Silver in the Wood (The Greenhollow Duology, #1)

by Emily Tesh

He often intimidated people, being a big and grim-looking sort of fellow; he’d accepted it years ago and had long since stopped trying to be the kind of man who smiled enough to make up for it.

“Folklore,” said Silver. “Studying—investigating. Of course I’m not a real scholar.” He said this as if Tobias might have challenged him on it. “But so much of our heritage is disappearing in this day and age. The costs of progress. I’m interested in preserving what I can.”

At once slow deep green rolled over him. He took a breath, and another, smelling old rotting leaves and healthy growth and autumn light. He felt almost as though he could have planted his feet and become a tree himself, a strong oak reaching up to the sky, brother of the old oak who ruled the wood. Ah, he thought, and nothing else. Silver and his mud-coloured curls and silly stories seemed a dim faraway thing. Ah, the wood.

“A practical folklorist,” said Mrs Silver. “Vampires eliminated, ghouls laid to rest, fairies discouraged, and so on.

He had thought himself a thing uprooted, like the great oak, ready to begin his death. “Mr Finch,” said Mrs Silver, the one time he said anything about it, “you are not, in point of fact, a tree.”

“But of course you like my mother; she’s nearly as prickly as Bramble. Does she like you?” Silver peered at him. “She does! Heaven help me, I’ve made a terrible mistake.”