Shadows of the Redwood Read online

  Praise for the Faire Folk Trilogy

  The Tree Shepherd’s Daughter

  “The constant action, both magical and otherwise,

  will keep [readers] interested in Keelie’s fate.”

  —School Library Journal

  “One of those remarkable tales in which the reader

  becomes completely immersed … It will be enjoyed not

  only in its own right, but also will have readers eagerly

  anticipating books two and three in the promised trilogy.

  —KLIATT

  Into the Wildewood

  “Compelling and beautifully written … a great

  follow-up to an already breathtaking first novel. Fans of the series will be very satisfied.”—TeensReadToo.com

  “Into the Wildewood brings a fresh perspective to the

  genre with a crackerjack plot and razor sharp writing.”

  —ForeWord Magazine

  The Secret of the Dread Forest

  “The pleasant mix of fairy dust and romance—hallmarks of the previous two books—is still present in The Secret of the Dread Forest. The book zips along—fans of the series will not be disappointed.”—VOYA

  “New and old characters combine in a breakneck plot that will have readers turning pages in class and long after bedtime.”—ForeWord Magazine

  To all of the two-legged and four-legged children that

  make life endlessly amusing, frustrating, and delightful.

  Biscuits and chew-chews to all.

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Shadows of the Redwood: The Scions of Shadow Trilogy © 2010 by Berta Platas and Michelle Roper.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

  First e-book edition © 2010

  E-book ISBN: 978-07387-2628-1

  Book design by Steffani Sawyer

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Cover illustration by Derek Lea

  Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Flux does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Flux

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  Much of the research for this book was done online. However, huge thanks to Dexter Henry for walking the big woods and shaking the redbark dust from his hiking boots, giving us a timely addition to our redwood knowledge, and, as ever, to Wendy Davis of the National Park Service, our tree-huggin’ muse. Special thanks to our agent Richard Curtis, and to our creative and patient editors Brian Farrey and Sandy Sullivan, our enthusiastic publicist Marissa Pederson, and to Amy Martin, the queen of back-cover blurbs. And much Ren Faire love to Kevin Brown for blessing us with his gorgeous covers. Keelie is ever so grateful.

  Trees [are] like silent witnesses to history as it goes by.

  —Loreena McKennitt, NPR interview

  The spring air was brisk and smelled of green buds and rising sap. Keelie Heartwood buttoned her acorn-embroidered sweater as she closed the post office door and stepped out onto Edgewood’s breezy Main Street. She held five envelopes in her left hand, and one very special envelope in her right.

  It was a normal-looking paper rectangle, except for the black embossed return address that read Talbot and Talbot. Her mom’s law firm, the one that had sent an attorney to personally escort her to her father at the High Mountain Renaissance Faire last year, after her mother died. That day, Keelie thought her world had ended, and it was true in a way. Gone was the spoiled California mall brat. And though she still missed her mom terribly, now she had a father she adored and a totally different lifestyle. So different that her Los Angeles friends would never recognize her.

  For one thing, she was an elf. Well, a half-elf. She’d always been one, of course, but it took living with her elven dad and learning that her tree allergy was really a sensitivity to magic to change her forever.

  Now, though, that old life had come roaring back. She hadn’t been able to resist opening the letter then and there, and she was still reeling from the news. Mom’s house, her house, the one she’d grown up in, had been sold. Talbot and Talbot was happy to announce how much money would now go to her trust fund, but Keelie’s brain had stopped at the word “sale.”

  The house was empty, of course. The lawyers had arranged to send her belongings here, to the Dread Forest in Oregon, and the furniture and Mom’s things were in storage. Keelie’s gut clenched at the thought of her life with Mom in some darkened, airless warehouse space in plain brown boxes. She’d be able to open them again one day, but the house, the gardens, the neighborhood would soon be a memory beyond her reach.

  She wished she could go back once more to say goodbye. As long as her house was there, a window was open to her past. She could hear it slamming shut.

  The wind picked up, showering Keelie with sweet white blossoms from the pear trees that lined the street. She brushed flowers from her sweater and absently thanked the trees for their gift. They meant well.

  May your leaves shine brightly, Daughter of the Forest, they answered in tree speak, the telepathic language of the trees. Since she was a tree shepherd, like her father, Keelie could hear them. No other elves could.

  Ahead, a glowing neon sign flashed “Magic Forest Tattoo,” her friend Zabrina’s tattoo and piercing shop. Keelie hurried toward it, eager to tell her friend about the letter and maybe score a cup of coffee. Dad was not a coffee drinker, and this seriously cramped Keelie’s mornings.

  She pulled open the door, jingling the bell that dangled from the knob on a silk cord, and then slowed, disappointed to see that Zabrina had customers—a group of college students in “I survived the Okanogan Rapids” T-shirts. The one sitting in the dentist’s chair Zabrina used for her work looked pale. Zabrina’s brilliant purple hair shadowed the area where she was working on his bicep.

  A huge pumpkin-colored cat snored at her feet, ignoring the sounds around him. He twisted to look when the bell jingled, and Zabrina looked up.

  “Hey, Keelie. How’s that belly button ring working?”

  Keelie touched her stomach. “It’s okay. Perfectly normal.” She emphasized the word “normal.” Her first belly button ring had been wooden, and her increasing magic had made it come to life, sprouting leaves and threatening to turn into a tree branch sticking out of her
belly. Scary. This one was silver and, so far, inert.

  “Good to hear,” Zabrina said. Her little smile said much more. She wore a long-sleeved peasant blouse today that covered Molly, the fairy tattoo on her shoulder that sometimes came to life and flitted around the shop like Tinker Bell’s shadow. “Need anything?”

  “No, you’re busy. I’ll just grab my cat.” Keelie looked at the orange behemoth. “Come on, Knot, time to go home.”

  In typical cat fashion, Knot ignored her, turning his green eyes toward the wall that was covered in framed pictures of tattoos. Knot wasn’t really a cat—he was a fairy, just as Zabrina was, and he liked to hang around with her.

  “Take him with you, Keelie. He’s been chasing Molly.” Zabrina widened her eyes and jerked her chin toward her tattooed shoulder.

  Keelie glared at the cat. “You are so evil.” He purred, as she knew he would. “You shouldn’t stay where you aren’t wanted.” She knew better than to drag him out, but he’d come along in a minute. He just didn’t want her to think he was a pushover. Keelie waved at the bedraggled, tired-looking white water rafters who’d come in for their souvenir tats. A few waved back, and she ducked out of the shop.

  She headed south, hoping to see Barrow the dwarf at his parents’ hardware store, since she was dying to talk to someone about the letter. She crossed the street in front of the diner. A fuzzy orange blur beat her to it. Keelie knew Knot couldn’t resist seeing what she was up to.

  Loud banging rang from the narrow old warehouse that occupied the space next to the hardware store, its mellow bricks covered in ivy. Barrow was in his sculpture workshop. His metal sculptures decorated many of the lawns around town, and were popular with the tourists and white water rafters.

  She tugged open one of the sagging white doors (pine, from the river’s shore), and stepped into the gloom. “Barrow, you here?”

  “Back here, Keelie.”

  She turned toward his voice, but didn’t move until her eyes had adjusted to the dark. Barrow’s family lived underground, and this was normal lighting for him.

  Her vision cleared slowly, until she saw the dwarf at the other end of the warehouse next to a wide kiddie pool, his welding torch and tanks behind him. Keelie’s eyes widened when she saw that the pool held the water sprite who lived in the stream in the Dread Forest. The little fishlike sprite was sitting on a rock in the center of the pool, her tail fins splashing lightly and her head thrown back so that her long, green, yarnlike hair flowed down to the water behind her. Barrow had a serious crush on the sprite.

  “Keelie, you remember Plu, don’t you?”

  Plu? She’d never learned the sprite’s name, but the bubbly sounding word fit her. “Hi, Plu. Nice to see you again.”

  The sprite opened her large lavender eyes and then smiled when she saw Keelie. “I wondered who it was that could see me.”

  Knot rubbed against the side of the kiddie pool.

  “I’m doing her portrait,” Barrow explained. The dwarf seemed to be about Keelie’s age, even though at three feet tall he was the same height as her father’s friend, Sir Davey. Keelie had met Barrow last fall Under-the-Hill, which was the underground land where the dwarves lived (the fae had once lived there too, although in recent years only the darkest fae, such as trolls and Red Caps, remained). Dad and Grandmother had been surprised to hear of the existence of this subterranean homeland; the elves had lived atop it for centuries without ever knowing it. The trees, whose roots delved deep, had kept the secret.

  Keelie drew closer and looked over Barrow’s shoulder. So far, the portrait consisted of three battered steel cutouts welded together.

  “I’m just starting.” Barrow must have noticed her expression. “I’m going to curl steel ribbons for her hair.” The sprite laughed and Barrow blushed. He had it bad.

  “It sounds great,” Keelie said, still not sure how it would work out. She was no artist. “I got a letter from my mom’s lawyers. They sold our house.”

  “The one in the city?” Barrow pulled a heavy leather hood over his head, then dropped a thick metal shield with a tiny, thick glass window in its center over his face. “Step back and don’t look at the flame.”

  Keelie backed away and turned from the slight “whump,” which was followed by the hissing roar of the welding torch. “I’d better leave you to it. See you later.”

  Barrow motioned absently, his attention on his work. As she was leaving he yelled out, “Let’s have lunch before you leave for the High Mountain Faire.”

  “Sure,” Keelie called. She couldn’t talk to him until that torch was extinguished. “See you later. Bye, Plu.”

  She trudged back to where she’d parked her father’s battered pickup truck. No one had time for her today. Keelie didn’t want to whine to Dad about the sale of the house, as if she was yearning for the life she’d had before, and Grandmother wouldn’t understand. She climbed into the truck, waiting for Knot to take his usual seat beside her, paws on the dashboard so that he could watch the road ahead. She started the truck up and headed through town, then turned left at the first crossroad and started up the mountain.

  Keelie shivered as she passed the tall trees that marked the beginning of the Dread Forest, and grasped the rose quartz crystal that she kept clipped to her belt loop. The Dread, as it was called, was a powerful magic that the elves had laid upon the forest long ago, to make humans feel a powerful, unfocused terror and run away as fast as possible. By successfully keeping humans out with the Dread, the elves had kept the forest pristine for centuries. As a half-human, Keelie was not as affected by the Dread as a full human would be, but it still made her nauseated and afraid. So, as Sir Davey had taught her, she drew on her rose quartz to channel Earth magic, which boosted her other powers and helped her resist the Dread. Without the crystal, she wouldn’t be able to live here with her father.

  The lessons she’d taken with Lord Elianard, over the winter, had included a section from ancient books on the elven use of Earth magic. Keelie had picked up some tips about Earth magic that even Sir Davey didn’t know. Of course, now she was stuck carrying around a huge book of charms and spells that she had to work through, but it was worth it. For one thing, she’d learned to boost the power of the rose quartz with elven magic, so now she could just clip the crystal to her belt and still be covered by its effect. She had also made extra charms and stashed them in the house, the truck, and even around the forest so she’d never be without one.

  After a while the Earth magic charm was self-sustaining, and Keelie was able to let the crystal dangle once more from her waist. The woods were beautiful, thick with tall, ancient trees. The high canopy and shadowed floor held all kinds of life, and Keelie felt as if she was an important part of it.

  Soon, the gray stone stable of the elven village loomed ahead, and she parked in the graveled lot next to it. The building housed the Silver Bough Jousting Company’s horses in the off-season. This was also where supplies and deliveries were dropped off, before the human delivery drivers quickly left, screaming all the way down the mountain.

  Keelie walked around the building, which smelled faintly of horses even though all of them had been trucked to California for the start of the Juliet City Shakespeare Festival. Sean, the head jouster and Keelie’s sort-of boyfriend, had been so busy preparing for the trip that they’d barely seen each other in weeks.

  She batted aside the thought that if he’d really wanted to, he could have made time to be with her. At least he hadn’t been with Risa, who had been his fiancé for, like, five minutes last fall. Keelie tried not to think about that either. The curvy elf girl was joining the Ren Faire circuit for the first time this spring, selling handmade herbal products, and she was starting in Juliet City.

  Keelie had wanted to go to Juliet as well, mostly so that she could be closer to Sean, and also to her friend Laurie, who lived in L.A. (although L.A. was not exactly next door, being hundreds of miles to the south). But now that Risa was going to be at the Festival, Keelie
had a second reason to go there. And the envelope in her hand made three.

  But instead, she was stuck in Oregon, plowing through the Lore Books that Lord Elianard had assigned her, as well as working through the massive and massively boring book of charms and spells, otherwise known as the Compendium of Elven Household Charms. Lord Elianard expected her to have it memorized by the time they rendezvoused in Colorado at the High Mountain Faire. It seemed Keelie’s life was happening elsewhere while she was stuck here.

  She walked behind the stone and timber homes of the village elves until she reached her house. Zekeliel Heartwood—her dad, master carpenter, tree shepherd, and current Lord of the Forest—had built this two-story craftsman-style house for his bride Katy, Keelie’s human mom. Now Keelie called it home. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else … except for that little house in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, where she’d lived with Mom.

  “Dad?” No answer. Knot shot upstairs, and Keelie left the other mail on the kitchen counter and went back out, the folded Talbot and Talbot letter in her pocket. The village was quiet today. Many of the elves had left for the various fairs they worked across the country.

  The air smelled sweet and full of life, and under her feet was the hum of living things. Deeper below, she could hear the heartlike thrum of the underworld. Under-the-Hill, just a hundred feet below her.

  Keelie passed the circle of ancient oaks called the Grove, which surrounded the green where the village business took place. A giant but new tree rose in the center, its roots emerging from the broken pieces of petrified wood that had formed the Elven Council’s meeting place, the Caudex. Someone had made a pavement out of the fragments of the Caudex, and they still resonated with power.

  The tree’s branches glittered with hanging chains, wind chimes, and bits of crystal. Her name was Alora. She had come from the Wildewood Forest in New York, an acorn in Keelie’s pocket. As a treeling she’d loved to wear Keelie’s earrings and other shiny jewelry, which she delightedly called “twinkles.” But the treeling had grown with magic, and was now the Great Tree of the Dread Forest. Her place on the Caudex had sealed the presence of the Dread in these woods and restored the balance of magic in the forest.