Shadows of the Redwood - By Gillian Summers Page 0,47

and turned it over.

It was thick and stiff like a piece of parchment from the charm book. Keelie could see images of a fairy spell forming on the page. What had been in the safe, that this charm had been tucked in there to keep it secure?

Suddenly, Keelie sensed eyes watching her from the window. She turned her head slowly. Something had moved, but she saw only the black shadows under the green branches of the shrub outside. Then the darkness shifted, and the sun glinted briefly on a pattern of red and green diamonds. Her blood chilled.

Knot leaped up and ran to the window, hissing. Keelie watched, astonished, as he pulled himself up to the window to look out and grew larger, until he was the size of a bobcat. This was new.

Whatever Knot saw outside made his green eyes glow. He pushed away from the window and ran from the room, still growing.

Keelie ran after him, down the hall, through the kitchen, then to the French doors leading to the back yard, which were opened wide.

Knot was now the size of a small cheetah. He bolted outside, Keelie close behind him.

Laurie and Risa were sitting on a stone bench, Laurie’s eyes were glazed as Risa explained about the plant she held. She screamed as newly huge Knot ran through the bushes that grew at the property line. Keelie pushed her way through the bushes too, following Knot as he ran across the street and down the sidewalk to the corner, then right into the park. Darn cat was going to get shot, or lost, or captured, and it was his fault for using magic in the middle of a city.

He disappeared behind a concrete building that housed the restrooms, still intent on what he was chasing. A single frantic jingle sounded through the bushes on the other side.

I wouldn’t follow him, if I were you.

Keelie stopped. The big tree in the middle of the park had spoken to her. She spun around and stood before the great California live oak.

The tree pushed its face outward through its trunk. It was lined with wrinkles.

“Who are you?”

The name is Morgan Freeman.

“Like the film star?” Something was familiar about this tree’s voice. “You used to talk to me when I was a little girl and tell me stories when I played in this park.” She’d forgotten until now. Her mother had told her that she was imagining things.

I’m glad to see you broke through your Mother’s spells to remember me.

Keelie reeled back in shock, her runaway cat forgotten. “Mom used magic on me?”

Yes, she did. The tree leaned to one side, bark cracking like whips as it stretched.

Keelie didn’t want to believe what the tree had said. She looked down at the page in her hand, but she knew deep down that the tree was telling the truth. “She used fairy magic.”

She wanted to protect you from those who would claim you and your magic, Keelie.

“She kept me from Dad.”

She was afraid. She loved you. Sometimes fear clouds judgment.

Keelie pointed back to the house. “Did you see someone break into my house and take something from there?”

The tree looked over at Keelie’s house. There was a storm the other night. I didn’t see what had entered your house, but I sensed an Under-the-Hill creature.

“Under-the-Hill?” Keelie shivered.

Be careful, Keelie, for even in the Redwood Forest, evil spreads its shadow.

“What do you know about that?” Keelie asked.

I can say no more. I’ve said too much already. May you grow many rings, the tree said. His face dissolved back into the bark.

Keelie felt a block of magic surround the tree like a shield. This conversation was definitely over.

“You know you’d better listen to him,” said a voice low to the ground.

She glanced down, startled, into the sharp-eared face of a grinning coyote.

“What are you, the L.A. version of the White Rabbit?” Keelie had spent her fifteen years living here with no wildlife interaction, and all of a sudden she was talking to coyotes and trees.

Someone shouted out her name. Keelie looked up the street in the direction of her house. Laurie was running toward her. Keelie turned back to the talking coyote, but he had disappeared. Just like Knot. She rubbed her temple with her left hand as she examined the parchment still clutched in her right.

She was still stunned at the revelation that Mom had used magic to block her memory. This thought was disturbing on so many levels. It would take Keelie