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Sometimes subtle changes are hard to catch. A friend may change her hair color, or get contacts instead of glasses, and you won’t notice for several days. Or maybe your cousin shows up with a mustache and you can’t remember how long he’s had it. A front lawn is a little like a face. Familiar, and yet taken for granted. Alan Fenwick wasn’t sure how long some of the trees had been in his front yard, but he was absolutely, one hundred percent sure that the gnarled pine tree blocking the path between the front door and the garage had not been there the night before.
This wasn’t a sapling, this was a mature shade tree, with a trunk so thick that he could barely get his hands around it, and Fenwick had big hands. The gnarled roots around the base peeked up through an untouched lawn. Would someone transplant a tree here as a practical joke? Could you even transplant a tree this old?
Their house was built in the late fifties, back when Ipswich was a suburb of Seabingen rather than one of the more central districts. It had a generous plot that sloped down in the back and bordered on a greenbelt. So much of their yard was lawn that Fenwick had seriously considered getting a riding mower, because even with the raised beds and the patio nipping at the lake of green, cutting the grass was an all-day affair.
But now there were gnarled and twisted trees scattered across the lawn like arboreal green army men scattered by a petulant god. How had he not noticed that before? How had his wife not noticed that before? Maybe it was like hair loss—-just a few a day until one morning you were bald and wondering when it happened. Except in this case it was just the opposite. He trudged down past the swing set, past the rose bushes and the herb plot, feet leaving tracks through the dew. One of the new trees was already showing swelling pink blossom buds. He would have known if Kit had planted a fruit tree sapling. They had talked about putting in blackberries too, as soon as the renovations were done, but when was that going to be?
Fenwick looked around carefully, but no one was up and about this early on a Saturday. No dogs either? No. Good. He crouched down on his hands and knees and carefully sniffed the earth around the base of the tree, using one hand to hold the end of his ponytail off the earth. No scents. No humans, no dogs, no motor vehicles, no urine of wild animals. Just tree and earth and dampness. However this tree got here; it wasn’t by normal means.
His thoughts were interrupted by the rumble and beep beep beep of a truck backing into the driveway. Fenwick loped towards the driveway and waved at the workmen. For the last two weeks he had planned the recriminating speech he would make to them, about how having raw sheathing on the roof made him fear for his family’s safety, not to mention the safety of their possessions, and how tearing part of the roof off and then not showing up again was the worst possible kind of customer service. The plumbers had come, the electricians had come, the drywallers had come, but nothing could be done until the old roof was torn off and the new one raised.
As he saw the Ace Roofer’s truck back up towards the garage, he realized that the speech would remain unsaid. After all, what if they left again?
“Good morning,” he called out cheerfully. “How’s it going?”
The foreman got out of the passenger’s side of the truck. He wore an Ace Roofer’s polo, and his tool belt held only a large cell phone and a pad of paper. He took a sip of convenience store coffee and squinted up at the blue tarps tied down over the roof.
“Fine morning, isn’t it?” Fenwick said, hating how brown nosing he sounded. Just get the roof taken off, and then they could call the carpenters and get the second floor’s frame put in. He just had to be polite long enough to get the damn roof taken off, that’s all.
The foreman walked over towards the pine between the house and the garage. He toed it with a work boot, took another sip of his coffee, and nodded to himself.
“Gonna have to get that out of here. Can’t get the dumpster in till the tree’s gone,” the foreman told him. Was that sadism in his voice?
Fenwick panicked. This couldn’t be happening. “Can’t you move around it?”
The foreman shook his head. “Nope. We gotta rip the rotted shingles and the sheathing off, then we gotta clear out them tresses. That means we need the dumpster here to catch the stuff.”
“Put it on the other side of the house.”
“Nope. Can’t do that.”
“Then put the roofing material on the ground, and then have the men carry them to the dumpster. We’ll pay them extra for the inconvenience.” Fenwick grinned as cheerfully as he could, but a little voice inside him was screaming. Two adults, two children, and a third on the way in a three-bedroom house with only plastic tarps covering the holes in the roof and two and a half of the bedrooms out of commission thanks to all the stuff they had to store there while the roof was being ripped off?
The foreman shook his head again. “Nope. “O.S.H.A. rules. Can’t do that.”
“Then we’ll get you something in cash. Just get the roof out of here.” Only desperation could force a man to bribe a lousy contractor who hadn’t even done the work he had already been overpaid for.
The foreman smiled. This time Fenwick was certain it was sadism. “You get that tree out of here, then call us. We’ll be back in a week or so.”
“A week?” Fenwick visualized changing into a bear, disemboweling the foreman with his claws, and then devouring everything but the head, which he would put on a pike as a warning to other contractors. He was growling, he realized, a low bestial rumbling which usually only came right before a change-inducing rage. The foreman didn’t notice, as the noise was lost in the roar of the truck driving away.
He went to look for Kit to tell her the bad news. He found her in the kitchen, with Kaa perched on her shoulder. Her familiar cawed in approval at the plastic dishes she was clearing out, taking a few morsels for himself as she emptied the leftover mac and cheese and chili and apple slices into a large bowl.
“Bad news,” he said. “They just left.”
“What? Why?” Kit asked.
Kaa cawed in agreement and picked the meat out of the chili.
“I’ll show you,” he said. “Go give that to Kaa’s friends and then meet me out front.”
Kit took the bowl of leftovers to the back yard for the crows. When they’d first moved there, the other crows had mobbed Kaa, as this was not his family’s territory, but with time, heaps of leftovers, and dog food purchased for the express purpose of bribing crows, the other crows eventually decided that Kaa’s generous human tributes were acceptable, and they would allow him to remain.
When Kit rejoined him out front, he pointed to the tree between the house and the garage. Kit ran up to the tree, crouching down with her hands spread wide as if the tree were a crying child with a skinned knee running from the playground.
“Oh, oh, Fenwick, she’s hurt.” Kit put her forehead against the pine’s bark and kissed it. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m so sorry. I’ll find out who did this to you.”
“Uh, she?” He decided that he would not bring up cutting the tree down.
“She’s a dryad,” Kit said. She turned back to look at him. “Are there more?”
Kaa cawed. He flew to the peak of the house and cawed again.
Kit had her hands up by her face as if she were witnessing a gruesome accident. “Oh, Jesus, Fenwick. They’re hurt. They’re hurt. Someone did this to them. They came here hoping I could help them. Oh Fenwick, they’re hurting. I can feel them hurting.”
“Why are you so upset? They’re just trees,” he said. Trees that were standing between them and the finished renovations. They were already a month behind schedule. They didn’t even have the old roof taken off.
“They are torturing Yseulta. If someone was torturing me, Kaa would be pulling out his feathers in stress,” Kit said, looking up at him with her big hazel eyes. Her worry and fear was plain on her face. That was one thing he loved about her; you always knew how she was feeling. “I can feel secondhand pain. I have to fix this. I have to find a way of undoing whatever hurt them. I have to help her. It’s my duty. She’s helped me so much and I love her.”
As if in agreement, Kaa landed on Kit’s shoulder. Kit knelt in front of the tree, bending her face down until she was almost kissing the soil. Kaa readjusted his perch, watching her curiously. She whispered, “I’ll do what I can. I’ll do everything I can.”
Fenwick reached down and helped Kit get to her feet. “We’ll help them, baby. Get some breakfast, and then get on the computer and do some research. I’m sure there’s an answer somewhere.”
“Old Twi moved, so I don’t know who can handle curses anymore—ah nuts!” Kit put her hands in her hair, clenching her fists as she swore. “I have that baby shower today! I have to get ready if I’m going to get everything done in time.”
“You can blow it off.”
“No, I promised Tali I’d be there,” Kit sighed. “I hate baby showers, but I owe it to her. And I’ll tell her about that email I got. Maybe she can help.”