Tree Fingers

by Li, Augusta

  The pleasure his lover expressed fired Alan’s fervor.

  Graham felt so good, his body squeezing Alan like a vine choking a flower stalk. Alan could scarcely think. He crumpled toward Graham’s back, grasping his hand again, and fought to keep his thrusts gentle. Several times he caught himself growing over-enthusiastic, driving into Graham too hard and fast and had to ground himself, focus. He was the first lover Graham had taken since Luke’s death. Graham had chosen him, given himself to him. Alan wanted desperately to prove to Graham that his trust and love hadn’t been misplaced. So he willed himself to remain kind, in spite of the fury of lust Graham ignited in him.

  “’S okay?” he panted, more to reassure himself.

  “It feels so good, Alan. Don’t stop.”

  He didn’t. Alan, sensing that he neared the limits of his endurance, reached beneath Graham. His lube-slicked hand grasped his cock. He loved that Graham was uncircumcised, his only lover ever to be so. Everything about Graham aroused him in ways no one else had ever done.

  “I love you,” Alan blurted out, coming so hard his whole body shook. “Gods, I love you Graham.”

  Warm wet exploded against Alan’s palm and squished between his fingers. “Oh my dear god, yes! Yes!” Graham yelled, his accent coming to the surface. Alan found the British sexy, often wished his lover hadn’t lost so much of his native cadence. “Oh god, I love you, too.”

  They fell to the bed, and Alan pushed himself up on his hands. Their bodies separated, and they rolled to face each other.

  Trembling, they held each other until Alan regained enough of his breath and sense to fetch a washcloth and a fresh blanket to replace the one they’d moistened. He wiped Graham clean and tucked the bedclothes around him. He listened as Graham’s breath slowed. After Graham fell asleep curled on his side, Alan waved his hand, dousing the flames of the lamps. He petted his lover’s fair hair and crept out of the bed and down the stairs.

  Outside the damp, chill air stung Alan’s skin. The wet grass numbed his bare toes. Graham’s robe, scented lavender from the soap the other man preferred, hung open around his waifish, white form. Only the stars illuminated the yard now. The moon had dropped below the horizon and the people of the neighborhood had turned off their lighted ornaments.

  Graham’s scarecrow looked like a black, inverted triangle against the crystalline sky. The tattered edges of its shroud flapped in the breeze. Leaves rustled, and now and then a walnut thumped against the porch roof, but otherwise all was silent.

  Alan crouched down, his heels cold against his ass.

  Just as the spellbook had instructed, he dug a bowl in the earth with his fingers. Around the perimeter he placed a piece of agate, a rusty straight pin, three pennies, and the skull of a squirrel. Within, he built a tiny teepee from pine twigs, thyme, sage, oak leaves, cat’s whiskers, and strands of his hair. All the while he chanted the Old Germanic words that meant “Come forth Woldengeist from the dark hollows of the trees. From the pockets of shadow among the gnarled roots. From the places in the forest never touched by sun. Come Wood Shade, hungry phantom. Accept my blood and heed my calling.” As he said the words, he echoed them in his mind, letting his consciousness and his call stretch out to the farthest, deepest patches of sylvan shadow. He envisioned primordial glens, trees as big as houses encrusted with shelf moss, lichen and vines. Then he lashed the pyre together with threads from one of Luke’s old shirts. Graham would never forgive him if he found out. But Graham wouldn’t find out. Alan didn’t perform his ritual to earn gratitude. He only wanted to give Graham the thing he wanted most, the way Graham had given him something precious an hour before.

  With a snap of his fingers, the twig pyramid sprung alight.

  As the book tutored, Alan fanned the flame with crow’s feathers until he sat in an orange sphere of radiance. The final component of the spell was easily attained. Alan sliced the palm of his hand, following what palm readers called the Love Line. Blood trickled onto the small blaze, sizzling when it hit. The smoke rising from it turned from pale grey to a sparkling, moss-colored mist. It wound, serpentine, around the scarecrow. Alan got to his feet to watch the progress, clutching his sliced hand but much more excited than suffering.

  The eerie fog wreathed the scarecrow, spiraling up and down, strands of vapor twisting around one another. The wind blew harder, sending Alan’s loose hair off to the side of his face and propelling leaves and sticks into his legs. The mist, though, remained undisturbed, not even wavering in the gale. Then it sunk into the threadbare cotton and walnut wood the way dry soil absorbed rain. Barely visible, a faint viridian light spilled from behind the button eyes.

  “Yes,” Alan breathed. He thought he’d be terrified if the spell worked, but found he felt only exhilaration, a dizzying rush of power. The consciousness of the other being touched his mind, chaotic, as unknowable and impenetrable as the deepest, most overgrown, thorn-choked recesses of an ancient wood.

  “Woldengeist!”

  The name invoked more wind. Larger bits of debris pelted Alan’s bare body and face, hurting. He didn’t care, barely noticed. Intent, concentration counted for everything now.

  “I have summoned you to protect that walnut tree, Phantom of the Forest Shadows.” He pointed. The wooden frame of the scarecrow creaked like living limbs in a tempest. Alan gathered all of his will, his love and anger, so that the demon would respect him and do his bidding. “See that no harm comes to it.”

  With a swoosh and a flapping like a startled bird flying from the brush, the scarecrow’s garments rose from the sticks that supported them, fluttering for a second and then going still.

  The green glow faded; the wind settled. Somewhere down the block, a little dog yipped.

  Alan hung his head. He hadn’t really expected it to work, not on his first attempt. The spirit had departed, finding the conjurer wanting, unworthy. Or maybe he imagined its presence.

  He hadn’t seen anything but smoke, leaves in the wind, and the subtlest glimmer. Maybe. It was late. Maybe Graham was right, calling the sorcery nonsense. Probably Graham wouldn’t have wanted Alan to succeed. Tomorrow he’d go to Cook’s house, find a more mundane way to save the tree that Graham adored.

  Tonight he couldn’t wait to crash against the mattress, cuddle close to Graham, and breathe in the scent of his hair until sleep claimed him. He’d never been more exhausted.

  The next morning Alan woke alone. Graham usually rose early, often before daybreak, to paint or draw when he said he felt most creative. The old clock on the wall said half past eleven. Alan sat up and stretched. The cut on his hand hurt and felt hot with infection. He slipped into the robe he’d donned the previous night and went to look for Graham.

  The other man stood on the back porch, sipping a cup of tea and watching as several people moved around the Cook property. Alan saw a police car, an ambulance, and some non-descript sedans.

  Placing a hand on Graham’s shoulder, he asked, “What happened?”

  “You’ll never believe it,” the other man answered, looking upset. “Mr. Cook died last night.”

  “He was murdered?”

  “No. What makes you say that, Alan?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “He died from a heart attack. I spoke to his daughter a few moments ago. Was a bit odd, though. She found him in front of his living room window, with his face pressed against the glass. Miss Cook said he looked petrified, like he’d died screaming. He’d scratched at the windowsill until he broke all of his nails. Then cardiac arrest, the coroner thinks.”

  “He was pretty old,” Alan said, plunging his lacerated hand into the robe’s pocket.

  “I suppose,” Graham said, looking at his lover suspiciously.

  “What’s going to happen to the property?”

  “I presume it’ll be sold,” Graham answered. “I doubt the daughter’s in the right frame of mind just now to worry over the details.”

  “Well, um, Graham?” Alan said, shuddering despite t
he warmth of the sun. “Since your tree’s safe for a while, do you think we could get rid of that thing?”

  “The scarecrow? Actually, when I first woke up and looked out the window, I thought somebody had taken it. Kids, perhaps. I went to dress, and I guess I wasn’t quite alert, because when I looked again it was right there where we’d left it. But I agree. There’s something about it I don’t care for anymore. We’ll burn it with the leaves.”

  The remains of the walnut jutted over the fence, diminished but intact. Looking in its direction, Graham said “Sad. It’ll never be what it was.”

  “Things change,” Alan said. “They survive. Adjust. Maybe it’ll be better. It looks kind of cool, like a pitchfork or something.”

  “Mr. Cook won’t have the opportunity to survive or adjust,”

  Graham said, turning his head toward the small house, its roof covered in brown leaves. The crowd of people had begun to disperse.

  “Death is a transition from one state to another,” Alan said.

  “Not an end.”

  “That’s how you’ll justify it?” Graham asked, knitting his brows together. “How could you?”

  “What?” Alan asked, worried now. Graham so rarely got upset with him, but he recognized it when he saw it.

  “Show me your left hand.”

  Taking it guiltily from his pocket, Alan considered concocting a story about a late-night sandwich mishap. Graham would believe him; Graham would want to believe him. But a lasting relationship couldn’t be built on a foundation of lies, so he unfurled his fingers in silence.

  Graham took Alan’s hand and turned it palm up, staring at the gash. “I don’t even know what to say to you. A man’s dead, Alan.”

  “An old man is dead from a heart attack,” Alan said.

  “That’s what you truly believe, then?”

  Feeling sick, filled with dread as he watched Graham staring at his empty hand like it held a murder weapon, Alan couldn’t answer. Instead he said, “All I wanted was to protect you. Graham, please.”

  “You think I’d want this?” Graham’s voice rose as he flung Alan’s hand away to point toward the Cook property. “How could you have so little regard for another human being? And how can you expect me to accept it? You know how I feel about that garbage you read. How can I accept that you actually put it into practice?”

  “You accept it because it’s a part of me.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that, Alan. I don’t know if I can keep turning a blind eye.”

  Grasping Graham’s upper arms, holding tight and looking deep into his light eyes, Alan said desperately, “I don’t want to lose you. Please don’t give up on me. On us. I never should have cast that spell. I didn’t even think it would work. I only wanted to protect the tree, keep it safe for you. I didn’t think there’d be any danger. I still don’t know if I caused any of this.”

  “But you tried.”

  “Graham, you claim not to believe in any of this. You can’t just believe when it’s convenient. All I actually did was burn some incense and say some words. Why does that upset you so much?”

  “You claim you saw nothing wrong with what you did,”

  Graham said, breaking away and turning toward the house, his back to Alan, “and yet you had to wait until I fell asleep and sneak out of the bed to do it?”

  “Only because I know how you feel about magic! I don’t understand why you hate it so much. It’s totally unreasonable!”

  Graham’s shoulders curled forward and he looked down at his toe, which he used to kick a fallen walnut. Tentatively Alan placed his hand on Graham’s back. When the other man didn’t recoil, he rubbed up and down the length of Graham’s spine.

  Graham pressed back against Alan’s touch and said softly,

  “Maybe it is. I just don’t understand it, and it scares me. I’m scared something will happen to you. I can’t go through that again.”

  “Oh, Graham,” Alan said, a little ashamed that he hadn’t seen or sensed his partner’s distress or its cause.

  “I don’t suppose you’d give it up.”

  Alan remained silent, considering. He loved Graham so much, couldn’t imagine his future without him. At the same time, though, he loved and craved knowledge. He’d always had a reckless need to peel away the layers of gauze and behold the naked truth. He doubted he’d ever be rid of his obsession to know at any cost. Still, he hoped with his every fiber that the cost wouldn’t be this high. Graham was right; he’d gone too far.

  His powers weren’t developed enough to attempt such a conjuring. But great discovery never came without risk. Last night he’d glimpsed something: the first, fuzzy outline of an undiscovered land, still far in the distance but calling out to be explored. He had to make his lover understand.

  “Until I met you,” Alan said, taking a step nearer and winding his arms around Graham’s waist, holding on to him like he could be snatched away, “I was completely content to be alone. Do my research. The lonely scholar, the mystic in his cave in the mountains, I guess.” He forced a chuckle. “It never bothered me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I want, need, you in my life, Graham. I love you. I want you to love me. Everything about me.”

  Graham rested his head against Alan’s shoulder and turned his face, so that Alan could feel Graham’s lips moving against his cheek as he spoke. His breath smelled of tea and bergamot. “I do, of course, love. I’m sorry. I have to admit, that haunted look of yours was what first attracted me to you.”

  Alan laughed, a real laugh of both amusement and relief, and squeezed Graham’s ribs. “Haunted, huh?”

  “Pale, half-starved, looking like you hadn’t slept in a week.”

  “So that’s a good look then?”

  “On you. You put me in mind of one of those tortured poets. I could imagine painting a portrait of you in a frilly shirt.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Alan said.

  “No?”

  Alan felt Graham smiling, felt his cheek contract and round against his face. “You can paint me in the nude,” he offered.

  “Now that’s a painting that would go unfinished.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that the artistic process is just as important as the end result?”

  Graham laughed and shook his head.

  “It’s the same with spells,” Alan said. “Calling things into being. Shaping them with concentration and will. Making your vision manifest. Altering a piece of the world into what you want it to be.”

  “I suppose,” Graham conceded. “Art just isn’t as dangerous.”

  “Art is more dangerous,” Alan said, laughing out loud. “Art starts revolutions. Changes the way entire societies think. Stuff that’s way beyond my skill!”

  “Still, I want you to be more careful.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And no more going behind my back.”

  Unable to resist, Alan reached up and pinched Graham’s nipple. “Never?” he whispered mischievously.

  “Well, maybe.”

  “Maybe now?” Alan asked, his fingers skimming down Graham’s chest and grazing the growing swell in his pants.

  “I have to go out and buy some sweets for the trick-or-treaters,” Graham argued half-heartedly. “Some pumpkins and candles for the front porch. Something for supper.”

  “Jack-o-lanterns?” Alan asked, circling his hips ever so slightly, so that Graham could feel his erection. “Sounds like fun. I’d like to come with you.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “But I need a shower. Wash out my cut before it gets infected. I’d love some company.”

  Graham took Alan’s hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissing the inside of Alan’s wrist. Then he knotted their fingers together and led Alan into the house.

  Alan and Graham spent many more hours at the local farmer’s market than they’d intended, enjoying the rich hues of the harvest produce, so they decided to stop for Chinese rather than cook and made it home just as
the first of the neighborhood children ventured out in their costumes. Alan remained on the front porch while Graham went inside to put away the things they’d purchased: a bag of apples, some local honey and a bottle of wine for later. Even as an adult, Halloween excited Alan. He smiled as groups of witches, ghosts and vampires shuffled through the fallen leaves with their sacks. It satisfied him to know that many of the older ones would stay out after the candy had been distributed, flitting about the neighborhood causing mischief, just like the spirits people of the past had feared on this night. It seemed to Alan that when a person shut off his or her lights and went to bed on Halloween, it should be with a sense of trepidation, as it always had been. People were too secure in their mastery of everything. If they only knew.

  Night had just fallen, the darkness seeping from the dome of the sky toward the horizon, pushing the sun beneath the hills.

  The oranges, magentas, indigos and eggplants blended and bled into one another, reminding Alan of one of Graham’s watercolors. While the night was warm, an impending chill could be felt in the breeze that rustled the leaves, tearing even the most resilient from their branches. The smell of roasting pumpkin mingled with their scent deliciously.

  Alan had just offered a chocolate bar to a boy in a werewolf mask when he heard Graham call his name. He hurried past the fireplace, through the dining room and into the kitchen, where he found Graham staring out the window above the sink, a half-eaten apple forgotten in his hand.

  “Alan, it’s gone,” he said, turning, his face pale.

  “What?” Alan asked, even though he knew.

  “The scarecrow. Do you suppose some kids took it after all?”

  “Maybe,” Alan said as he crossed the red-brown tile, heading for the door to the yard. “I can see how they might have thought it was cool.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “I’m not,” Alan admitted. “Not entirely. But I’ll go find out.”