Sean Cullen: The Prince of Two Tribes

Brendan couldn’t believe what had happened. “Did I do that?” he whispered.

“The tree did it,” came Greenleaf’s voice, obviously in some discomfort. Even stranger, the teacher’s voice was coming from Orcadia’s mouth. “You asked it to help you and it did.”

Suddenly, the flames that had been blazing all around were extinguished. In fact, no sign remained that there had been any fire at all. The clearing was restored to how it had looked before Orcadia had wrought ruin upon it.

To Brendan’s astonishment, BLT leapt up from the leaves and flew to his shoulder. “Nice one, boss!” she cheered, pumping her fist.

“BLT! You’re okay!”

Brendan looked down and was shocked again to see that Orcadia was melting away. In her place lay Greenleaf, trapped beneath the tree’s limbs, his clothes rumpled and smeared with dirt. Titi melted back into her normal shape, flitting down to rest on Greenleaf’s chest, dusting leaves from his jacket with fastidious flicks of her wings. Despite his situation, he smiled up at Brendan.

“We played a little trick on you, I’m afraid,” Greenleaf chuckled. “A glamour to make me appear as Orcadia. I had to frighten you into using your powers. Obviously, you haven’t lost them. You just need to have a little incentive.”

“But the girl?” Brendan sought out the place where the park warden had fallen and saw only a raccoon waddling away.

“An improvisation on my part,” Greenleaf said. “I made you see a girl in place of the raccoon.”

Brendan shook his head in disbelief. Then another thought struck him. “Wait a minute. I talked to a tree!”

“Ah, indeed.” Greenleaf nodded. “That actually did happen. It’s quite amazing. Ki-Mata will be very excited to hear about this. Apparently, you also have a latent Talent for manipulating the green world. Remarkable!”

Brendan tried to absorb this news. “I can talk to birds. I am a Warp Warrior. I can Compel people, and now I can talk to trees!”

Mr. Greenleaf grunted. “And I think it would be an excellent idea if you would talk to this tree again and tell him to let me go.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay.” Brendan closed his eyes and thought hard. He reached for the mind of the tree. He could still sense it, but somehow it was slightly out of his reach.

“Uh-oh…? Brendan scratched his head. “I’m not sure I can.”

“Of course you can. Just try.”

Brendan closed his eyes and tried to shut out everything but the sound of the tree. He concentrated for a minute. Then another. Finally, he threw up his hands.“I can’t do it! I can feel the tree’s mind, but I can’t seem to get through.”

“Oh dear,” Mr. Greenleaf frowned. “I don’t relish lying out here for the next few days.”

Brendan snapped his fingers. “I know.” He reached into his pocket and drew out the small block of smooth wood that was his Faerie cellphone. Og, his Artificer uncle, had fashioned it for him to replace the one that was fried during his last adventure. All his old electronic devices had suffered a similar fate. In the end, Og had made him a new watch and an MP3 player out of Faerie-friendly materials. The watch served as a sort of glamour projector, as well as a timepiece. He had trouble maintaining a reliable Human disguise but was getting better all the time. The watch was a useful backup for when he dropped his concentration.

Tapping the centre of the block, he waited for the faint glow of the keyboard to appear and started to dial. “I’ll call Kim. She’s a pro with vegetation, isn’t she?”

“No!” said Greenleaf with uncharacteristic desperation creeping into his voice. “Not Ki-Mata! I’ll never hear the end of it!” Greenleaf and Ki-Mata had a rather adversarial relationship. Though both were participating in Brendan’s Faerie education, they often had differing opinions about what form that education should take. Ki-Mata would revel in Greenleaf’s predicament.

“I’d say you haven’t got much choice.” Brendan kicked one of the thick roots imprisoning Greenleaf. It didn’t budge.

“Very well,” Greenleaf sighed. “Call the she-devil.”

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” BLT crowed. “This is going to be good!”

Titi sneered.

^ 22. Never count on a squirel or a raccoon to have your back. Anybody with a peanut or a crust of bread can distract them.

Brendan glumly took in the view out the window of Roncesvalles Avenue below. Pedestrians, shoulders hunched and umbrellas clenched, leaned into the wind that had blown up on the way to the cafe from the park.

Until a few weeks ago, Brendan would have been just as uncomfortable in the cold and wind as those unfortunate Humans. Since his initiation into the Faerie world, he found that the weather didn’t bother him anymore. His Faerie heritage was proof against most extremes of cold and heat. He found, instead, that he relished the coming of winter in a way he never had before. His senses were awakened to the subtlety of the natural world. He could smell the rain. He could hear the approach of the winter. He felt the ground settling and steeling itself against the encroaching frost. Brendan marvelled at the newfound depth of his perception. He found it confusing and exhilarating at the same time.

One hazardous element of the change was that he had to be on guard at all times around his family and friends. Already, he had slipped up on a couple of occasions, walking out the door wearing only a T-shirt on sub-zero mornings or making comments on the voice of the wind or the minute cries of dying leaves to Dmitri and Harold. The way he could hear these things was often quite distracting.

He was learning to filter them out when need be. They became like a background hum or white noise most of the time. If he did get lost in the world’s secret sounds, Kim was usually quick to kick him on the shin under the table or glare a warning at him. Brendan was aware, though, that he wouldn’t always have her there to catch him when he slipped up.

Thinking about Harold and Dmitri depressed Brendan. He missed the easy friendship they’d shared before he found out about his Faerie nature. Only a few short months ago, Brendan, Harold, and Dmitri had found one another on their first day at Robertson Davies Academy. As they skulked together through initiation week, hiding from the worst of the hazing, they formed a bond. They were the nerdiest of the nerds. Harold, overweight and sensitive, was a brilliant artist, rarely seen without a sketchpad under his arm and charcoal smudges on his fingers. Dmitri, small and cheery, was the object of many a bully’s attentions, with his strange accent and trusting nature. But together, they covered each other’s backs.

That’s what they used to be like. Now their relationship was strained. Brendan no longer had to wear braces or glasses, and his acne was largely gone.^ 23 He was no longer clumsy, thanks to heightened Faerie awareness of the world around him. And along with the physical changes had come a change in their relationship. Brendan had to maintain a safe distance from his friends in order to keep his secret. Having a secret was lonely, and Brendan’s loneliness was even deeper because they had shared an adventure that Harold and Dmitri could no longer recall. Dmitri and especially Harold were wary of him in a way they’d never been before. Brendan had no idea what to do to alleviate the problem. He hoped their friendship would survive the strain.

Brendan felt himself sinking into self-pity. To distract himself, he looked around the cafe. Though he’d had weeks to get used to the idea, he was still shocked at how the Faerie world existed in the cracks of the Human world. The cafe they sat in was a good example. Before his awakening to his Faerie side, he’d walked by this corner many times. Where Roncesvalles split with Dundas Street West stood a bank building that was now occupied by a coffee chain. Brendan had shared a hot chocolate with his father a couple of months ago and never suspected that a cafe catering to Fair Folk existed on the same spot.