The trail of crushed foliage led Liz through both glen and dell. She crossed seven rivers, glimpsing the violent stride of her husband as he forced his way into the narrow mossy maw. Liz pursued, carefully picking her way into the cave and through its smothering void.
Jack stood before the towering, golden thing, its smoky shape now resolved in the form of a regal tree. Its hungry, wormy fingers quivered. Around Jack, a diffused sun bathed the sequestered valley in a violet haze.
"You were right, father," Jack hung his head. New, leafy branches grew at the back of his neck. "I don't belong in the walking world."
"Anderen hebben, Sindre geprobeerd," said the tree. "Zij allen hebben ontbroken."
Jack took a deep breath. He realized it might be his last. "But I thought for us, for me, it would be different. When I found her, it was like–" He lifted his crusted chin. The effort jabbed him with invisible needles. Jack looked mournfully at his father. "It was like finding myself."
"Their kind is rootless," said the golden tree. "She is unworthy of your love."
"No, father!" Jack protested.
There was a moment of utter silence, and then a terrible bellow filled the valley.
"You built that house from our flesh!" A sallow light streamed from the fluttering leaves.
Jack turned away. He shielded his eyes with a veiny branch. When he looked again, splotches of emerald and gold blotted the rising sun.
His father, the king.
Jack stepped back. He humbly bowed. New pain danced up along his former spine. "Forgive me," he pleaded.
His father answered. "I do. You were right to return."
"I had– no choice."
"You had a choice. Just as I did." Liz called.
Jack turned to face her. Liz, livid and tear-stained, trembled, for she was ripe with fear.
"Leave!" Jack cried, bending low to meet her. "Forget me!"
Liz shook her head. And she stepped forward, now dappled by her husband's shadows.
"Come back with me, Jack. I forgive you, you forgive me, we can put it all behind us and--" She trailed off, sensing the futility of her desperation.
Jack lifted a branch. He tried to dissuade her. "But, I cannot stay in the walking world. Any more than you can stay here. The magic is fleeting. Goodbye. I will never forg–"
Liz dashed forward, she put a hand to Jack's cracked, dry lips. Then she kissed him.
It wasn't like it used to be. The soft touch was no longer his. But the love that drew their lips together, that was the same.
"No," Jack whispered. He shouted. "You'll become like me. Trapped! Ugly! Gnarled! Unmoving!"
Liz threw her arms around the rankled bark of her husband. Jack felt her limbs curling around him, but it was a distant sensation.
"I will not leave you," said Liz.
"I couldn't carve it out-- this other me-- no matter what I tried. All I ever wanted was for you to know what I really am and yet— and yet it was the one thing I could never tell you. And now that you know—"
Liz interrupted. "And now that I know," she murmured, "we will be together forever." Then she spoke no more.
Jack felt his body slowly covering his wife in reply.
The bark crawled with renewed vigor across Jack. His legs could no longer move. He spread over Liz like a coat of one thousand splinters.
Liz flinched. She gritted her teeth. Again and again.
Sindre returned. The tree she had once known. He grew swiftly, he was tall and princely. His trunk encompassed Liz until only the fingers of her left hand remained in the open air, finding their way through a slivered crack in her husband's wooden tissue. The color of her faded wedding band was nearly lost against her husband's tawny hide. Her fingers wriggled once, then twice– then stopped moving.
It seemed a band of dim gold had been hammered into a tree– and then forgotten.