“Wake,” Rachna said.

Stirring and reaching out. Tired.

“Wake. Wake. Wake.”

Eyes fluttered open and the dark water rushed in. Blinking felt odd with the heat coming and going, like a tidal wave against the vision.

“Hurry. Wake. Rise.”

Such urgency. Just a little longer?

“No time.”

Opening mouth and baring teeth. Breathing in the water and pushing it out again. Too much effort.

“Grow. Hurry. It’s time.”

Spreading fingers and arching back. Rising up out of the sand. Dim light filtering from above. A different kind of water here. Not as warm.

“Wake!”

Pushed. Coming up from the water in a rush, the air slamming in a cold wave.

The creature lurched out of the water; gasping and flailing. Gytha grabbed onto it and hauled it to the edge of the water. It screamed and clung to her. She looked down at it.

“Dipak,” she murmured.

Large black eyes looked back up at her. White skin was taut over sharply angled features. Black hair hung in oily gobs down across thin shoulders.

It was a form Gytha had never seen, but she knew that it was Dipak. She could taste his soul; the flavor exuded from every pore of this creature’s being. But it was so soon and a child rather than an infant. Gytha looked up at the sky. There was nothing to see, but she felt there was a darkness that was reaching out to them.

“Come,” she commanded as she hauled the small form up out of the water.

Gytha gaped, holding the creature by its shoulders. Dipak was a female.

Dipak moaned, revealing long pointed teeth and a black tongue. He pulled away from Gytha who let him go without resistance. He rose up to his full height which was still that of a child, coming only to Gytha’s waist. He stretched out his arms and flexed his hands, extending claws from between his fingers.

“Come,” Gytha commanded, again looking to the sky.

Catching hold of his hand, Gytha led the child away from Rachna.

The iron gates slammed shut behind them and the ancient trees bound them shut again. But they did not close their eyes. They looked down at Dipak. Gytha scooped him up and ran to the Tree of Life. Once there she slammed on the trunk with her free hand and one foot. It opened to her and she hurried inside. She was sure that with her speed and her blending that no one else had seen the girl who she now set before Enaid and Jacob.

“Oh, Dipak,” Enaid whispered as she reached out to touch the fierce girl, but Dipak snapped at the offered hand and growled.

Then he was down on all fours, moving to the edges of the room and shuffling about. Scanning the room frequently and sniffing at the air. Once there was space between them, he bolted for the stairs. Jumping between the lit up mushrooms but rounding and then crouching down when seeing that there was no exit in the room below.

“Why is he back so soon?” Gytha asked. “And why like that?”

“I don’t know,” Enaid admitted.

Their voices dropped to hushed tones as they struggled to figure out what to do with the aggressive child and how best to present the Life Spark to the fey. He would not be well received. Most had not known Dipak in any life other then the most recent and none had expected to see the next. And for the Life Spark to come like this?

Gytha watched Jacob creep toward the stairs. Enaid started towards the boy, but Gytha caught her arm.

“He will not hurt him,” Gytha said.

Jacob wove his way through the mushrooms which grew in varied sizes and stood in clusters scattered at random over the steps and on the walls. Some of them glowed with a greenish light. He put his hand in front of one a moment and watched the distorted shadow it cast on a larger mushroom on the other side of the stairs. There were drifts of old catkins, dust and other flotsam caught among the furrowed wood which he drug his feet through. Small hidden animals could be heard moving somewhere within the tree. In his passing, he stirred up a sleeping bird that rose up on dark wings.

Upon reaching the bottom of the steps, he was met with a growl and barred teeth. Looking about the room, he continued to explore. The mushrooms continued down the stairs, but they kept themselves to the edges of the room. More of them glowed here, giving the room a green cast which the girl reflected. The bird landed on a twisted ridge of wood and cawed, seemingly annoyed at the commotion.

“Horse?” Jacob turned to look at him. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” he asked, pointing to a small flower drooping from a coiled vine.

Dipak clapped his hands over his ears and screamed, falling onto his side. Both Gytha and Jacob went to him. Gytha knew that the plague of time had not been left behind with the last lifetime. It would follow until the wound was healed.

“What’s wrong?” Jacob asked, putting his face close to Dipak’s.

“He is sick,” Gytha said.

“We can’t let him die again,” Jacob whispered. “I just got him back.”

Gytha said nothing.

Jacob reached out a trembling hand and gently pet the damp, matted hair. Softly, Jacob began to sing.

"I’ll find you, wherever you roam,
For we are bound, in flesh, in bone.
Through light and dark, through death’s embrace,
I’ll meet you in every time and place."

Dipak open his black eyes and sang back.

"Through endless lives, through fate’s demand,
I’ll find you and I’ll take your hand.
We’ll dance in shadows, bright and true—
In every life, I’ll come to you."

Jacob sat up and held his hand out to Dipak who took it and together they stepped out of the tree. Gytha followed them into Enaid. The children wandered their way through the woods, paying no attention to the fey around them that watched as they passed.

Kam hurried by, carrying his machine pistol. He gestured for Gytha to follow, but she shook her head.

“The Lesser Tree,” Kam said.

“The children,” she replied, pointing at them.

He nodded and hurried after the small group of other fey who were answering the Lesser Tree's cry for help.

“Will they be ok?” Jacob asked.

“I don’t know,” Gytha laid her hand on top of his head.

Dipak was stretched out on her stomach in the grass not far from them, regarding them with her black eyes. She tipped her head to one side and made a soft snorting sound.

Jacob pulled absently at the grass, thinking of the people and how afraid they must be. Tears came into his eyes. He struggled not to let them fall. Dipak slid his hand into Jacob's and licked the tears clinging to the lashes. Jacob groaned and pushed Dipak’s face from his, but clung to his hand tightly.

“Ah, gross!” Jacob wiped at his face, laughing.

Dipak’s eyes went wide and his hand flexed. Then he screamed. Clutching at his chest, he writhed and coughed up thick oily bile. Then he was up on his feet and staggering.

“Enaid!” he wailed.

Gytha scooped Dipak and Jacob into her arms and carried them as she ran to the Tree of Life. The shuddering of Enaid began before they arrived at the tree. Trees fell, sending leaves into the air. Rocks rolled from their perches and crashed down hills, exploding into shards. Confused fey ran for shelter. Frightened animals bolted through the underbrush.

Gytha did not approach the tree as she normally did. Upon entering the grove, she stopped and looked up at the tree. Its leaves were turning brown and had begun to fall. The bark was peeling in great swaths. Cracks split the trunk open in several places. Mold climbed up from the roots, painting the tree with black slime and green fuzz.

“Enaid!” Dipak screamed as he pushed against Gytha’s arm.

When Gytha did not release him, he turned and flashed his black eyes and long teeth close to Gytha’s face. Raking his claws across Gytha’s neck and shoulder, Dipak pushed away again. This time he gained his freedom; tumbling onto the ground. Once he had gotten to his feet, he bolted to the tree and scurried inside. Gytha followed. The scratches were deep, but not life threatening.

Enaid was crumpled on the floor. Her breathing was shallow and her skin pale. Dipak went to her, sniffing her neck and licking her mouth.

“Not yet,” Dipak whispered.

Dipak drove his hand down into the floor of the tree, it did not seem to resist him. The wood spun up to envelope his arm up to the shoulder. He then shoved his other hand into Enaid’s chest. Like the tree, Enaid’s body gave little resistance. The flesh spun up over Dipak’s arm, stretching over his elbow. Dipak leaned back his head and opened his mouth wide. The top of the tree split open, letting in the sun which poured into Dipak as a brilliant ray.

The earth beneath them trembled. Gytha clutched Jacob to her and wrapped her body around his as much as possible. Large branches lurched through the cracks in the trunk and forced them open wider, breaking the wood with a screech of protest. Roots writhed in, leaving clumps of sod and smears of mud as they passed. The trees moved into the space created by the rent wood.

The roots burrowed down into Enaid, distorting her body. She cried out and writhed against it, but her body was weak and her efforts futile. Each tree connected itself to her. Gytha counted seven of them. Once their roots were connected to her, their branches stretched out and sunk into the wood of the Tree of Life. Then they grew still again. Together, they had created a web of wood with Enaid trapped at the center.

Dipak slipped free from within the tree and Enaid as though sliding from water. He looked down at Enaid and closed his eyes, body shuddering.

“Forgive me,” Dipak whispered.

Enaid smiled weakly up at him, but said nothing.

Jacob went to Dipak’s side, taking his hand.

Gytha stepped from the Tree of Life. The grove had grown still again, but there was chaos all around her. Fey stood in shock, wandered aimlessly or ran in fear. The soil was churned in a great path where everything had been tilled under and broken down by those great moving roots. A stream’s path had been blocked and now pooled into a muddy swirl where shards of trees lay strewn.

Kam jogged over to Gytha.

“What the fuck happened here?” he asked.

Then he saw the Tree of Life. He fell to his knees.

“Sweet Goddess,” he whispered, touching his fingertips to his forehead, chest and lips.

“I don’t know,” Gytha answered.

“A Lesser Tree died,” Dipak said.

"Yes," Kam said.

He stood at one of the cracks in the trunk. Enaid had not presented Dipak as the Life Spark, it had seemed too soon. Now it seemed too late. The fey looked at this girl, waiting for more. They wanted an explanation and a leader. They hoped that this young thing could offer something.

While they stared at him, Dipak reached into the shadows, pulled out a pair of white pants and stepped into them. A few of them gasped or murmured. He looked at Jacob who came out to stand next to him. Long black locks of hair framed his face. Drawing out a pair of white leather boots, he continued to dress as she spoke.

“Enaid is dying.”

Next he found a pair of white gloves and pulled them up in a single quick gesture.

“The Tree of Life is dying,” Dipak stated while fishing out a jacket.

Putting his arm through the sleeve, he pointed at them, “We are dying.”

Dipak carefully ran the belts into each of their buckles and fastened each snugly across his torso so that the three were aligned down the center.

“The darkness has come and we must go to war,” he said.

Dipak sighed and ruffled his hair with one hand while patting his pockets down in search of cigarettes. When he slid his fingers into the pocket at his hip, he smiled and pulled out a pack. With a flick of his wrist the end of one came out of the box. Putting it in his mouth, he lit it with quick flick of his fingers, drew on it deeply and slowly sighed it back out.

It was all so familiar. Many looked at Gytha, but she said nothing. There was nothing to say, they would believe what they wanted to.

“Jacob’s neighborhood was destroyed,” Kam said. He paused with an apologetic look to the boy before continuing on, “we got there too late to save the tree."

Dipak crushed out the cigarette without finishing it and turned away from the crowd.

"There is much to be done," he said as he walked away.

Kam sighed.

Dipak lead Jacob to the rock that overlooked what remained of his neighborhood.

“I didn’t feel the grove move,” Gytha said.

“It was when the Lesser Tree fell,” Dipak stated.

“Won’t they be able to see us here?” Gytha asked.

“There is no one left to see,” Dipak said.

Jacob followed a thin dirt path from the ridge, leaving the grove and entering Botanical Bend. The paved road was cracked. Houses still burned. Lawns were gouged. The gazebo was shattered. The large tree that had once proudly stood next to it now laid on the ground and was burning.

“Is that the tree?” Gytha asked.

Dipak nodded. He lit another cigarette.

“What do we do now?” Gytha asked.

“I’ll do what I can to keep Enaid alive,” Dipak said.

He flicked ashes in the general direction that Jacob was wandering.

“We fight and protect the other Lesser Trees as best we can,” he added.

After watching Jacob for a long moment, he said “And we wait.”

“For what?” Gytha asked.

“The Verdant,” Dipak said.

Gytha flexed her claws and looked down at Dipak. There was something that wasn’t being said.

“There is always something unsaid, Gytha.”

“You used to trust me with everything,” Gytha whispered.

“Trust isn’t the problem. I don’t understand it myself. Jacob is different and I don't know what it means.”

Dipak jabbed his finger in Jacob’s direction. The boy turned and stared up at them. Dipak waved and Jacob waved back.

“Raven is the key here,” Dipak said.

Raven.

Raven wrapped his arms and wings around Dipak and pulled him into a fierce embrace.

“Raven,” Dipak whispered hoarsely.

Jacob held him as his body trembled, he could no longer tell which was present and which was past. Time had folded up and pressed against itself in so many places…