They were already drifting over the roof of his house. He doubled his grip, fear and surprise bringing fresh strength. They were also accelerating; the lights below grew smaller, the air grew colder. Glad of the layers against the brutal cold, Billy was surprised by the lack of drag from the Tree. He’d expected to have his arms ripped out of his sockets and to be buffeted by high winds. In fact, he was drawn by the gentlest force, and it was not the wind, but the chill of the air that made his eyes blink.
“How long will it take?”
The Tree branched low eyes to speak with him. “Hold on tight.”
The Tree accelerated violently into the night sky, testing his arms and nerve further still. Pools of artificial lights, cities, began to creep under them, then a long motorway snaking north. Billy could make out the line of the west coast, chopping in from the north of Wales, becoming the western edge of England. Ahead of them a wall of cloud rose from the ground, obscuring the rest of the land below. The Tree pulled ever upwards, above the level of the clouds, and suddenly Billy had the sensation of skiing as they twisted about the peaks of glacial cloud. Exhilaration washed the worry of his father and Katherine out of his body and he started to revel in the journey. He had one task: hold onto the Tree. This he could manage.
They were climbing again, now quite high above the cloud base. The Tree peered ahead, searching for some detail. The moon was close to full, and bright enough that Billy could still see the colour of his clothes.
“There it is.”
They were descending; the Tree was aiming for a small twisting hole in the cloud. As they fell out of the sky, Billy felt his legs rise up from underneath him, until he was diving, still clinging to the trunk of the Tree. They sank through the twisting hole like water disappearing down a drain pipe, and though the night beneath them was pitch black, a river of moonlight from the gap above led them down. Below him, Billy could see a collection of islands, but it was already clear which one they were headed for.
“Rum,” said the Tree.
The island wasn’t as small as some in the vicinity, and Billy recognised the mountains to the north and to the south from the label. Below the range on the northwest side was a pool of water, which was still enough to let him briefly glimpse their reflection before they were spinning around once more to the western edge of the southern range of mountains. As they drew closer, they could see the shape of a white deer, lit in moonlight, head up, calling to the night sky. Its voice was like the sounds of wind and rain through leaves. And now the Tree was answering the deer, calling back in the same leaf-washed tone, drawing them together. Then another sound, like low thunder, came from the ground below. It was a vast herd of red deer, approaching the peak of the mountain in a huge spiral that would close about the albino.
Before Billy could take in any more, his feet were scuffing along the ground. It took four or five steps for him to plant his feet underneath himself, but once he let go of the Tree, his sense of balance left him entirely and he fell flat on the ground. It was as though he’d spent the last hour spinning in one spot.
Between the uncomfortable revolutions of his head, he made out the white deer nuzzling the Tree, still conversing in the strange language. The deer was odd in other ways as well. Where antlers might be, there were branches that looked like those of an ash tree, its bark catching the moonlight; and as the deer raised its hooves, he saw roots pull up easily from the boggy ground and paw at the Tree. His brain gave up fighting the spinning and confusing images. He lay back and shut his eyes.
“Billy, this is Senga,” said the Tree.
Forcing one eye open, Billy looked up. The Tree and the white deer were standing over him. “I can’t get up.”
“It will pass,” said Senga. The voice was female and rich. “You were not designed to travel in this manner.”
“I really had no choice,” said the Tree. “I am sorry, Senga.”
“It is done, and there is no purpose in looking over paths which have now passed,” said Senga, before turning back to Billy. “Rest a moment longer, little one. I must attend to Teàrlag’s injuries.”
The Deer turned back to the Tree and examined the base cut that Billy had made. It shook its head and called out in the leaf language to the herd of deer which now surrounded them. Two large stags came forward. The Tree appeared to be protesting their presence.
“Don’t you think you’ve travelled far enough for one night?” said Senga, laughing a little, before motioning the stags in. They walked forward, shoulders a foot apart, and bent low to collect the Tree.
Billy still couldn’t stop his head from spinning, but he faced where he thought the Tree’s voice was coming from.
“Teàrlag,” he said, getting used to the unfamiliar name. “That joke you wanted. How do you kill an entire circus?”
“I’m sorry, Billy?” said the Tree, losing all semblance of his grandfather’s voice.
“Go for the juggler.”
Teàrlag frowned above the two stags, then broke into a small grin. “I get it!”
The deer set off down the mountain towards the pool. The low thunder let Billy know that the whole herd was pouring down the mountainside as one, following wherever Teàrlag had been taken. He struggled to his feet so as to be able to see them, but only managed as far as his knees, before resting on all fours, trying not to fall back. Senga walked over to him, her hooves swished as light roots pulled up through the deep bog. Billy managed to kneel, and found Senga looking at him with clear intrigue.
“Have we met before, Master Christmas?”
His head still spun, as he tried to focus on the deer, with the wooden antlers and the female voice. “I think I’d remember if we had.”
Senga began to shiver, and then shake as would a wet dog. She stopped momentarily before throwing Billy a wink. “I think it’s good manners to look away. But I won’t tell…”
The shaking returned, more violent than before, and Billy was unable to look away. The blur of white that shimmered before him betrayed glimpses of a human form emerging. Words floated out in that strange language, and the moon redoubled its light on the hilltop and on Senga. Out of the blur, a human hand reached out. Billy caught it and clung on. The hand looked and felt like bark. She increased her grip, and his dizziness evaporated. The crescendo of white shaking subsided and he looked on, somewhat embarrassed to be standing in front of a naked female form. Senga’s skin was still white, but with the luminescence, and black pitting, of a silver birch. The last details of her deer features fell from her face as she looked up at the moon, and from her fresh scalp poured light willow branches, stranding like loose dreadlocks, and falling forward over her shoulders and chest. Looking down, Billy could see that she now had human feet, though he felt certain that if she moved white roots would be exposed. What manner of creature was this? Senga drew in a sharp breath, galvanising this new form. Her eyes remained as black as they had been as the deer; she looked at Billy, assessing the tall boy.
“Not where you imagined you would be tonight?”
Billy was still uncertain where he should and shouldn’t be looking. Senga was otherworldly beautiful, but wasn’t it weird to feel attracted to something that, by way of mildest explanation, was other? He was lost for words, and scrabbled in his mind for why he was here at all. Not to fall into those deep black eyes, certainly. He let go of her hand.
Senga smiled. “Why thank you, Billy, your reaction is charming. You may relax a little if you understand I am really rather old.”
Beneath his layers, Billy flushed, and sent his eyes down to the peaty earth below. He remembered what had brought him here: the Tree, he’d cut the Tree and lost the part that knew the whereabouts of his father.
“What choice did you have?” said Senga. “Lose the Tree, lose your father and perhaps a lot more. And thank you, Billy. I have known Teàrlag a considerable time, thousands of human years, and I should have been broken to lose her.”
He paused a moment to let the shift i
n gender settle in. It was so hard to think of the Tree as anything other than “it.” “She said that this was the last visit, that after me she would die, and she was the last of her kind.”
Senga looked back at Billy. “That is not her fate, not yet. I sense this has some way to play out yet, and that she has some further part in it.”
“I have a friend, Katherine, who I think has got caught up in this,” said Billy, shifting his weight to move his frozen toes. “She sort of featured in a couple of my tasks. Only now she can’t wake up.”
“Saved by another task, yes?”
Billy nodded. The fence.
“Only now the enemy has shown interest.”
He nodded again. “It wasn’t direct, it didn’t name her. I thought it might be my mother.”
“Or Teàrlag?” said Senga.
Billy nodded, still adjusting to the notion of Teàrlag being female.
Senga took a couple of steps, to watch the deer carrying Teàrlag to the pool below. “Or me.”
Billy didn’t know what to say. He knew he was having a rare glimpse at the structure behind the centuries of the magic Trees, but he didn’t know how to weigh the complications of this other world with those that he faced at home. We’re not fools, Billy, a memory whispered. Don’t measure this.
“Teàrlag will have told you, and it is true, you help to weave all this, Billy. It is why she came to you at all. She will have told you to look to your dreams for guidance, for direction, yes?”
“Well, yes,” said Billy with a touch of frustration. This had the distinct tone of one of Teàrlag’s statements, which would seem full of promise, but give none of the answers he needed to move on with certainty.
“And to show faith in the tasks?”
“Yes, and I have,” said Billy, gathering some resolve, “and it has been pretty bloody tough.”
Senga was gone. Then she was at his shoulder, whispering at his ear. “Tougher than being sliced in half like Teàrlag?”
She drew a fingernail across his belly. Somehow he felt the cold finger; it had passed through the seven layers of clothing. He gasped. Senga looked steadily at him. It was clear that she meant no malice.
“The Gargoyle is seeking to foil the mission of the magic you have encountered. Put simply, we have failed. We sought to improve the world through offering a degree of skill and knowledge to certain humans. It was supposed to endow stewardship of this world. You can see, it is obvious to all, it has not succeeded. The Gargoyle seeks to take independence and use those Chosen to sow dependence. The consequences would be bleak for my kind, and yours.”
Senga looked up again at the moon, and Billy watched the light roll over her silver skin.
“Part of steering though life, especially human life, lies in completing the matters within your control before you tackle those without.”
Billy let a thought escape; what might she know about the finer details of human life? He knew she’d caught the thought at once.
Senga raised an eyebrow. “More than you might imagine,” she held out a fist. “Did Teàrlag speak to you about the miracle of hands?”
“She did.”
Senga upturned the fist and opened it, revealing the S-shaped iron bar. It stood out in the moonlight against the white grain of her palm.
“This bar is the spoke of a wheel in the weir, the dam at Marlow. It is not a task to be undertaken alone, and the effects will be dramatic. Be prepared for anything.”
“But what about the Tree—Teàrlag, I mean?”
“If we are able to find your father, she will return to you. If not…”
“There’s an ‘if not’?”
“If not, there is deeper magic we can employ. Be assured, Billy, we will not abandon him, whatever the cost.”
Senga drew close to him again. “You should know this. Your father did not leave of his own accord. He did not get lost.”
Billy was rapt. Answers were beckoning.
“He was taken. Taken by the enemy. Of whose ranks you have seen but one.”
“There are more?”
“Looking further than the challenges you know could jeopardise your father. Teàrlag did not lie. She needs you to complete your tasks, or we are powerless. Do you understand?”
Billy nodded, absorbing this piece of the riddle before returning to his responsibilities. He focused on his own task. He had the iron bar, but the weir was now some considerable distance away. “How do I get home?”
Senga looked at him once again. “It does seem like a long walk now, doesn’t it?”
“Short flight?” said Billy, betraying a strong desire to repeat his earlier cloud-surfing exploits, though perhaps without the after-effects.
Senga laughed and shook out her willow locks, revealing so much silver bark that Billy forgot any detail of anything remotely connected to clouds or flying. He breathed in as she stepped towards him, the roots from her feet whispering.
“Now, while I’m sure you’ve been nothing but truthful with Teàrlag about your performance of the tasks, there is an area where your benchmark may not have been…overly ambitious.”
She was still approaching, willow hair now rolling back over her shoulders, leaving Billy without anywhere to look. He took a half step back, but she had already put an arm around his neck. As her mouth connected with his, he swore he could make out a million different colours in the black of her eyes. He’d expected her lips to be cold, but in fact they banished the cold from him. As he had felt her hand over his belly, he now felt her chest against his own. And he knew, in the depths of his bones, that he had not kissed Katherine.
* * *
He opened his eyes, waking in his own room. The kiss was still with him, and he was wracked with sudden guilt. It wasn’t as though he’d had a choice. He’d had half a thought that Senga had meant to send him home when she had advanced on him; even if he had not been too clear on the specifics of how it might work. As he thought now of bedridden Katherine, Billy wondered if he might have dreamt the whole thing. Had he slept through the night and missed meeting the Tree? Horror flew through him and he leapt out of bed, smashing all the toes on his right foot. With a howl, he looked down to see the large iron bar lying beside his bed. That hadn’t been there last night, so this wasn’t a dream.
Nursing his aching toes, he took stock. The Tree had got hurt, but they’d coped. He’d flown to Scotland, and probably seen more than anyone else had seen throughout all the previous years this had been going on. Moreover, he had another task, another physical task that he could take on. He hopped around the room, picking up the assorted garments from the night before. Had Senga seen him undress, or had he vanished before her eyes? It was then that he remembered that he had certainly seen her, well, down to the bark. And then he remembered Katherine, felt guilty again, and limped out of the room to get the bog mud off him.
In the shower, the mechanics of the next task began to weigh on him. The massive weir was known to be dangerous, its ferocious water capable of sweeping even the best swimmers to their deaths. Before the winter snow, Marlow had had a torrential autumn, and the biggest locks in the dam were close to breaching point; but this wasn’t the problem. The problem was going to be approaching the weir at all. It was practically inaccessible from either bank. They were going to need a boat. But in order to be a “they,” he needed another. Billy got out of the shower.
* * *
High Heavens Wood was busy. With school finally over and Christmas Eve approaching fast, the street bustled with parents rounding on children, reminding them of presents hinted at and chores promised, and the sliding scale that existed between the two. Billy noticed that he didn’t feel he had to look away from their glances any more. In some ways, with the Tree seriously damaged, he was more exposed than ever, but it felt so good closing out the few remaining days. He pedalled his mother’s bike as fast as he could out of High Heavens Wood to hit the hill on Ragman’s Lane with all possible speed.
He pulled into Kathe
rine’s house, wondering how he was supposed to receive a kiss from Katherine to match the one he had experienced last night. He knocked on the door, and almost at once Katherine’s aunt opened it, blinking in the light.
“Billy, is that you?”
He stepped forward into the shade of the porch. “Hello, I was hoping to hear how Katherine is doing?”
“It’s been quite a night. You would have got a call, but Andrew said you didn’t have a phone.”
It felt odd to hear the General’s name, but he was hungry now for this news of the night. “What happened?”
“He woke between midnight and one and rushed into Katherine’s room, swearing that he’d heard her voice. I mean, I told him he was most likely dreaming, but he gave me the old line about his training not leaving him.”
“But why did he want to phone me?”
“Well, it seems Katherine was calling out your name. I think you’d better come in. He said you were to go and try to speak to her as soon as you came.” Katherine’s aunt took Billy’s arm and pushed him upstairs. “Try to surprise her. Don’t worry about being too polite.”
* * *
“Hello Katherine.”
The room was brighter than at the previous visit. At some point, the doctor had visited again. Katherine now had a drip feeding a clear liquid into her left arm. Despite that, he sat down heavily again, so as to shake her and let her know she wasn’t alone. When he started talking to her like this, it was a bit like talking to the Tree when it was in its natural state; he had to remember that despite appearances there was a sharp intelligence deep within.
“So. You’re going to be stubborn about this. Well, that’s fine. At least I know it’s still you in there. Taking no one’s advice but your own. You should know that a girl has been showing some interest in me.”
Katherine showed her indifference by refusing to move.
“Not the kind of interest that I could just make up either. Impressive, full-on, real stuff,” said Billy, before moving a bit of Katherine’s hair that was annoying him. It felt soft and warm and human compared to the willow. “I think you’d have liked Rum. It’s a bit muddy, but they have mountains, and sea and hundreds of deer. The Tree knew the deer. Did I mention the Tree? Anyway, the Tree has a name, Teàrlag. It’s a bit confusing, because it sounded like my grandfather, and now I have to think of it as a girl.”
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