She turned to Mack. “See? Aren’t you glad I ran ahead?”
“It is quite a view.” He gave her an uncertain smile. “I guess we better keep climbing.”
Nula had gotten farther ahead with her drumbeat steps, and Poppy hurried to catch up, watching her feet as she climbed. Mack stayed close.
“There,” she heard the pooka whisper, and Poppy’s head shot up to see a small green door, narrow, with gilded hinges and a small round knob over a gold-plated keyhole. The whole door jutted forward slightly from a bump in the trunk. Poppy chewed her lip and tried to ignore the surge of hope. “How did you spot this from way down there? You’re amazing, Nula!”
Nula hid a smile and the blue stripes in her ears darkened with pleasure. “I’ve had a lot of practice finding doors into places where I’m not wanted.”
Poppy watched her friend jiggle the knob and wondered why she’d say something so sad.
“Locked,” Nula confirmed.
Mack was looking around nervously, as though he expected the Oak to scold them.
“Now what?” Poppy said.
Nula grinned at her. She wrapped her fingers around the knob, and then she was gone.
A slender green snake disappeared through the keyhole. Poppy and Mack exchanged glances.
There was a creaking sound, and the door swung open.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Poppy stepped into a small, dark alcove—empty except for a bucket, a broom, and a small shelf above the door, filled with bottles and books, and several large spiders. The air was dusty. Was this … a closet?
The walls were the soft warm wood of the tree, as was the floor. She moved closer to Mack. “Nula?” she hissed.
“I’m right here,” Nula said, tapping Poppy’s shoulder with the tuft of her tail. She laughed when Poppy and Mack jumped. A tapestry curtain hung in front of them, completely blocking whatever was on the other side. Eta let out a low growl, Brutus and Two following her lead. Poppy lay one hand on Eta’s head, and reached out to pull back the curtain.
Her mouth went dry.
The alcove opened into a huge chamber with soaring ceilings. Arched buttresses of smooth wood stretched away above them. Copper lanterns hung on the walls of the chamber, glowing with warm light that shifted and moved, but didn’t flicker like fire.
“It’s so quiet,” Nula murmured.
“It’s a sacred place,” Mack replied. And then, as though he couldn’t help himself, he added, “We really shouldn’t be here without an invitation.”
“It let us in, didn’t it?” Poppy breathed.
“Did it?” Mack hedged.
She caught movement to her right as her vision adjusted in the dim glow. A picker paced along the wall. The hair on her neck rose at the sight of its long stick-insect body—twice as long as Dog and just as tall. She stared as it made a clumsy turn, making its way back the other way along the edge of the hall. She caught a glimpse of humanlike eyes in its triangular face and shuddered.
The floor of the chamber was wood, soft and worn along a center aisle from years, perhaps centuries, of visitors. They walked toward a tall column at the end of the chamber. As they got closer, Poppy realized it was a tree—another tree. A tree within a tree, rising so high that Poppy had to stop walking and stretch her neck to look up. It was as though the inner tree was holding up—or forming—the chamber. Its branches curved across the ceiling, smaller branches weaving together to form panels, extending themselves into the buttressed arches. The only impressions of leaves were the ones carved into the curves of the room.
With a jolt, Poppy realized she’d fallen behind. Mack and Nula both had their heads tipped back too and hadn’t noticed. Poppy wondered how many people tripped and fell on their faces the first time they came here.
They came to a platform in front of the tree and stopped.
Nula looked around. “Now what?”
Poppy couldn’t believe that just that morning they had broken her blood ward. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She should be feeling elated. She had learned more about the forest in one day than she had gathered from all her hours of study, poring over her parents journals; more than she had in her whole life so far. Far from jubilant, she just felt sweaty and anxious. “We need to … figure out how to talk to the Holly … I guess … now that we’re here.”
Nula lifted her hands. “Okay, but where is she? Looks to me like we’re just standing around in a hollow tree.”
Poppy scowled, but Mack looked affronted. “It’s beautiful! Look at the craftsmanship!”
Nula’s ear flicked as if a fly buzzed nearby. “Sure. It’s a fancy hollow tree. The Faery Queen’s throne room is fancier though.”
Mack frowned. “Fancier doesn’t mean better.”
“Well, if you say so.”
Poppy stepped forward so they didn’t have to argue around her. The light had shifted on the smaller tree, and she moved closer to get a better look.
It was strange. There were no windows, but somehow there was light shifting over the smooth bark of the inner tree. It looked like sunshine. How? She moved up the shallow rooted steps. It wasn’t just light moving over the surface, it was shadow too, as if something moved just under the surface. She reached out to touch it and fell back with a shout.
Bright hazel eyes looked down at her. The bark shifted with a sound like a sigh, and a narrow face pushed from the surface. Her skin looked soft—not like bark at all, and was golden and brown, like warmed honey. Long dark tendrils hung around her face like tiny branches. A delicate crown of sparkling black thorns and red holly berries rested on her head.
Nula’s voice came in a whisper. “Now she is fancy.”
Poppy glanced at Mack and almost laughed. She could have knocked him down with a breath, he was so enthralled. She nudged him
