And what kind of political situation were they walking into here? Bugs and bulls, nymphs and witches—who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? Everything was much less entertaining and more difficult to organize than they’d counted on. Quentin’s nerves were thoroughly jangled, and he kept touching the place on his stomach under his sweater where the arrow would have gone in. What, was it mammals vs. insects now? But then why would a praying mantis be fighting for a bull? The nymph had said this wasn’t their war. Maybe she had a point.
Quentin’s feet were killing him breaking in his brand-new hiking boots. He’d never dried off the foot he’d soaked in the stream before, and now it felt hot and blistered and mildewy. He imagined painful fungal spores taking root and flourishing in the warm wetness between his toes. He wondered how far they’d walked. It had been about thirty hours since he’d slept.
Both Penny and Anaïs were adamantly against turning back. What if the Chatwins had turned back? Penny said. They were part of a story now. Had anybody actually ever read a story? This was the hump, the hard part, the part they’d be rewarded for later. You just had to get through it. And not to go on, but who are the good guys here? We are the good guys. And the good guys always survive.
“Wake up!” Alice said. “This isn’t a story! It’s just one fucking thing after another! Somebody could have died back there!” She obviously meant Quentin but didn’t want to say his name.
“Maybe Helen Chatwin was right,” Richard said. “Maybe we’re not supposed to be here.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Janet stared them down. “It’s supposed to be confusing at the beginning. The situation will get explained
Quentin looked from one to the other of them: Alice smart and skeptical, Janet all action and thoughtless exuberance. He turned to Anaïs to ask her how far she thought they’d walked, on the vague theory that a European person might have a more accurate sense of these things than a bunch of Americans, when he realized he was the only one of the party who wasn’t staring off into the forest to their right. Passing them through the darkening trees, on a parallel course, was the strangest thing Quentin had ever seen.
It was a birch tree, striding along through the forest. Its trunk forked a meter from the ground to form two legs on which it took stiff, deliberate steps. It was so thin that it was hard to keep track of in the half-light, but its white bark stood out from the dark trunks around it. Its thin upper branches whipped and snapped against the trees it pushed past. It looked more like a machine or a marionette than a person. Quentin wondered how it kept its balance.
“Holy crap,” said Josh.
Without speaking they began to trail after it. The tree didn’t hail them, but for a moment its crown of branches twisted in their direction, as if it were glancing over a shoulder it didn’t have. In the stillness they could actually hear it creaking as it foraged along, like a rocking chair. Quentin got the distinct impression it was ignoring them.
After the first five minutes of magical wonderment passed it began to be socially awkward, blatantly following the tree-spirit-thing like this, but it didn’t seem to want to acknowledge them, and they weren’t about to let it go. As a group they clung to it. Maybe this thing was going to put them in the picture, Quentin thought. If it didn’t turn around and beat them all to death with its branches.
Janet kept a close eye on Penny and shushed him whenever he looked like he might be about to say something.
“Let it make the first move,” she whispered.
“Freak show,” Josh said. “What is that thing?”
“It’s a dryad, idiot.”
“I thought those were girl-trees.”
“They’re supposed to be
“And I thought dryads were oaks,” Alice said. “That’s a birch.”
“What makes you think it’s not a girl-tree?”
“Whatever it is,” Josh said under his breath, “it’s pay dirt. Fuckin’ tree-thing, man. Pay fuckin’ dirt.”
The tree was a fast walker, almost bouncing along on its springy, knee-less legs, to the point where soon they would have to break into a half jog to keep up with it. Just when it looked like they were either going to lose their only promising lead so far or segue into an undignified chase scene, it became obvious where it was heading anyway.
Ten minutes later Quentin was sitting in a booth in a dimly lit bar with a pint of beer on the table in front of him, as yet untasted. Though unexpected, this felt like a good development for him. Bar, booth, beer. This was a situation where he knew how to handle himself, whatever world he was in. If he’d been training for anything since he left Brakebills, it was this.
