Carla gritted her teeth, slid out of her mom's silver-rust-mobile, and slammed the door. A decrepit old house loomed over her. White paint flaked from its brick walls. Dormer windows protruded from the roof like eyes with two much green eye shadow. Eyes like Mrs. Dimple, her old crone of an English teacher. Carla would rather go back to Mrs. Dimple's class any day than have to live in this house.

Mom climbed out of the car, sniffed, and let out a contented sigh. "Smell that, Carla. That's the smell of fresh country air."

Carla took a deep breath and gagged. "Stinks like a sewer."

"No, it smells like cows and horses, sheep and pigs, green fields and fertile soil. This place is perfect."

An ugly cow in a pen across the street blinked its fat brown eyes at Carla and mooed in agreement.

Mom spread her arms and twirled. "I've finally come home." She ran up the front steps to the rickety wooden door, which barred the way to an enclosed porch. She rattled the key in the lock and flung the door open. "Isn't it beautiful."

"Yeah. Wasn't our last apartment in Denver bad enough?" Carla opened the trunk of the car, pulled out her suitcase, and retrieved a cardboard box of her most precious things. The box felt light and empty—like her insides—hollow, cleaned out, stripped of everything that meant anything to her. The memory of her last pizza shared with Meg and Richard soured on her tongue. But they're happy together, she told herself. It didn't change how she felt. Her two best friends shouldn't have started dating. They had each other now and no time left for her.

Mom frowned and motioned Carla inside, "You know very well we couldn’t stay in Denver. Too dangerous."

"Richard didn’t actually shoot anyone."

"You shouldn’t have tried taking the gun from him. Why’d he even have it? What’s wrong with that boy?"

Carla pushed her way into the house. "Nothing's wrong with him. The other kids at school are just jerks." Mom would never understand the countless hours Richard spent at the ballet studio. And he was good. Oh so good. Mistress Shannon insisted he’d have a professional career. Not that the kids at school who called him a Fem cared about that. Yeah, so Carla had talked him out of killing all those stupid bigots. That didn’t seem reason enough to drag her out to the country.

"Carla, you’ve got to stop taking in strays. You can’t heal every hurt creature that crosses your path." Mom let the porch door slam and followed her into the living room.

"Richard is not a stray."

"Yes he is, and a dangerous one at that."

Carla's jaw hurt from clenching it so hard. She'd talked the gun away from Richard because Richard was her friend. He wouldn't have shot her, she hoped. She'd never admit to her mom how terrified she'd been when she first saw the bulge under his jacket and realized what it was. Time to change the subject.

"I did okay with Ginger." The stray cat she’d seen hit by a car and nursed back to health.

Mom’s forehead wrinkled with worry. She rubbed her face and tugged a strand of her short brown hair. "It could have had rabies."

"Didn’t."

"But it could have, and Richard could have shot you, and Meg . . . Meg was supposed to be dying of cancer. Terminal in three months the doctors said."

Carla bristled at the hard edge of worry in mom’s eyes. "It went into remission."

"After she started spending time with you."

"What?" Carla dropped her suitcase and spread one arm. "All I did was go to the mall with her. Normal stuff. She has a right to have a normal life. It’s not like cancer is contagious. I don’t know what you’re so worried about?"

Mom’s frown faded, but the worry remained in her eyes. "You’re right. Cancer isn’t contagious. I shouldn’t worry, but I do." She took a deep breath.

Carla wrinkled her nose at the living room’s threadbare aquamarine carpet. The scent of mildew clung to the walls. "This place must be a hundred years old."

"Older," her mother said. Keys jingled as she shoved them into her jeans pocket. "Three generations of the Conewood family were born and died in this very house. Farmers all of them until the last bunch of kids went off to be stockbrokers and lawyers. It's hard to conceive, isn't it? But lucky for us."

Carla could conceive it just fine. "Where's my room?"

"Upstairs." Her mom pointed to a wooden door at the far side of the room. Its green paint had not so much peeled off as worn off bit by bit around the handle and edge where endless sets of hands had touched it. "Actually, there are two rooms up there. You can pick which one you like, and we'll store our extra things in the other."

Carla stared at the narrow door. A small black spider scurried across it and disappeared around the edge. Shuddering, Carla turned away from the door, clutched the box to her chest with both hands, and followed Mom into the kitchen.

The cream-colored paint on the walls in the kitchen had fared even worse than the paint on the door. Here and there it had flaked off completely along with chunks of plaster, revealing thin horizontal support boards.

"This is terrific," Mom said, picking at the crumbling plaster. "These walls are actually done in plaster and lathe instead of Sheetrock. And look at this." Mom rapped her knuckles against a metal plate engraved with flowers that had been screwed into the side of the wall. "This is covering the hole where the pipe went up from the wood-burning stove they used for cooking long ago. We'll get a replica one, of course."

Carla glanced from the metal plate on the wall to the opposite wall where two cupboards hunched over a thin counter with a sink and an electric stove and oven. No dishwasher. No microwave.

"The bathroom's there." Her mother pointed to an alcove at the side of the kitchen. "And my room is just off the back porch there." She pointed to the door at the back of the kitchen.

"Mom. This place is horrible. Pretending you like it won’t change the facts."

Mom put her hands on her hips and glared at Carla. "I do like it. You know I’ve always wanted to live in the country. I’ve looked forever for a place we could afford. Ever since I came back from Scotland."

Carla rolled her eyes. The whole Scotland thing made her uncomfortable, now that she no longer believed her mother’s fairy tale account of finding a handsome prince, falling in love, and getting married.

"Don’t roll your eyes at me. That was the best summer of my life. Your father—"

"Don’t. Don’t even talk about him."

"I loved him."

"You were only seventeen."

"We got married."

"No marriage certificate." How stupid did Mom think she was? Carla couldn’t stand the fact that Mom had put, Greenhall, her father’s last name, on her birth certificate.

"It was Scotland. Scotland’s different."

"No it’s not." The anger and frustration of being forced to leave behind everything she cared about welled up inside Carla. Her face burned. Denver had the light-rail to take her around the city to the Chocolate Factory, the Performing Arts Center, the 16th Street Mall.

This new place, a tiny valley in the middle of nowhere, had nothing. No malls. No dance studios. No movie theaters. Just a stupid new school where Carla wouldn’t know anyone.

"Your father and I loved each other."

Carla snapped. "My father was a creep who seduced you and ended up in prison for it."

"Carla!" Mom’s face went bright red. She pointed a shaking finger at Carla. "You go to your room, right now."

"Never." Carla set her box down against the wall and headed for the back door. "I hate this house. I will never live here."

Chapter Two

Carla jogged across the bridge that spanned the irrigation canal beside the street. A line of sycamores with gnarled branches overshadowed the water. They flashed by as she raced down the gravel road. The rocks crunched beneath her feet. Her eyes stung.

She’d never voiced her doubts about her father before. She’d never met him and knew only what her mother had told her. They’d fallen in love, married, and then he’d gone to prison. They’d heard nothing from him since, except a single postcard. But the reason for his incarceration seemed obvious.

Carla sucked in deep breaths as she ran, pouring her anger and frustration into each step, each heartbeat. She hated it here, but Denver had nothing left for her. She’d promised to text both Meg and Richard as soon as she arrived, but she doubted she would. Not anymore.

Fields of tall corn passed her. Their stalks rustled in the breeze like mocking whispers at the back of the classroom. The road curved between two hills ahead. She slowed and gulped to catch her breath. Her heart hammered.

When she got home Mom would kill her for running off. Or maybe she wouldn’t care. Mom always said the country was safer than the city. Probably wouldn’t get mugged out here.

No thieves, no rapists, no meth house down the street.

But the herd of cows on the hill to the right stared at her with dark eyes. Only two strands of barbed wire, strung across a few rotting wood poles, separated her from them. A bull with wicked-looking curved horns snorted at her and stamped the ground. He charged forward three steps then stopped and glared at her from behind the barbed wire.

Carla shivered. She’d rather get mugged than face that angry bull uncontained.

She pressed on, not daring to go home yet, despite the bull. Her outburst had hurt her mother. She felt bad about that. Rotten as those wooden fence poles. Mom had always done the best for her that she could. The best any high school drop-out, raising a child on her own, could manage. Mom hadn’t said it, but they’d probably been evicted from their apartment. The last of a string. Probably couldn’t convince any other apartment owner to let them in. So here they were out in the country, and Mom trying to make the best of it while Carla complained.

Carla passed the cows and came around the bend as the hills fell away behind her. She took a step, and a tingle swept through her. She gasped. Blinked. Turned in a circle.

She’d felt something, but what. The world looked the same as it had a moment before. The herd of cows behind her, the barbed wire fence, the canal. On the left side of the road a pair of bay horses cantered across a pasture. Sunlight reflected off their sleek coats, intensifying their deep colors. The grass beneath their feet grew lush and green. No, not just green, but a vivid array of greens from lightest yellow to deepest blue.

Carla sucked in a breath as the horses stopped in the shade of a wooden shed. Maybe the world had changed. She couldn’t remember ever seeing such brilliant colors before. Goosebumps prickled her arm. Her despair fell away, replaced by a shivery excitement she couldn’t explain. The feeling pulled her farther down the road.

The horse pasture gave way to a wooded area where aspen trees fought for space among stands of tall maples. Here and there a pine tree spread prickly arms among the leaves. A squirrel chattered from the branches and tossed a pinecone at her. The pinecone landed in the canal and bobbed along in the cool blue water.

Carla looked back the way she’d come. She could have sworn the canal had been filled with muddy water. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The air grew heavy with a sweet scent. She followed the bobbing pinecone.

The water flowed past the trees and danced out in front of a flower garden. A white picket fence, covered with ivy, separated the garden from the road and canal. Beyond the fence, a path of white pebbles wound through trimmed rose bushes. The roses, all in bloom—pink petals folding open to the sun, deepest burgundy bunches spreading like showers of velvet, delicate yellow blossoms nodding on long stems—filled the air with perfume, making Carla light-headed.

The cobblestone path went on parallel to the fence past the roses to a bed of tulips and daffodils. The tulips jutted up from the rich soil in every shade of pastel and contrasted with the bright yellow daffodils.

Carla stopped walking, and the pinecone in the canal floated on without her. "But . . . it’s late summer," Carla whispered. "School starts tomorrow."

The wind rustled through the tulips, bobbing their heads in laughter at her. Everywhere Carla and her mother had lived, Mom had always grown pots of flowers. Carla knew the tulips and daffodils were the first to come up in the spring and the soonest to die back. They never bloomed in the fall, but there they were in the garden as if time stood still in this place or some hidden magic coaxed them out of the soil past their appointed time.

Carla shivered and took a step back toward home. Perhaps the country wasn’t as safe as Mom thought. Carla had been taught to listen to that uh-oh feeling and get out of any situation which made her uncomfortable. Of course if she’d listened to her gut, she wouldn’t have caught up with Richard that morning when she’d seen the funny bulge under his jacket.

She stared at the strange flowers. Just a garden, she told herself. Can’t hurt me. The sense of danger remained and beneath it a strange tug almost as if the garden wanted her to come inside.

Beyond the tulips, a bubbling stream danced down a rock waterfall. Beside it a weeping willow trailed long branches in the water.

"Maybe the tulips and daffodils are fake," Carla muttered. She moved to the edge of the road, looking for a way into the garden. A hot tingling rose in her chest.

Ahead, a wooden bridge arched across the canal. On the far side stood a wrought iron gate, cast and painted to look like climbing rose vines. The entrance to the garden. A pair of silver maples flanked the gate. Their tall leafy branches raked the sky and cast warning shadows.

The air grew so heavy Carla felt it as it slipped down into her lungs. The garden compelled her toward it. Curiosity perhaps, along with something deeper, like she’d lost a part of herself long ago and it waited for her there. Her sneakers padded across the wooden bridge.

She stopped at the gate where a small golden sign read, "Keep Out!"

Carla stared at it for a long time while her heart hammered. Inside the garden, monarch butterflies and purple moths fluttered around the flowers. The garden stretched back where she could see the tippy-top of a roof sticking up behind another thick stand of trees.

"Hello!" Carla called. "Is anyone home?"

Only a soft breeze ruffled the leaves on the silver maples in response. The garden looked deserted, but Carla felt, in a way she couldn’t explain, some deep presence there. Something that beckoned her, pulled her. Some force that lifted her hand to open the latch. The gate swung inward on silent hinges.

For a heartbeat the butterflies froze in place.

A tingling sensation cascaded over her as she stepped into the garden. As soon as her foot touched the ground, a loud crack broke the silence.

A man wearing a weathered gray hat appeared on the path by the waterfall and raced toward her with a shot gun in his hands. He yelled something Carla couldn't make out. Then he stopped, pointed the gun, and pulled the trigger. A spray of white slammed into the silver maple above her head and sent splinters of bark like hot pokers against her face and arms.

Carla jerked back in panic and fell on her rump on the wooden bridge outside the gate.

"And stay out!" the man yelled.

The iron gate swung shut with a clang. The man put the gun over his shoulder and stared at Carla as she scrambled to her feet and ran. She didn't stop until she'd rounded the hills and left the secluded part of the valley behind.

She staggered to a halt, doubled over, and tried to catch her breath. Her heart beat a crazy rhythm.

"He shot at me," she said over and over. "He shot at me. I can't believe it." She’d been worried about the cows and flowers when all along the farmer had been waiting there with his gun. She’d been shot at here in her mother’s "safe" country. Cruel, considering Mom’s claims that they’d come here because Richard had taken a gun to school.

Carla forced her feet to move again and carry her back to the new house. No, not new. Ancient. But new to Carla, along with this new life she didn't want. Her hands shook, and sweat trickled down her back. Her stomach churned. She knew she should tell Mom about the crazy neighbor with the gun, but she didn’t dare. Mom would only want to leave again. No way she’d have the money to do it. It had taken everything just to get this place. Carla might hate it, but she had nowhere else to go.

She eased the porch door open and snuck into the house. Mom waited for her in the living room, hands on hips.

"I know, I know," Carla said. "I’m grounded for the rest of my life. I’ll just go to my room now."

"How dare you run off on me? Where have you been?"

"Getting to know the neighbors down the street." Carla’s words rang hollow to her. She drew herself up ready for a fight.

Mom’s face bleached of color. She grabbed Carla’s arm and shook her. "You didn't go on the Springmorning property, did you?"

Carla jerked away. "I've never heard of the Springmornings."

Mom’s pale face and dilated eyes made her look more scared than angry. "Did you go onto someone's property?"

Carla grimaced. "Just one-half step past the gate."

"You’d better stay away from there," Mom’s voice rose. "The realtor warned me they don’t like visitors. Who knows what they’ll do if you trespass on their land?"

Carla choked. She knew exactly what they’d do. "Why?" She forced herself to ask. "What does it matter?"

Mom’s face worked as if she struggled with what to say. Carla’s heart thumped in the silence.

"Listen, Carla." Carla had expected Mom to yell at her for her insolent attitude, but Mom’s voice had softened and intensified. "The Springmornings are . . . " Mom bit her lip. "They are . . . total Green freaks. They don’t like . . . people like us."

"What? Why should they hate us?" Carla’s mind spun in confusion.

"Because we use electricity that is generated by burning coal, which pollutes the air. Because we eat food from the store that is sprayed by fertilizers and pesticides, which pollute the water. Because we drive cars that—"

"Okay, I get it." Carla grabbed her box and suitcase. So their nearest neighbors were nuts.

"All right," Mom said. "Just stay away from that place. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother us. No one ever leaves the property. They don't go to church, don't go to the store, the movies, nothing. And they don't let anyone come on their land."

Carla edged toward the door to the upstairs. Maybe she could get to her room before Mom remembered she had run away. If Carla could just keep her distracted. "But how do they survive if they don't go shopping?" The weird tingly feeling Carla had felt at the gate swept through her again. She shivered. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked.

"They grow their own food. Make their own clothes. It is a farm. That's what makes farms so wonderful. You don't have to rely on anyone else for anything." Mom’s face softened and her voice grew wistful.

Carla tried not to roll her eyes. "But you still have to make money to pay the mortgage, the electrical bill, the gas bill, the water bill, the taxes. I mean, those guys can't just stay on their property and never talk to anyone."

Mom nodded. "Yes, we do have to pay all those things. But they don't have a mortgage. They've owned the land outright for generations. According to the realtor, they have their own well, and aren't hooked up to the electric or gas companies. Their taxes are paid through some kind of a trust account. Listen, Carla." Mom squeezed her shoulder. "Just stay away from their property."

"I was only trying to be a good neighbor and say hi."

"Of course you were." Her mom patted her arm then pulled back. "About what you said."

Oops. Carla had waited a heartbeat too long. "Look Mom, I’m sorry. Okay?" She grabbed the antique door knob. Its oval shape felt strange to her hand, the rose design around its edge pressed into her palm.

The door swung outward, revealing a set of steep, narrow steps. Mom put her arm across the doorway. "Your father and I are married. We did . . . do love each other. I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true."

Acid rose in the back of Carla’s throat. "Then why did he go to prison? If it wasn’t because of you, then what? Robbery? Murder? Arson? Was he a terrorist? An extortionist? A crooked politician. You never would tell me. I’m sixteen now. I deserve to know the truth."

Mom sucked in a deep breath. Red tinged her cheeks. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out for a moment. "You’re grounded." She pulled her arm away. "Go pick a room."

"Grounded from what? The mall? There isn’t one here. My friends? Haven’t got any. TV? Nope, none. Computer? Can we even get internet? You can’t ground me. This place is already a prison. I have nothing left for you to take away." Carla stamped up the narrow staircase, ignoring the flower wallpaper that hung loose and the threadbare blue carpet that had to be older than her mother.

Mom slammed the door behind her.

Carla reached the top and found a short hall, just big enough for the doors to the two bedrooms. The scent of mildew made the air heavy. She stepped into the first room and found it had been painted a pale pink. The ceiling ran at a slant so that by the right-hand wall, a person would not even be able to stand up under it. Straight ahead, a tall window let light into the empty room.

Carla set down her belongings, crossed the room, and forced the window up all the way. A bumble bee flew past her into the room then turned and beat itself against the upper pain trying to get back out.

"You and me both trapped here," Carla whispered. She brushed the bee down so it could get out then watched it fly away. She wished she could fly too. The window opened onto a section of the roof, overlooking the front yard.

A bluish pine tree grew right up against the house, so its branches hung over the roof. Below, a narrow walkway led from the front porch to the front gate. The tree-lined canal flowed just beyond. Across the street, two black and white cows had joined the brown one at the fence, lowing and staring up at Carla as if she were the last person left in the world.

After checking to make sure Mom hadn't come up the stairs behind her, Carla stepped out of the window onto the green shingles. She spread her arms. If she were a bee, she’d fly away too. But where? Back to Denver so she could watch Meg and Richard goggle at each other in the ballet studio mirrors while they did their warm ups? Back to run-down apartments and noisy streets? No. And that surprised her. An hour before that was all she wanted. But now she longed for the sweet nectar, the unexplained tingle, of the Springmorning garden.

The sun warmed her face, and the breeze smelled like cow and hay, with an undertone from the wild columbine that grew around the side of the house.

From her vantage point, Carla could see away down the road where it wound behind the hills. The Springmornings. How strange. She couldn’t believe that in this modern world someone could cut themselves off completely from others.

The more she thought about the garden and the way it made her feel, the more she wanted to go back there. The more she tried to shove the impulse away, the deeper it wiggled into her mind. Even after getting shot at, she felt an overwhelming need to visit that sweet garden again.

Chapter Three

Fall sunshine sprinkled off the trees onto the chicken coop, dappling the bright red henhouse. The earth beneath Sira's bare feet thrummed with life, suffusing the pebbles, the grass, the fence, the chickens, even the air, with its power. Sira soaked in that power, tasting it like honey on sweetbread, drawing life from it, and returning her own.

The chickens clucked as she stepped into the coop. "Here Dominique," she called to a mottled black and white hen as she spread a layer of corn into the tin pan on the ground. "You too, Frizzle," she said. A red, gray, and brown hen fluttered over along with the rest—each chicken a fuzzy warm spot in the tapestry of power and life that surrounded her.

They came to her as she called them, rubbing their feathered heads against her leg and hands then turning to peck the food from the pan. While they ate, she ventured into the henhouse and loaded the speckled brown eggs into a basket.

As soon as she left the chicken coop, she found Seysey, the Jersey cow, waiting for her at the pasture gate, her udder full, ready for milking, her essence a cool strength.

"Good morning," Sira said, rubbing Seysey's white nose. "How is the new hay father just harvested?"

Seysey let out a low moo which translated in Sira's mind. "Sweet. Tender. A little dry."

"Oh, Seysey." Sira patted the cow's neck. "Nothing will ever be perfect for you, will it?"

"Life is imperfect," Seysey lowed. "That's what makes it life."

"I disagree." Sira set the egg basket down then picked up a waiting milk pail and squat three-legged stood and ducked under the wooden pole fence into the pasture. "Life is perfect. The way everything has a place and it all works together to make everything else prosper." She sat down and started milking Seysey, enjoying the rhythmic song of the jets of milk hitting the side of the pail.

"Perfect?" Seysey snorted. "What's your excuse for milkweed? I saw a half dozen of my kind die from eating it before I came here. It's dangerous. The world would be far better without it."

"But, Seysey," Sira said, squeezing the warm tits with practiced hands. "If there were no milkweed, we'd have no monarch butterflies."

"Humph." Seysey turned her head and started chewing her cud, pretending Sira wasn't there.

As Sira finished milking and picked up the pail of milk and the basket of eggs, a blinding power surged from the road that ran through her father's land. Someone had passed the boundary. She stumbled under the sheer joy of the presence of the approaching person, then righted herself and raced toward the front gate. In her excitement she hardly noticed the milk slosh over the sides of the pail.

Their guest had already let himself in the gate by the time Sira came around the path from behind the waterfall. Her visitor was a man, and so much more. He wore a gray suit with a white shirt and blue tie and had cut his hair short and dyed it gray. The clothes and hair made him look like a human in his late fifties, but power flowed around him like a crimson robe. Light streamed from his face, accenting his high cheek bones and piercing eyes. A golden crown of power glimmered on his brow. He was Jarasel DeWheat, their king and protector.

Sira dropped into a deep curtsey, still clutching the pail and basket. "Welcome, Your Majesty."

DeWheat smiled and strode over to her. "Sira you've grown." He rubbed her cheek, sending a ripple of joy through her so strong that she could not speak in answer.

DeWheat laughed, took the basket of eggs and pail of milk from her, and stepped back. As his power seeped away from Sira, she regained control.

"Come," DeWheat said. "Let's take these up to the house. I need to talk to your father."

"He was in the south pasture, but he's nearly back now." Sira felt her father's presence like that of a mighty oak, heading toward the house. DeWheat had already strode away, walking with a swift grace that Sira had a hard time keeping up with. He stopped in front of the house with its ornately carved white columns and swarm of bright-colored wooden butterflies decorating the front—her mother's handiwork.

Her father reached the yard at the same moment and bowed. "Welcome." His voice sounded congenial, but his eyes held a wary look. He hated visitors, even Aos Si ones. DeWheat could not fail to feel her father's resentment.

DeWheat acknowledged her father's bow with a nod, then turned a smile on Sira. "Run these inside and leave us alone for a bit. Your father and I have something to discuss."

Sira took the pail and basket and raced up the steps to the mahogany door between the sets of pillars. Her heart sang with delight as she went inside. The king had actually come to their land. In person. In power. So what that he'd made himself look human. He was here. Himself. All her life she'd felt his light and power from a distance, but only ever seen him in person one other time.

Sira hurried to the kitchen. With shaking hands she separated the cream from the milk then put both of those in the ice-box along with the eggs. She spread her restless fingers on the cool marble counter top and craned her neck to see through the kitchen doorway, back through the windows in the entryway. He was out there with her father. She wondered what they were talking about. It must be important for him to come from his mansion at the top of the north hills all the way out to her father's farm.

She drifted back out of the kitchen, walking silently over the sparkling granite floor of the entryway and skirted the rug her mother had woven for the front parlor. It had taken her mother nine months to weave the stunning display of flowers and water that accented the colorful rug. Nine months on the loom, her mother weaving while her stomach grew bigger and bigger with an unborn child that would have given Sira a brother or sister.

Her mother had finished the rug just as her labor pains started. But her mother had died giving birth to an ill-formed baby that had died also moments afterward. DeWheat had been there and tried to help, but all the flows of power in the world could not save her.

That was the first and other time Sira had seen the king. When he could not save her mother, he had sat for hours holding Sira, talking to her about life and death, and the cycles of nature, how everything fit perfectly together and nothing happened by accident, how she could see her mother in every flower and butterfly, and feel her in the power that flowed from the land.

Sira had never once stepped on the rug that was her mother's last creation. She had not wanted her father to put it down in the parlor, but he insisted that was what her mother had made it for, so that was where it would go.

Keeping her feet off the rug, Sira edged to the window and peered out, straining to see and hear the two men's conversation. They both stood at the bottom of the steps, her father leaning against the fence rail in his dirt-stained overalls. The powerful essence of soil and growing things clung to him.

While he talked, a daffodil at his feet that had bloomed and died back months ago, sprang up again, shooting thin green leaves out of the soil, then pushing forth a sun-colored head. He leaned over and caressed the tender flower as he murmured to the king.

Both men spoke too softly for Sira to hear, even with her sensitive ears.

Frustrated, Sira pushed her fingers under the window frame and ever so slowly lifted the glass, opening the window a crack.

"Has she come into her powers yet? Has she discovered her gift?" DeWheat asked.

Her father shook his head. "She's too young, DeWheat."

"She turned thirty last month, Springmorning."

"Still a baby."

"Hardly." DeWheat frowned, and the light that shimmered around him darkened.

Her father frowned too, and the daffodil quivered at his feet. "What do you want, DeWheat? You didn't come all the way out here just to chat about Sira."

"Actually I did." A grim smile creased DeWheat's face. "She's growing up. I know you don't want to see it, but she is."

Her father's frown deepened, and lines appeared on his forehead. "She won't be like the Conewood children. She loves this land and will not abandon it."

"Contrary to what you might think, everything in life is not about farming," DeWheat snapped. He stopped and took a deep breath. The dark power around him turned into a soothing white glow. He spoke in a softer voice. "There is magic and power not tied to the soil. Sira's gift might have nothing at all to do with plants. You need to give her a chance to learn and explore new things."

Her father leaned over, dug his fingers into the soil, and came back up clutching a handful of dirt. He pulled a rich flow of brown power from the earth and wrapped it around himself until he too glowed. "Don't try your gift of persuasion on me," he hissed. "My power is every bit as strong as yours." He closed his fist tight around the dirt, and the white glow around DeWheat blinked out.

Sira gasped.

Both men snapped their attention to the window where Sira stood. She froze, caught in the act of eavesdropping. Her cheeks burned.

DeWheat laughed, a sound that sent ripples of happiness through the air and tore away the swaths of rich brown power from around her father.

Her father's sharp eyes bored into her. His face grew ruddy with anger. He was so focused on her he didn't even notice that the power he'd called forth had faded. He let the soil trickled from his hand and started up the steps toward the house.

Sira pulled away from the window. She'd seldom seen her father so angry.

"Springmorning." DeWheat's power swelled so bright it cast the sun in shadow. It rushed forward and wrapped around her father, barring him from the house. "Don't turn your back on me. I am your king, and you will obey my commands."

Tearing his gaze away from Sira, her father turned to face DeWheat. "What exactly are you commanding me to do?"

"Send Sira to school."

"What school? I have taught her everything she needs to know."

"Everything about farming," DeWheat scoffed. "Nothing about life and the real world."

"The human world you mean." Her father's hands clenched into fists.

"Humans are as much a part of this world as we are. You can't pretend forever that they don't exist." DeWheat took a step up toward her father. "Have you taught Sira their language?"

"She knows enough to get by."

A tiny smile curled the king's lips. "Good. She'll need it. I have registered her for classes at Lincoln High. It is an excellent school."

"A human school?" her father’s voice came out a strangled mix of shock and anger.

"Both humans and Aos Si go there. My daughter even attends. Buck," DeWheat spread his hands in front of him, "Humans are not going away. They are a part of our lives. Your daughter has got to learn how to get along with them."

"No." Her father's pronouncement hung in the air. She recognized the tone in his voice as final. Her heart throbbed. She didn't know whether to be relieved or sad. She didn't understand what her father had against humans, or why DeWheat was so adamant about learning their ways.

The power faded from around the king. He took another step toward her father and spoke in a soft voice. "Be reasonable, Springmorning. You can sense her feelings as well as I do. She'd be happy to attend school. It's lonely here. She has no friends besides the animals, and you spend all your time with the plants and scarce few moments a day with her. Let her go, Buck."

Her father mouthed the word, "no," again.

DeWheat pulled a packet of papers from his suit pocket and held them out. "School starts at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning. A bus will be by to pick her up at the front gate at 7:30."

"I said no!" Her father's shout echoed out across the yard and off into the garden.

A hurricane of blinding crimson power swirled to life around the king and shot forward, sweeping her father off his feet and flinging him up against the front door. He hit it hard, and sunk to the ground where the king's power pinned him in place. Buck gasped, unable to breathe under the onslaught.

"I am your king," DeWheat said. "You will obey my command." He walked forward and shoved the packet of papers in her father's hand. Then he walked away, moving with the speed of light, vanishing into his own ball of brightness.

Sira stood frozen for a minute, staring out the window where DeWheat had been.

The front door opened, and her father walked into the house, carrying the papers. His face was gray, and his hand shook as he held them out to her. "I guess we'll have to do what DeWheat says."

Sira took the papers, expected to see a look of defeat in her father's eyes, but saw instead a burning ember that threatened to ignite at any moment.

"For now." His chin hardened in a grim line, and he stalked back outside.

Chapter Four

Carla waited for the sun to set. She'd taken the pink room upstairs, and not the blue room next to it. Both looked the same, except the blue room's ceiling slanted down to the left and the pink one's slanted to the right. And, of course, the pink room's window let out onto the roof next to the pine tree.

She lay on the creaking wooden floor—the truck with their furniture wouldn't arrive until morning—and listened for her mom to stop moving around downstairs.

As soon as Mom quieted, Carla eased out of bed and into her clothes.

The warped wood of the window frame stuck a bit, so she had to pull hard to get it open. It gave at last with a loud thump. Carla froze, listening to see if her mother had heard and gotten out of bed to investigate. The house remained silent except the settling and creaking that were constant in the old building.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Carla pushed the window the rest of the way up and stepped outside. The air had turned cool, but not too cold. Overhead, the stars blazed brighter than Carla had ever seen them, with thousands more visible than against the backdrop of Denver's city lights. They appeared closer too, like she could just reach out and grab them. A waxing gibbous moon shone, giving her a fair view of the black and white world of night.

She shuffled over to the pine tree and grabbed a branch. The pine needles pricked her arms, and the rough bark stung her palms, but she ignored the discomfort and swung her feet off the roof onto the next branch down. The pine branches descended the tree in even intervals, and Carla had no trouble climbing down them like a ladder.

At the bottom, she found her fingers sticky with sap. When she tried to wipe them clean on the grass, the blades stuck to her fingers. Undaunted, she shoved her hands in her pockets and hurried out of the yard.

The cows across the road blinked at her with sleepy eyes.

She plugged her nose and waved to them as she walked past, doubting she'd ever get used to the smell of "fresh country air."

Water rippled against the canal bank. An owl whooshed by so close the wind from its wings brushed her cheeks. A dog barked once far off and then fell silent. The trees by the canal covered the ground with shadows, unpenetrated by the moonlight. Carla stared into them as her feet crunched against the gravel road.

The shadows seemed friendly at first, but after a few moments her imagination got the best of her, and she saw a homeless man in tattered gray leaning against a tree trunk. Across from him, two boys fought over a dollar they'd found in the gutter. And hiding behind the thickest trunk of all a gang member with saggy pants and hate in his eyes.

Carla shook her head. These were shadows of her past life. Her fears of walking alone in the dark city. She forced the imagined people out of her mind and kept walking, leaving the towering trees behind and following the road along the fields.

The cornstalks rustled. Carla whirled to face them, straining her eyes to see what had made the sound. It came again, and she realized it was just the wind. Nothing to fear.

She stared at the corn for a long time while an inner voice urged her to go home. She hadn't expected the silent farmland to scare her more than the nightly sirens and rush of cars in the city. She took a step back, but then thought of the way her body had tingled when she'd stepped into the garden. The garden with its beautiful waterfall and flowers, it tugged at her, calling her back to it, beating with her own heart, intertwining with each breath. The forbidden garden. Shadows and wind were nothing compared to its pull.

Clenching her fists, Carla pivoted and strode down the road, forcing her fear away.

She hurried now, keeping her eyes on the low hill ahead that marked the boundary of the Springmorning property. Shadows moved on the hill. The herd of cows still there. The bull snorted as she neared and rubbed its head against a fence post, which teetered from the bull’s weight.

Carla moved to the far side of the road and hurried past, rounding the bend and leaving the belligerent bull behind.

She felt a tingle as she came in view of the horse pasture. The horses stood there wide awake, staring at her. The vivid colors she’d seen earlier were muted into sharp grays and blacks.

One of the horses nodded at her, and she gave it a little wave then felt foolish and moved on. The moonlight hardly penetrated the thicket of trees before the garden. Black things fluttered between the branches. Bats, she realized with a shudder. A fox at the edge of the canal saw her and bolted back into the thicket. Something she couldn't see screeched at her from the branches.

She jumped. Her palms grew clammy. She almost turned back, but the scent of the roses drew her onward.

The forest fell away to the beautiful pathways of the garden. Night's darkness hid the colors of the flowers, but the subtle play of shadows held its own beauty. The rush of the waterfall filled the air.

Goose bumps rose on Carla's arms, and she kept her gaze locked on the garden as she made her way to the bridge. It wasn't until she'd made it halfway across that she noticed a shadow standing by the gate.

She blinked, and realized with horror that it was Mr. Springmorning, ragged hat on head, shotgun in hand, with his arms folded over the top of the gate, staring at her. "Not too bright, are you?" he said in a gruff voice. The darkness left his face in shadow, so she couldn't see his expression, but she could imagine it just fine. She'd been caught, sneaking back to his garden after dark.

Her first instinct was to run, but she checked that and took another step forward instead. He couldn't shoot her with his arms folded on the gate.

"Hi. My name's Carla Greenhall. My mother and I moved into the Conewood house down the road a bit. I just came over to introduce myself as your new neighbor and say hi." She smiled, hoping he'd see it in the dark.

"Funny thing to do after dark." His voice held a sarcastic edge, and he shifted his hands on the gun.

"Well, I tried earlier, but you shot at me, remember? That wasn't very neighborly." She tried to keep her voice friendly, but a bit of her fear seeped through.

"Neither is trespassing." He straightened and lifted the gun.

Carla cleared her throat and took a step back, maybe it was time to run now, but she couldn't help saying one more thing. "Why go to all the trouble to make such a beautiful garden and not let anyone see it?"

"I made it for my wife and only for my wife." He pointed the gun at Carla. "Now get out of here. I never want to see you down this way again."

Carla bit her lip, turned and ran. Her eyes stung. The shadows of the garden and then the forest flitted past her. She kept going, feeling even emptier than she had when she’d first arrived at the house. The garden had distracted her from her misery for a little while. She’d hoped coming back to it would fill up the jagged hole inside her. Not. Stupid farmer.

Carla started around the bend and found herself surrounded by blundering shapes in the road. She realized with horror, that the bull had knocked down the fence post and the cows had gotten out. She skidded to a stop only a couple of yards from the bull. A splinter of wood clung to his horn.

Gasping, Carla jumped back.

The bull’s nostrils flared. It snorted, stamped its foot, and charged.

Its head caught Carla right in the gut, and she doubled over from the force. The bull twisted, flinging Carla into the air with its horns.

The world tumbled around her, and she slammed into the ground, unable to breathe, stunned by the pain in her middle and in her left shoulder and neck.

The ground trembled with the bull's thundering footsteps as he charged at her again.

An overall-covered leg stepped in front of her, and someone shouted in a strange language. Carla looked up to see that Mr. Springmorning had placed himself between her and the bull.

The bull stopped its charge and lowered its head, snorting at the ground.

Springmorning spoke again, softer this time, still in the unfamiliar language. But the bull seemed to understand. It pawed the ground, then nodded and headed back to the hole in the fence. The cows followed as silent bulky shadows behind him.

Carla squeezed her eyes closed. With the imminent danger past, pain swept over her. She gasped, trying to breathe. Each time she did, it felt like someone jabbed a knife into her side.

"Take it easy." Springmorning said in a gruff voice.

Carla opened her eyes and squinted to see past her pain. Springmorning set his gun down and knelt beside her. He ran rough hands down her shoulder and side. Then touched the back of her neck for a moment, muttering as he did. "Dislocated shoulder. Broken ribs. Neck not broken, thank goodness. Stupid, Tom Joad, should keep his fences in better repair. Course a bull bent on getting through will always find a way."

Carla moaned and tried to get up.

"No. Stay down." Springmorning put a firm hand on her arm. "I've called for help."

"Why?" Carla's voice croaked and her ribs hurt when she spoke.

"What do you mean why? I can't very well heal you myself, can I? That's not my gift." Springmorning's voice made her think of heavy soil.

"But I thought you didn't like me." Carla curled into a ball and tried not to think what her mom would do when she found out about this.

"Well, I don't." Springmorning stood and stepped away.

Gravel crunched beneath a new set of feet, and Carla looked up to see an older man dressed in an expensive gray suit. "What happened?" the man asked.

"Joad's bull. Again. You should do something about him."

"Joad or the bull?" the man in the suit asked.

"Both." Springmorning picked up his gun and strode toward home.

"Who's the girl?" the man called after him.

"Don't know. Don't care. Tried to sneak onto my property." Springmorning's voice sounded angrier now than it had been before. "I don't understand why you and everyone else can't just stay away." She could barely make out the muffled grumble of his last words. "I swear I'm going to kill someone one of these days. I just want to be left alone."

Carla shuddered.

The man in the suit got down on his knees next to her. "It's all right," he whispered. His fingers stroked her arm, making her body tingle. "What's your name?"

"Carla Greenhall," Carla managed to say through the pain.

"Oh, Patricia's daughter. You just moved into the Conewood farmhouse, right?"

Carla tried to nod, but her neck was too stiff and sore.

"Hold still," the man said. "Just for a minute." He laid both of his hands gently on her, and the tingling changed into a comforting warmth that spread throughout her body, pushing away the pain. "Everything is going to be all right. Don't worry. This has all been just a bad dream. Go back to sleep now."

Carla's eyes drooped closed as more warmth spread around her like a heavy winter blanket.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself curled in the blankets in her room, staring up at the pink ceiling, illuminated by morning sunlight. She felt a bit stiff from sleeping on the floor, but all right other than that. She groaned and sat up. How had she gotten back to the house?

Her mom's voice rang up the stairs. "Carla, get up. The bus will be here soon. You don't want to be late the first day of school."

Shivering, Carla staggered out of her blankets and headed down to shower. Her encounter with the bull had felt so real, but now she couldn't figure if it had just been a dream or not.

Chapter Five

Sira padded barefoot to the front gate, her father close behind her. The earth's warmth and power rose from the ground beneath her and filled her with nervous energy. She'd already tended to the animals, and the time had come for her to catch the bus. She'd seen the big yellow vehicle moving on the road before, but it had never stopped.

Sensing her trepidation, a blue jay fluttered down from the silver maple to sit on her shoulder. It chirped in her ear, and she rubbed its smooth feathers with one hand while clutching the papers DeWheat had left with the other hand. The papers made little sense to her. One seemed to be some kind of a map. The other had meaningless names, numbers, and times on it. The third was something about money, a receipt her father called it. He said not to worry, DeWheat had already paid the humans the registration and fees for her to attend the school.

Her father had been so very angry about that. He still was. His intense hate for DeWheat rolled around her in angry waves. "Father," she said, keeping her voice mild, "you shouldn't feel like that about His Majesty. He is our rightful ruler and takes care of us. Surely if he says I need to go to school, it is the right thing to do."

A shield snapped up around her father, blocking her from sensing his feelings and power. It felt strange to be cut off from him like that as if he'd suddenly disappeared. But he still stood right beside her, dressed as always in overalls with soil on his hands and a streak of mud across his jaw. The only difference was his eyes. Once open and kind, they now had the angry cast to them they'd taken on after DeWheat's visit the previous day.

"Father?" She stepped forward and grabbed his hand, hoping she'd be able to feel him again, but his shield remained intact. Still, he rubbed the back of her hand and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"Don't worry, Sira. Everything is going to be all right. I promise." His voice sounded like he believed it, but his eyes did not.

"I've never ridden in a human vehicle before." Sira watched the road for the bus.

Her father grimaced. "I know."

"Have you?" Sira still held his hand. She didn't want to let go.

"Once." Her father got a far away look in his eyes for a moment and then shook his head as if banishing the memory.

"What's it like?"

"It's not pleasant. You won't like it, but you will survive, and it will be over soon." He frowned. "Not soon enough I suppose. The school is in town."

Sira shuddered, and the bluebird chirped and flew away. Behind her the waterfall continued its ever-reassuring patter. Her father pulled his hand away and went to her mother's favorite rose bush. He touched it, and a new rose shot up, budded and then opened. The peace rose's gold and yellow inner petals glimmered in the sunlight while drops of dew clung to the pale pink outer petals. He snapped it off carefully and brought it back to Sira.

"Take this with you. It helps to have a little piece of the land. I'm afraid magic doesn't flow well around humans." He slid the rose's stem into the front pocket of her overalls.

"Don't humans have any magic at all?"

Her father growled deep in the back of his throat, and his eyes flashed. "They have their own kind of magic. They call it science." His jaw tightened so hard she could see the tendons and muscles in his throat.

A cold chill swept through her. "Is it dangerous?"

Her father's shield wavered, revealing a twisting black power laced with burning fire. He pivoted away from her and reset his shield. "Human science will destroy us."

Sira rubbed the rose petal with her fingertip. "I don't understand."

"You will," her father said, "the moment you set foot on that bus." He pointed as the big yellow vehicle came around the bend. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. "Don't talk to the humans about our magic. Don't tell them what you truly are. You must pretend to be one of them, because if they find out about us—" he broke off and smoothed Sira's hair. "Just be careful."

The bus pulled up to the edge of the road beside the bridge and screeched to a stop, then hissed and spurted smoke that stung Sira's nose. A door folded open at the front of the bus, revealing ugly black steps.

Sira swallowed a lump in her throat. She'd never been away from her father's land before, never been away from him. Looking at the bus made her want to run as fast as she could to the safety of her house.

"Come on. We haven't got all day," the bus driver called. She was a flabby human woman with some kind of cap on her head that had a bill like a duck, only it was all blue.

Sira's father enveloped her in a tight hug and then propelled her through the gate and across the bridge to the bus. "Don't worry," he whispered in her ear. "This is only temporary. I'm going to do whatever it takes to change DeWheat's mind."

Continue reading this ebook at Smashwords.
Purchase this book or download sample versions for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-33 show above.)

Free EBook Samples: Free ebook sample of "The Elves of Lincoln High" by Rebecca Shelley

The Elves of Lincoln High

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five