God Neb disappeared as quickly as he appeared, leaving the group to do… whatever it was mortals did. He arrived back in the heavens, and had enough time to sigh before the metaphysical “door” to his “room” burst open and Goddess Tippy and her brother, God Rion, marched in.

“How was he?” she demanded.

“Fine,” Neb replied.

“He looks skinny. Is he eating enough?”

“He’s fine.”

“Because he’s definitely not getting enough sleep! Just look at those bags under his eyes.” Tippy thrust her hands out, producing a live illusion of Luka, Annie, the orc siblings, and Vale trudging through the forest back toward the park. “See?”

Neb dismissively looked at the World Walker. It was true: he did look tired, but that happens. Mortal lives were fickle, sensitive things. A few hours less of sleep could do that for a person and usually resolved within a day or two.

“I looked back in time to see why he didn’t get enough sleep, and I couldn’t!” Tippy snapped.

Neb paused. “What?”

“I couldn’t look into his room when I looked into the past.”

The elderly god flared with magic, and he searched the space time continuum for an easy answer. Tippy was a relatively young goddess, which meant occasionally she made mistakes—especially when dealing with time and fate. Those two magic fields were difficult for even him sometimes.

He watched past Luka carry the dire-wolf, Leo, into his room, closing the door softly so as not to wake his neighbors. He watched Luka and the wolf banter about who got the middle of the bed, he watched Luka win. He watched them go to sleep and—nothing. A five-minute nothingness covered Luka and the wolf before Luka was suddenly standing out of bed, bantering with the wolf about the center of the bed again.

Neb frowned and tried a different spell, and the same thing happened. A temporal anomaly? A time rift? He thought through several different potential answers, each coming up short to what he was witnessing.

Beside Neb and Tippy, God Rion also peered back in time. He suggested an answer, “I think it’s one of us using a privacy spell.”

“A privacy spell, really?” Tippy asked. “One that blocks time magic reviewing?”

Neb grunted. “They exist. And now that I’m looking for such a spell, I must agree with young Rion. It’s unmistakable now. Luka met with one of us gods last night.”

Tippy frowned. “Show me.”

So, Neb did. He pointed out the floating magical dust, the way light bent around the room, and how the fuzziness of time smelled—that last one wasn’t very scientific, but every god knew magic smelled differently depending on who was casting. Unfortunately, Neb did not recognize this smell… although it was familiar.

“Whoever it was, we’ve got to warn Luka,” Tippy suggested.

“We can’t,” Neb reminded. “Not unless you wish to deal with a divine reprimand. The others are already mad at us enough for everything we’ve done for the lad. We can’t give them reason to invade the park and take it over.”

“They wouldn’t do that,’ Rion said, unsure. “Would they?”

Neb nodded. “They would declare the park an unsanctioned church or temple and send their people to dismantle it.”

“Have they ever done that before?”

“A few times over all the years. Most recently was the Church of the Baker.”

“Never heard of it,” Tippy said.

“Because it was a simple bakery with a small shrine to God—” Neb froze.

“What?”

Something lapsed in the god’s mind, glazing over the stumble like a piece of black ice. A name graced his mind, slipping away before he could grasp it into the forgotten recesses of his mind. “Nothing, never mind. Look, we can’t get involved. Simple as that.”

Tippy eyed him suspiciously before throwing up her hands in surrender. “Fine. But can I say how much I don’t like this? For the record?”

Rion patted her on the shoulder.

***

Luka slowly rolled his artifact ring around his finger, a gesture he did unconsciously. It was nothing simple, but like all artifacts, held vast magical power. It was a gift from Goddess Tippy and told him the recipe for whatever he wanted. Though, that wasn’t the main use for him. He loved the cold metal on his skin as it was a reminder of where he was and how he got here. It calmed him, relieved his stress. Which was sad because he rolled the ring around his finger all the time.

Walking back to the park, he rolled it the entire time. Annie had accidently created something that made the gods come to investigate. They weren’t supposed to visit anymore, and yet, there Neb was.

On the surface, the keychains weren’t a big deal. They would become another item the park sold, or if Annie wanted, a product she sold herself. If they brought in the big bucks, fine. If not, again, no harm done.

But Luka couldn’t help but think about Annie’s magic and what might happen in the future. Her magic did odd things; what if something happened to her because of it? He couldn’t lose her. Not again.

Annie playfully bumped into him, snapping his focus back to the present. “Earth to Dad?”

He blinked, forcing his thumb off the ring. “’Earth’ to Dad, eh?”

She smiled. “Funny how language works sometimes.” She jingled the grove keychain. “Do you think the dryad lady is going to be upset that I destroyed a tree?”

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Luka considered that. He had only met two dryads before: Mrs. Leafsong and little Nicole, an orphan. Other than Nicole’s possessiveness over her now boyfriend, Ren, Luka didn’t know much about the temperament of the tree-people. In fact, his interactions with Mrs. Leafsong were more transactional conversations. He bought her paint, and she painted art for the park.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “You better apologize to the grove, though.”

Annie raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious? They’re trees.”

“Magical trees that I’ve been told understand what happens to them.”

She groaned. “I need a drink—” She missed a step. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Luka sighed. “You know, I just had a conversation about this with your husband. I don’t mind if you drink, talk about, or shower in alcohol around me. I’m not that man anymore and I don’t feel the urge.”

“I’ve told you about Kieran and his problems with drinking, right?”

Annie’s eldest son, Kieran. He was alive on Earth when the gods last checked for them, his family loving and supportive of him. But that wasn’t always the case. After college the young adult fell into a depression. Eventually, with the help of the people who loved him, he got the professional help he needed and quit drinking.

Annie knew better than most that once someone was an addict, they were always an addict. She had helped Kerian through his first and second relapse. Luckily there wasn’t a third, but there could be. There always could be.

“You have.” Luka shifted uncomfortably on his feet and rolled his ring around his finger. Annie’s kids, his grandkids, were a tough topic. He had never met them, and she longingly missed them. Would they reincarnate them once they died? Yes, of course. But until then, they were to live happily on Earth.

“Then you know where my worry’s coming from, right?”

“I do.”

“Then don’t get annoyed when I try to censor myself for you.”

He surrendered the point with a quick side hug. “Thank you.” Then, before they ended their hug, they watched as the trees of the forest perked up. All of them all at once, shifted like sunflowers following the sunrise. A warm wind blew through their leaves, ruffling their branches like thousands of little handshakes. Then, when the wind passed, the trees preened, almost giddy.

Luka, Annie, the orc siblings, and Vale all froze.

Annie cursed. “I’m so dead. The trees do understand!”

“Oh, my shadows!” Vale yelled, a dozen paces to the side. “Did y’all feel that? A world tree’s domain just brushed past us!”

Eve and Franky were the only two who reacted to her words. The former asked, “’A’ world tree? Don’t you mean the World Tree?”

Vale waved her off. “I forgot this world is so small. Yes, the World Tree, then.”

Franky stared at the tree closest to him before touching its rough bark. “Huh. Hello Mister Tree, can you confirm what our friend is saying? She lies a lot and is generally untrustworthy.”

The former god-thing recoiled. “I’m what!? I’m very trustworthy! I greet every guest who enters the park!”

“You also reincarnated me just to mess with my father,” Annie muttered. She liked Vale, okay, all things considered. When their minds were connected, she understood the creature’s pain and suffering. She was truly like Luka, and if Annie could give him a second chance, then she could give the creature who brought them together one as well.

Vale crossed her arms. “I thought we decided we would never talk about that.”

“Did we?”

“Yes—you were drunk and singing, remember? It was right after you and Elf-Boy danced among that traveling bard group. You—”

Annie stomped over and thrust her finger at Vale’s face. “You don’t get to call Vlad ‘Elf-Boy!’” she snapped. “Only I do!”

Franky scoffed. “And half the village.”

She whirled at him. “Don’t make me take your prism puff box again! I’ll do it!”

He went still. “That was you? Eve told me a guest stole it!” He turned to his sister, his palms up and demanding an explanation.

Eve sighed, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “No. I told you someone from the park stole it.”

“It was Annie!”

“She’s from the park, isn’t she!?”

Franky raised his nose and turned to Luka. “Your daughter owes me six joints!”

“There were only three,” she muttered.

Franky gesturally accusatory at her. “See?”

Luka massaged the bridge of his nose. “I need a cup of jrum if we’re going to argue about this. Annie, please don’t steal. And Franky, stop being such a baby.”

He gave his friend a flat look then grumbled, “Next she’ll steal the shirt off my back.”

That reminded Luka of something. “Oh, by the way, I’ve got our park uniforms covered. No need to look for a quality seamstress.”

“Really?” Eve asked. “Did a guest sell you their services?”

He shook his head. “A god’s sending an envoy to the city. I brokered a deal where they’d make our uniforms, costumes, and stuff like that if we open a barber shop somewhere in the park.”

“What, why?”

“The god, Hyriln or something, wants to gain favor with the masses and thinks the park is a good place to do so.”

“Do you mean Hyrin, God of Haircuts and Styling?”

“Yeah, him. He visited me last night and—"

“You didn’t think to tell us?” Now it was Eve’s turn to massage the bridge of her nose. “For someone as reliable as you, you really know how to miss the catch.”

Luka frowned. “Now wait just a minute—”

“You didn’t even get the god’s name right!”

His jaw swung silently for a moment. “Okay, you do have a point there. But in my defense, I’d never heard of the guy before last night.”

Eve snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Not ‘guy,’ but god! Jeez Luka, stop blaspheming!”

He shrugged. “Every god I’ve talked to doesn't mind how I talk to them.”

She clinched her hands like she wanted to strangle him.

Annie chose now to interrupt. “Hey, um, did we forget the World Tree’s domain or whatever just high-fived all these trees because I killed one of them? Is that a big deal?”

Slowly, as a collective, Luka, Eve, Franky, and Vale looked between Annie, her outstretched palm and the grove keychain on it, and around at the forest.

“Oh,” Luka said. “Riiiight… that. Yeah, that’s not good, huh?”

Eve wanted to strangle him more.

Franky tried to talk to another tree, getting nowhere.

And Vale, well, she pursed her lips and said, “You lot know nothing, do you? A world tree—especially the World Tree—doesn’t care about a single random emberwood. You’re fine,” she directed at Annie. “No one’s going to care about the tree, even the dryads.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because every tree is competing with every other tree for resources. One dead tree just means more growing for the others. The only time trees, and in turn, the dryads care about dead trees is when hundreds of them die in quick succession.”

That was about what Luka was expecting. Still, though, he had to ask, “But what about the World Tree’s domain or whatever?”

Vale sighed harshly. “You lot are buying me a mug each for telling you something everyone already knows.” No one argued. “The World Tree’s domain spreads from the World Tree whenever the Elven Consort leaves the safety of its canopy. In other words, the World Tree made sure that World Walker Park is safe enough for its vessel to visit.”

Luka set his jaw, suddenly remembering God Neb had warned him about this. “Oh. Is that all?” he asked, receiving glares from both Annie and Eve.

Franky tapped his chin with his thumb. “Are you sure everyone knows that? Because I’ve never heard that before.”

Vale said, “’Everyone’ meant the gods and all the important people in the world, duh.”

“Right-o. All in favor of not buying her a mug for her usage of ‘everyone?’” He raised his hand and got three more from the others. He turned back to her and stuck out his tongue.