Previously: Magic went painfully, confusingly wild. The trio failed to get the tree to reveal its secrets. Danny didn't want to go home, just in case magic went weird again and his parents were home. So he headed back to the tree.


Danny sighed and bonked the back of his head against the tree a few times. It had been at least an hour since he'd woken up from a nap of indeterminate length. It was still nighttime, so he hadn't slept that long, at least. And he still didn't have any ideas.

The tree was tolerating him, now. Danny had just needed to wait patiently for a few minutes at the edge of the clearing, and it had gotten tired of spitting fire at him. Eventually. After enduring another really uncomfortable period of wild magic where his literal matter made a break for Mars (or, more realistically, the moon), Danny waded through the sea of tall grass and sat at the base of the tree. It hadn't spoken to him or anything. Stars winked above them. Danny thought it was a good sign that the tree stopped trying to kill him, but honestly, ignoring him wasn't really doing it, either.

"Come on, tree," Danny said in exasperation. "I know you've got something to hide."

There wasn't any answer. Of course not. It was a tree. Just a stupid tree, made of wood and leaves and maybe fire for sap, who knew.

"I get it," Danny continued. There was no harm in talking to the tree. It was like talking to himself, but a little less pathetic, since it was a magical tree that might actually be able to hear him. "I get it. You're protecting something important. The Soul is really important, from what people have told me. It - or is it she? - stops the sheer amount of magic from destroying everything, including reality. So yeah, you protecting it is a good thing. I do the same thing, kinda, protecting people from Crescentians."

Danny sighed and bumped his head again, a little more forcefully than he needed to. "Is it that? Are you ignoring me because I don't technically belong here? Would you have opened up to Sam or Tucker by now? I know that most people don't think I should stay here. But what was I supposed to do? Leave my family and friends and school and home? Besides, the portal would have stayed open and Cressies still would be coming through.

"The difference is that I'm here to stop them. I want to keep Amity Park safe. I know that sometimes I wreck things. That bulldozer wasn't my fault, no matter what the stupid news anchor said, but fine, I concede the fact that I've knocked down more than a couple walls. And Val's house. That really wasn't on purpose. But I could've stopped it, if I'm being honest. I'm just not good enough. Even if I take care of the Cressies, I do leave a lot of damage behind - on accident, but still.

"What good am I, if I wreck someone's house? That's not protecting them, that's voiding their insurance! I can't do this. I'm not good enough." Danny scowled, and was silent for a moment.

"But, you know what?" he eventually said. "I want to be. I want to get better, because if I can't protect Amity, who could? And tree, you're stopping me from doing everything I can. So, just… please, do something."

Danny waited, as if for the tree to answer. He didn't get one, of course. It was still just a tree. Talking had helped a bit, though he didn't get any amazing, revelatory ideas from it. With a little frustration, but more disappointment, Danny stood up and began to walk away.

The tree creaked.

His heart rate soaring at the unexpected sound, Danny whipped around to see the branches of the old tree twisting. They arranged themselves, leaves rustling, in a sort of fan shape, with one distinct break in the pattern. There, nestled in the cradle of ranches as thick as Danny's waist, was a little carved wooden box.

A declaration must thou speak - Deliverance! and thou art weak. The words to the poem played again in Danny's mind. Had he done that? Not more so than Tucker had tried, earlier. What was different about him, then?

Hesitantly, Danny lowered his defensive arm and took a step forward. The tree didn't react. Even when Danny reached carefully towards the box's lid, the tree didn't do anything.

Danny touched the metal latch. It was warm, almost hot like a seatbelt left in the sun. The dark wood of the box didn't look burned at all, though. There was a sort of seal carved into the lid - a tree branch, a hammer, and what was probably a magic wand laid side-by-side. Danny recognized the branch and hammer from Amity Park's crest, oddly enough.

Just as he was about to flip the lid open, Danny paused. This could be a trap, or not meant for him. Maybe he should go get -

Take it, said an amused female voice, sounding like faint bells in the wind. Danny jumped, but there was nobody around. The sound hadn't even really been a sound, more like a foreign thought. It didn't come again.

So Danny lifted the box's lid slowly.

The box wasn't as shallow as it appeared from the outside. It was deep, sunk far into the tree's trunk. Inside sat a rolled-up parchment, looking as fresh as the day it was made. Danny felt a distinctly magical coolness in his fingers as he gently pulled out the document. He was a little confused - the tree was hiding the Soul, right? Was the parchment the Soul? Seemed a little weird.

Danny unrolled the document, and the last part of the poem rose in his mind.

And only by thus may you find A way to tread the path that's blind.

"A way to tread the path," he whispered. The inked lines on the parchment clearly outlined an older, smaller version of Amity Park. As he watched, though, the lines seemingly drew themselves, filling in highways and suburbs and the larger buildings of downtown. Last of all, a splotch of red on the corner lazily wound down streets and over the river before settling in an X over a particular section of forest, across the town. There was a small drawing of a cave there, one Danny didn't recognize.

It was, quite clearly, a map to the Soul.

Not feeling his fatigue any longer, Danny smiled. After one more moment of looking at the map, he rolled it back up and jumped into the air.

Then back down, thinking of how he'd fall if magic went weird again. He elected to run, instead, aiming towards Tucker's house first. They didn't have time to waste.


Next: Danny takes the map back to his friends, who convince him to take a shower and decide on a course of action.

Hello! :) I am a week late with this chapter, apologies. The computer was acting up and I just didn't have any time! I decided that posting a week late but with two chapters was better than rushing one... I got a single, shorter chapter edited, just not as thoroughly as I would have preferred. We'll see if the next one will be ready to go for tomorrow. It's still Friday where I'm at so this counts! Thank you for your wonderful comments, and I'll see you next week, if not tomorrow. :)

PS: I am posting this on AO3 now as well, under the same username.