Shadows of the Redwood - By Gillian Summers Page 0,73

her with golden-amber eyes. “I am doing so this very moment.”

Grandmother walked stiffly on stage. She had on her pearl-bedecked red wig, which made her look like the real Queen Elizabeth, but the attitude was all she really needed. Keelie noticed that Tavyn was sitting in the audience.

“My, my. She looks the part. I’ve been watching her. She enjoys being amongst actors.” Coyote grinned, showing sharp teeth. “Humans.”

“My grandmother enjoys ruling, even if it’s just pretending to be in charge of humans. She should have been a queen.”

“Perhaps once she was. Have you asked her?”

Startled, Keelie looked down at the fairy. “No. Should I?”

Coyote grinned up at her. “She likes to walk and talk to the trees, especially the ones named Bella and Bloodroot.” He lifted his pointed nose in the air and sniffed. “Be careful, Keliel. Something moves in the forest.”

Like Keelie needed to be told that. It was time to figure out the problem here, so that she could at least still enjoy her time in California. She wanted time for Sean, and time to hang out with Laurie.

Master Oswald walked out onto the stage in ridiculously stuffed pumpkin pants and a doublet with a peascod belly that made him look like a heavy-duty beer drinker. Grandmother said that the outfit was all the rage in 1680, but it was just silly.

“Lords, Ladies, Good Gentles all. It is my honor to present to you, Her Majesty the Queen.”

Coyote tilted his head, bright eyes taking in everything.

A sharp pain hacked through Keelie’s head.

I’m close by. Watch out, tree shepherdess. Beware.

Cold green energy filled Keelie. She scanned the trees. The voice had to be coming from them. Keelie’s eyes locked with her Grandmother’s. She had stopped in mid-wave, her made-up face even more pale than usual.

Grandmother must have heard the voice, too. She must have felt the same brief headache. Something or someone was threatening one of them.

Keelie closed her eyes. She didn’t want to lose the connection.

Cold green filled her mind. Then she felt a caress of dark magic. It was like the seductive dark power that had flowed into her from the book she’d used in the Dread Forest, as if something was delving into her mind and her magic. Time to put up the barriers. She dug out the rose quartz that she’d shoved into her pocket.

Keelie imagined her feet like roots, seeking the power of the Earth. The raw Earth magic surged through her, casting out the invasive darkness. She opened her eyes just in time to see Grandmother crumple onto the stage.

She jumped up, ready to run to her, but tripped when her gown became snagged. She twisted to release the fabric. Coyote had her dress clenched in his teeth.

“Let go. I need to go to her.”

He held on, backing away a step, pulling her with him.

She swatted at him. “Stupid fairy. She’s in trouble. I have to go to her.”

Knot came running to Keelie’s side, hissing, his fur poofed out.

Coyote released her. “You can go now, but stay with Knot.”

Keelie ran, Knot racing ahead of her, ears flat to his skull.

Costumed actors and townspeople blocked Keelie’s view of Grandmother. She pushed her way into the crowd, jostling elbows and using her hips to shove people aside.

“Call 911,” Master Oswald shouted.

911? The human emergency responders would discover that she wasn’t human. Grandmother had to be okay. Keelie shoved her way to a clear spot, then dove between legs, dropping to the ground beside Grandmother. She lay pale and still, her red wig askew.

Knot raced in and hopped onto Grandmother’s stiff bejeweled bodice. She coughed from the impact of the large orange tabby hitting her sternum, then she wheezed and her eyelids fluttered.

She was alive!

Knot started to lick her eyebrows.

“Get that cat off of her,” someone from the crowd shouted.

Keelie wrapped her hands around Grandmother’s scrawny old-lady-elf shoulders covered in stiff quilted sleeves. She pulled on her fairy magic, energy from the Earth, and the power of the fir trees around them. She envisioned light, heat, and green all swirling together.

“Come on, you’ve got to get up,” she whispered into the pointed ear hidden by the soft, silvery hair that the wig had exposed. “Who else knows what I’ve done wrong? You’ve got to be awake to tell me how superior you are.”

A mist gathered on the stage as the trees in spirit form hovered, watching. After a moment, the fog was so thick Keelie could only see the legs of the crowd around her. She