Free The Secret of the Dread Forest: The Faire Folk Trilogy by Gillian Summers Page B

her hands, smiling at Dad in the kitchen. “I repotted Alora. She’s outgrowing the old pot.”
    “That’s great, Keelie. I’m pleased that you are so responsible with the Great Tree’s gift.” He was chopping onions and tears glimmered in his eyes. Keelie used the kitchen towel she’d dried her hands on to dab at his eyes.
    “Onions are killer, aren’t they? My Grandma Jo always said the stronger the onion, the better the flavor.”
    Dad smiled. “I’ll remember that.” He started to pluck tiny leaves from a branch of thyme, letting them fall on the diced onions.
    Keelie got the clothes from the hall closet and went out the front door to avoid running into Dad again. She sent a thought to the trees.
    Oh guardians of the Dread Forest, show me where the human boy is.
    She got back confusion and doubt. She tried again. The human boy named Jake. I was with him.
    We see no one but you and the elf, the aunties trilled.
    Had he left and gone back home? She’d been worried all this time for nothing.
    I see him. It was Alora.
    Get over yourself, Keelie answered. This isn’t how you’ll get another twinkly.
    But I can see him, she insisted. He’s a dark cloud, and he was a dark cloud when you spoke to him with Elia.
    A dark cloud? Keelie shrugged. Maybe he had some kind of magic doohickey that let him withstand the Dread, and it made him invisible to the trees.
    “Show me where he is, Alora.”
    “Take me with you.”
    Keelie gritted her teeth. She had to get back home in time for dinner or Dad would get suspicious. She walked around the side of the house, and with the clothes pulled tight to her chest, she picked up the new, even heavier pot, and staggered to the cart Dad used for hauling firewood. She wrestled Alora’s pot into the makeshift rickshaw and pulled the cart into the dark forest, with Alora guiding her.
    She had almost arrived at the stream when Alora announced, “There he is.”
    Keelie squinted into the darkness and saw a dark, foglike swirl low to the ground, like a shadow serpent coming toward her. It slowed, and then stopped, and Jake stepped out of it, the fog clinging to his skin like damp cloth.
    This was not human behavior. Her life was getting really complicated.

seven
    Keelie jumped behind the cart, her heart thumping hard against her rib cage as her brain tried to reason out what she’d just seen. Watching Jake materialize out of thin air had to be right at the top of the list of the weird things she’d seen in the past several months. Keelie didn’t know whether to run or stay. She took a deep breath of the soothing scent of the surrounding evergreens, trying to calm herself. Something warm and furry rubbed against her ankle. She glanced down, saw Knot, and relaxed a fraction, feeling safer.
    Mist swirled around Jake’s feet. It was as if he had afog machine hidden in his ragged boots. Fat water droplets dripped from the trees, making little puddles on the ground. She stared up at him. His eyes were bright green like an elf’s, but the veins in his eyes bulged bright red, blood red. His skin was as white as the snow atop the highest Cascade mountain peaks.
    The mist twirled around him like a vapory snake, and its tendrils reached out for her. Keelie stepped back. Behind her, a loud stick snapped. A jolt of panic filled her and she almost tripped, hitting the cart heavily.
    “Don’t knock me over,” Alora said in a frightened voice.
    Keelie’s palms were sweaty. Little beads of condensation had formed on Alora’s leaves. Keelie closed her eyes and connected to the forest’s magic, trying to find an answer from the trees. But there was no answer. She envisioned the green around her, and a wave of energy flowed from her to Alora. The clay flower pot glowed with a golden light. It wasn’t hot, but bright. Uh-oh! Keelie sensed that the amulet was reacting to her tree magic. She could only hope there wasn’t going to be any big problems because she did. The comforting scent of