Free Crow Boy by Maureen Bush

the wood groaned too. “I will not allow you to travel with the nexus ring. You may keep it, but you will keep it here.”
    “For how long?” I asked.
    “For always.”
    Aleena gasped, and started to shake her head. “No, I can’t stay here. I can’t.” I could hear panic building in her voice. “I need water – to swim, to play, to drink. I am a water woman – I cannot live here!”
    She swallowed. “I’ll give you the ring. You can keep it.” She took the nexus ring off her finger and held it out in the palm of her hand.
    “I cannot take it,” the tree spirit said.
    “I’ll put it somewhere,” said Aleena. “Just tell me where you want it.”
    The tree spirit laughed. I could feel the laughter shaking right to its roots. “I cannot keep it safe. I cannot protect it from any magic creature. I could not stop a centipede.”
    “But you stopped us,” I said.
    “Well, you are not a centipede. And I am not the keeper. I cannot keep the ring safe.”
    “We’ll take it to Keeper,” I said. “That’s what we’re trying to do. Well, Maddy and me.” I let my voice fade out. It didn’t seem right to tell on Aleena, to get out by sacrificing her.
    But how could we get out? The callus continued to grow, surrounding us in tough, strong wood. I knew we had to act before it rose too high. Roots held us tight, holding us down, binding our arms to our sides. If we struggled, they tightened, squeezing us until we couldn’t breathe.
    I relaxed and the roots loosened their grip just a little. Barely moving, I eased a hand into my pocket and pulled out my firestone. It was easy to find the magic to lift out a thread of fire; the air was thick with magic. I pulled out a thread and fed a little magic into it. Golden light filled the inside of the tree.
    “What are you doing?” asked the tree spirit, its voice suddenly rough.
    “You will set us free,” I said, “or I will burn you.”
    The tree spirit sighed. “Why do humans always need to destroy?” It sounded deeply sad. “I will burn, and so will you. Only the nexus ring will survive. Gronvald will smell it, past the odours of wood ash and burned flesh. He will find it, and he will cause even more damage than you have in your foolishness.”
    I let the fire go out.
    Aleena huddled in a little bundle, smaller than I thought she could possibly fold herself, unable to look for any way to escape. It was as if the tree magic was overwhelming her water magic.
    Desperate to find a way out, I drew in magic to calm myself. I could feel magic resonating here, even in the insects. I watched the bugs at work in the bark around us. A centipede walked up Maddy’s leg, and she squealed.
    “Watch it through your ring,” I said.
    She made a face, but I said, “Just try it.”
    Slowly she pulled her ring off her finger and looked at the centipede. She was immediately captivated, watching as it crossed her leg. It continued up and over the rim of callus growing around us.
    “Josh, it’s amazing,” she said. “The long body glows as it moves. I can see every leg – I’m sure there must be more than a hundred. There’s so much magic in this one little bug.” She kept looking, examining every part of our prison, reaching out with a finger tip to touch whatever she was looking at. “I can see how the bugs all work together,” she said, “eating the rotting wood, having babies, dying and being eaten.”
    Then she stopped. “Josh,” she said in a soft voice.
    “Hmmm?”
    “Josh, I can see sap moving.”
    “But the tree’s dead. It’s just a trunk.”
    “No, it’s not. Not really. And there’s sap moving.”
    “Huh. That’s weird.”
    “Josh, it moves like water, like a little stream of water.” She stared at me, her eyes unblinking.
    “Maddy!”
    She shook her head and held a finger to her lips. “Just like a stream of water,” she repeated softly.
    My mind started to race. Sap – water – could we travel through sap and escape that way?
    “Let me