"Mom . . . 'Blood is binding, blood is lure'? You're scaring the girls."
"I am not."
It was sullen, and Lilly came forward, hand out, pleading. "You're scaring me."
Her mother pressed her lips together, determination etched in her every move. "I need to go see. Maybe the tree died. I should have kept a better watch, but I didn't think he'd ever remain awake this long."
Fear slid through Lilly, fear that her mother was starting to lose her grip. "There is no tree spirit murdering men who chop down trees!"
"He is out there!" Her mother pointed at the moonlight beyond the window, her loud voice shocking Lilly. "Meg heard him sing. Today in the creek. He can't cross running water, but he can speak through it, and if the tree he was in has died . . . He could be out there right now, watching us, learning what we most want in the world."
Lilly watched her mother go pale. "Bittersweet," the older woman whispered. "He didn't like bittersweet. Do you remember what fencepost we saw it growing on last fall? I can tie some over the girls' window. Maybe it will keep him out."
"That is enough!" Lilly exclaimed, then glanced at the stairs, worried Meg might hear and come down.
"He's out there!" her mother said virulently, eyes wild. "Meg is vulnerable. He hates men, but he is charmed by women and he knows what little girls want to believe. If we don't find him and bind him, he's going to hurt her. People are going to die! People you know and love!"
Lilly jumped when her mother's grip pinched her wrist. "Blood will bind him, but he needs it to become strong enough to be seen, so he'll risk it," she hissed, and Lilly recoiled. "I don't want my grandchildren having to go through that hell! He's so cruel, so beautiful."
Lilly watched her mother's tired eyes fill, and she pulled her arm to herself when she let go.
"My grandbaby," her mother said, head down as she turned away. "He's singing to her. She can hear him. I should have done better. I should have told you the truth, but I didn't want you to have to believe!"
"Mom?" Damn it, now she was crying. Frightened by the mood swings, she put a hand on her mom's shoulder. "Mom, it's just a story," she said as the older woman took a tissue from a tiny pocket and hid her eyes. "It's going to be okay. If you wouldn't fill Meg's head with stories of unicorns and evil witches, she wouldn't make stuff like this up! Nothing is going to happen. Meg is fine! Em, too."
Still she cried, and Lilly's thoughts spun full circle. "Where's your medicine?" she said suddenly. "Do you still have it?" Her mother hadn't had a spell like this in twenty years. Not since Emily's husband had died when clearing a windblown tree from a fence. The weight shifted when a limb was cut free, and the entire tree fell on him, killing him instantly.
"It's poison. I threw it out," the older woman said, grasping her sleeve and drawing her to a halt. "I'm okay. You're right. Meg is making the voices up." Color high, her mother touched her face, smiling even through the last of her tears. "It's just a story. You're right. I'm a foolish old woman who's had too much sun."
Hearing the lie, Lilly's stomach clenched as she watched her mother set the drying cloth on the table and turn her back on her. "I'm tired," her mother whispered, not meeting her eyes as she headed for the hallway. "I'm going to lie down."
"Mom?"
Emily smiled tremulously again, hesitating in the threshold, one hand on the wood, the other clenched in a tight fist. "You have a good night, Lilly. I'll see you in the morning. You're right. It's just a fanciful story of an old woman. I'll gather the eggs in the morning. No need for you to get up early."
Lilly's eyes narrowed, and for the second time that night, she crossed her arms over her chest, angry with her mother. She didn't believe the sudden change of heart for a second. But still, worry lingered as she draped the cloth over the drying rack and turned out the light to better find Pepper ranging in the moonlight.
Beyond the window, the creek shone, a moving, living ribbon of silver. Maybe she should call Kevin despite wanting to gouge his eyes out with a ice pick. Kevin was a prick, but his dad had grown up with her mother. Something had happened when her mother was fourteen, something that no one talked about and had never made the papers. It wasn't a tree spirit, but maybe someone she trusted had raped her and she invented the drama to make it more bearable. Meg's silly rhyme today might have brought it all back. Aging people remembered things from the past better than the present sometimes.
Kevin's dad would know. He'd been her mother's best friend.
TWO
Though the rising sun was bright in the girls' room, little Em was still asleep, and Lilly eased the door shut, smiling at the pout the four-year-old was wearing. Her smile faded quickly as she went downstairs, the air becoming cooler, but no less humid. It was going to be a scorcher of a day, and she was glad the hay had come in already, filling the barn where her art studio was with the scent of summer.
The chance to lose herself in her work pulled at her, her restless sleep filled with images of honey-eyed wolves. She blamed her mother, and she slipped into the kitchen, seeing the basket of newly washed eggs next to the sink.
It was quiet, even for a lonely farmhouse at the edge of nothing. The come-and-go squeak of the porch swing mixed with the ever-present crickets and bubbling creek, and she leaned on tiptoe over the sink to look out onto the porch. Meg was in the long swing, a half-melted Popsicle in her grip, Pepper sprawled out beneath her. The sun bathed her in its glow, and the nine-year-old girl in her shorts and straight brown hair looked wisely innocent-a small spot of quiet intelligence calmly swinging as if waiting for something to come up the road, something she wouldn't share with her mother.
"Good morning, Meg," she said softly out the open window, holding the faded curtain aside so she could see her daughter's blue-stained smile. "You're up early. Where's Gram? Still in the barn?"
The creak of the long swing slowed, but didn't stop. "She went for a walk in the woods." Meg pulled her attention from the car bridge, twisting to pull her legs up under her as blue dripped from a bent knuckle.
Meg's words tightened through Lilly. She drew back in, her hand looking like her mother's for the first time as it let go of the curtain. Her mother had said she was going to go into the woods to see if her dryad's tree had decayed. This fantasy had gone on long enough.
Brow furrowed, Lilly headed for the porch, her sneakers silent on the faded linoleum. The squeak and slam of the screen door shocked through her, and she forced a smile so as not to worry Meg. "She went into the woods?" she asked, coming to sit beside Meg and keep the swing moving. "What for?"