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It was an odd-looking vine Dusky variegated leaves hunkered against a stelehold around the smooth trunk of a balsam fir Sap drooled down the wounded bark, and dry li to voice aair Pods stuck out fro to look warily about for witnesses

It was the sht his attention, a s that had been wholly unsavory even in life Richard coh his thick hair as hisinto focus upon seeing the vine He scanned for others, but saw none Everything else looked nored with criht breeze With nights getting colder, it wouldn’t be long before their cousins down in the Hartland Woods joined the the last to surrender to the season, still stoically wore their dark green coats

Having spent most his life in the woods, Richard knew all the plants—if not by naht From when Richard was very s for special herbs He had shown Richard which ones to look for, where they grew and why, and put na they saw Many ti hi as er to learn, to know

This vine, though, he had seen only once before, and it wasn’t in the woods He had found a sprig of it at his father’s house, in the blue clay jar Richard had made when he was a boy His father had been a trader and had traveled often, looking for the chance exotic or rare iteht hiht have turned up It see, that he had liked, as he had always been happy to part with his latest discovery so he could be off after the next

Froe, Richard had liked to spend time with Zedd while his father ay Richard’s brother, Michael, was a few years older, and having no interest in the woods, or Zedd’s ra lectures, preferred to spend his time with people of means About five years before, Richard had moved away to live on his own, but he often stopped by his father’s home, unlike Michael, as always busy and rarely had tione away, he would leave Richard a ossip, or of soht he had seen

On the day three weeks before when Michael had coone to his father’s house, despite his brother’s insistence that there was no reason to go, nothing he could do Richard had long since passed the age when he did as his brother said Wanting to spare him, the people there didn’t let hi splashes and puddles of blood, brown and dry across the plank floor When Richard came close, voices fell silent, except to offer sy pain Yet he had heard the, in hushed tones, of the stories and the wild rus come out of the boundary

Of ic

Richard was shocked at the way his father’s small home had been torn apart, as if a stors were left untouched The blue e jar still sat on the shelf, and inside he found the sprig of vine It was still in his pocket now What his father uess

Grief and depression overwhelh he still had his brother, he felt abandoned That he was grown intoof being orphaned and alone in the world, a feeling he had known before, when he was young and his h his father had often been away, sometimes for weeks, Richard had always known he was somewhere, and would be back Noould never be back

Michael wouldn’t let hi to do with the search for the killer He said he had the best trackers in the ar and he wanted Richard to stay out of it, for his own good So Richard simply didn’t show the vine to Michael, and went off alone every day, searching for the vine For three weeks he walked the trails of the Hartland Woods, every trail, even the ones few others knew of, but he never saw it

Finally, against his better judgave in to the whispers in his mind, and went to the upper Ven Forest, close to the boundary The whispers haunted hi of why his father had been hts just out of reach, and laughed at hi it Richard lectured hi real

He had thought that when he found the vine it would give him some sort of answer Now that he had, he didn’t knohat to think The whispers had stopped teasing him, but now they brooded He kneas just his own ive the whispers a life of their own Zedd had taught him better than that

Richard looked up at the big fir tree in its agony of death He thought again of his father’s death The vine had been there Now the vine was killing this tree; it couldn’t be anything good Though he couldn’t do anything for his father, he didn’t have to let the vine preside over another death Gripping it firmly, he pulled, and with powerful muscles ripped the sinewy tendrils away from the tree

That’s when the vine bit him

One of t

he pods struck out and hit the back of his left hand, causing hi the s like a thorn eash The matter was decided The vine was trouble He reached for his knife to dig out the thorn, but the knife wasn’t there At first surprised, he realized why and repri his depression to cause hi his knife with hiernails, he tried to pull out the thorn To his rising concern, the thorn, as if alive, wiggled itself in deeper He dragged his thu the thorn out The , the deeper it went A hot wave of nausea swept through hier, so he stopped The thorn had disappeared into the oozing blood

Looking about, Richard spotted the purplish red autumn leaves of a small nannyberry tree, laden with its crop of dark blue berries Beneath the tree, nestled in the crook of a root, he found what he sought: an aum plant Relieved, he carefully snapped off the tender steently squeezed the sticky, clear liquid onto the bite He gave a s him how the aum plant made wounds heal faster The soft fuzzy leaves always made Richard think of Zedd The juice of the au unable to re still deeper into his flesh

Richard squatted down and poked a hole in the ground with his finger, placed the aurow itself

The sounds of the forest fell dead still Richard looked up, flinching as a dark shadoept over the ground, leaping across li sound in the air overhead The size of the shadoas frightening Birds burst fro alarm calls as they scattered in all directions Richard peered up, searching through the gaps in the canopy of green and gold, trying to see the shadow’s source For an instant, he saw soine what it could be, but theout of the boundary flooded back into his o cold to the bone

The vine was trouble, he thought again; this thing in the sky could be no less He remembered what people always said, “Trouble sires three children,” and knew immediately that he didn’t want to meet the third child

Discounting his fears, he started running Just idle talk of superstitious people, he told hi and red It was ie Maybe it was a cloud, or a trick of the light But he couldn’t fool himself: it was no cloud