5. Watch Your Ankles

The sky was dark now, and Cordelia and Blackburn stood in the midst of what felt like a thousand looming trees. Occasionally an owl hooted or the trees rattled in the wind, but otherwise the forest felt still.

“Fortune tellers want to be found,” Blackburn was explaining. He had already begun to walk in a seemingly random direction. “Generally they set up somewhere in the moonlight; better for predictions and for getting the attention of wandering tourists.”

“Are there are a lot of wandering tourists in these woods?” Cordelia asked, scrunching up her nose. She couldn’t imagine anyone of class traipsing around the woods at night.

“If you’re looking for someone to read your future, sure. It’s more common than you think,” Blackburn responded, sensing her skepticism.

“So, do--oomph!” Cordelia let out an unladylike grunt as she tripped and hit the rocky ground. Her gloved hands scrabbled at the dirt, and she pushed her upper half up, but something was still wrapped around her ankle.

She shook her leg, twisting to see what had her, when she felt herself being pulled backwards. She saw it: hands.

“Mr. Blackburn!” she shrieked. The arms were strong, and they kept a tight grip on her leg. She felt her skirt rip, snared on a broken branch, and she kicked out at her attacker. “Blackburn!”

All at once he was there, grabbing her hands, trying to pull her away from the hands attached to her ankles.

But her silk gloves were too slippery, and Cordelia was yanked away, while Blackburn was left clutching her gloves.

Heart pounding, Cordelia twisted until she could see her capturer: a man with a large red beard and disturbingly blank eyes. In fact, his entire face was slack and expressionless, as well as covered in dirt.

Then, a pistol fired. A tree snapped above her head, and Cordelia gasped, eyes wide.

To her relief, the grip on her ankle disappeared, and she scrambled away right into Blackburn, who grabbed her hand and assisted her up. He gave her an odd look as she stood, whirling, to see the red-haired man holding the tree branch above his head. He seemed to have caught it.

“Are you alright?” Blackburn asked, turquoise eyes flashing back and forth between the man and Cordelia, who stood slightly behind him.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, eyes trained on the red-haired man. He did not move, but Cordelia refused to look away.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered after a moment, listening. There was rustling in the forest, like someone was running.

A figure emerged, pistol in hand. Marfleet. “Found you! You are under arrest, Mr. Notley!” he called out.

The man Notley made no attempt to run or attack. Instead, he set the tree branch down on the ground and put a hand to the tree it had fallen from.

As Blackburn and Cordelia looked on, Marfleet approached the man and bound his hands with rope. Still, Notley said nothing. His expression didn’t even change.

Satisfied, Marfleet nodded to the two onlookers. “Looks like I beat you to this one, Mr. Blackburn.”

“You think this killed Samuel Bellingham?” Blackburn asked, stepping forward to peer at Notley. The man stood motionless, his bound hands still laying on the tree trunk.

“This is Lyman Notley. He’s a been living as a hermit in these woods for twenty years. That is the kind of thing to drive a man mad,” Marfleet said, one brow raised in challenge.

Cordelia, who had just recovered from her near kidnapping, listened to their conversation from some feet away. She squinted into the dark forest. “Is the tree supposed to be doing that?”

Inexplicably, the tree seemed to be growing a new branch, exactly in the spot that it had lost one.

“Excellent work, Cordelia,” Blackburn breathed. He stared upwards, transfixed.

“What’s going on?” Marfleet asked impatiently, grabbing Notley by the shoulder and wrenching him away from the tree. Notley swung limply in the direction Marfleet pulled, not unlike a rag doll. The whole ordeal made Cordelia shiver.

“Look, it’s stopped,” said Blackburn, gesturing at the tree. “Notley isn’t the killer; he’s a healer.”

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