The Lightning Tree

  the azzie would get me. I couldn’t look

  my ma in the eye then. Not if she knew. I

  can’t think what that would do to her, if

  she knew I was the sort of person that

  would kill his own da.”

  He looked up then, his face furious,

  eyes red with weeping. “I would though.

  I’d kill him. You just got to tell me how.”

  There was a moment of quiet.

  “Okay,” Bast said.

  They went down to the stream where they

  could have a drink and Rike could wash

  his face and collect himself a little bit.

  When the boy’s face was cleaner, Bast

  noted not all the smudginess was dirt. It

  was easy to make the mistake, as the

  summer sun had tanned him a rich nut

  brown. Even after he was clean it was

  hard to tell they were the faint remains of

  bruises.

  But rumor or no, Bast’s eyes were

  sharp. Cheek and jaw. A darkness all

  around one skinny wrist. And when he

  bent to take a drink from the stream, Bast

  glimpsed the boy’s back …

  “So,” Bast said as they sat beside the

  stream. “What exactly do you want? Do

  you want to kill him, or do you just want

  to have him gone?”

  “If he was just gone, I’d never sleep

  again for worry he’d come slouching

  back.” Rike said, then was quiet for a bit.

  “He went gone two span once.” He gave

  a faint smile. “That was a good time, just

  me and my ma. It was like my birthday

  every day when I woke up and he wasn’t

  there. I never knew my ma could sing …”

  The boy went quiet again. “I thought

  he’d fallen somewhere drunk and finally

  broke his neck. But he’d just traded off a

  year of furs for drinking money. He’d just

  been in his trapping shack, all stupor-

  drunk for half a month, not hardly more

  than a mile away.”

  The boy shook his head, more firmly

  this time. “No, if he goes, he won’t stay

  away.”

  “I can figure out the how,” Bast said.

  “That’s what I do. But you need to tell

  me what you really want.”

  Rike sat for a long while, jaw clenching

  and unclenching. “Gone,” he said at last.

  The word seemed to catch in his throat.

  “So long as he stays gone forever. If you

  can really do it.”

  “I can do it,” Bast said.

  Rike looked at his hands for a long

  time. “Gone then. I’d kill him. But that

  sort of thing ent right. I don’t want to be

  that sort of man. A fellow shouldn’t ought

  to kill his da.”

  “I could do it for you,” Bast said easily.

  Rike sat for a while, then shook his

  head. “It’s the same thing, innit? Either

  way it’s me. And if it were me, it would

  be more honest if I did it with my hands

  rather than do it with my mouth.”

  Bast nodded. “Right then. Gone

  forever.”

  “And soon,” Rike said.

  Bast sighed and looked up at the sun.

  He already had things to do today. The

  turning wheels of his desire did not come

  grinding to a halt because some farmer

  drank too much. Emberlee would be

  taking her bath soon. He was supposed to

  get carrots …

  He didn’t owe the boy a thing, either.

  Quite the opposite. The boy had lied to

  him. Broken his promise. And while Bast

  had settled that account so firmly that no

  other child in town would ever dream of

  crossing him like that again … it was

  still galling to remember. The thought of

  helping him now, despite that, it was

  quite the opposite of his desire.

  “It has to be soon,” Rike said. “He’s

  getting worse. I can run off, but ma can’t.

  And little Bip can’t neither. And …”

  “Fine, fine …” Bast cut him off, waving

  his hands. “Soon.”

  Rike swallowed. “What’s this going to

  cost me?” he asked, anxious.

  “A lot,” Bast said grimly. “We’re not

  talking about ribbons and buttons here.

  Think how much you want this. Think

  how big it is.” He met the boy’s eye and

  didn’t look away. “Three times that is

  what you owe me. Plus some for soon.”

  He stared hard at the boy. “Think hard on

  that.”

  Rike was a little pale now, but he

  nodded without looking away. “You can

  have what you like of mine,” he said.

  “But nothin’ of ma’s. She ent got much

  that my da hasn’t already drank away.”

  “We’ll work it out,” Bast said. “But

  it’ll be nothing of hers. I promise.”

  Rike took a deep breath, then gave a

  sharp nod. “Okay. Where do we start?”

  Bast pointed at the stream. “Find a

  river stone with a hole in it and bring it

  to me.”

  Rike gave Bast an odd look. “Yeh want

  a faerie stone?”

  “Faerie stone,” Bast said with such

  scathing mockery that Rike flushed with

  embarrassment. “You’re too old for that

  nonsense.” Bast gave the boy a look. “Do

  you want my help or not?” he asked.

  “I do,” Rike said in a small voice.

  “Then I want a river stone.” Bast

  pointed back at the stream. “You have to

  be the one to find it,” he said. “It can’t be

  anyone else. And you need to find it dry

  on the shore.”

  Rike nodded.

  “Right then.” Bast clapped his hands

  twice. “Off you go.”

  Rike left and Bast returned to the

  lightning tree. No children were waiting

  to talk to him, so he idled the time away.

  He skipped stones in the nearby stream

  and flipped through Celum Tinture,

  glancing at some of the illustrations.

  Calcification. Titration. Sublimation.

  Brann, happily unbirched with one hand

  bandaged, brought him two sweet buns

  wrapped in a white handkerchief. Bast

  ate the first and set the second aside.

  Viette brought armloads of flowers and

  a fine blue ribbon. Bast wove the daisies

  into a crown, threading the ribbon

  through the stems.

  Then, looking up at the sun, he saw that

  it was nearly time, Bast removed his

  shirt and filled it with the wealth of

  yellow and red touch-me-nots Viette had

  brought him. He added the handkerchief

  and crown, then fetched a stick and made

  a bindle so he could carry the lot more

  easily.

  He headed out past the Oldstone bridge,

  then up toward the hills and around a

  bluff until he found the place Kostrel had

  described. It was cleverly hidden away,

  and the stream curved and eddied into a

  lovely little pool perfect for a private

  bath.

  Bast sat behind some bus
hes, and after

  nearly half an hour of waiting he had

  fallen into a doze. The sharp crackle of a

  twig and a scrap of an idle song roused

  him, and he peered down to see a young

  woman making her careful way down the

  steep hillside to the water’s edge.

  Moving

  silently,

  Bast

  scurried

  upstream, carrying his bundle. Two

  minutes later he was kneeling on the

  grassy waterside with the pile of flowers

  beside him.

  He picked up a yellow blossom and

  breathed on it gently. As his breath

  brushed the petals, its color faded and

  changed into a delicate blue. He dropped

  it and the current carried it slowly

  downstream.

  Bast gathered up a handful of posies,

  red and orange, and breathed on them

  again. They too shifted and changed until

  they were a pale and vibrant blue. He

  scattered them onto the surface of the

  stream. He did this twice more until there

  were no flowers left.

  Then, picking up the handkerchief and

  daisy

  crown,

  he

  sprinted

  back

  downstream to the cozy little hollow

  with the elm. He’d moved quickly

  enough that Emberlee was just coming to

  the edge of the water.

  Softly, silently, he crept up to the

  spreading elm. Even with one hand

  carrying the handkerchief and crown, he

  went up the side as nimbly as a squirrel.

  Bast lay along a low branch, sheltered

  by leaves, breathing fast but not hard.

  Emberlee was removing her stockings

  and setting them carefully on a nearby

  hedge. Her hair was a burnished golden

  red, falling in lazy curls. Her face was sweet and round, a lovely shade of pale

  and pink.

  Bast grinned as he watched her look

  around, first left, then right. Then she

  began to unlace her bodice. Her dress

  was a pale cornflower blue, edged with

  yellow, and when she spread it on the

  hedge, it flared and splayed out like the

  wing of a great bird. Perhaps some

  fantastic combination of a finch and a

  jay.

  Dressed only in her white shift,

  Emberlee looked around again: left, then

  right. Then she shimmied free of it, a

  fascinating motion. She tossed the shift

  aside and stood there, naked as the moon.

  Her creamy skin was amazing with

  freckle. Her hips wide and lovely. The

  tips of her breasts were brushed with the

  palest of pink.

  She scampered into the water. Making a

  series of small, dismayed cries at the

  chill of it. They were, on consideration,

  not really similar to a raven’s at all.

  Though they could, perhaps, be slightly

  like a heron’s.

  Emberlee washed herself a bit,

  splashing and shivering. She soaped

  herself, dunked her head in the river, and

  came up gasping. Wet, her hair became

  the color of ripe cherries.

  It was then that the first of the blue

  touch-me-nots arrived, drifting on the

  water. She glanced at it curiously as it

  floated by and began to lather soap into

  her hair.

  More flowers followed. They came

  downstream and made circles around

  her, caught in the slow eddy of the pool.

  She looked at them, amazed. Then sieved

  a double handful from the water and

  brought them to her face, drawing a deep

  breath to smell them.

  She laughed delightedly and dunked

  under the surface, coming up in the

  middle of the flowers, the water sluiced

  her pale skin, running over her naked

  breasts. Blossoms clung to her, as if

  reluctant to let go.

  That was when Bast fell out of the tree.

  There was a brief, mad scrabbling of

  fingers against bark, a bit of a yelp, then

  he hit the ground like a sack of suet. He

  lay on his back in the grass and let out a

  low, miserable groan.

  He heard a splashing, and then

  Emberlee appeared above him. She held

  her white shift in front of her. Bast

  looked up from where he lay in the tall

  grass.

  He’d been lucky to land on that patch of

  springy turf, cushioned with tall, green

  grass. A few feet to one side, and he’d

  have broken himself against the rocks.

  Five feet the other way and he would

  have been wallowing in mud.

  Emberlee knelt beside him, her skin

  pale, her hair dark. One posy clung to her

  neck—it was the same color as her eyes,

  a pale and vibrant blue.

  “Oh,” Bast said happily as he gazed up

  at her. His eyes were slightly dazed.

  “You’re so much lovelier than I’d

  imagined.”

  He lifted a hand as if to brush her

  cheek, only to find it holding the crown

  and knotted handkerchief. “Ahh,” he said,

  remembering. “I’ve brought you some

  daisies too. And a sweet bun.”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the daisy

  crown with both hands. She had to let go

  of her shift to do this. It fell lightly to the

  grass.

  Bast blinked, momentarily at a loss for

  words.

  Emberlee tilted her head to look at the

  crown; the ribbon was a striking

  cornflower blue, but it was nothing near

  as lovely as her eyes. She lifted it with

  both hands and settled it proudly on her

  head. Her arms still raised, she drew a

  slow breath.

  Bast’s eyes slipped from her crown.

  She smiled at him indulgently.

  Bast drew a breath to speak, then

  stopped and drew another through his

  nose. Honeysuckle.

  “Did you steal my soap?” he asked

  incredulously.

  Emberlee laughed and kissed him.

  A good while later, Bast took the long

  way back to the lightning tree, making a

  wide loop up into the hills north of town.

  Things were rockier up that way, no

  ground flat enough to plant, the terrain

  too treacherous for grazing.

  Even with the boy’s directions, it took

  Bast a while to find Martin’s still. He

  had to give the crazy old bastard credit

  though.

  Between

  the

  brambles,

  rockslides, and fallen trees, there wasn’t

  a chance he would have stumbled onto it

  accidentally, tucked back into a shallow

  cave in a scrubby little box valley.

  The

  still

  wasn’t

  some

  slipshod

  contraption bunged together out of old

  pots and twisted wire, either. It was a

  work of art. There were barrels and

  basins and great spirals of copper tube.

  A great copper kettle twice the siz
e of a

  washbin, and a smolder-stove for

  warming it. A wooden trough ran all

  along the ceiling, and only after

  following it outside did Bast realize

  Martin collected rainwater and brought it

  inside to fill his cooling barrels.

  Looking it over, Bast had the sudden

  urge to flip through Celum Tinture and

  learn what all the different pieces of the

  still were called, what they were for.

  Only then did he realize he’d left the

  book back at the lightning tree.

  So instead Bast rooted around until he

  found a box filled with a mad miscellany

  of containers: two dozen bottles of all

  sorts, clay jugs, old canning jars … A

  dozen of them were full. None of them

  were labeled in any way.

  Bast lifted out a tall bottle that had

  obviously once held wine. He pulled the

  cork, sniffed it gingerly, then took a

  careful sip. His face bloomed into a

  sunrise of delight. He’d half expected

  turpentine, but this was … well … he

  wasn’t sure entirely. He took another

  drink. There was something of apples

  about it, and … barley?

  Bast took a third drink, grinning.

  Whatever you care to call it, it was

  lovely. Smooth and strong and just a little

  sweet. Martin might mad as a badger, but

  he clearly knew his liquor.

  It was better than an hour before Bast

  made it back to the lightning tree. Rike

  hadn’t returned, but Celum Tinture was

  sitting there unharmed. For the first time

  he could remember, he was glad to see

  the book. He flipped it open to the

  chapter on distillation and read for half

  an hour, nodding to himself at various

  points. It was called a condensate coil.

  He’d thought it looked important.

  Eventually he closed the book and

  sighed. There were a few clouds rolling

  in, and no good could come of leaving

  the book unattended again. His luck

  wouldn’t last forever, and he shuddered

  to think what would happen if the wind

  tumbled the book into the grass and tore

  the pages. If there was a sudden rain …

  So Bast wandered back to the

  Waystone Inn and slipped silently

  through

  the

  back

  door.

  Stepping

  carefully, he opened a cupboard and

  tucked the book inside. He made his

  silent way halfway back to the door

  before he heard footsteps behind him.

  “Ah, Bast,” the innkeeper said. “Have

  you brought the carrots?”

  Bast

  froze,

  caught

  awkwardly

  midsneak. He straightened up and