by T.A. Barron
The bindings dug into her skin. They creaked and pulled tighter—until one strand suddenly burst apart. She freed one arm, tore off the vines, and stood again.
Anna rubbed her sore arms and started for the door. She had to steal that axe somehow!
Just as she reached for the latch, she caught herself. No—she’d never overpower the master. Better to creep past him and dash into the forest. Then she could get help. From Sash, from anyone she could find. Mayhaps the tree spirits themselves.
Carefully, she opened the door a crack. She could see the master, standing over the whetstone, his back to the cottage. Scarlet rays from the setting sun washed over the beach and the trees beyond.
She pushed on the door. It creaked a bit, but the sound was lost in the angry wail of the trees and the ongoing grind of the whetstone. The master didn’t look up.
As softly as a windblown seed, Anna slipped outside. She stepped over Old Burl’s roots and hid behind the trunk. The instant she touched the fir’s bark, she felt a shiver—whether her own or the tree’s, she couldn’t tell.
She chewed her lip, watching the master, waiting for the right moment to run. He’d be done any second now. At last, she saw him pause to check the blade. Now!
She bolted for the forest. Suddenly, before she had crossed the sand—
“Anna!” The voice came from the brambles at the edge of the trees. “Over here!”
Sash! The boy waved at her, his hair flapping in the wind. Eagle watched, perched on his shoulder.
The old man spun around. Seeing Anna, he cursed, “Bones! Ye’ll be the death of me, ye will!”
Just then he caught sight of the figure in the brambles. His lip curled in rage. “A ghoul! See there—them horrid fangs and claws? Jest waitin’ to get us.” He raised the axe. “Stand back, girl!”
“No!” shouted Anna above the screaming wind. “He’s no ghoul! He’s—”
“Out of me way, ye fool.” The sharpened blade flashed in the sunset light. Before she could cut him off, he lunged straight at Sash. “Now death to ye, ghoul!”
Suddenly his foot caught on one of Burl’s roots. He sprawled forward, slammed hard into the trunk, and fell on his side.
“Quick now!” called Sash. “Let’s go.”
Anna ran to her friend, clearing the brambles in one leap. She started to follow him into the trees—when she heard a groan from behind. She stopped and glanced back at the beach.
The master lay still on the sand. Blood soaked his tunic over his ribs. He’d fallen on the axe!
Weakly, he rolled onto his back. He tried to sit up, as his knobby fingers clutched his wounded side. Blood seeped down his wrist and forearm. He groaned again, then sank back to the ground.
“Come, Anna!” cried Sash. “Into the forest! This is your chance.”
Her feet turned toward the trees. But her gaze wouldn’t leave the wounded man. She watched as he lifted his head again.
Their eyes met, and he scowled. “Leave me, ye wretched beast!” His head fell back with a thud.
“Come on!” Sash stomped hard on the ground. “Anna, what are you doing?”
For a few more seconds, she watched the blood ooze from the gash. The master just glared back at her. “Get out o’ me sight,” he hissed. “Go! Away with ye!”
At last, Anna turned her face to the forest. She was free now, she knew it. Free to go to the ridge. To the willow.
And yet…She glanced back at the old man.
Biting her lip, she faced the forest again. Then she ran to Sash’s side—and right past him. All the way to the glade she raced, as the boy trotted behind. At the great beech, she veered to the far side of the clearing and stopped at a black alder sapling. The same sapling Sash had once used to stem her own bleeding, from her own gash.
She broke off a twig, then turned to her friend. “You chew this first?”
He sighed, reading her thoughts. “Yes, but only the bark.” He took her hand. “When will you come back?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.” With that, she pulled away and dashed back to the shore.
Chapter 17
THE BLACK ALDER BARK DID ITS PART. But saving Master Mellwyn took much more than that.
After Anna managed to drag the old man’s limp body into the cottage, her real work began. For three whole days she washed his wound with salt water, made poultices from pads of kelp, spooned liquids down his throat, and sang to him softly. Blood stained his straw pallet on the floor, and much of the cottage besides.
Finally, he opened his eyes. And when he did, those eyes nearly popped with amazement.
“Ye came…,” he began, then licked his dry lips. “Ye came back?”
Anna merely nodded while she laid a fresh poultice on his skin. Then she turned him onto his side, wrapped a bandage around his ribs, and rolled him back. Eagle, seated at the edge of the pallet, gave a cluck of approval.
She sang for a while, a song about skin torn apart, and starting to mend. About bones as sturdy as tree trunks, and bendable as saplings. And about a darkened glade in the forest, struck by a sudden shaft of light, warm and healing.
The man listened, his face paler than sun-bleached bones. He placed a trembling hand on her own. “Ye sing pretty, child.”
“Hush now, you need to rest.”
He shook his head. “And ye saved me, child. Stopped me bleedin’.”
“No,” she replied, “the alder bark did that.”
He caught his breath. “Ye used…a tree?”
“Aye, a tree.” She faced him squarely. “And I learned how to do it from someone you called a ghoul.”
His whole body stiffened.
“But really,” she went on, “he’s a tree spirit.”
The old man shuddered. And then he rasped, “There be somethin’…I needs to say.”
“Not now. You’re too weak.” She leaned over to the hearth and tossed a slab of driftwood on the coals. A splash of sparks lit the room.
He waved his hand before her face. “Listen, child! Ye must…hear this story.”
“What story?”
“The one ye’ve asked me to tell afore.” He tried to clear his throat. “It’s time ye finally hear…jest how I found ye. Long ago, in the forest.”
Anna’s eyebrows jumped. “Tell me. Please.” She squatted lower, as the sparrow hopped to her side.
The old man turned aside. Firelight played on the back of his head. He was gazing, it seemed, not at the rough-hewn table, or at the cottage wall, but at something else. Something far beyond that wall, far beyond that place and time.
“Years ago, ye see, I be livin’…a long way from here. On the other side of yon ridge. I be a village smith, forgin’ tools for jest about any use. And Rowanna…”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I be…a happier man. There be a woman, me wife.”
Anna started. “Was she—”
“No, no, listen! There be me wife—and also our daughter, our own little girl. She be small, jest a babe…but she already be a singer. And one day, I could tell, a dancer. For she be blessed, aye, with a dancer’s spirit.”
He worked his tongue. “Until…”
“Until what?”
“The plague!” He spat the words. “The killin’ plague. It came with no warnin’—and took them both.” His eyes closed for a few seconds. “And so I fled. From the sickness, aye, but more so from the memory. Fled across the fields and hills, jest tryin’ to get away.”
She touched his brow, as rumpled as the bark of an old oak.
A sound—part sob, part sigh—burst from his throat. “She be me only child, Rowanna! All I ever had. I held her, tight in me arms, right till she died. But I couldn’t save her. Couldn’t keep her tiny breaths a-comin’.”
Her eyes, like his, grew clouded. Hearth coals glowed in them, like sunlight through mist.
“And so…I climbed yon ridge up there. ‘Twas the highest place I could find. I be thinkin’ I’d hurl meself off a cliff right then. Aye
, and end that cursed memory.”
His voice suddenly quieted. “But there I found…a tree. Yer precious willow. And there, restin’ among its roots, be a bright and smilin’ babe. ‘Twas ye, girl! And a true enough miracle it was.”
Anna tried to swallow.
“And there be a greater miracle yet, Rowanna! When I looked at yer face, gazin’ up from the ground, ye looked…” His words trailed off as he studied her closely. “Like me own daughter! Like the face, in all this world, I most wanted to see.”
Anna tilted her head. Like the face I most wanted to see. Something about those words sounded familiar. But what?
“So then,” she asked, “what happened?”
His brow furrowed. “I…well, I took ye into me arms. Jest to hold ye one more time, ye see? Not to…” He swallowed hard. “Then suddenly the willow’s branches started grabbin’ at me, tearin’ at me face and arms! Like it come all alive. And angry! I saw a face—aye, a horrid face—right there in the branches. Like it be pullin’ itself right out of the very bark!”
He stared at her with haunted eyes. “That ghoul be wantin’ ye, child—wantin’ us both. But I wasn’t goin’ to lose ye! Not again! So I held ye tight and ran. Through that whole horrid forest I ran, trees a-clutchin’ at me and clawin’ me face and crashin’ down near on top of me. Aye, and I didn’t stop runnin’ till I got all the way here—to this very strip of sand. And here I made our home.”
The old man peered at her. “I saved ye, see? From the ghouls! And yet…it didn’t seem right somehow. Almost like…”
She leaned close. “What?”
“Like I was stealin’ somebody else’s child.”
Somebody else’s…
All at once, Anna understood. Her heart vaulted in her chest. “I am the willow’s child!” she cried aloud. “And she…is my mother.”
The old man gazed up at her. “So,” he said at last, “you are truly—”
“A tree spirit.”
Gently, she slid her fingers into his own. Fingers that took the shape he so wanted to see. Fingers of a human girl.
Then Anna lifted her hand, seeing it truly for the first time. It looked as slender as a willow shoot. And bent so easily! Her knuckles poked out like knots on a branch. And her skin—so wonderfully brown, with flecks of green.
“Ye will…be leavin’ me, then?”
She nodded. “Aye. But you will always know where I am. And sometimes, when the breeze is strong, you might still hear my songs on the wind.”
The next morning, Anna changed his bandage for the last time, then helped him into his chair. She kissed his brow, put Eagle on her shoulder, and stepped over to the door. Before she lifted the latch, though, she stopped.
For a moment, she gazed around the cottage—at the thatch above her head, the stones of the hearth, the straw where she’d spent so many nights. And at the old man who sat there, just watching her go.
And then she opened the door. Anna stepped outside, and into the waiting arms of the trees.
Chapter 18
H IGH ON THE RIDGE THAT CROWNS that forest by the sea, a pair of willow trees stand. One of them, gnarled with age, stretches her boughs skyward. And the other, a young sapling, grows nearby in a place of her own.
The two trees stand apart, even as they grow together. Their highest limbs meet and make an archway of leaves. They are touched by the same winds, and by the same light of sun, moon, and stars.
Sometimes, a sand-colored bear cub visits the sapling. He nuzzles the nest of the sparrow who lives there. But mostly he just plays in the branches. He hangs in them, swings in them, and swats them—until the branches swat back.
And sometimes, that bear is joined by another—a brown bear who romps through the forest with her friend. Who races through the sunlit groves, always ready to wrestle. And who loves nothing more than to climb a tree.
Whenever breezes sweep across the ridge, the two willows weave and sway as one. Their leafy boughs, falling like tresses by their sides, move in a dreamlike dance. And while the willow trees dance, they make a song all soft and slow and whispery.
A song that blows like the wind, and beats like a heart.