The Watchtower

is so voracious in her appetites,” Madame La Pieuvre hissed. Her face was puffed up. Recalling what I’d learned about octopus behavior from a NOVA television special, I decided I’d better step in before someone got inked.
    “Ladies,” I said loudly enough to be heard over the swish of leaves and tentacles in the air, “I’m sure we’ve all made some choices in our lives that we regret. I, for one, got myself involved with a vampire last year.”
    The effect of my announcement on Sylvianne was instantaneous. She stood up so quickly that Bard Boy nearly rolled into the fountain. He managed to catch himself into a ball at Sylvianne’s feet with reflexes that made me suspect he wasn’t as out of it as he appeared. Every leaf on her head bristled and her silver skin turned ashen.
    “Which vampire?” she spat.
    I wiped a sticky drop of resin from my face. Too late I recalled Madame La Pieuvre’s warning. Well, too bad. If this creature could poach college boys from my country, I could give her a little competition.
    “Will Hughes,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “He’s the reason I’m here. He sent me a message to join him on the path to the Summer Country.”
    “Then why aren’t you on it?” Sylvianne replied, folding her arms across her chest. “Didn’t he leave you a clear sign? Maybe he changed his mind. As I recall, he was quite fickle as a young man—although also quite delightful.” She reached down and distractedly stroked Bard Boy’s hair.
    I shrugged. “Maybe he did, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up. He took something of mine and I want it back.”
    “Oooh.” Sylvianne pursed her lips and made a sound like doves cooing. “A woman scorned, is it? He took something from me, too!” She unfolded her arms and beckoned with a leafy finger, just as she’d summoned the boy before. I looked at Madame La Pieuvre for guidance, but she was still puffed up with anger, inky blotches staining her face. Maybe she was angry with me for not taking her advice about not mentioning Will’s name. Well, at least I’d gotten the dryad’s attention.
    I walked toward the grotto, carefully stepping over Bard Boy’s legs—and over the other figures that had quietly crept around the fountain’s base while we talked. Looking down I spied humans and others —a satyr with cloven hooves, a girl with a long tail, a deer with wide, sentient eyes—but I didn’t see the man in the long coat and wide-brimmed hat. Where did he fit into all this? I wondered. When I was a few feet away, Sylvianne beckoned me to come closer and then wrapped a leafy arm around me and pulled me into her lap, just as she’d held Bard Boy a moment ago. For a moment I worried I could become her next pet, but then all worries passed away. I was sitting on a branch in a tree listening to the wind in the boughs, nestled in the crook of two branches as securely as a baby bird in a nest. The bark felt warm with the day’s sun. Resting my head against it, I could hear sap flowing, strong as the pulse of the earth. I wanted to do nothing more but close my eyes and nap for a hundred years. This must have been how Rip Van Winkle felt when he rested his head against an old oak for a little after-lunch nap. Or how Jean Robin felt just before he metamorphosed into a tree.
    Then I heard her voice inside my head.
    I loved him, too, for a little while, and I thought he loved me. He told me he wanted to go to the Summer Country to become immortal so we could be together for all time. I gave him a branch from my hair to give him entrance to the Summer Country. But it wasn’t for me, it was for Marguerite! He betrayed me. Me! Sylvianne, Queen of the Forest.
    He betrayed me, too, as a matter of fact, I told her without moving my lips.
    Is that why you want to go to the Summer Country? To make him apologize?
    Was it? I wondered. Was that why I was so determined to follow Will Hughes—to hear him say he was sorry that he’d left me behind in New York? Well, maybe that was part of the reason. Enough so that it wouldn’t be a complete lie to agree with Sylvianne.
    “Yes,” I said, “and when I find him, I’ll make him apologize to you, too. After all, we girls have to stick together.”
    Sylvianne leaned back and held me at arm’s length to look at my face. This close I could see that her skin was paper-thin and peeling, her lips flaking and chapped. Resin pooled in her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was as dry as