Sunday, September 28. Warden. In a Grove.

Weak sunlight filtered through the trees, muted by the low, heavy clouds that had rolled in overnight. Dew covered everything. 

If it hadn’t been for the warmth pulsing through me from the anchoring stone, I would have been pretty miserable.

As if the light had been a signal, our guards rose. One of them let out a low rumble, that somehow managed to sound amused. Laughing at the grumpy, damp human clinging to a rock in the middle of a circle of salt.

Yeah, I had to admit, I probably looked ridiculous. 

Then they left.

No parting bow for me.

I waited, tracking the sense of them as it grew fainter.

Gone.

Only then did I realize I'd been holding my breath. 

A wet drop hit my face.

Then another.

I looked up, blinking at the fat drops now falling in earnest.

I should probably wake Lusa. What was the proper way to rouse a guardian?

Was there a proper way?

I nudged the bond. Something stirred. Images. Feelings. Half-formed impressions that slipped away before I could catch them.

Dreams?

It took effort to lift my hand from the stone, as though it had settled there overnight and forgotten how to let go. Only then did it occur to me I hadn't moved once except to track the hollows. 

The buzzing energy still pulsed beneath my skin. 

Was I cleansing the land? 

Or was the land cleansing me?

Managed to free a hand…

…and paused, hovering above Lusa.

Touching her while she slept felt wrong. Too intimate.

“Lusa,” I said. 

She didn’t stir.

“Lusa’ta.” Louder this time. I poked at the bond for good measure.

More drops fell.

No help for it. 

I reached for her shoulder. A breath away, her eyes opened. 

I jerked my hand back to the rock.

She sat up. Stretched.

“Do we need to fix the circle?” I asked as it began to rain in earnest. 

It was one of those soft, gentle fall rains. Everything would quickly grow wet enough to make you want to stay indoors, but never a true downpour.

She glanced skyward. “Later. When the storm passes.”

I nodded. “How much longer do you need the circle?”

“A week, at least.”

“I’ll get more salt tomorrow then.” At least that had been one of the more affordable parts of this ritual. “Breakfast is in the cooler. It’s labeled.”

She nodded, rose and dug through the cooler. 

I looked anywhere but at her.

“Your clothes are in the sleeping bag,” I said. “They should still be dry.”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a moment, and I glanced over. She held an arm up, examining it closely. 

All I could see was skin.

“The seals seem to have set well,” she said at length.

Whatever that meant, she at least pulled her clothes back on. Then she fell on breakfast.

I personally would kill for some hot breakfast right now. At least I had bought supplies for campfire coffee. 

When Lusa finished, she took the stone. I rose, joints stiff after sitting all night—but, I’d had mornings where I’d woken feeling worse than this.

I shoved the thought aside and dug out my own breakfast. Ate while coffee brewed. When it was done, I handed Lusa a steaming tumbler.

“Coffee,” I said before sipping my own.

“The drink you purchased yesterday morning?”

“Yes. It’s hot. Drink slowly.”

Something warm brushed the bond. If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn she was laughing at me. 

Well excuse me for trying to be polite. Just burn yourself next time. 

But she took a careful sip. 

“It is good,” she said. She sounded surprised.

I nursed my own coffee.

The rain continued to fall. I was already wet by this point, so what was a little more water?

It was surprisingly hard dealing with someone who was so unfamiliar with our world without sounding like a helicopter parent. And the strangest thing was…for many things she didn’t seem to care. Didn’t question them.

But maybe that was unfair. I wasn’t exactly asking questions either. Just trying to stay alive. 

Perhaps she felt the same way.

The fire crackled merrily. I blinked. That wasn’t right, was it? You know, rain and all?

“It will burn so long as it is fed,” Lusa said. 

I found myself once again questioning whether she could read my thoughts—or maybe I really was an open book.

“Though you will need to gather plenty of fuel and keep it dry,” she continued. “Then, you must craft your staff.”

I spewed a mouthful of hot coffee. 

“Excuse me?”

She stared at me with an expression that brooked no nonsense. “You are a warden. Every warden has a sacred weapon—a conduit of their power.” 

“Power,” I repeated. It wasn’t quite a question.

“Yes. Power.”

“Look, Lusa. You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m willing to help you get back on your feet—get anchored or whatever—but I’m an accountant. If you are looking for some mighty warden to fight those…things, I haven’t the foggiest clue how.”

“Then why did you aid me?”

“You were a lady—alone—being attacked.”

She nodded as if that was answer enough.

I tried again, “I mean it. Once we get you settled—“

"The choice of wood is important. Your staff is your anchor. It connects you to the grove, to me.”

“But—“

“Hickory, oak and black walnut all are strong. Tupelo and beech are resilient. Find a tree. You will need a length, mostly straight, that comes at least to your shoulder, and thick enough to wield yet not too cumbersome to carry. Err on the thicker side, you can always carve it down. When you find the right one, you will know.”

I wanted to grind my teeth. She wasn’t going to let this go. Maybe I’d just sit here. See if she would force me to go get a stupid tree—but that would make me a hypocrite. Wasn’t I the one that insisted she not expend any unnecessary power?

“How?” I finally said.

“It will tell you.” 

“Right. Really helpful.”

“Find the tree, then bring it back here. Do nothing more than cut it. The branches and bark must remain until you return to the grove.”

I stood, grumbling, and fetched the saw. Didn’t quite stomp, though my spine was pretty rigid. When I reached the line of salt, I stopped, startled. 

It felt like a…wall…of cling-wrap stood in my way. It wrapped around me as I put a cautious foot forward, stretching closer, tighter until it bulged, snapped, and closed behind me. 

I turned to face Lusa, “What was that?”

“Ward,” she said, eyes closed, as if sinking deep within herself.

That was it? No further explanation?

“Can I get back in?”

How ironic was it I was actually concerned I wouldn’t be able to.

But Lusa nodded.

I decided to head back toward the trail. Didn't want to stray too far. I told myself it was because I didn't want to get lost.

Firewood first. I wasn’t sure was trees Lusa said we could burn, so I opted for picking any dead wood that didn’t look rotten. She could sort them. 

I skirted where we’d piled the tainted tree. More miasma was visible on it today. The one creeping lethargically around the base of the tree had become two.

When I’d finally gathered enough wood and covered it with the damp sleeping bag, I set off to look for a tree for my—ugh—staff. Eventually found a stand of young trees, most only an inch or two in diameter. 

I scanned them, thinking they might be too small and wandered deeper in.

Lusa had said I’d know when I found the tree. I was beginning to suspect you'll know was guardian for figure it out yourself.  All I knew was I had no idea what I was looking for. The best bet would be to adapt her requirements for an anchor tree. Straight, sound, no visible disease or deformity. That should get me close…I hoped.

The trees thinned out as they grew larger. I slowed, eyeing candidates. That twisted one with the knots was a pine. I knew that much. 

This one was tall enough, but sloped sideways with low hanging branches. The next one was an oak—probably. It was straight until over my head, then had a gnarled knot below where the branches began. 

A little further in I spotted a tree that was growing straight and true, the branches looked healthy and I didn’t see any twisting knots or other potential signs of disease.

She said I’d know the right one. 

What the heck.

I touched it…

It felt like a tree. 

The bark was warm beneath my skin. 

…Sunlight. Had to be.

“You didn’t say how I would know,” I groused under my breath, looking around. 

Nothing.

No helpful neon signs. No quest arrows. No mini-map.

I sized the tree up again. It was a black walnut, I thought. No nuts littered the ground but the leaves were already a brilliant yellow-gold.

I could drag this one back to the grove. Probably. But if I kept wandering pretending I could talk to trees, I’d starve before I picked one.

“Congratulations, buddy. You’re it.”

I set the saw low to the ground, right above the soil line, reasoning the stump would be less noticeable that way.

“Sorry to end things like this, but the lady says I need you.”

It seemed a shame. How many years had it grown here? 

And why did I care?

It was just a tree.

A dense tree, I quickly realized. It took longer than I had anticipated to cut. Each pass took noticeably more effort than either of the trees I’d dealt with yesterday. But finally, the tree fell and I picked it up to haul back to the grove.

I quickly learned that dragging a tree with all the branches still intact was an absolute pain. The branches caught on everything. And I couldn’t just do the reasonable thing and cut them off. Or pull until they broke. 

No, I had to pause every single time the blasted thing got stuck and carefully free them.

And then there was the carpet of leaves sweeping along behind screaming he went this way! Maybe I’d get lucky and enough leaves would fall to hide my trail.

Or maybe I’d be scattering leaves before long.

With my luck? Definitely.

I stopped at the edge of the circle. 

“Do not break the circle,” Lusa said.

That meant I would have to lift it over somehow. 

I walked up the trunk until I was just short of the branches and picked it up. 

It almost worked. I couldn’t quite get the ground-side branches clear. They would still drag. 

Walked forward until I felt a slight resistance as the base crossed the salt line—Lusa’s ward—but it didn’t stop me. There was that stretching sensation, then it gave. 

I kept going until only a few inches remained between the salt circle and the branches, then tipped the tree so that it flipped over the salt and into the circle…where it landed on top of my cooler.

Of course it did.

“Fu—“

I caught myself just in time. Clamped my mouth shut

Nope. Not swearing in a lady's presence.

Some hills were worth dying on.

I stepped into the circle. Felt the ward close behind me.

Lusa walked me through how to cut the trunk the appropriate length for the staff, how to remove the bark, how to feed anything I removed—branches, leaves, bark—to the fire as I worked. Apparently it didn’t matter that these were green.

Once stripped and cut to length, she drew a series of sigils on the ground.

“Carve these on the ground end. They anchor you to the earth. You must copy them exactly.”

“What are they?”

“Territory. They specify my dominion. This grove.”

She drew a second set. “These on the sky end. They bind you to the seasons by the stars. Always carry your staff in the correct alignment. Sky end up. Ground end down.”

The sigils she had drawn on the tree and herself yesterday had been more fluid. These were built of straight lines connected with dots—almost like constellations. But they felt the same as the others.

I wasn’t sure how I knew that.

Each sigil bled into the next, like a web, much like those on Lusa’s skin.

She drew a third set. “These go at heart level when your staff rests on the ground. This one,” she indicated a complicated group of four. “Anchors to me. It is my Name. This one—yours—goes underneath.”

“Name?” I asked.

“Lusa’ta is a name given by humans in a human tongue. A Name is Celestial.”

“How is this one my Name?” I asked, pointing to the second, a cluster of two that were more complex than those for the sky, but less than Lusa’s. “I’m human, remember? How would I have a Name?”

“You are a warden,” she said as if that settled it. “Carve the sigils, then seal the staff with ash. You must carve the sigils and seal the staff every day until the circle is no longer needed. That will imbue it with the strength of the grove. It will hold against the tainted.”

A week. I was supposed to carve symbols on this staff every day for at least a week. Because I didn’t have enough other things to juggle right now. 

Wonderful.

I pulled out my phone and took pictures of the symbols. Best to have more of a record than lines in the dirt.

Lusa watched as I did so. For just a second, I wondered if I'd made a mistake. 

I showed her the photos.

But all she said was, “Take care those do not fall into the wrong hands.”

That didn’t feel ominous or anything. 

Food first. And more coffee, I decided.

Fished lunch out from my slightly dented cooler and ate, then swapped with Lusa so she could stretch and eat. 

After that? I carved a stupid staff.