by P. T. Phronk
Chapters
Title
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
End
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The Arborist
P.T. Phronk
The Arborist
Copyright © 2016 by P.T. Phronk
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except for the use of brief quotations. The people, events, and plants in this book are fictional.
Cover and interior illustration and design © 2016 P.T. Phronk.
First edition (1.0)
Published by Forest City Pulp
@ForestCityPulp
http://www.forestcitypulp.com
CHAPTER 1
A TREE APPEARED BEHIND MY house overnight.
When Amy and I first planned to move in together, I required that we find a place where I could live among trees. This house sat nestled at the end of a dead-end street, the last vestige of the suburbs before they gave way to forest and wetlands. A spacious lawn bridged the gap between a ravine and my sun room, and even though Amy wasn’t crazy about the small house, I told her that our son would need outdoor space to play when he was older. You know, throw a baseball around, kick a football, wrestle. He could climb the big old oak tree in the middle of the yard, maybe break an arm to build character.
Plus—plus!—there would only be three of us. Additional habitat would be wasted. These are the things I told Amy to convince her to move into the modest house with me, even though the primary reason, for me, was the trees.
On an ideal morning, I would sit in the sun room and have a coffee. I watched the squirrels playing outside, and listened to the birds chirping their inscrutable communications. On an ideal morning, I would sit there for twenty minutes, becoming relaxed, refreshed, and, if not eager for the rest of the day, at least prepared to tolerate it.
Most mornings were not ideal. Inevitably, I would be torn from my routine by Amy or Todd, requiring one thing or another. Amy needing me to make a sandwich for her because she is running late. Todd needing me to sign a form for a school thing. I would tense at first, but then take a last look at the trees, swaying with the demands of the wind, and accept the interruptions. Being a good husband and father is about sacrifice. That is why most mornings were not ideal.
It was, however, on a rare ideal morning when the tree appeared. February had brought a light coating of snow. I marvelled at the beauty of the morning sun twinkling off of the fresh, fluffy powder. I drank my coffee, infused with a hint of chocolate flavour, and stared at a cardinal singing on a fir tree in the distance.
Then I noticed it. What first grabbed my attention was that it had no snow on it, though I did not deliberate on this point any further, for the strangest thing about the tree was that it had not been there the morning before. I was sure of this, because I at least attempted to achieve an ideal morning every single day for the last fourteen years, absorbing the landscape in its entirety, becoming part of it. There was a row of trees before the drop of the ravine, the oak tree in the middle of the yard, and now, this new tree, between the oak and the house.
Its colour also struck me as out of place. Red. More maroon than cardinal red, perhaps, but unusually radiant for a tree in the winter. It was small—two feet tall, maybe—but it did have several branches already. How could a tree that was no more than twenty-four hours old be the size of a toddler?
I called for Amy, and she arrived a minute later. She was still in her underwear, fiddling with an earring as she walked into the sun room. Her thin arms caught the light while she stuck her elbows out, and for a moment I didn’t mind having her in the sun room. I was, I reminded myself, very lucky to be a greying middle-aged man with a pretty wife, a house, a young family.
“Do you see that red tree?” I asked her. “I could swear it wasn't there yesterday.”
“Nah, Wes, of course it was there yesterday,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She squinted because she couldn't see very well without her glasses. “It was probably under the snow. Why?”
I ignored her question. “So you're not sure. Well, I'm certain it wasn't there yesterday.”
She made a questioning hum, then turned around, still trying to get the earring into her ear. She paused at the door and turned back to me. “Oh, could you write that check for Todd? He needs it for his design and technology class.”
“Sure,” I said. I bit my lip. She seemed to hardly care about the sudden appearance of a red tree in our yard. As if she hadn't even heard what I said. She always did things like that. I took a breath. It was fine. She had her own things to worry about and, maybe, for people like her, a strange plant was hardly worth a thought.
“K, thanks honey,” I heard her say as she walked away.
I sat for a few more minutes, finishing my coffee, then went into the kitchen. Amy had already left for her job at the security company. I was running late myself, but remembered to sign the cheque for Todd’s shop teacher, whose name he had left in barely legible scrawl on a Post-it note on the counter. I made a mental note of my own to look up the growth rate of trees when I got to work.
I could still see it through the back door, as if it did not want me out of its sight. It was unmoving, resistant even to the influence of the wind. I did not believe it possible for a tree to spring up in twenty-four hours, but perhaps there were things in this world I still did not understand.
CHAPTER 2
I HAD ALMOST FORGOTTEN ABOUT the tree by the time I got to work, but the smell wafting from the office coffee machine triggered my memory. Testing Internet search engines was part of my job, so the office was an ideal environment to test anything that had been on my mind. I sat down with an early version of some Web indexing software and began trying terms. I tried “red tree” first, and several million web pages were listed. I found pictures of trees with “red” in their name, but none were the same shade as my red tree. The red fir—abies magnifica—hardly looked red at all, and I wondered where it got that name. Maybe they pulled a name out of a hat to avoid using the scientific name, which sounded like a magic spell from those Harry Potter books that Todd used to read.
The red maple—acer rubrum—had brilliant red leaves, but the trunk was plain brown. The tree in my yard was red right down to the trunk, and being winter, I didn’t see any leaves on it.
“RUBRUM! RUBRUM!” I muttered to myself. “REDRUM! You know?” Nobody heard me. The fluorescent lights felt like they were burning my skin.
I tried several terms related to the rate of tree growth. I was surprised at how fast some could grow. The paulownia tomentosa could shoot up twelve feet in a year. However, it looked nothing like the tree in my yard, and I found no trees of any kind that could gain several feet over night.
The searching fueled my interest. My desire. I enjoyed mysteries, and this was turning into a real caper, like the kind Columbo would solve. Of course, he’d be interviewing witnesses, not searching the Internet.
I de
cided to try a different approach. I would find a tree expert, who I would email about the red tree. I searched in an online ecology journal for tree researchers, and picked one, R. Urban, who seemed to have a lot of publications. I tracked down Urban’s email address and wrote him a short message, asking if any tree species could grow a few feet tall in a single day. I also mentioned that it was red. Sincerely, Wesley Burnett. I sent the email, realizing that I had not given him much to go on. Screw it, it was worth a try.
I told some co-workers about the tree during lunch, sitting under different fluorescent lights, among stale air pushed by fans from room to room.
“You probably just didn’t see it before,” one of them said. “Maybe it was under the snow.” I told him that I would have seen it if it were there, and laughed, because I knew it sounded crazy. It was crazy. Right?
CHAPTER 3
THE NEXT MORNING, I FIXED myself a bowl of Rice Krispies and some coffee; this time, I went a little nuts and put a pinch of cinnamon on top of the ground coffee, to add a hint of spicy flavour.
I went into my sun room, hoping for an ideal morning. I sat and listened to the birds chirping and the Rice Krispies going snap, crackle, pop.
When my gaze fell on the tree, I felt as if I’d already been looking at it all night. I could swear that it had grown another foot, but I could not be sure without any nearby objects as a point of reference. I also thought that it had more branches than it used to. Something strange about the pattern of the branches was an irritant to my mind, like walking into a room where the furniture had been moved slightly.
I leaned forward. I heard Todd’s voice calling me. I ignored it and stared at the tree a moment longer. Todd called again, louder this time, so I stood and stomped into the family room. He sat on the couch, watching some rap video on the television. “What’s for lunch?” he asked. I remembered that Amy was in a rush and asked me to make food for Todd.
“Son, you can make your own lunch today,” I said.
“Mom said you’d make me one,” Todd said, taking his gaze off the television for a moment to glare at me. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He was probably up late playing his video games.
“You’re perfectly able to make a sandwich. You can start taking better care of yourself,” I said.
“Fine,” said Todd, looking back at the TV, “I’ll skip lunch today.”
I considered giving in and preparing something quickly, as I usually did, but maybe a change would teach him something. He’d become complacent, leeching off of us while he soaked in light from television screens and got fat. Maybe a day of hunger would do him good.
I passed Amy on my way upstairs. She mimed a kiss as she blew past me. While I dressed, I heard Todd complaining about his sandwich, her grumbling about me, then the rustle of lunch money coming out of her wallet. She always did things like that.
At work, I got a reply from the tree expert. I clicked on the message excitedly, hoping that he could provide some answers about the mysterious red tree, but I was disappointed:
Wesley,
Trees do not grow that fast, especially not in the winter. I am certain that you simply did not notice the tree until it had grown to the size it is now.
Best Regards,
Robert Urban
Right. I just never noticed a funny-looking red tree in the middle of my own yard. I rubbed my eyes, tired of everybody saying the same thing.
At least he confirmed what I suspected: trees do not grow that fast. Heck, maybe I was imagining it. I supposed it was remotely possible that the snow was deep enough that I had simply not noticed the tree until it peeked above the Earth’s fluffy winter shell. I put it out of my mind and got back to work, a little disappointed, because I had hoped the mystery would grow, bearing the fruit of something, anything, to occupy my mind other than the tangle of thoughts starting to push up there. Todd is disappointing. Amy is disappointed. How did you get here?
CHAPTER 4
I HAD DISMISSED THE MYSTERY too soon. The red tree had doubled in size less than a week later. I mentioned this to Amy when she interrupted me in the sun room.
“Weird,” was her only response, before rushing off to work again. Yeah, weird. At least she acknowledged that I had spoken. It was better than nothing.
That evening, I found time to get a closer look at the tree. I put on my winter coat and boots, plus gloves I hadn’t needed in years, since I never spent much time outdoors. I felt the rims of my nostrils harden as soon as I took my first breath of the freezing night air. I trudged across the back yard’s deep snow, realizing that this was probably the first time that anyone had put footprints in it all year.
The tree was about four feet tall now. It was a perfect brownish-red pole that split at the top into four thick branches, which split further into smaller branches. Like most other trees at this time of year, there were no leaves.
Its texture was similar to any other deciduous tree, with vertical ridges running along its length. Except, it did not look rough, as bark was famous for being. There were no knots, chips, or other imperfections along its length. Maybe all young trees were like that, starting out perfect and only gaining rough edges as life battered them.
I took off my gloves and ran my fingers along its tiniest outer branches. These were smooth, like little plastic straws. I let my fingers follow its contours, slipping along the elbows where smaller branches met bigger ones, then sliding down each of these branches, angling, repeating, until I was caressing the trunk. This, too, was smooth. It felt more like the velvety skin of a house plant than the rough bark of a tree. Its ridges were like tiny folds in a sheet of silk.
Also, I could swear that it was warm.
On a whim, I bent over and smelled the tree. It was sweet, yet nauseating; a combination of licorice and vomit.
I exhaled a cloud of vapour into the cold air, and took a step back to view the thing in its entirety. As before, a sense that something was wrong came over me. It was not just the colour, nor its smooth texture, but something about the overall gestalt of the tree filled me with worrisome awe that made my heart cautiously increase its pace.
A sudden thumping came from above, startling me. I looked toward the house, and realized that it was Todd’s music starting up. That damn rap music. A light was on in his upstairs room. He had a friend over, and I wondered what they were doing up there, with the horrible music blasting so loud. They probably couldn’t even hear each other talk.
I took one last look at the red tree, then headed inside. This thing was something special—I was sure of that now—and I had renewed hope that this mystery was important, it was solvable, and it belonged only to me.
CHAPTER 5
TODD IS HIDING SOMETHING.
I came to this realization the next morning, while I sat in my sun room, glaring at my tree, trying to will it to reveal something.
Todd hardly talked to me. When he did talk, he avoided eye contact. When he did make eye contact, his eyes were red and baggy. He had lost weight. He still wasn’t thin, but his skin seemed looser, and his chin jiggled when he walked.
Drugs? No; I had the drug talk with him several times when he was younger. I even left an anti-drug book from the school board on his pillow, so he could read it over in his own time. I was not one of those parents that stood aside and let their children explore the whims of their chaos-prone teenage minds. Todd didn’t do great in school, but I knew he was too smart to alter his mind with chemicals.
So, I took a deep sip of coffee, and created stories about what he was up to. The one I stuck with was that he was having girl trouble. A “crush” on a girl at school who wasn’t “crushing” back. Or, he was too shy to even talk to her. I had read on the Internet that depression can cause insomnia and weight loss. Todd was probably too sad to sleep or eat, so he stayed up late, listening to his music and playing his video games, until his eyes were raw. I remembered the torture that girls had put me through as a teenager, and this story seemed entirely plaus
ible.
I could have talked to him, and maybe it would have helped, but we never really talked. We never threw around a baseball, kicked around a football, or wrestled. Sitting him down for a chat would be yet another anomaly in a teenage life full of them. I loved him, but my love was best experienced at a distance.
I turned my attention back to the red tree. It grew overnight. I had committed its expanse to my memory, so I was sure of this. Robert Urban, the tree expert, had said it was impossible for a tree to grow that fast. I needed to prove him wrong. I went through the house and found two meter sticks, some duct tape, and my digital camera. I put the meter stick into the snow beside the tree. It was already taller than a meter, so I taped the second meter stick to the first. Accounting for overlap between them, the tree was 1.2 meters tall from the ground to the highest tiny branches. I set the date stamp to appear in pictures, then snapped some shots of the tree and the scale. I captured it from all angles and distances, getting close, lying in the snow to get a low-angle shot of its perfectly-posed branches. Work it, baby, work it.
I repeated this process several times over the week. On some days, I saw Amy walk into my sun room, probably looking for me to do something for her or Todd. Through the windows, she gave me a confused look, rolled her eyes, then walked away. She never asked what I was doing. This confounded me, because even if she did not notice the tree’s strange appearance or rapid growth, surely my considerable interest in it was out of place. I do not know how she could have such an anomaly staring her in the face and not be curious enough to even ask.