Wooden Bones by Scott William Carter Page B

tendrils of smoke rising from their chimneys and the yellow glow from their windows grabbed his attention. Otherwise, his eye would have skipped right past them.
    In all his wildest dreams he could not have imagined such a place.
    They’d ridden up on some kind of platform, one attached by thick gray ropes to a series of spoked wheels. He was prodded off the platform onto a much bigger platform, one that circled the trunk of a massive tree, a dozen rope bridges leadingto the houses around it. The people filed onto the platform, dispersing onto the various bridges. People emerged from the tree houses, people clad in the same woven clothes but not the wooden armor, and waved at them. Even some children. They seemed happy.
    Pino marveled at it all, still not quite believing his eyes. “Why did I have to be blindfolded,” he asked, “if you’re letting me see it now?”
    The man with the scar on his cheek smirked. “Because you cannot see our home from the ground,” he said. “Come now, Queen Elendrew does not like to be kept waiting.”
    â€œI don’t want to wait either,” Pino said, thinking of his papa. “What’s your name?”
    The man pointed at the bridge nearest to them, one that led to what appeared to be the tiniest house of all. “My name’s Olan,” he said, “but I’d save your questions for her. There’s no point in telling you more if she doesn’t believe your story.”
    His warning sounded ominous. “What do you mean?” Pino asked.
    â€œI mean, if she doesn’t believe you, your stay here will be too short to bother with names. And I must also tell you that it’s a long way down for departed guests, especially those who don’t get to ride our ropefloat.”
    Starting up the rope bridge, feeling the planks sway gently beneath him, Pino didn’t even want to think about falling from such a height.

CHAPTER TEN
    T he little house at the end of the rope bridge was deceiving to the eye. From the outside it hardly looked big enough to contain a single person, just a simple green door with a pine needle roof, but inside was a very different story.
    Inside it was as big as a cathedral.
    From the looks of it, most of the trunk of the big tree had been hollowed out, polished smooth, and stained a warm golden hue. The ceiling narrowed to a point high above, higher than any church steeple. He saw a ring of tiny oval openings up there that had been invisible from the outside. Flickering lanterns, low to the floor, encircled the area, leaving the ceiling shrouded in darkness.
    Ahead of them, in the middle of the great room, a woman sat on a throne that seemed to rise directly out of the floor—carved from the tree itself, Pino thought. Behind the throne was a dwelling all its own, one Pino had not seen at first because it was made of glass, so clear it was as if the walls weren’t even there. He saw a bed of straw in the glass house. He saw a chair, dressers, cabinets.
    Around the woman on the throne dozens of the woodsfolk knelt on blankets made of woven grass, silent and unmoving. The woman herself was just as still.
    Or not a woman—a girl, at the tail end of her youth. Olan guided Pino to her, another three men in their wake, and as they approached, Pino got a better look at her in the light from the flickering torches on either side of her. She might have been anywhere from thirteen to nineteen; it was hard to tell because she had such a stern face, and because her billowing white gown made it hard to see her figure.
    Yet Pino could see her arms and legs. She definitely had them: slender fingers resting on the arms of the throne, narrow feet in slippers made of white rose petals.
    It was an odd thing to be disappointed that someone had arms and legs, but that’s how Pino felt. He had no idea why the man with the scar thought this girl, this Elendrew, was the same person he needed to find.
    All of