I reached inside the hole and touched the hand, expecting the worst. I found it cold, but not as frigid as I would expect for a corpse. The fingers were passive yet pliable.
Like a sprung trap, they clenched, digging claw-like nails deep into my palm. A groan seeped out of the hollow at the center of the tree, muffled by inches of dense wood.
“Hang on, sweetie! We’ll get you out.”
I pulled my hand free and hopped down.
“She’s alive!”
Ellen looked up, her face as open and hopeful as a full moon. “Urszula?”
“I’m pretty damn sure.”
“How’d she get in there?”
“How else? Wendell and his spell craft. The bastard probably grew it up around her.”
I recalled his reluctance at handing me that GPS, as if it were an afterthought. He probably wouldn’t have minded one bit if she had stayed locked up in that beech. He hated Dusters, even reincarnated.
Something righteous brewed beneath my sternum. I could already feel the energy build and loosen.
“We need to get her out of there,” said Ellen. “There’s a chainsaw … I think … back in the shed.”
“No,” I said. “Too much risk of hurting her.”
“So what do we do? Call the fire department?”
”Yeah, right. What are they gonna do?”
I held the sword loose in my grip and limbered up my arms and shoulders like a boxer.
“Step back,” I said.
“What are you gonna do?”
“You’ll see. Just get behind that boulder.” I nodded to a glacial erratic on the slope behind us.
When I saw she was safely behind the rock, I lifted the sword and let fear and hatred for Wendell well up inside me. What he had done to Sergei’s buddy was pure evil. I didn’t care what bad intentions the guy had. No life deserved to be snuffed so casually.
The metal of the blade began to hum. I could already feel some of the energy transferring. I braced my legs and held the sword out straight in both arms, aiming the point at the center of the beech’s trunk.
I let my feelings for Wendell fester and ignite. The energy separated from my core, swirling into my arms, shaking them as the power concentrated in the sword.
“Is everything okay?” Ellen stepped out into the open. “Are you convulsing?”
“Get back!”
Distracted, I lost control of the spell. The sword discharged prematurely. A shock wave surged from the tip, enveloping the tree. The wood twisted and groaned. A ripping sound gathered in the upper branches and worked its way down.
Ellen dove back behind the boulder. The beech tree peeled back like the sepals of a lily. Six arches of splintered wood surrounded the slender female figure within. Shafts of reddish heartwood poked upward like stamens. Urszula teetered and collapsed at the center of this giant, wooden flower.
The tremors in my arms ceased. I dropped the sword and rushed towards the shattered tree, kneeling beside Urszula’s limp and shivering form. She was pungent with urine, damp and slightly sticky with sap, her clothes stuck through with splinters.
“Is she okay?” said Ellen, scrambling over.
“I don’t see much blood. Seems to be nothing broken. I think she’s knocked out, though. She might have a concussion.”
