And for Earth's sake, don't ride too fast! Hemlock, try to hold your arm still or you'll be in a lot of pain."

"You mean there's something worse than this?"

Uncle Simon snorted but Aunt Mindy sighed, refusing to laugh, and shook her head. "May Earth protect you." She kissed Suzie one last time, and they were on their way.

Suzie had imagined getting on the horse and then galloping away to some new future far away, but the horses plodded along as though they had not a care in the world.

"When will we get there?" she whined to Tessa after a half hour of unbroken silence.

"I don't know. Sometime late at night, I think. Or maybe we'll stop tonight and get there tomorrow."

"No," said Rupert. "We stop for nothing."

Suzie surveyed the land around her, taking in the rolling waves of grass on her left, the looming mountains on her right, and the fuzz of trees peeking over the horizon ahead. Boring. She and Daniel stared off into the distance while the older people began talking about this and that, what life and family had been like, whether anyone could read or write and how well, what they hoped to do in their lifetime, and other such boring things that do not interest seven-year-olds. Suzie was sound asleep by the time talk of humans, elves, and battle rolled around.

Suzie woke up in the early morning feeling as though someone was shaking her to bits. She realized that the horses had at last begun to move faster, almost at a canter and gaining speed.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Someone's following us," Tessa said, her voice filled with worry.

It was wonderful to be moving at last, but the joy was short-lived. Rupert had them slow down after a few minutes.

"It's just one person," he muttered. "We may as well not tire the horses."

The rider gained on them and soon Suzie could hear the hoof beats slowing as the animal neared. She turned and strained around Tessa.

Emily beamed at the surprised expressions that greeted her.

"Whew! Glad I caught you guys. I thought you would keep up the pace until this old horse died!"

"What are you doing here?" asked Liza, laughing.

"I went around the fields just before dinner while no one was looking. Please let me come with you! I don't want to spend the rest of my life in that little house."

"Your life might be cut short if you come along," Rupert murmured, but Suzie heard him.

"Better to die in some strange place than in the same hollow I've lived in all my life."

"My feelings exactly opposite," said Liza with a sigh. "But you're welcome to join us since you've come so far."

"Thank you," said Emily, and, much to Suzie's dismay, she started up another boring conversation.

Description
Suzie

Despite her efforts to hold them away from her body, Suzie could not stop the buckets banging against her thighs on her way down to the well. As she left the small cluster of cabins and barns that housed the five families that made up her village, she had to pass the tiny graveyard. She knew the names carved on the wooden grave markers as well as she knew the rest of the hamlet...

Two were unnamed babies who had died at birth, and the residents of the town were grateful that there were not more. There was the little boy who had been trampled by a horse a year ago and the two girls, one four, one thirteen, who had died from different sicknesses, and then there were her parents.

Jason Litlewood, twenty-seven, child, husband, father. And right next to him, so close that the villagers had unearthed some of his coffin when they buried her, was Marian Litlewood, twenty-seven, child, wife, mother.

Suzie did not remember her parents well. Sometimes she imagined that she could feel her father's laugh...for one could always feel his laughs as well as hear them, and it made others want to laugh too. She could remember the feel of his beard on her cheek as he kissed her good night...something that Uncle Simon did as well, but it was not the same.

She had more memories of her mother. In the months after her father's death, Suzie's mind had woken up and she had begun to absorb the details of the world around her. She remembered the day that her mother had struggled to her feet after lying in the dirt of her husband's grave for almost a week. She had stood and taken two steps and lived again, but just for a while. When the winter came, she fell ill with coughs that shook her whole body. A few days later, she began to cough up blood, and then she lay in bed with a raging fever. She tossed and turned in her bed for a week, calling for Jason to come back, and after almost a month of illness, the life drained from her body and she was gone.

Suzie skipped past the graveyard toward the well down by the fields. She had lived with Uncle Simon and his family for the past three years and they treated her like one of their own children. Chores kept her too busy to feel sorry for herself and she had not spent enough time with her parents enough to miss them very much.

As she reached the well, she preformed an old ritual before tossing the bucket into the dark water below. She climbed up the low stone wall onto the wooden cover that blocked the deep hole and scanned the hollow.

After her father had died, something had happened that had been the little hamlet's favorite discussion topic ever since. A human woman carrying a sword had come through the village, accompanied by an elf. They had worked hard to help the farmers replace the crops burned by Domicallia. Although everyone now detested those vegetables, it was common knowledge that the whole village might have starved that year if not for the strangers' help.

Suzie had become Willow the elf's shadow in an instant. She could not remember him, for although he had had green hair and strange ears (or so the village women said), his voice, walk and manner had reminded her so much of her father that the images blended in her head. He had promised to come back to see her someday, and though the village women told her that she was silly to hope for so much, she believed that he would keep his word.

So there she was, on top of the well, expecting today to be like every other day, when she saw something. Over the top of the hill appeared a large black shape that separated into the forms of three men and a horse.

Suzie's first instinct was to run into the village screaming at the top of her lungs, "Willow's back! Willow's back!" However, she had tried this before and things had not gone as planned.

The first time it had happened, the person had turned out to be a merchant. Everyone in the village had laughed at her and from then on, she waited to see whether the people coming over the hill carried large bundles of goods on their backs.

One time she thought she had it right. She saw someone coming who was short for a man and tall for a woman. He even had shaggy hair in need of cutting as the villagers told her Willow had, but by the time she had called everyone in the hamlet out of their houses, the person had changed and was no longer short with shaggy hair, but unnaturally tall with fiery red hair that stood off his head like flames. Again, everyone had laughed at her, and the man passed through the group without as much as a twitch of a smile.

Suzie decided that this time she would wait until she could tell who these people were before running back the hamlet, so she settled down on the well cover.

They were taking far too long coming down the hill. One man had to coax the horse to take every single step while another, shorter person who appeared to be a boy, was stepping sideways down the hill, as though it hurt him to walk forward. The final person, another boy, had his hands hidden in the folds of his cloak.

"What are you up to?"

Suzie glanced over her shoulder and saw Uncle Simon, up from the fields for a drink.

"People are coming," she said as though this answered all the questions he might have.

Uncle Simon smiled and his eyes sparkled. "I don't think it's Willow, honey."

"Humph!" she said, a perfect imitation of her uncle when he was angry. He laughed at this, as he always did, and then whipped off his hat and regarded the approaching figures.

"They don't look too good," he muttered to himself. "Suzie, run back to the house and get your Aunt for me."

"Do I have to?" she moaned.

"Yes, now scoot," he said, swatting her with his hat to prove his point. She jumped down from the well and set off for her house at a run. She found her aunt out in the barn, shoveling manure into a wheelbarrow

"Aunty! Uncle wants you at the well!"

"Well you tell him that I refuse to come. I'm scoops away from finishing this stinkin' stall and I won't be distracted!"

"But there's people coming!"

"Really?" Suzie giggled to watch her aunt decide between leaving her chore unfinished or missing the strangers. It was not a long battle. Aunt Mindy sighed.

"I'm coming." She dumped her load into the barrow and drove her shovel into the ground before hurrying after Suzie, who was already running as fast as her legs could carry her back to the well.

By the time Suzie returned, the man, horse, and boys had arrived and were gulping down water straight from the bucket.

They were an odd lot. The man had dark skin like a fairy but no hair on his head, and the two boys had their heads and faces hidden in scarves. The skin around their eyes, though, was dark and had a strange tint to it, like that of someone who has been sick for a long time, and they had dozens of wounds showing though rips in their clothes. Apart from smaller cuts that had been bandaged with scraps from a cloak, one had a broken arm and the other had cloth wound tight around his ankle. Dust from the road coated all of them from head to toe. Together, they drank two whole buckets of water before they slowed down.

"Good people," said the man with dark skin. He had a strange accent like none Suzie had heard before. "Have you heard of the Union of the Races?"

Mindy's face darkened. "Yes. They and their fort were demolished a few years ago, and good riddance I say!"

"How...what do you think of Elves?"

Suzie glanced at the two boys. They must be elves! Why else would he ask? She darted forward and, before anyone could stop her, she yanked the scarves off the head of the boy with the bound foot.

"Willow!" she cried, and flung her arms around him.

Right away, she knew she was wrong. He just sat there, didn't bring up his arms to return her hug, didn't say her name and apologize for being so late like grown-ups do.

"I'm sorry," muttered Uncle Simon as he pulled her away from the elf. "My niece, she's seven and she has far too much energy for her own good."

Now he was treating her like a baby. It was bad enough mistaking some strange person for Willow, who she was sure she would know on sight.

The elf stared at her. "You know Willow?"

However, before she could say anything, the big man spoke again.

"I'm sorry to just show up, but we need your help. Something horrible has happened and we need to get to the Fairies as fast as possible. Will you help us?"

"Of course!" cried Aunt Mindy.

"Come up to our house," Uncle Simon said.

He offered the elf with the bad foot his hand. The elf stared at it a moment, as though deciding whether it could be trusted. Hesitating just a little, he reached out, allowing Uncle Simon to pull him to his feet and help him up to the cluster of houses, the other elf and the human following a few paces behind.

Suzie's Aunt ran ahead to get a few things ready, and by the time the elves reached Uncle Simon's house, everyone in the hamlet was waiting outside the cottage door to see the strangers.

"Move over!" Simon grunted. "These men have had a long journey and they don't need more complications now! Move it! Emily, I'm going to need your help."

Simon's oldest daughter nodded and ducked inside the cottage, followed by the strangers and Suzie, who was trying to see the other elf's face to see if perhaps he was Willow.

Simon helped the elf over to the table and let him sit down. Emily started a small fire for heating water and Aunt Mindy climbed the ladder to the loft for her husband's basket of herbs, medicines, and bandages. She then exchanged places with Uncle Simon and drew the strange human into a corner to talk to him. Suzie crept behind the woodpile where she could hear their conversation.

"What happened to you?" Aunt Mindy asked.

"You said you knew Domicallia, right?"

Aunt Mindy nodded.

"The son of their leader escaped after the battle and convinced the queens and kings of Earth that it was the Elves, Dwarves and Fairies who were the enemy. Now he's the general of a massive army and he burned the Everwood to the ground and killed all the elves. They are the only ones left now."

Aunt Mindy glanced over to the table where the Elves sat, trying to look past their frozen faces for some hint of emotion.

"Birch hurt his foot when he jumped from a falling tree, and Hemlock's arm was crushed by a branch." As if as an afterthought, he added, "And I'm Rupert, one of the soldiers from Africa."

Suzie slipped away from her position at the woodpile and drifted over to the table to watch her uncle.

"Suzie, honey, please go away. I don't want you to see this."

"Please Uncle!"

"Well..."

"I promise I won't get in the way."

"Let her stay," said the elf, Birch. "She needs to learn to be brave."

Uncle Simon sighed, raised Birch's injured foot into his lap, and began to unwrap the bandages.

"You should work on Hemlock first, sir. He's much worse than I-" Uncle Simon cut him off as he drew a sharp breath.

His foot was a horrible, unnatural color and his ankle had swollen. Dirt from the road had worked its way in between the layers of cloth and rubbed his skin raw.

"Really sir, it's just a sprain, nothing more, but Hemlock-"

"Um...Dad?"

"What is it Emily?" asked Uncle Simon.

"I don't think I know how to..." she trailed off, incapable of finding the right words to describe her problem. Uncle Simon turned to look and Suzie crawled under the table.

Hemlock's arm was much worse than Birch's foot. Long, deep scrapes and dark bruises ran up and down the length of his arm and there were strange lumps in two places, a few inches above his elbow and halfway to his wrist.

"They're all broken," he stated matter-of-factly.

"We can see that!" cried Emily.

"Emily, you come over here," Uncle Simon told her. "Wash Birch's foot and wrap it up again. There isn't much more we can do."

Emily nodded and stood to switch places with her father.

"Suzie," said Uncle Simon. "Why don't you go find me four straight sticks from the yard? They should be at least as long as your arm, do you understand?"

Suzie nodded and hurried off, determined to be back as soon as possible so she would not miss anything. Just as she reached the stream where the trees grew, something that her uncle had said made her stop. Uncle Simon had told her to get sticks from the yard, but the area around the houses was devoid of trees. In an instant, Suzie realized that she had fallen for one of the oldest tricks that parents used to get their children out of the way, and was soon running back the way she had come.

By the time she returned, it was over. Uncle Simon had realigned and splinted Hemlock's bones and was arranging his arm in a sling.

"You were in a forest!" he yelled at no one in particular. "There would have been sticks everywhere! Why didn't you take a few seconds to splint his arm?"

"Sir, we were running for our lives," Birch retorted.

"I wouldn't have let them stop for me anyway," said Hemlock. "I'm grateful enough that Birch took the time to help me when he could have run and left me to die."

Birch let out a strangled, bitter laugh. "No way. I learned not to run like a coward the hard way, remember?"

"Oh yes," said Hemlock, smiling. The smile vanished a second later. "I don't suppose there's anything left of the Tree anymore."

Birch shook his head but said nothing.

Rupert stepped sideways so he could address both Aunt Mindy and Uncle Simon. "We thank you for all your kindness, but I'm afraid we're pressed for time. Madoc will move his army again as soon as possible to attack the Fairies and they may pass through your village."

Simon glanced at Suzie and then at his wife. "Mindy?"

She sighed. "I've sunken my life into this soil. The other families can decide for themselves what to do, but I'm staying here."

Uncle Simon nodded then spoke to Rupert. "If you'll agree to take anyone who wants to go with you, we'll give you our horses. We have six, and you can have them all."

"We can't accept such an offer."

"You can and you will. Emily, get them some food. Your mother and I will go speak with the others. Suzie?"

Suzie stepped forward when she heard her name.

"Suzie..." He clasped her small, soft hands in his large, work-worn ones. "I...No matter how much I wish I was, I am not your father, and Mindy is not your mother. All these families are going to be talking about what to do. Some people may go, others will stay, but since you have no family, you can make your own decision. Don't decide now, wait until later. There's a good girl." And he left her.

The next few hours went by like snails on a hot day. Suzie sat at one end of the table, watching the elves and the human eat every scrap of food that Emily set on the other.

"Why are you so hungry?" Suzie asked.

The elves exchanged glances.

"We didn't have time to stop and eat," said Hemlock in a low voice.

"Why not?"

Birch spoke. "Because, little girl, if the humans had caught us, they would have killed us, and not just by hacking off our heads, mind you. They would have cut us open, pulled out our insides, and cooked them up. And even then we wouldn't have been dead, they would have-"

"Birch, shut up," Rupert barked.

Birch shot him a dark look and went back to his bread. Suzie stared at him, confused.

"Who would want to eat your guts?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

Birch stared at her as though shocked to hear her speak. Then he chuckled. Soon the other two strangers had joined in, rising in volume until they were all laughing uncontrollably while tears streamed down their faces.

A few hours later, Aunt Mindy saddled up five of the horses and brought them to the edge of the village. Each of the strangers had their own horse, and the seventeen-year-old twins shared their horses: Liza with her ten-year old brother Daniel, and Tessa with Suzie.

Almost everyone had come to see the group off, except for Emily, who had disappeared after a long, loud argument with her parents. She wanted to travel to the Fairies with Suzie and strangers, but the reasons she gave were all vague.

"Aren't I old enough to make my own decisions?" she had asked, and though most of the village would have thought that she was, her parents had refused to let her leave.

Uncle Simon described the route for Rupert.

"Follow the road into the woods and take the path on the right until you come to the little waterfall. If the merchant who told us this was truthful, then someone should be on duty there to point you in the right direction. And for Earth's sake, don't ride too fast! Hemlock, try to hold your arm still or you'll be in a lot of pain."

"You mean there's something worse than this?"

Uncle Simon snorted but Aunt Mindy sighed, refusing to laugh, and shook her head. "May Earth protect you." She kissed Suzie one last time, and they were on their way.

Suzie had imagined getting on the horse and then galloping away to some new future far away, but the horses plodded along as though they had not a care in the world.

"When will we get there?" she whined to Tessa after a half hour of unbroken silence.

"I don't know. Sometime late at night, I think. Or maybe we'll stop tonight and get there tomorrow."

"No," said Rupert. "We stop for nothing."

Suzie surveyed the land around her, taking in the rolling waves of grass on her left, the looming mountains on her right, and the fuzz of trees peeking over the horizon ahead. Boring. She and Daniel stared off into the distance while the older people began talking about this and that, what life and family had been like, whether anyone could read or write and how well, what they hoped to do in their lifetime, and other such boring things that do not interest seven-year-olds. Suzie was sound asleep by the time talk of humans, elves, and battle rolled around.

Suzie woke up in the early morning feeling as though someone was shaking her to bits. She realized that the horses had at last begun to move faster, almost at a canter and gaining speed.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Someone's following us," Tessa said, her voice filled with worry.

It was wonderful to be moving at last, but the joy was short-lived. Rupert had them slow down after a few minutes.

"It's just one person," he muttered. "We may as well not tire the horses."

The rider gained on them and soon Suzie could hear the hoof beats slowing as the animal neared. She turned and strained around Tessa.

Emily beamed at the surprised expressions that greeted her.

"Whew! Glad I caught you guys. I thought you would keep up the pace until this old horse died!"

"What are you doing here?" asked Liza, laughing.

"I went around the fields just before dinner while no one was looking. Please let me come with you! I don't want to spend the rest of my life in that little house."

"Your life might be cut short if you come along," Rupert murmured, but Suzie heard him.

"Better to die in some strange place than in the same hollow I've lived in all my life."

"My feelings exactly opposite," said Liza with a sigh. "But you're welcome to join us since you've come so far."

"Thank you," said Emily, and, much to Suzie's dismay, she started up another boring conversation.