Tree Slayer

by Harriet Springbett

  She supressed Mary’s feeling of disgust at being compared to the Tree Slayer, and told Domi nothing had changed: that she was still influenced by Mary’s emotions but could control them, thanks to the wall in her mind.

  “Good,” said Domi. “Let me know if things get out of hand.”

  She agreed – though she could sense Mary’s resistance to telling Domi anything – and left the room.

  Christophe was waiting for her in the corridor. She grinned and took his hand, glad that he was still hers, and asked where Eole was. He frowned and jerked his head to indicate Eole was outside.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Is Eole OK? I’m not sure I can leave him. What’s he doing?”

  “He’s fine. Forget about him for a minute and come with me.”

  He went upstairs towards her bedroom. Rainbow peeked outside and saw Eole sitting at the table with Darwie. She was tempted to share her discovery about his aura with him and ask if he could feel the Tree Slayer inside. But the Tree Slayer was her enemy. She was Amrita’s saviour: she was going to revive Amrita’s life force. If the Tree Slayer was there, it would know she’d guessed its secret. It might try to eliminate her before she could save the One Tree. She’d better pretend nothing had changed.

  Eole looked settled. He was good at doing nothing and would be fine for a few minutes. She raced up the stairs after Christophe.

  On the second flight of stairs she slowed down. Maybe he wanted to talk about Emilie. She didn’t want to think about the apprentice: about her blonde hair and long legs, which Christophe must have caressed; about them exchanging kisses as they took motorbikes apart. She couldn’t do this. She stopped, but Christophe took her hand, drew her inside her bedroom, and closed the door.

  “I’ve got this huge lump inside my chest, Rainette. I don’t think it’ll go until I’ve explained what happened with Emilie.”

  Rainbow sat down rigidly on her bed. This was going to hurt.

  He pulled up a chair, sat opposite her, and started to explain how he’d mistaken his feelings, how he’d confused wanting to look after Emilie with being in love with her. He’d realised this as soon as Rainbow left and Emilie put her arms around him to console him. She felt wrong. She smelt wrong. All he could think about was his Rainette.

  “She’s pretty,” he said. “But so are you. And you’re … well, you’re you. That’s special. I’d forgotten it because we’ve been together for so many months. Emilie could never replace you. You’re the girl I love, not her.”

  Rainbow relaxed her clenched fists. It wasn’t as if he and Emilie had actually been out together, or that Emilie had rejected him and he’d come back to Rainbow by default. He’d never truly loved Emilie. He’d just been his usual softie self and had wanted to help a lonely girl.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asked.

  Rainbow quelled Mary’s joyful surge of agreement. Could she bear to go through this pain again if the same thing happened in the future?

  “How do I know you won’t fall for the next helpless girl you see?” she asked.

  “I’ve learnt my lesson. You’re the only one who counts. You’ve always been the only one,” he said.

  “Then I forgive you.” She leant into him and they kissed. The butterflies, which had been asleep in Azun, woke in a flutter, and she surrendered to their tingling pleasure.

  After a few minutes she broke away. It didn’t feel right to have a kissing session.

  “I have to get back to Eole,” she said.

  “But you haven’t told me anything about him. You haven’t explained why you brought him back with you.”

  “He’s a kind of host for the Tree Slayer. I think I’ve got him sorted, but I need to keep an eye on him because he may be dangerous.”

  “You’re not in love with him?”

  “Chris!”

  “We need to be honest with each other.”

  “OK. I’m definitely not in love with him.”

  “So he’s not your soulmate or anything?”

  “No.”

  She stared at his strange expression. His eyes were closed, as if he were praying.

  “He showed me the drawings you did,” he said.

  “And? Are they awful? I couldn’t quite nail him. Domi says the black line around him is an aura. Chris?”

  He looked at his watch. “I have to get back to work. Can you come over this evening? Or don’t you want to see Apple and Acorn?”

  “Of course I do! But it’s difficult to get away from Eole.”

  Christophe stood up. His jaw was set, making him look callous.

  “Chris?”

  “It’s your decision. Just let me know so I don’t go out.”

  He jogged down the stairs before she could answer. He hadn’t even kissed her goodbye. Was he jealous? Of Eole? She could feel Mary’s indignation. How dare he be jealous after dropping her for Emilie!

  Eole looked around the commune garden. It smelt of green, of animal ammonia and sun tan lotion, and was a lot more chaotic than the farmyard in Arras-en-Lavedan. There weren’t any neighbours, only untidy trees at all angles. He didn’t like the way they huddled together like an intimidating crowd of gossiping people.

  A group of women were sitting under a weeping willow with a girl of about eleven years old. She was staring at him. He stared back. She stood up and came towards him, which kids didn’t normally do. He quickly stopped staring and cradled Darwie’s head on his lap.

  “Hello. I’m Sandrine,” she said. “Can I stroke Darwie?”

  Darwie was pushing hard against Eole’s legs, so he refused. She stood watching him. He explained that Darwie was shy and that she must let him sniff her hand first. She held it out. Darwie licked her fingers and wagged his tail. She stroked his head and then patted him.

  “He likes me. It’ll be hard for you to leave him behind.”

  “I won’t leave him behind,” he said.

  She gave him another long stare. He thought she was going to speak, but she didn’t.

  Christophe came out of the house, slammed the door, and strode towards the car park. A motorbike engine roared into life and then faded away. When Rainbow emerged, a few minutes later, she looked unsparkly.

  “Are you sure you want to camp?” she asked. “There’s a spare bed in the boys’ dormitory.”

  He was sure. He chose a spot beside the house, at the opposite end of the path to the car park and as far away from the animal pens and woods as possible. When his camp was ready, he sent Darwie on a walk with Sandrine and followed Rainbow indoors, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  He was going to be hypnotised, which was a medical procedure and therefore not a problem for his brain to accept. His mind, however, started to peel away from his brain’s logic and worry about the new experience. It felt like the time he hadn’t revised for an oral English exam. But Rainbow was with him, and Domi was rather like Tintin. If his mind pretended Domi was Tintin, he would avoid itch, shuffle and escape.

  Problem solved.

  It was a relief to be indoors. He took off his headphones. Domi’s room was neither a scientific laboratory, nor a cheese-making laboratory: it was a spiritualist’s laboratory. Smelling of lavender, it contained a desk and armchairs, a table for bodies, a basin, and a sideboard with candles on it. Piano music came from a cassette player, but it wasn’t orchestral. Hestia would call it ‘music for healing warts’. The melody made him think of the farmyard stream in summer, and he visualised his former home as he sat down and took the ‘Listen to Your Inner Voice’ leaflet Domi gave him.

  Chapter 17

  When Eole stepped out of Domi’s French windows after his hypnotherapy session, the world seemed dimmer than before. He blinked, put on his headphones and looked for Darwie and Rainbow.

  School must have finished for the day because there were children everywhere: playing with the goats in the pen, swinging on the climbing frame and crouching in the vegetable patch. He could smell raspberries, fresh baguettes, o
range juice and schoolbooks. Sandrine was sitting at the outside table, brushing Darwie with a pink brush like the one Hestia used to have in her doll box.

  Eole whistled and Darwie danced towards him, wagging his tail, his tongue lolling. Eole couldn’t see or smell Rainbow. He waited with Darwie at his heel until, three minutes and twenty seconds later, she came out of the front door.

  “Domi says you don’t need any more sessions. How was it?”

  He shrugged. The hypnotherapy had been like lying down for a siesta, when you don’t actually sleep but your mind drifts out of earthly reasoning and into clouds of colours.

  “Did you learn what your voices are?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Domi had told him that the voices were external. When Eole asked if it was God, Domi said he didn’t know because he couldn’t explore external sources. He kept asking in different ways where Eole came from, and eventually Eole told him he was adopted. Domi said this might explain why he had the impression that Eole didn’t belong. Eole decided to find a library and look up the scientific research on hypnotherapy, since it was so accurate. If he looked at a book with no link to Tintin and the mountains, perhaps he would manage to read again.

  Rainbow was waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard. “Pardon?” he said.

  “If you turned off your music, you’d hear what I was saying,” said Rainbow. “Did Domi mention whether you’d split into two parallel worlds, like me, and then come together again? Does it feel as if you’ve got a conjoined twin inside you? That’s what it’s like for me with Mary.”

  “No.” He imagined cutting open Rainbow’s head and finding two linked brains inside. What would it be like to have Hestia’s brain in his head? In some ways she was already there, her voice advising him what to do. But he knew this was his own inner voice remembering her words, not actually Hestia. If she were really there, she would make him drink vodka, run away from home, kiss boys and tell Alexandra lies.

  “What about the Tree Slayer? Did you learn anything about its whereabouts?”

  “No.” Her question was totally illogical. There was no reason for the Tree Slayer to be anywhere nearby, since he hadn’t started a gale.

  “Well, keep it all to yourself if you must,” said Rainbow, looking cross. “Oh, and don’t forget to ring your mum.”

  Before he could tell her Alexandra wasn’t his mother and that he didn’t want to talk to her, a loud bell began to clang. It kept clanging. He slammed his hands to his ears, on top of his headphones, and ran.

  The ringing ceased and he stopped running. He let his hands drop and felt Darwie’s comforting muzzle beside him. People appeared in the garden, spilling out of the front door and the sets of French windows, and headed to the table. He was reminded of the bees at Tintin’s funeral, though these weren’t buzzing. They went backwards and forwards with crockery and glasses, bowls of salad and baguettes. They were ants.

  Rainbow caught up with him and explained that the clanging was the dinner bell. His feet had grown roots, even though he hadn’t activated part one of Rainbow’s trick. Faces turned to him, and while those of the adults quickly looked away again, the little ones stared. He stared back. They sidled up to an adult and reached for a hand or clasped their arms around a thigh.

  Rainbow was talking to him in her quiet voice, the one she’d used on Dizzy before doing reiki. She was telling him that she would get him some food and bring it to his tent and they could eat together. She kept talking, forgetting to stop and let him have his turn, which was just as well because none of his thoughts would make words and if she’d left a gap he wouldn’t have been able to speak and his one-hundred-percent perfect record of normal conversation rhythms with her would be broken, and she’d not want him as her soulmate.

  She left him and went to the table to collect their meals. He dug up his feet – the imaginary roots dangling and then curling up and dissolving – and walked in a straight line over the vegetable plot fence and between two rows of tomato plants to his camp.

  His tent was familiar, as were his sleeping bag and mat and rucksack and books. As long as his belongings were there, he knew he was in the right place, even if it wasn’t home. That must be why people called possessions their ‘belongings’. He pulled out his mat and sat down to think about where he belonged.

  Now that he didn’t have the excuse of Domi and the voices to keep him here, Alexandra would insist on taking him home. He would be separated from Rainbow. He wouldn’t be able to protect her from the Tree Slayer. No one would protect her – certainly not cognitively impaired Christophe – and she’d die.

  He had to find a way to stay. He must prove to Alexandra that he fitted in here, that he was learning people-skills in preparation for Toulouse.

  Domi told Rainbow that exorcism was out of the question. Eole’s hypnotherapy experience hadn’t resolved the voice mystery, but it had given Domi an idea he wanted to follow up.

  Domi was always following up ideas. It sounded to Rainbow like a poor excuse to avoid saying that hypnotherapy was useless – and it didn’t help in her search for her soulmate. He suggested she continue life as normal and keep her eyes open for signs. Two weeks had passed since her vision, and she still had no idea where to find Koad and the last One Tree. But what else could she do?

  After dinner, Eole still refused to phone his mum, but he agreed to let Rainbow call her. He seemed more at ease this evening, and responded when people talked to him. Alain took him into the workshop and persuaded him to help distil lavender buds into essence for the consulting rooms. While he was busy she went into the hall and rang the number Alexandra had given her that morning.

  “So. You kidnapped my brother,” came Hestia’s voice.

  “Well, it wasn’t–” Rainbow began.

  “And made Maman cry. Even Papa came out of his bubble and said it was out of order.”

  “I didn’t kidnap him. He wanted to come. The voices in his head bother him and–”

  “Shut up and listen to me!” snapped Hestia. “If anything happens to him – if you hurt him or break his heart or abandon him – I will personally come after you and kill you. Or worse. OK?”

  Eole didn’t realise how lucky he was to have a sister like this. “I won’t hurt him,” she said. “And the commune takes really good care of people.”

  She explained that Eole had finished his hypnotherapy and was resting. Hestia had a shouted conversation with her mum and then told Rainbow that Alexandra would pick him up in two days’ time.

  “You’d better be wearing armour when she arrives,” added Hestia.

  “I get the message. And, Hestia …”

  “What?”

  “You’re a great sister.”

  Rainbow hung up quickly, tears welling up in her eyes. Mary told her not to blubber, that an internally conjoined twin was far better than a sister. Mary did sometimes reassure Rainbow – on the rare occasions they agreed on an issue – but it wasn’t like having a sister. Amrita would be more of a sister, if Rainbow managed to restore her life force: a knowledgeable older sister she could confide in and learn from.

  At breakfast the next morning, Rainbow explained to Eole that she had an appointment to see Thierry at eleven o’clock, and was then having lunch with Christophe. She suggested he stay in the workshop with Alain.

  “No. I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t,” she said.

  “I’ll go to the library. There must be one in Cognac. I’ve got some research to do.”

  Surprised, she agreed. They left Darwie with Sandrine, and she dropped Eole off at the street that led to the library, explaining where he’d find the building. He stood beside the car and waited, his feet shuffling. She sighed, parked the car and walked him there, pointing out a shop where he could buy a sandwich for lunch. She told him she’d pick him up at two o’clock, and left.

  She was free, at last! But she was late, and had to race to Thierry and Claudette’s house.

 
“Sorted things out with Christophe?” Thierry asked, when he opened the door.

  “I think so. I’m sorry for disappearing like that.”

  He sat back down at his desk, where he was typing invoices, and Rainbow took a seat opposite him.

  “These things happen,” he said. “Once is acceptable. Just don’t let it happen again.” He wagged a finger at her. “It’s a shame you missed the climate change conference. You could have learnt a lot.”

  “Was that the special project you had in mind for me?”

  “Yes. The organisers were looking for volunteers to create a database of trees so we can track the effect of climate change on them. But there’s good news too.”

  He wiggled his bushy eyebrows and Rainbow smiled.

  “Go on. Tell me the good news,” she said.

  “I’m off to Massane on Thursday for a week of biodiversity conferences. I could take you with me, show you the forest, and introduce you to my former colleagues. There’s nothing like networking for a young student. Interested?”

  Thursday: in two days’ time. Eole would have left and Domi had advised her to continue life as usual. The timing was perfect.

  “You bet!”

  “Think you can leave loverboy so soon?”

  “Of course.” This trip would make a break from her mission, and when she returned she might have some fresh ideas for finding her soulmate. She’d go back to the Val d’Azun straight after the conferences. Meanwhile, she’d have to work hard to prove to Thierry that she was serious.

  “Tell me more about the conferences,” she said.

  Thierry pulled out a folder and for the rest of the morning she studied the biodiversity of Massane forest, which had been set aside as a nature reserve a hundred years ago. It wasn’t until Claudette told her lunch was ready that she remembered Christophe. She jumped up and explained she had to go.

  “I’m leaving at eight o’clock on Thursday,” Thierry called as she rushed away. “Don’t forget.”