Tree Singer by Jacci Turner (best novels for beginners TXT) 📕

“Of course,” Mayten said. The king seemed aware of everything going on in his castle. “His name is Anatolian, and he is great with children. I have brothers and sisters too, and I’m sure he misses them.”

The children cheered.

The king opened his hand to Limey, the younger of the twins, who turned to Mayten as the rest quieted. “Are you really a singer? How did you get to be one? Can you teach me to be one?”

Her father laughed. “You two are stretching the rules! But I know you’ve been waiting to ask Mayten about her ability to sing to trees ever since you heard she was coming.” His face grew serious. “We’ve never met a singer before. What can you tell us?”

Why didn’t the castle have singers? she wondered again. Her face grew warm as all eyes turned toward her . . . and not all the eyes were friendly.

Where on earth should she start?

“In our clan,” the eager smiles of the children set her more at ease, “we each receive a calling when we turn fifteen. I was called to be a tree singer . . . I’m from a family of singers . . .”

She thought a moment. “And a quester, for now anyway. In our clan, questers are held in high esteem, as are healers. Singers aren’t thought of as anything special.”

Adven coughed.

She scowled at him and continued. “Most people are called to be what their parents were, but occasionally someone from outside is called to be a singer or healer.”

The children watched her with rapt attention, their faces lit, eyes shining.

Mayten couldn’t stand it any longer. “But please, Your Majesty, why doesn’t your clan have any singers?”

The king shifted, stroking his beard. “That’s a long story for another time. Let’s hear more about singers. I believe Limey asked if singing was something you could teach?”

Mayten swallowed her questions and continued. All four children were curious about her singing and she talked until the king clapped his hands and sent the young ones to bed.

Why had the king dodged her question? she wondered as the children filed out. Surely the western forests needed the management of singers. Singers saw to the health of the forest, and the king’s forests were vast.

No wonder the blight started here.

This was it, Mayten realized. The first piece of the puzzle. If she could find out what happened to the castle’s singers, she’d know why the blight was spreading.

Chapter Twenty-Three

After dinner, women wearing white aprons over their dresses came to collect the younger children. Mayten assumed they were the children’s nannies, taking them off to prepare for bed. King Redmond led the rest of them down the hall to the room where he had greeted them earlier.

“To strategize,” he said when the prince asked why they were back in the library.

Finally, Mayten would find out exactly why they were here. Her heart leaped when Anatolian loped in followed by the young boy Sir Underbrush had sent him off with. The dog looked cleaner than she’d ever seen him and he smelled better too. Someone had tied a red triangle of scarf around his neck. Mayten bent to give him a good rubbing and he greeted her with a face wash of kisses.

“Come in, old boy. You’re a part of this too.” The king smiled and gave Anatolian a scratch.

A fire crackled in the fireplace, and the smell of pine and cinnamon warmed the air. The overstuffed chairs and couches had been drawn into a semi-circle around the fireplace.

And the books! Mayten could not get over so many books.

She’d be happy to stay here forever, she decided. Curled up by the fire, Anatolian at her feet, and a book in her hand. The castle had no singers; maybe she could be the first.

Cherry excused herself to check on the queen. Sir Underbrush excused himself as well. Like as not, the secretary was always attending to one thing or another, though she hadn’t a clue as to what those ‘things’ might be.

That left the king, Nan—the daughter studying botany who seemed to have taken a dislike to Mayten—Prince Thomas, Cather, Tray, Adven, and Count Monroe. A surly looking man joined them at the last minute.

The surly man met her eyes and gooseflesh crawled up her arms. There was something familiar about his eyes, something haughty. And his scowl reminded her of Adven.

She didn’t even know this man. Why would he—why would anyone—dislike her as soon as they met her?

Tray grabbed a seat next to Cather as everyone sat—or curled, in Mayten’s case—in a chair or on a couch. The prince glanced at the pair with a scowl, then settled in a chair next to Mayten.

The king leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I didn’t want to frighten the little ones, but the situation with our forest is quite dire. Trees to the north of us are dying and we don’t know why.”

Nan sat next to her father. She pulled a notebook from the small table next to her chair. She flipped a few pages as though refreshing her memory, then gave a quick nod.

“I’ve run every test I can think of to determine the cause of the deaths. There are no beetles, no imbalance in the soil or weather to cause such a drastic change. But the trees are dying.” Nan’s voice was slightly nasal, as though she’d breathed too much dust.

“It’s almost like they are standing, but empty of life. They are not hollow. I’ve had several cut down so that I could inspect them and there is no apparent rot or sign of drought or disease, but when a big windstorm comes in, they just fall over. They look perfectly healthy on the inside and the outside, but they fall over dead.”

Mayten gasped. What would cause healthy trees to fall over like that?

She glanced at each member of the group in turn, wishing with all her heart that her mother had been the one sitting in this chair