“And then what?” she demanded. She was leaning forward, her tea forgotten.
“Well… ” Brendan shrugged. “I kind of… yelled at it with my mind. I woke it up and asked it to help me. That’s when that crazy tree grabbed Greenleaf. You know the rest.”^ 24
Kim’s head snapped toward Greenleaf. “I thought he made the roots grow around you. That is possible with the Green Art.”
“No,” Greenleaf said. “He didn’t cause any new growth. I believe he spoke to the tree itself.”
“But… ” Kim was flabbergasted. “That’s impossible!”
“I saw him do it,” Greenleaf insisted. “Furthermore, I don’t believe he merely spoke to the tree. I believe he Compelled the tree to protect him.”
Kim stared, her mouth open in surprise.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Brendan interjected. “What’s the big deal? So I talked to a tree. So what? I talk to birds and bugs and stuff. What’s the difference?”
Kim leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “There’s a big difference. A huge difference.” She sighed, frowned, and looked around the room. At last, she grinned and reached up to unhook a hanging ivy plant from its place above the table. Setting it on the tabletop, she lovingly ran her fingers through the trailing leaves. “The Green Art. An adept can use it to influence plants. That means I can change growing things. I can make them grow.” She laid a hand on the handle of her field hockey stick while closing her eyes. As Brendan watched, the ivy began to sprout and grow. Tendrils of vine wrapped themselves around her fingers. It was like watching the time-lapse films of growing plants they showed on the science channel. New stems unfurled from the pot. The stems sprouted new leaves, and within a few seconds, Kim’s hand was completely covered by a drapery of new growth. “I can make them die back.” The leaves began to curl and shrink. The stems shortened and disappeared. The plant withdrew into itself until only a single branch sprouted from the top of the pot, drooping forlornly into space with a scraggle of yellowed leaves. “That’s about as far as it goes. I can make plants grow, cultivate them, and even heal them. That’s what the Green Art is in a nutshell.”
“So?” Brendan was still confused. “What’s the point? That’s what I did, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” Kim said emphatically. “You talked to the tree! You just don’t understand the significance of what you’ve done.”
Brendan didn’t know how to react. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing at the time-he’d just done it. Ever since he’d first learned of his true identity, he’d been experiencing similar things. He heard the voice of the wind, and sometimes plants and trees, and there had been the weird incident with the Snoring Rock, too.^ 25 He was about to open his mouth to tell them about how the rock had spoken to him, but something made him keep quiet. They were already freaking out about the tree: he didn’t need any more grief at the moment.
“So, I don’t understand,” Brendan grumbled. “What’s new? I’m in a state of almost permanent confusion.”
“You don’t get what we’re saying,” Kim insisted heatedly.
Greenleaf laid a calming hand on Kim’s arm. “How could he? He hardly knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t had the benefit of growing up with his powers the way we all have.” Greenleaf turned his attention to Brendan. “Brendan, a gift like yours is vanishingly rare. I’m not sure if anyone has ever had the ability to speak directly to trees. Not since the old times. Perhaps Pukh… or the Old Man.”
Brendan sat up. “Who? And Who?”
Greenleaf frowned, a cloud crossing his features. “Pukh is one of the Ancient Faeries, born before the Pact was struck, and a leader of the Dark Ones who fought to enslave the Humans. He was given the choice of imprisonment or surrender. He chose surrender and founded a realm he called Tir na nOg, the Everlasting Lands. He lives there with other Fair Folk who dislike living among Humans.”
“And the Old Man?” Brendan prompted. His mind went back to the old Faerie he’d seen just a moment ago.
“Let’s not dwell on the past. Suffice it to say that according to legend, the True Ancients had the gift. They were in tune with the universe in a way we aren’t today. Much has been lost. You appear to have a sensitivity. Nowadays, the trees have retreated so far into themselves that they have become impossible to rouse. Today, you seem to have reached in and woken that tree up.”
Brendan groaned. “Oh great! Now I’ve done something else that makes me weird. Y’know, I thought I was a misfit in the Human world. Here’s another excuse for me to stick out like a sore thumb in the Faerie world, too. Will I ever get a break?”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, can you?” Kim said, shaking her head.
Greenleaf chuckled. “Believe me, every Faerie would give anything to have your problems. Seriously, you have discovered an amazing new gift. You mustn’t feel that it’s a bad thing. Unfortunately, we will have to work much harder if we hope to have you ready in time.”
Brendan stopped in the middle of spooning whipped cream out of his mug. “In time for what?”
Kim and Greenleaf exchanged a glance. Kim shrugged. “I guess you’ll find out soon enough. We wanted you to concentrate on your training and not worry about anything else, but you might as well know: a Gathering of the Clans has been called.”
“A gathering?” Brendan frowned. “What does that mean?”
“The People of the Moon are divided into Clans, descended from the first great tribes of the Fair Folk. Every few decades, a Gathering is called. Faeries come from all over the world to tell stories, share news, and compete in Contests of the Arts.”
“Like the Highland Games?” Brendan asked. “You throw logs and dance over swords and stuff?” Brendan had gone to the Highland Games in Fergus, Ontario, when he was a child. He remembered a lot of men in skirts, some of them throwing logs.
“A bit like that,” Kim agreed, then shook her head. “And nothing like that. Some of the most brilliant Artificers come. The Artisans’ Fair is pretty incredible. But there’s one major thing you need to worry about… ”
“I knew this couldn’t be all good,” Brendan said glumly.
“There’s been a lot of debate about you in the Faerie world,” Kim explained. “You’ve been quite a hot topic.”
“Oh.” Brendan brightened. “That doesn’t sound so bad. It’s nice to be popular.”
“I didn’t say popular. I said that Faeries were talking about you a lot. There’s some debate among our people about whether your initiation was valid.”
“But Ariel accepted it!” Brendan cried. “Isn’t he the big cheese around here?”
“Around here, yes,” Greenleaf replied. “But there are many more cheeses of the same size or larger around the world, and some of them insist that he was negligent. He didn’t witness the initiation. You came back to us fully fledged, and we had to accept your story.”
Brendan didn’t respond. He’d never told anyone what had happened, how his Faerie father, Briach Morn, had come from the Other Side and performed the initiation. He’d kept that to himself. Now he was going to suffer for that choice.
“So what does this mean for me?” he asked.
“The Council has decided you must be tested,” Greenleaf said. “You will go through a Proving, a series of Challenges to determine if you are truly one of us.”
“And what if I fail these Challenges?”
“I wouldn’t advise you to fail. You’d end up as an Exile, doomed to live on the fringes of our society. Like Finbar.”
Finbar was now living at the Swan of Liir on the Ward’s Island, doing odd jobs until Ariel decided whether he should be reinstated as a Faerie. Finbar had lost his Faerie status when he’d revealed his true nature to a Human, a woman he’d later married. He’d lived in Exile for almost two centuries, until the opportunity came through Brendan to appeal for a return to the Faerie world. Now he waited in an agonizing limbo.^ 26