Mademoiselle LeFarge’s wedding is to take place on the last Friday in May. I return a day early, Thursday, and carry my trunk to my old room. The trees have grown such a full coat of leaves that I can no longer see the lake and the boathouse from here. A hint of color flickers in the ivy beneath my window. I throw open the sash and reach down. It is a fragment of the red cloth. Kartik’s signal to me. I pluck it free and tuck it into the waist of my skirt.
A new crew of men is hard at work on the East Wing. The turret takes shape nicely. No longer a wound but not quite whole. It is between, and I’ve come to feel a kinship with it. The door into the realms is closed just now, giving us all time to think, to take stock. When I return from university, we—the tribes of the realms, my friends, Fowlson, Nightwing, and I, and all who wish to have a say—shall work together to forge a constitution of sorts, a document and a government to guide the realms.
Not that it matters much where I am concerned. It seems that, rather like unruly red hair and skin that will freckle, my ability to enter the realms is a part of me. So on a beautiful last Thursday in May, I sit on my old bed in my room in Spence and make the door of light appear.
The realms are not the place of awe I remember from my first days here; nor are they a place of fear. They are a place I have come to know and would know more of.
Gorgon is in the garden, hoisting the silver arch that leads to the grotto back into position. It is battered but unbroken.
“Most High,” she calls. “A hand would be most appreciated.”
“Certainly,” I say, pulling on the other side. We push until the arch catches in the dirt. It wavers for a moment, then stands.
“I wish to see Philon,” I say.
“My legs are weak from years of imprisonment,” she says, leaning against a tree for support. “But my spirit is strong. Come, I shall take you there.”
She leads me to the river and the boat that was her prison for centuries.
I back away. “No. I couldn’t ask you to become one with this ghastly ship again.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I only meant to steer.”
“Yes,” I say, sheepish. “Carry on.”
Gorgon takes the wheel like a proper captain, setting a course for the home of the forest folk. We pass through the golden mist and I let it shower me with jewel-like flecks. Some land on Gorgon as well. She shakes them free. The shore comes into view. It is not as verdant as it once was. The creatures’ damage was great. Burned trees stand like spindly matchsticks, and the earth is as tough as leather. Many of the folk are gone. But children still laugh and play along the shore. Their spirits are not vanquished easily.
Several of them approach Gorgon shyly. They are curious about the great green giantess striding through their homeland. Gorgon turns on them quickly, letting her snakes hiss and snap. The children run away screaming with a mixture of dread and delight.
“Was that necessary?” I ask.
“I have told you before. I am not maternal.”
We find Philon overseeing the building of huts. But it is not only the forest folk who raise beams and hammer roofs. They stand side by side with the Untouchables, the nymphs, several shape-shifters. Bessie Timmons hauls water, strong and sure. A shape-shifter girl follows her, admiring her strength. I even spy one of the Winterlands creatures brushing shimmering pitch onto the roofs. In the forest are souls of all sorts; creatures of every imagining; mortals, too. Asha offers water to Gorgon, who drinks it and returns the glass for more.
“Priestess!” Philon greets me with a clasp of hands. “Have you come to take your place beside us?”
“No,” I say. “I’ve only come to say goodbye for a while.”
“When will you return?”
I shake my head. “I cannot say just yet. It is time for me to take my place in the world—my own world. I am to go to New York.”
“But you are a part of the realms,” Philon reminds me.
“And they shall always be a part of me. Do look after things. We have much to argue about when I return.”
“What makes you think we shall argue?”
I give Philon a knowing look. “We’ve the realms to discuss. I don’t delude myself that it shall go smoothly.”
“More tribes have heard. They will come to sit with us,” Philon says.
“Good.”
Philon reaches into the burned leaves and blows on them. They spiral and flutter until they form an image of the Tree of All Souls. The image lasts for only a moment. “The magic is in the land again. In time it will come back a hundredfold.”