He started over.
“One of your kind asked me for help. So here I am. Talking to you. I am here to warn you. I don’t know what exactly you all are—whether you are trees, or spirits, or actual flesh and blood beings like I am... but come this morning every single one of you hearing my words will be dead if you don’t do something.”
No response. Bad pitch.
“Come on, talk to me. Please?” Marcus jumped down from the stump.
“I’m not insane!” He screamed into the forest at the top of his lungs. “I’m not insane. You’re all out there. You can hear me. I know you can hear me. I’m doing you the favor, I swear to god.” He looked down at a large orange bulb of a mushroom growing out from a green vein of moss. It perched on one of the roots of the stump he stood on.
He didn’t have to do this.
Marcus walked back towards his truck. In the dark it looked almost green rather than light blue. Just beyond it sat the bulldozers.
“Ah, shit!” He couldn’t leave them. No. That would weigh on his conscience. I’m not an asshole, he thought.
He squelched the tiny annoying voice in the back of his mind that kept telling him ‘they don’t exist,’ and turned back around.
“I’m still here,” he said to the trees. “I’m not going anywhere unless you move first.”
And that was that. Marcus knew the tricks.
• • •
The first fingers of dawn, green hues mixed with the slightest bits of orange, lazily crept their way into the distant Eastern sky.
Marcus had told the Douglas firs about logging. And carpentry. And strip mining. He’d threatened, yelled, and begged. It felt good to scream at the damn unmoving trees. It was cleansing. Not something he’d ever done in a long time.
And then Marcus rallied to tell them about dolphins, manatees, elephants, tigers, and everything else dying out across the face of the planet. He did not mourn their passing except in a distant intellectual manner. But he used it all as a warning to the stolid trees.
It had to work, Marcus screamed in his own head. If not, people would think he was an insane tree-hugger. Marcus Hetco, head of the largest realty here, the very man who carved a town out of the trees and wilderness, was not an insane tree hugger. This had to work.
But only a still silence hung over the forest. None of the threats of man’s machines or practices had the effect Marcus hoped for.
It occurred to Marcus that the trees had millennia of undisturbed quiet on their side.
“I saw one of your kind,” he said. “Remember? That’s why I’m here. She was beautiful.” Marcus sat huddled against the tree stump, trying to keep his eyes from closing. God he was tired. He closed his eyes and visualized what he had seen on Roger’s desk. “She had a... smooth body, very curved. And almond eyes. You would have wept to see how they pleaded with me. There is so much in a glance.” He wished he had another cigarette. He sat with his back to the trunk looking up the lines of bark, branches, and the gaps of dawn just making it through spaces in between leaves. “And as beautiful as she was, she was trapped; crying, begging, in a desk. She’d been cut, from the elbows up, and the knees. Sliced. Sliced down to a quarter of an inch, and preserved with a covering of stain. Imagine, will you, the chemicals being laid down on her flawless body, seeping through her skin, waterproofing her against coffee spills, and condensation from soda cans.
She asked to die. She asked me. So I dragged her out onto the lawn. I used fire to free her. Can you imagine how long it took for her to slowly die,“ his voice shook, “suffering as the flames licked at her body...”
The vivid and violent image seemed to spill out of him into the surrounding calm. Leaves rustled in response.
“That’s enough,” came the whisper from the forest. It resonated deep in Marcus’s chest. “You can stop saying these things now...”
Marcus whirled around but saw nothing. His heart thudded. Branches rustled in the shadows.
“I told you so,” he said. “I’m not insane.” He clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t start crying merely because a tree had talked to him. Merely. Maybe crying was a good idea, because it meant he’d finally leapt off the deep end. Like Roger.
“Humans have been using trees from the area for as long as we can remember,” the voice said. “Why should we worry now?”
• • •
Marcus stood up. He stank and needed a shave. His suit would probably never recover from the mud, grass stains, and wrinkles. His shoes still had fir needles plastered to their sides.
And all he could think was; they’d answered him!
“Are you all dryads?” He looked around at the firs.
“Some are,” the voice replied. Marcus wanted to yell or shout in celebration. “The rest are trees.”
Marcus pointed to the machines behind his Ford.
“Everything here will be taken. You and the trees.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Marcus gaped. “Haven’t you been listening to me?”
The voice stayed quiet for a few seconds before replying.
“No. We tried to ignore you.”
“The machines will take all the trees, and you. You obviously haven’t been looking upslope, have you?”
“We don’t move much. It tends to alarm people,” the voice said. Marcus thought he had a bead on it. It came from his left. He looked at the fir. If he strained he could make out wrinkled, ancient features on the bark. He addressed it.
“You said you could move. If that’s true you have to move. You have to act in your own self-interest. You have to protect yourselves.” Marcus heard the sound of vehicles sloshing through the mud on their way up the switchback. The loggers would be coming up to man their equipment. “You don’t have much time.”
“We’ve lived for centuries. We have plenty of time.”
Marcus scratched the stubble on his face and looked back at the machines. Several pickups bumped their way across the ruts and parked alongside his Ford. A young man with a yellow hard-hat looked in the cab and then turned in Marcus’s direction.
“Let me put it this way,” Marcus said quickly. He cracked a broad smile. The trees needed real estate. He knew exactly how to help them. “Location location location. You’re in the wrong one. We can sit here and watch. Once those machines start up, you’re fucked. The land you’re sitting on is not good for you. You desperately need a move. Or I’ll find you one day in one of my customer’s cabinets and have to burn you too so you don’t spend the rest of your short life suffering.”
The tree, or dryad, Marcus still couldn’t say which for sure, didn’t answer. And time was running short—a pair of loggers had started following the muddy imprints of footsteps towards the stump.
Marcus trotted over to the tree and jumped for the lowest branch. He was tired. He missed. The logger, a rail thin man with rope-like muscles, strode into the firs.
“Hey!”
“Damn it,” the other logger swore. “Not another one.”
Shit. Marcus jumped again and caught the branch. He hung there for a second, kicked off his shoes, then used his feet to scrabble up into the nook. He straddled it for a second and panted. His arms still ached from moving the desk last night.
“What the hell are you doing?” The logger looked up at Marcus. He shook his head. “Shit. Man, we’ve already had someone out here a few weeks ago doing this.”
Marcus shook his head.
“These are special trees,” he said.
“I’m sure they are. But we still have to cut them down.” The logger turned back. “Lenny! Come on over here. We have another tree hugger.”
“I’m not a tree hugger,” Marcus protested while pulling himself up to another branch to get out of reach.
“Look, man, we’re not anti-environmentalists here.” The man sounded like he had to say those words often enough. “We plant two saplings for every tree we cut down. Now come down off of there before you fall or hurt yourself.”
&nb
sp; “No.”
Lenny arrived and the two men muttered for a few seconds. Lenny looked up.
“We’re going to have to call the police.”
“Fine by me.”
“They’ll drag you out of there.”
“That’s okay.”
“Shit, man, how long do you think you can last up there? You didn’t even bring any food with you.”
“Not very long,” Marcus answered. They all stared at each other for several seconds. Then the logger in the yellow hard-hat finally shrugged.
“All right.”
They left. Marcus waited.
The sound of chainsaws shattered the morning air from across the switchback. The first trees fell, crashing through branches and hitting the ground with a thud. Marcus still waited, saying nothing. The nook of the branch dug into his crotch and his left leg fell asleep.
• • •
A lone Mountie in scarlet showed up half an hour later. The chainsaws were still at it. In a long train-like procession, trucks roared their way up higher to load up on logs.
“See,” Marcus whispered. “They won’t take a few and leave. They’re here for everything. Look upslope. They’ll plant trees, but it’s bare ground already. It’ll be too late for you.”
The tree had fallen silent. Marcus blinked his crusty eyes at the new rays of light filtering in through the foliage. He guessed he looked the part of a raving lunatic at this point.
The Mountie picked his way over to the tree stump Marcus had spent the night on.
“Hey there, son,” he called out.
“Hi sir.”
“I ran your plates. You’re Marcus, right?”
“I am,” Marcus confirmed.
“How long are you going to be up there?”
Marcus shrugged. “I’m waiting for the tree to move,” he grinned.
“Okay.” The Mountie’s hat bobbed, a tassel shifting. “I’ve called for someone else better at this sort of thing than I am. He’ll be here within the hour. We’ll talk about what you want.”
Marcus pushed his back up against the tree. He’d turned into one of those people you would watch on late night TV, doing something utterly outside of his comprehension for God-only-knew-what-reason.
He turned back to the trunk of the tree and pressed his face against the bark, pushing at the rough ridges with his fingertips.
“Come on,” he whispered fiercely. “You have to move. Not just for you, but me, now. They all think I’m mad.”
“Where are we to move too?” the tree asked. Marcus felt a surge of relief. He thought he had lost the tree to silence again. It continued to speak. “This is all we have known. Everything else is strange, and dangerous.”
“I know the land,” Marcus said. “It’s my job. I know all the lands in this area. And beyond. I can guide you to a safe place where they will never disturb you.”
The Mountie shifted. Twigs snapped under his feet. “You talking to me?” he asked.
The tree’s branches swayed. “Can you promise us this?” It asked.
“I can promise you,” Marcus said loudly. I do promise. This is not lie, it is not an easy out, he told himself.
“Promise me what?” the Mountie asked.
The trunk shook. Marcus yelped and wrapped his arms around an extra branch that tore at the tender inner part of his forearm. The world around him trembled. Leaves fell and branches swayed wildly.
He looked down. Roots uncurled and broke out of the mud. They ripped at the undergrowth. Splinters of wood and bark rained down to the ground.
“They’re moving!” Marcus screamed at the Mountie and the rest of the world. He leaned back and howled. The shiver of the tree ran up through his thighs and into his torso. He wasn’t insane. He couldn’t imagine this. The entire length of the tree shifted and Marcus pitched forward, bloodying his lip against the trunk.
The Mountie gaped and tripped over the stump as he backed away. He didn’t try and get back up; he stared up at Marcus and the tree.
The ripping sound that the roots made as they came out of the ground spread throughout the forest. The chainsaws fell silent by it. Shouts of surprise and fear floated out into the clearing.
Maybe every tenth tree was pulling itself out of the ground. The loggers looked around, and one by one they started trickling out into the clearing by their trucks.
“I’m not crazy,” Marcus yelled at them, his face glowing. “These really are special trees.”
He couldn’t see their faces, but if the awe and reverence reflected anything like that of the expression on the Mountie’s face they probably would never feel quite the same in any forest again.
The tree moved forward in long strides. The bark, forced away to reveal tall strong legs, still fell in scales as they moved through the forest. The other dryads ranged from old giants, like the one Marcus rode, to small saplings. The smaller saplings stayed close to the shadows of their elders.
Each dryad was a carved primal beauty. Marcus skirted the edge of an emotion he had trouble identifying. Worship of the perfect and unspeakably ancient? The wooden gods of the forest spread awe through him of some sort. Maybe in the distant past Marcus’ kind worshipped at the roots of such giants.
“We are moving,” the dryad whispered. “Now what?”
Past the slope of the mountain Marcus could look out across a whole valley. And beyond that he had the maps in his head.
“We’re headed for a park,” Marcus said. He was selling them on a move. “It’s four hundred and eighty thousand acres on a heavily wooded lot. Scenic lakes, mountains, good skiing in the winter, and only thirty minutes from town. They don’t cut trees there.”
“We’d like that,” the dryad rumbled.
Marcus kissed the branch.
“Of course you would.”
They left the Mountie still lying down, stunned. The loggers stirred from their stupor and got into vehicles to follow them. More cars showed up, until an entire procession glided along the roads near the massive walking trees.
Marcus remained balanced on the branch, looking down at the shifting leafy shadows they cast on the road below. Roger would have to come back, Marcus thought as he guided the trees straight through the two towns between the mountain and the park. He wished Roger could see him close this deal.
He’d done well for the trees. He’d done well for Roger. Hell, he thought, he’d done well for himself.
It wasn’t often in life everyone got a win-win deal.
Tides
A few writing books I have recommend buying a book or art, taking a picture, and then writing a story based on what you have before you. I'd never done this before, but I love buying books of science fiction art. One of the Spectrum collections of art I had featured a painting of a shack draped with fishing tackle up on just enormous stilts. I focused right in on it, and left the book open to that painting for days as I kept asking myself what kind of environment needed a building like that. As the answers came, this story just unfolded and begged to be written.
Lots of people ask writers where they get their ideas from. Sometimes it's a complex fusion of various ideas and snippets of inspiration that have been bubbling away underneath. Other times, it's as simple as flipping a page and finding the entire story just sitting in a painting for you. If only all the stories came fully formed and ready to go like this one did.
It was moonlight-time and the second sun, orange and stately, slipped into the inky depths of the Roranraka sea. The first sun had been quenched for well over a tide. Siana played in the silver pools the tide had left behind, looking for spiraled shells that she could decorate her new room with.
She didn’t skip from pool to pool. On the crumbly, wet coral skipping could cause a slip and fall, and Siana had learned about falls the hard way. She had fallen face first into a patch of firecoral when she was very little. Her mom said she’d cried so loud half the tall-village came looking for her. And the wickedly fierce burning left small patches of Siana’
s left cheek discolored.
Siana had to time her excursions for shells well. Her tall-village sat in the middle of the ocean, on the tallest mid-ocean peak where reef had grown and sand had collected over time. Several times during the day the Roranraka receded, and Siana could look for shells. But during the rest of the day the ocean lapped at the pillars of her entire village.
So Siana carefully stepped her way between the pools.
In a funny looking kidney-shaped pool she paused and squatted to try and peer through the mirrored surface. The hem of her gray skirt touched the water and turned even darker. It stirred ripples into the surface as she shifted.
Although Siana couldn’t see very well through her reflection she was the best at finding beautiful shells. It wasn’t a case of looking, she knew, but reaching her hand out over the surface and feeling through the water for the perfect shell.
There! Just tucked into the corner of the pool was a mahogany-brown cowlie. Rippled stripes ran in wedges around the spiral, and clean bone-white patterns twisted in between them. How beautiful. Siana carefully reached down and picked it up. Ah, and she was lucky, nothing had moved into the empty shell.
It sat large in her hand, dripping salty water down her palm and tickling her wrist when she held it up into the moonlight. This will go above the doorway, Siana thought. Right next to Toffhey, her stuffed dolphin.
A large shadow passed in front of Mainmoon: a long, thin, airship. Siana stopped admiring the cowlie. she’d never seen an airship before, though mum talked about them sometimes in a sad way. Teamdroves of enormous wrinkled birds squawked and complained as they pulled the large silvery craft against the wind.
It was going towards her tall-village! Siana tucked the cowlie into a wet, dirty, canvas bag along with all the other shells she’d collected. She walked back home, but slowly. No matter how excited Siana got, she refused to chance the firecoral.
• • •
When Siana finally got home she stood and looked up at the four massive wooden posts that kept home above the high-tide level. All the lanterns were lit, flickering a warm yellow light. Her new room, hanging off of the side of the main hut and propped up on the south post, also had a lantern in the window.
Tides From the New Worlds Page 18