Jules had been wanting to run off and join the rebels, but his family forbade it. "You'll do more good keeping people fed," they said, making him keep his head down and harvest the last autumn squash. Light snow had begun to fall. And on the day after market day, when a man in a warm cloak came from Pyre City, Jules tried to come away with him to help drive the invaders out.

"If you're that set on helping," the man told him quietly, "get us knives from Bernal. Something we can use as-is, or tie to a pole."

Jules had an excuse to do that. Bernal was a forge town to the south, opposite Pyre City, so he'd be farther from danger than here in the city's hinterland. He worked hard for the next few days to pick gourds, then talked his parents into letting him take the family's plow donkey on a trading trip. He could sell a little produce and the candles his family also made... and spend the few silver coins that the rebel agent had trusted him with, showing him how to sew them into a pack so they wouldn't jingle.

He set off on a chilly morning with three days' bread and hard cheese. The forest trail wasn't heavily used since the invasion last year, but a few other travelers were trying to get goods to or from the city and surrounding villages. Jules traded wary looks with a caravan of four pack horses and two armed men, and then an elderly man on foot cringed when Jules passed. Jules waved and greeted him anyway.

At sunset he noticed something odd. He was about to camp in the woodlands, some way off the trail, when something hummed from deep in the trees. Not an animal growl. He tied the donkey to a tree and set off toward it. No creature was in sight. Instead, he found a sort of garden. Brush had been cleared here but no house stood. A series of boards connected one trunk to another, gradually leading higher. Thick moss grew beneath them. His gaze followed the boards up to a trunk with handholds cut into it, leading back to the ground and farther up into a layer of thick branches. Someone's aborted attempt to build a fort, maybe. A signpost had been nailed to the start of the ramp, though. In crude, misspelled lettering it said, "GET TOUGH HERE".

Some kind of bandit camp? No, only a fool would advertise that. He climbed up the handholds to see. They were placed in the obvious way at first, but then in a pattern that blended in with natural branches and made him stretch. He raised one foot awkwardly, teetered off-balance, and found a notch with his toes. Then he was up on the platform where the crazy tilted beams met.

From there above the low branches, he gaped at an array of platforms and bridges. It seemed like a village built by a madman. Not huts, exactly, but lean-tos and ladders and ramps with hardly a railing anywhere. Another sign said, "TAKE WHAT YOU FIND". Jules teetered with vertigo but found his footing. He could go back down to his donkey and get on with the job. Or, take up the offer to be given... something. Someone with resources had put effort into this project. So Jules held his arms wide and paced along a platform toward one of the shelters. From there he found another plank going sideways but with a gap in the middle. Off to one side was a tree trunk with footholds cut into it.

"No way. That's too dangerous." He looked down at branches and gauged his chances of catching one if he fell. Then he spotted something shiny by an overhang on the far side. Maybe... maybe if he just hopped across he could avoid the foothold and not have to transfer to and from another tree. He gulped, balanced, and hopped over. The far side was wide and sturdy, no problem. He took several steps and grabbed the nearest trunk, then crouched to look into the shelter.

A silver coin had caught the light. A day's wage in the city, not a bad prize but low for risking his life. Beneath that was a fruit of a type he'd never seen before, and a staff. The fruit had a dark, woody texture and smelled of cream and berry pie. Where had this come from? He held it to his nose again, then nibbled. It was as delicious as the smell promised. He spent a few minutes devouring it and plucking out seeds to stuff into his boot. He scratched one ear, idly feeling like it had twitched. He looked around. The coin had drawn his attention to another ladder that blended into the wood. A portion of the lean-to roof swung aside at his touch. This climb was tricky, with many shallow holds, but they were subtly painted to help them stand out. The challenge drew him upward. It was like crawling across a floor, with a strong wind pulling him "backward". He was off-balance for a moment but twitched his spine to nudge the rest of him toward a little side platform and steady himself.

He'd passed above another layer of branches. How had he not seen through it? Up here he faced yet a third layer of planks and dangling ropes and woven branches. Several routes led between sloped platforms and up to a hollow trunk with a rippling green light inside.

Jules had never known the trees were this tall. These paths were dangerous, but to walk them was a challenge in the best sense, a dare to prove he could. He stepped onto a board and found his footing, despite his thudding heartbeat and the confusion all around him.

He knew just what to do. This little gap wasn't so hard to jump, and he'd gotten good at balancing on the plank beyond it. The wood wobbled but he dashed onward. When momentum took him too fast around a bend he dropped to all fours and bounced off a tricky swinging rod, letting it carry him back up to where he could jump and swing from a vine and onto another. Whoa, he didn't want to leap right from the vine to another one! Instead he sank his fingernails deep into the nearest trunk, caught his breath, then skittered up that tree to where he'd spotted a sturdy branch to crawl across and over the pit. He dangled, dropped, wobbled, and fluttered his tail for balance. Wait, what?

He spun around. A heavy, hairy thing bounced up from the base of his spine to curl along his back. He pushed it away and felt like he was the one being pushed. The movement threatened to drop him off a narrow wooden ledge. He had enough sense to dash toward the nearest tree for safety, then looked himself over. The hand he'd grabbed the trunk with had hair like copper, dark leathery pads on the palm, and inch-long claws that he'd easily jabbed into the wood. The same fuzz extended up his arms to the sleeves, and matched the big brush fluttering behind him.

"Bewitched!" he said. He should have known something was wrong about this place. Goblins or fairies or something, building a maze to lure people in and... turn them into animals maybe, then eat them?

And what was that lantern up there? A way to undo this, maybe? He held out faint hope. He scurried up the trunk and hardly wondered at how fast he did it. He was up in the hollow trunk and the inside of it was the size of a nobleman's tent, wider than the trunk that held it. Some trick of the light, made by the wooden lantern full of fireflies at its center.

A boy about his age sat cross-legged, covered in similar fur and grinning at him with prominent buckteeth. "Made it!"

Jules tensed, ready to hurry back down. "Who? What are you? Stay back, in the gods' name!" He raised one hand and tried to gesture in a holy sign.

The forest boy laughed loudly. "No hurt. I mean, won't hurt you. Don't see people much." He thumped his chest and said, "Midar. Here, sit."

Jules darted up and seized the lantern. "I have this! Don't attack me or I'll, I'll break it!" It had to be some magical thing, placed here at the center of his uncanny tree.

Midar held his hands together. There was a moment of wind, and a wooden bowl of hot porridge appeared. He stood up and approached Jules as if feeding a timid animal. Midar wore only a pair of buckskin pants and a blanket, with feathers in his hair.

Jules reached out and took the bowl, sniffing skeptically at it. "Am I trapped here if I eat?" He realized too late that he'd already eaten the fruit below.

"No. Where you... where are you from?" Midar sat slowly.

Jules set the lantern down and retreated to the opposite side to eat the porridge with a spoon stuck in it. Flavored with a spice he didn't recognize. "From the north villages. I came along the road to Bernal. Some... friends in Pyre City wanted help."

Midar hissed. "The soldiers, your friends?"

"No! There are rebels there, against the empire. I wanted to help, but my family said no."

For the first time, Midar's grin failed. "No family for me, anymore. Lived in woods ever since the empire came. Scrounged for food. Stole little things from farms, tried to pay back."

Jules' eyes widened. Once, his parents had lost a package of candles they'd left by an open window, and days later a fresh roasted deer leg was on their doorstep. "That was you!"

"Maybe. I go many places around the woods."

"What did you do to me?"

"Wanted to make people tough, like me. Something found me, and now I know tricks. Like this way to make a home anywhere." He waved around the enchanted room. It was warm and comfortable, empty of insects.

"Magic?"

Midar shrugged. "I thought, bad that people wander and starve and be scared. Instead, maybe help them learn to jump and climb and survive anything."

Jules put the bowl down and looked at his changed hands, his new tail. "So you made me some kind of forest beast?"

"You did! I shaped the trees and the logs and ropes. Only works if you try, and climb high, I think. Your body... trained, now. Maybe fight soldiers, if you want."

Was he really stronger? Jules had an animal's pelt and claws, and felt long ears twitching higher on his head. "If I go to Pyre City they'll think I'm a monster. Even if I go home, my parents..."

Midar shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. "No, no. My mistake. Stupid. I... I will fix. Here." In an instant he'd reached forward and touched Jules' chest. The coppery fur faded away all across his body, leaving just skin and clothing, and he wobbled from suddenly not having a tail.

"You undid it, just like that?"

"Still trained. Try letting it relight."

Jules soon figured out what that meant. The magic of this place had sunk into him, and he could call it forth again. His body shivered and reshaped. This time he not only felt the tail and claws return, but sensed how his muscles shifted subtly, ready for quick action or hanging from any ledge. Midar helped him snuff out this power and call it forth a third time.

Jules said, "This is a gift, then. A strange one."

"You angry?"

"No. Thank you, Midar! You wanted to find people to give this to?"

Midar nodded. "Don't see many folk. Most I've talked in months. Nice to see someone use the training ground."

Jules peeked down from the high trunk into the leafy canopy that blocked his view of the earth below. "I need to go, and buy knives for the rebels. Something I can sneak in. If you want to stop the empire, why not join them?"

Though he was the lord of this patch of forest, Midar shuddered. "I run. Very good at running, not being caught. I make a home anywhere, and I make it safe and have food. I change, too. But don't want to fight and kill. Maybe too good at that." He looked down at his clawed hands. "Maybe you come again, bring friends to try the training. Make them tough too, then fight and tell me stories of what you do in Pyre City."

Jules had been trying to buy knives for braver people than him to jab imperial soldiers with. Now, though, he might have other options. But he should still do what he came for. The forest felt vast and tall around him and the smoke of the occupied city was far away. Here, he was safe, as strange as this place and its owner were.

"Thank you! I'll try that," Jules said, and stepped toward the doorway.

"Wait!" said Midar. "Um, I..." He seemed not to know what to do, and his arms fluttered to either side as though he were considering turning into a bird.

Jules guessed his meaning, and went over to hug the stranger. Midar wept as he returned it, and when he stepped away he smiled weakly. "Come back sometime. More people, more things I can try."

"I will." Jules blinked. "Where did my boots go?" He'd gone barefoot at some point, and his altered shape had longer feet with flexible ankles and wood-catching claws.

The forest boy laughed. He sank one hand into a hazy space beside him and pulled out the boots. "Lost things should go home."

Jules thanked him and slung the boots over his shoulder by their laces, so that he could climb down more easily. He used his new, agile form and took full advantage of its acrobatics to help him descend. Twice he saw the young hermit peeking down, watching, and Jules waved up.

Jules returned to his tethered donkey, calmed her irritated mood, and changed back. He put his boots on and traveled like a normal person. He was still bound for Bernal and from there, home and maybe the captured city. Now, though, he wasn't sure where his travels would really take him. That was probably a good thing.