by T.A. Barron
“Ow, Master, please! You’re hurting me.”
His face twisted and he relaxed his grip a little. “That tree be terrible dangerous, girl. Terrible dangerous! Surely ye know that by now.”
She shook her head, as mist filled her eyes.
For a long moment he peered down at her. His own eyes grew clouded. “I jest don’t want to lose ye, child. Not after everythin’ I—”
He caught himself. His tongue worked inside his mouth, as if he wanted to swallow some words he just could not speak. Finally, in a raspy voice, he commanded, “Now go. Back inside where ye belong! Afore them ghouls be comin’ for ye.”
As the door slammed behind them, a new breeze arose, leaning on Old Master Burl. The tree’s moonlit branches sagged lower, and made a sound very much like a sigh.
Chapter 12
AS THE DAYS GREW LONGER, Anna’s hunger to go to the willow grew sharper. Not even the warm waves that sloshed upon the shore, or the seal pups who played on the sand, could distract her now.
“Is this the day? Will Sash come this morning?” She woke up every day with the same questions on her mind.
Meanwhile, she hardly even spoke with the master. His face looked hard these days. Aye, and brittle as dried thatch.
One morning, just after the master had dragged his boat into the surf and rowed off for the day, Anna sat down beside Old Burl. She put her hand on a mound of needles between two roots—and felt something move. What was this? Looking closer, she saw a tiny pink paw. She pushed aside the needles.
A nest of mice! The mother mouse lay on her side, while four babies as pink as rosebuds squirmed beneath her, trying to suckle. A fifth one had rolled away, and squeaked for help. Anna nudged the little mouse back to where it belonged, while the mother watched with bright black eyes.
Anna covered them again with needles. Then she scanned the forest edge. Still no Sash! She slapped the side of the tree and demanded, “Where is that bear? Why hasn’t he come?”
The old tree stirred ever so slightly. A single fleck of bark fell to the ground, spinning all the way.
“I’ve got to go back there, Burl. If I don’t, I’ll just die!” She drew a long breath. “Oh, Burl! What if Sash isn’t coming at all?”
Needles rustled in the fir’s upper boughs.
“I am being patient. I am, I tell you!”
But still Sash didn’t come.
More days passed. Anna watched and waited for some sign from him. Yet none came.
Then, at last, the sign appeared. Or more truly, it disappeared. For one day, when she was outside pulling radishes, her sandals vanished. One minute she set them down by the garden’s edge—and the next minute, they were gone.
It had to be him! She scooped up Eagle and put him in her apron pocket. Then she dashed through the brambles and into the forest.
Near the glade, she stopped. There were her sandals—hanging from a branch of the great beech. And there, hanging beside them in the silvery boughs, was her friend. The upside-down boy waved both his hands. His dangling hair seemed to shoot straight out of his head.
Anna grabbed a low branch, swung her leg over, and scampered up the tree as fast as a squirrel. When she reached Sash, she slid over to the spot where his legs wrapped around the branch. And started tickling the bottoms of his feet.
“Hoohoo, now stop that! Hoohoohoo heehee ho-ho-ho. Anna, stop!” He turned himself over and sat upright beside her. His whole face scowled. “That was mean.”
“So was making me wait so long!”
His green eyes glittered. “Missed me, didn’t you?”
“Mmm, not really.” She almost smiled. “Eagle and I, we’ve been dancing day and night.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
Anna tapped her toes against the smooth bark of the beech. “When can we go, Sash?”
He looked puzzled. “Go where?”
“The High Willow! Like you promised.”
“Did I?” He rubbed his chin slowly. “I never make promises.”
“Oh, you! Stop the joking, all right?” She frowned at him. “Really, sometimes I think I liked you better as a bear!”
“If that’s what you want to see, I can always change back.”
“What I want is to go to the willow!”
“Really, now? Why didn’t you say so?” He broke off a twig and tossed it at her. “So when do you want to go?”
“Now!” She nodded several times. “Right now.”
“Fine. Old Fungusface will just have to make his own supper tonight.”
Anna, who had already started climbing down the beech, suddenly froze. “You mean we can’t do it in a day?”
He smirked. “Not unless you can fly.”
Cheeeyup! The sparrow in her apron pocket started squawking loudly.
“Right, Eagle. You’re right.” Anna reached down and stroked his rumpled feathers. “You’re the only one of us who’ll ever fly.” Then she turned back to Sash. “How long is the trek?”
“Two days, at least.”
“Two days!” Her face fell. “But…”
“Oh, come on, now. Let the old man make his own biscuits for once.”
“It’s not that, Sash.”
“So what’s wrong, then?”
“It’s…well, there’s no telling what he might do if he finds me gone! And when I come back, he—” She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t even want to think about that.”
She hit the beech’s trunk with her fist. “Wait! I have an idea!” Quickly, she climbed back up and sat on the branch beside him. “In just about a week, he goes out to the Farthest Reef to fish. It’s a long trip, and he needs lots of daylight to do it. So he goes only once a year. On the longest day of summer.”
“High Hallow Eve,” said the boy quietly. “He leaves you alone on that night?”
Anna gave a slow nod. Below, in the ferns at the edge of the glade, she saw a young hedgehog nuzzling its mother’s side. “Aye, and that’s when we’ll make our own journey.”
A mysterious smile lit Sash’s face. “That’s a special night in the forest, too, you know.”
“What do you mean, special?”
His eyes flashed strangely. “You’ll see. Soon enough.”
Chapter 13
AT LAST, THE DAY ARRIVED. Aye, and none too soon!
Anna could hardly contain herself as she helped Master Mellwyn get ready for his trip to the Farthest Reef. She wrapped some scallop cakes, mended his shroud, and checked all his nets—all the while trying to keep her excitement from showing. So she spun no twirls and sang no songs.
But crab claws, it was hard!
After breakfast, the master sat in the driftwood chair by the hearth, chewing on the stem of his pipe. He blew a puff of greenish smoke. And watched Anna closely.
“The moon will be out tonight, girl. And almost full.”
She looked up from the flask she’d been filling with water. “Aye, sir.”
“And ye recall what happened afore, that dreadful night?”
“Aye, sir.”
He puffed some more, eyeing her all the while. “Ye promise not to forget what I told ye?”
Anna swallowed and tried to keep her voice steady. “I promise.”
He continued to watch her pour the water. “Mayhaps I shouldn’t go at all this year.”
Her hands squeezed the flask, but she said nothing. She just returned his gaze in silence. But under her apron, her heart was pounding like the surf in a summer squall.
In time, he spoke again. “Blast that larder of ours! Hard as I’ve worked, it still be almost empty. And we’ll be needin’ some bigger fish for smokin’, if we’re not to starve this winter.” He tapped his pipe against the palm of his hand. “So I guess I must be goin’ after all.”
Anna barely nodded.
An hour later, the master shoved off. As he rowed across the lagoon, morning light gleamed on the waves like a web of spun gold. Anna watched from the window as his boat, loaded down with extra nets, line
s, and bait, vanished over the horizon. Then she grabbed her own supplies—a shredded cloak and a pocketful of radishes—and scurried out the door.
She paused just long enough to step over to Old Burl, who stood as always by the cottage. She drank in the smell one more time, and patted the fir’s rough bark. Then, without looking back, she plunged into the woods.
Sash met her at the glade. The boy reached up to tickle Eagle, who was riding on her shoulder—and got nipped in return. With a laugh, he started off, Anna at his side. They walked fast, bare feet slapping on the leaves and lichens. Not fast enough, though! Anna broke into a run, jumping over the rocks and broken branches on the ground. Sash padded along beside her.
Soon I’ll be there, she said to herself. She might even learn, before this day was out, what really happened at the High Willow. To herself. And to her mother—whose face she couldn’t remember, but whose songs still held her heart.
The sun’s rays poked through the trees, wavering like branches of light. Anna and Sash ran across parades of toadstools and beds of blue-green moss. And oh, the aromas! She smelled the mustiness of wood turning to soil, the sweetness of resins warmed by the sun, the tanginess of rillberries washed by a stream. And more, too—so many smells, she couldn’t even start to name them all.
“Slow down, Anna.” Sash, running by her side, tapped her shoulder. “You’ll be all tired out before we’re halfway to the ridge.”
Anna just shook her head. Her steps were getting more choppy, but she tried to run even faster. “We’ve got to make it,” she panted, “all the way…there and back…by tomorrow night.”
“We’ll make it.”
“But not if—” She tried to leap over a broken branch, but caught her foot and crashed to the ground. She rolled into some ferns.
Sash bent over her. He pushed aside the ferns, not bothering to hide his smirk. “Ready to walk now?”
“No, you old barnacle!” She stood and pulled some leaves out of her hair. And then pulled Eagle out of the tangle of brush where he’d landed. “But I will, I guess.” She elbowed Sash. “So long as you’re sure we can make it.”
“I’m sure. That is, if you’ll quit taking naps in the ferns.”
They set off again. Into the trees they plunged—trees with more shapes and sizes and colors than Anna had ever dreamed possible. So many different kinds! Even their shadows were different: tall and poky for pines, soft and round for rowans, dark and patchy for hawthorns.
How could she have ever thought of the forest as a single thing? It seemed that way from the shore, all right. But no, it was really more like a village—a village of trees. And everyone who lived there was as different from the others as Old Burl was from the silver beech at the glade.
There stood an ash tree, holding a family of raccoons with star-bright eyes. And there—a young elm, swaying gracefully as they strode past. It didn’t just carry its leaves, but wore them, as a dancer would wear a shimmering gown. Beyond stood a spruce tree, its trunk stooped and bent, its branches sweeping the ground. And over there, an ancient oak, spreading great arms over the saplings that grew at its roots.
What path they followed, Anna couldn’t tell. If there was a path at all! Sash seemed to see one, though. Or at least to sense where they were going.
In time, Anna started to notice other things. Branches, on every side, that snapped and creaked and groaned. Leaves that rustled like someone’s raspy breath. And cries, strange and haunting, that echoed through the trees.
Hard as she tried, she couldn’t forget the master’s stories. Couldn’t stop wondering what the spirits of all these trees were doing. Aye, right now!
They passed through a thick grove of evergreens. Suddenly she caught sight of something moving beside them. A shadow! One that looked like a tree—but strode with long, floppy steps. She whirled around and peered into the dark mass of trunks, roots, and branches.
Nothing.
She rubbed her chin. Where had that shadow gone? This was all too strange. And strangest of all…the shadow reminded her somehow of Old Burl.
“Come on!” Sash waved at her from up ahead. He was standing by a sunlit walnut tree, whose branches smelled like nuts roasting on a hearth. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
She ran to him. Right away, they set off again. And they continued, never slowing, across ground muddy and dry, steep and flat, sunlit and shadowed.
Before long, Anna noticed something new. As the day went on, the trees grew quieter. Much quieter. A hush came over the forest, filling it like a mist.
Fewer branches clacked or groaned, fewer leaves whispered. Even the squirrels stopped their chatter. Before long, there was almost no sound at all, but for two pairs of padding feet.
Rotting ravens, she thought. What’s going on?
At last they paused for a drink at a rushing rill. Anna cupped her hands and filled them, while Eagle hopped over to the edge of the bank. For his part, Sash plunged his whole head into the water. Then he shook himself, splattering the others. Eagle squawked and slapped the air with his good wing.
Anna leaned back against a young beech, whose smooth bark shone like a sea-washed shell. “Sash, why does it feel like the trees are, well…waiting for something?”
“You feel it?” He gave a small grin, but said no more.
Onward they trekked, over a hill blackened by fire years before, and around the edge of a mist-shrouded marsh. For lunch, they ate the tops of some stalks of golden grass that Sash called nutashala, along with some of Anna’s radishes. Then they continued on their way, rounding a lake nearly covered with lily pads. Fat green frogs sat on the leaves, strangely silent.
All the while, the quiet grew heavier. Like a storm cloud ready to burst.
As the late afternoon light shafted through the branches, the land started to rise steadily. Up they climbed, over rocks and tumbled trunks, as if they were mounting a stairway to the sky. Anna’s thighs stiffened, and her calves ached. But even more, she felt the weight of all that stillness. That growing tension in the air.
And she felt something more—a subtle thrill swelling in her chest. For she knew, without asking, that they had started to climb the great ridge. Not far now! She craned her neck and peered up into the mesh of boughs. She couldn’t see the top of the ridge, or the willow that stood there. Not yet, anyway.
But she was close. Really close.
The slope grew steeper. Her knees and calves throbbed. She knew that she’d need to rest sometime soon. But how could she stop now?
Just then Sash pointed to a carpet of thick moss under a towering rowan tree. “There,” he said in a whisper. “That’s as far as we go today.”
Despite her wobbly legs, she objected. “Can’t we go a little higher? We must be halfway up the ridge by now.”
“More than that.” He lay down on the moss and stretched out his legs. “But this is where we stop.”
Anna could tell it was pointless to argue. She sighed and lay down on the soft, thick carpet. Her body sank, it seemed, into the ground itself. Eagle hopped off, finding a bed of his own in the tufts.
Then, like the forest around them, they waited in silence.
Chapter 14
FOR SOME TIME ANNA AND SASH lay on their backs in the moss, quiet as the trees themselves. Just watching. One by one, every leaf and needle and twig sparkled with the day’s last light, gleamed for a while, then faded into darkness. In the rowan branches above them, the eyes of a nesting thrush glowed an eerie orange.
Anna turned from the deepening shadows to the boy beside her. “Are your, ah…people…somewhere near?”
“The drumalos are here, all right. But they’re waiting. For what comes next.” He chortled. “It happens only once a year, on High Hallow Eve. And it’s something, I’m sure, no human has ever witnessed.”
Until now, thought Anna.
The tension in the air increased. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and goose bumps swelled on her arms. The sky seemed ready to spli
t open in a storm. But she’d never known a storm like this.
Slowly, the last blush of sunlight disappeared. Anna shivered, and not just from the chilly air. She slid across the moss until her shoulder touched her friend’s.
Just then the lowest leaf on the rowan’s lowest branch started to quiver. It trembled ever so slightly at first—then faster, and faster. Next more leaves, higher on the tree, started to shake, as if touched by the same swelling wind.
Except there was no wind. Not that Anna could feel, at least.
Like Sash, she sat up, clasping her knees, watching. What was happening?
All around them, trees shivered and quaked to the hidden wind. Then came a single, low-pitched note from somewhere in the forest. Like a great wooden horn it blew, with a sound so deep that it shook the very ground. And shook Anna, too, somewhere under her skin.
Another note came—somewhat higher, ringing like a faraway chime. Then another. And another.
Soon a whole chorus filled the air. Blown and bonged and whistled, the notes rang out, echoing from every grove, rolling in a great river of sound. As the notes lifted higher, so did the trees, their boughs raised upward like thousands of arms. And as the notes fell lower, burly roots stirred and dug deeper into the soil.
A new wind gathered, a wind that moved the air as well as the trees. It wailed through the forest, shaking elmwood and oak, hawthorn and beech. Leaves and cones and flakes of bark spun all about. The air smelled of cedar sap and walnut oil. Branches tapped and creaked and shushed, joining with the chorus in one united call.
This was the call of the forest itself—its truest cry, its deepest voice. Anna was sure of it. Aye, this was the voice of the wild woods alive!
She glanced over at Sash, and he met her gaze. His green eyes sparkled as if embedded with stars.
High Hallow Eve had arrived.
Suddenly Anna turned. A face—right there in the bark of the rowan tree beside them! She stared at the face as it sprouted from the trunk. Her whole body tensed. And yet…this face looked very different from the one she’d seen before in the forest. This face was round and cheery with huge eyes and a wide, wrinkly mouth. And despite the deepening darkness, the eyes shone with their own inner light, a greenish glow that looked like moonbeams on leaves.