Wooden Bones (7 page)

Not a village. Not a town. It was a city, all right, a city of rope bridges and thatched roofs, a city of houses half carved into the thick trunks and half built outside them—but so expertly made, with the same bark and pine needles that made up the tree itself, that only the tendrils of smoke rising from their chimneys and the yellow glow from their windows grabbed his attention. Otherwise, his eye would have skipped right past them.

In all his wildest dreams he could not have imagined such a place.

They'd ridden up on some kind of platform, one attached by thick gray ropes to a series of spoked wheels. He was prodded off the platform onto a much bigger platform, one that circled the trunk of a massive tree, a dozen rope bridges leading
to the houses around it. The people filed onto the platform, dispersing onto the various bridges. People emerged from the tree houses, people clad in the same woven clothes but not the wooden armor, and waved at them. Even some children. They seemed happy.

Pino marveled at it all, still not quite believing his eyes. “Why did I have to be blindfolded,” he asked, “if you're letting me see it now?”

The man with the scar on his cheek smirked. “Because you cannot see our home from the ground,” he said. “Come now, Queen Elendrew does not like to be kept waiting.”

“I don't want to wait either,” Pino said, thinking of his papa. “What's your name?”

The man pointed at the bridge nearest to them, one that led to what appeared to be the tiniest house of all. “My name's Olan,” he said, “but I'd save your questions for her. There's no point in telling you more if she doesn't believe your story.”

His warning sounded ominous. “What do you mean?” Pino asked.

“I mean, if she doesn't believe you, your stay here will be too short to bother with names. And I must also tell you that it's a long way down for departed guests, especially those who don't get to ride our ropefloat.”

Starting up the rope bridge, feeling the planks sway gently beneath him, Pino didn't even want to think about falling from such a height.

T
he little house at the end of the rope bridge was deceiving to the eye. From the outside it hardly looked big enough to contain a single person, just a simple green door with a pine needle roof, but inside was a very different story.

Inside it was as big as a cathedral.

From the looks of it, most of the trunk of the big tree had been hollowed out, polished smooth, and stained a warm golden hue. The ceiling narrowed to a point high above, higher than any church steeple. He saw a ring of tiny oval openings up there that had been invisible from the outside. Flickering lanterns, low to the floor, encircled the area, leaving the ceiling shrouded in darkness.

Ahead of them, in the middle of the great room, a woman sat on a throne that seemed to rise directly out of the floor—carved from the tree itself, Pino thought. Behind the throne was a dwelling all its own, one Pino had not seen at first because it was made of glass, so clear it was as if the walls weren't even there. He saw a bed of straw in the glass house. He saw a chair, dressers, cabinets.

Around the woman on the throne dozens of the woodsfolk knelt on blankets made of woven grass, silent and unmoving. The woman herself was just as still.

Or not a woman—a girl, at the tail end of her youth. Olan guided Pino to her, another three men in their wake, and as they approached, Pino got a better look at her in the light from the flickering torches on either side of her. She might have been anywhere from thirteen to nineteen; it was hard to tell because she had such a stern face, and because her billowing white gown made it hard to see her figure.

Yet Pino could see her arms and legs. She definitely had them: slender fingers resting on the arms of the throne, narrow feet in slippers made of white rose petals.

It was an odd thing to be disappointed that someone had arms and legs, but that's how Pino felt. He had no idea why the man with the scar thought this girl, this Elendrew, was the same person he needed to find.

All of this effort was for nothing.

She did not look like the other woodsfolk. Her hair was long and black, her skin a deep reddish brown, similar to the bark of the trees they called home. Where the woodsfolk were tall and slender, she was shorter and a bit broader. Where they had blue eyes, hers were as black as charred wood.

They had not even stopped walking when she said, “Tell me why you are here, boy.”

Her voice carried up into the shadows. The way she said the words, it was like she was used to being obeyed.

When Pino told her his name, and that he'd come because his papa was dying, she just went on staring at him.

“And why do you think I can help?” she asked.

“I don't know if you can,” Pino said. “I need to find a girl with no arms and no legs.”

She laughed—a horrible sound, as sharp as a dagger and
just as cutting. “Well, you've come to the right place. I am Elendrew, and I am the one you seek. Now tell me, who is it that told you I would be here?”

Pino didn't understand. “But your arms and legs—,” he began.

“Are completely useless,” she finished, grimacing. “Haven't you noticed how still I am? How I have not moved my hands even so much as a twitch? It's not because I don't want to move. It's because I
can't
.”

“Oh,” Pino said.

“Don't look so
relieved
,” Elendrew said. “I was born with this curse. Now, what's wrong with your hand?”

“What?” The question caught Pino by surprise.

“Your right hand,” she said. “Look at it. The first finger—the skin looks funny.”

When Pino held up his right hand, he was alarmed to see that she was right. The very tip of his first finger was . . . different. Instead of pink, it was brown, like a strange callus. But when he rubbed the skin with his thumb, it wasn't a callus at all. In fact, it wasn't even skin.

It was wood.

There was no doubt it would have been easy to give in to the panic swelling inside him, but Pino didn't have time for panic right now. He had to focus on his papa. “I don't know,” he said, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice. “I think—I think I burned it back in the fire.”

From how far away she was, Pino didn't think she could see his finger well enough to know he was lying, but she still stared a long time before replying.

“A funny-looking burn,” she said. “But enough of that for now. Who told you I could help your papa?”

“She didn't have a name,” Pino said.

“What? What nonsense is this?”

“She was just a voice—a voice in a cave.”

This changed everything. Her icy gaze turned to astonishment. It wasn't just Elendrew gaping at him either—everyone in the room, those who had brought him to her, those praying on the floor, all of them stared openly at him. It was so quiet he heard the torches hissing like angry serpents.

“What did you say?” she asked.

The severity of her gaze, the sheer intensity of it, made Pino queasy. He swallowed away the lump in his throat. “I said, she was just a—”

“Yes, yes, I heard you,” she snapped. “Where is this cave? How did you come to find it? Tell me exactly.”

Slowly, haltingly, Pino told her as best he could about his journey since they'd left home. He didn't tell her why they'd fled—nothing about Antoinette, or about how he'd brought her to life—but he told her about their escape from the giant wolves with the red eyes, about how they took refuge in the cave, where he spoke to a voice that danced in blue light.

“I know this cave,” Elendrew said.

“You do?”

“Yes. I was there too, as a very small child. It's where my mother left me.” Her voice became dreamy, her eyes distant. “Why, you may wonder? I was very young, but I remember how she looked at me. How she could barely
stand
to look at me. My arms and legs may have looked fine, but they might as well have been missing, for all the good they did. She left me there to die, I imagine, but I heard the voice too. It told me it spoke only to people who were special. It told me if I just stayed calm, someone would come. And so they did. These
people, they call themselves the People of the Tall Trees—they came for me, and I have been here ever since. Because I have a way of knowing things that others can't know, a way of seeing things no one else can see, they made me their queen.”

Pino had never had a mother, but he imagined that it would be even worse to
have
a mother only to have her abandon you. He felt sorry for Elendrew, but he didn't know what to say and he didn't have time to think of something. “My papa—,” he began.

“Yes, yes,” Elendrew said, “we all know of your papa. Tell me, Pino, why are you special?”

“What?”

“The voice in the cave—she speaks only to those who are special. So what makes you special, Pino?”

Pino hesitated. He didn't know why, but something told him he should not tell her about Antoinette or about how he'd brought the tree to life. But he needed to tell her something. If he lied completely, she would see right through him as if he were made of glass like the dwelling behind her.

“I was once made out of wood,” he said.

Her eyebrows arched. “Oh. Well, that is indeed something special. You were made out of wood and you became real?”

He nodded.

“How?”

“I don't know.”

“A pity. Perhaps that knowledge would be useful. If it's one thing we have in abundance, it's wood.” She sighed. “Well, unless you have something more important to say, Olan will show you to a room—”

“My papa, my papa!” Pino cried. “Please, he's dying back in that cave. Can't you do something to help?”

“Oh yes,” Elendrew said. “Your precious papa. Well, it is true that we
could
help him. One of my many talents is that I am skilled in the ways of healing.”

“Oh good!”

“Yes. But now you must tell me why I
should
.”

“What?”

Elendrew frowned. “Nothing is free in this world, boy. Everything comes with a cost. If you want me to do something for
you
, you must do something for
me
.”

“But I don't have any money! I don't have anything! I—I don't even have a shirt!”

Her dark eyes narrowed. “It doesn't have to be something you could give me. It could be something you could do. Think hard. There must be something. It can't be something my people can do for me either, because they attend to my every need. It must be something
special
.”

Pino felt all of the eyes of the people in the room boring into him. Somewhere far away his papa was alone in the dark, each breath perhaps his last. What a terrible thing. What a terrible, awful, horrible thing to be standing among all these people who could help and yet were unwilling to do so just out of the goodness of their hearts. Pino did not understand it. If he were them, he would gladly help someone in need without payment of any kind.

But maybe he was wrong.

Maybe that's not the way the world worked. Maybe he needed to be more careful about who he helped and why. After all, hadn't Papa refused to help all those people who'd come to him for help, all those people who'd lost someone they loved?

Pino knew that was different, though. He knew Papa
hadn't helped those people because he didn't think he could. Papa had thought making those puppets would only make them more sad, and after what happened with Antoinette, Pino had to agree. Some kinds of help weren't really help at all. These woods people, they could help in a real way and they just didn't want to try. Pino didn't want to be like them.

He looked at Elendrew. What could he do for her? The only thing she really needed was new arms and new legs—and then the idea came to him. He looked at the wooden plates his escorts wore on their arms and legs.

Could it be so simple?

“What is it?” Elendrew asked. “Have you thought of something?”

“I think so,” Pino said. “I think—yes, I think I could make you new arms and legs.”

“What?”

“Well, not
exactly
new arms and legs. But some you can use.”

She frowned, the lines on her face deepening. “Boy, you better explain yourself before—”

“I can make you a wooden suit,” Pino said quickly.

When she still looked confused, he explained his idea. Had she heard of the suits of armor that men in the old days wore? Instead of metal, Pino would make her a suit of wood. It would fit her as snugly as a second skin. When she wore it, she would be able to walk about and grab things just like everyone else.

Elendrew looked skeptical. “Why would wearing a wooden suit allow me to do that?”

“Because,” Pino said, knowing he couldn't avoid coming out with the truth any longer, “I could make it do so. I—I have that gift. The ability to bring wood to life.” There was something quite different in Elendrew's eyes now.
The skepticism had been replaced by a desperate hope. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“You could do this?” she said.

He nodded. “If you save my papa.”

“Hmm. Well, then. I suppose we better get to it.”

Quickly she gave instructions to the men who'd brought Pino to seek out the cave and find Pino's papa. She told them that it was vital they hurry, that they should bring him straight to her, along with all of her herbs and extracts. She told them to take a dozen people and not rest for even a moment.

When the men had gone, she again looked at Pino, and there was something chilling in her gaze.

T
he woodsfolk brought Pino all the tools and supplies he needed to fashion Elendrew her wooden suit, but he had a hard time concentrating until the men finally arrived with his papa—unconscious and prone on a litter made of thick vines, but still breathing. It was a faint breath, barely felt even when Pino leaned his ear next to his papa's bluish lips, but it was there.