I slept for a while and woke up with a bad case of the dries. Somehow, I managed to stumble into the bathroom for a glass of water, and then the telephone in the kitchen started ringing. I found my way to it, shading my eyes against the morning light as I leaned against the wall and picked up the receiver.
“Hello,” I mumbled.
“Hey, Jennie! This is Curt. Gosh, it’s great hearing your voice again—been a long time,”
I sank into the chair below the phone. “Yeah.”
“Evie said she was going up there this weekend. Wish I could be there with you guys.”
I always got nervous when my brother sounded cheerful, especially at that hour of the day. “She’s trying to talk me into letting the rest of you sell,” I said.
“Well, I know, but don’t think we’re going to get rid of the camp or anything. I was talking to Sam last night, and we were thinking that maybe you should get the deed to the camp, along with your share of whatever we get for the land. We owe you something for taking care of Dad before he went to the hospital, for coming home when he got sick,” So Curt was offering me a bribe. “I know the place means a lot to you, so maybe you should have it. Of course, I hope you’ll let your old brother come to visit once in a while.”
I was silent.
“You’d have enough money to get another place for yourself, get a new start, but the camp would be there for the summers. You could—”
“I won’t sell,”
“What?”
“I’m not going to let this land be sold. I won’t sign any papers. I won’t go along with you.”
“Jennie? Jennie?”
I rubbed at my aching temples, refusing to answer him.
“I want to talk to Evie,” he said at last.
My sister was standing in the doorway. I got up, handed her the phone, and went to my bedroom. Evie was talking in a low voice, but sounds echoed in the kitchen, so occasionally I caught a few words. “Crazy” was one. The words that disturbed me most, though, were “power of attorney.” So they were considering that option already.
A rumbling sound came from under the cabin. Another small quake, I thought; they were certainly coming more often lately. I heard Evie hang up, and then the banging of pots in the kitchen. I dozed off, and woke to find Evie carrying a tray into the room.
“You need breakfast,” she said as she set the tray down. “There’s coffee, eggs, and toast. You’d better rest today—you look like you might be coming down with something. I’ll stay here until you’re feeling better, and then I’ll head into town to pick up more groceries.”
She handed me the coffee; I sipped at it. “You should know better than to drink so much,” she went on, “what with your manic-depression and all.” She was already laying the groundwork, but not out of malice. Like my brothers, she was probably half-convinced that I really was demented, and that it would all be for the best in the end. Evie could persuade herself that I would be better off in treatment, with others handling my affairs. She would play nurse this morning until I felt better, and then go off to town, where she would probably call Curt from a public phone so that they could decide what to do next. They would tell themselves they were saving my life, that they were helping me.
“You look like death warmed over,” Evie said as she lit a cigarette. I set down my cup. She seemed to be holding a glowing coal to her lips as coils of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. Her dark eyes glittered, and her face was as still as a mask.
Masks, I thought, and recalled something else I had read. I had been reading a lot while living at the camp, going into town to buy old books at garage sales and to take others out of the library. That was how severed I was from our traditions; I had to pick up a lot of my people’s lore from books. Now I remembered reading about the False Faces.
The shamans called the False Faces would come to the longhouses to heal the ill, bearing hot coals in their hands. They would put on their masks and sprinkle ashes over the ailing person, and if by some miracle they saved him, he had to become one of them. I drew in Evie’s smoke; an ash from the end of her cigarette fell on my hand.
She was a False Face, I suddenly realized, but one who served evil spirits. She would nurse me and heal me and bring me back from the dead. Then I would have to join her and my brothers and the society of those who bought and sold and tore at the land instead of living lightly on it, giving back what they took from it. I would have to live in their world.
“Get away from me!” I was on my feet, struggling against her as she tried to restrain me. Evie was three inches taller, and a good thirty pounds heavier, but I broke her grip and pushed her against the wall. She fell, and then I was running through the living room toward the porch. It was dark out there for that time of day. I lifted my head and gazed through the screen.
The big pine had grown during the night. Its trunk was much wider, almost cutting off the dock from view. Nothing could grow that fast, and yet the great tree’s roots now twisted over much of the cleared land around the cabin. I looked up through the lattice of green branches at a patch of sky. The pine had grown past the trees around it; I could no longer see the top.
“Oh, my God,” I said under my breath.
“You crazy bitch.” I turned to see Evie stomping toward me. “I tried to be reasonable about this. You really are nuts, and—”
“Get out!” I shouted. “Get the hell out of here.” I went at her, but she jumped back before I could hit her.
“You’ll be sorry for this, Jennie.”
“Get out!” I swung at her, then ran after her as she retreated across the kitchen. My knee caught the table, and I was suddenly on the floor. By the time I got up, Evie was gone.
I stumbled toward the door. Evie was making for her car across a maze of roots. A bulge in the ground appeared near the cabin, as if a giant mole was burrowing nearby. “Evie!” I shouted, but she was inside the Honda and barreling up to the road before I could get to her. Brown tentacles snaked after the car, scattering dirt and grass. I don’t know if Evie saw the roots. Maybe by then she was too concerned with getting away from her crazy sister to notice anything.
The ground heaved under my feet; roots spread out around me as I walked back to the cabin, swelling in size until they reached nearly to my knees. The pine now blocked most of the path leading down to the lake, and the smaller trees around it nestled in the furrows between its roots.
The cabin shook, but I felt calm as I sat down at the kitchen table. It came to me that I had been waiting for something like this, and that the pine and its burgeoning roots might solve my problem. Nobody would want to buy land near a spot where trees behaved this way.
I went to my bedroom, picked up the remains of my breakfast, then made more coffee. The floor trembled, but I made no move to leave. A glance out the kitchen window revealed that the roots had surrounded my car and that more had tunneled up to the road; I would never be able to drive over them. I might be able to get to the camp overlooking the channel on foot. Maybe the people there, the closest neighbors to me, had seen the giant pine springing toward the sky. Perhaps its roots were already moving in that direction.
Father had posted a list of numbers near the telephone. I found the number of my neighbors, then dialed it quickly.
“Simmons here,” a voice said in my ear.
“Mr. Simmons, I’m your neighbor, Jennifer Relson, from the other end of the bay. I think I’d better warn you that a tree around here seems to be out of control.”
“What?”
“It’s growing really fast. I can’t even see how tall it is any more, and the roots are going all over the place. What I’m trying to say is they might come your way.”
“What?”
“The tree’s roots,” I said. “They’re growing all around this camp now, high as walls!”
“Look, lady, I was just on my way out. I don’t know what you’re smoking, but—”
I hung up. Maybe he would believe me when he saw the roots
moving toward him, if they got that far. How far could they spread? I went outside to find out. The tree’s trunk had grown as wide as the cabin; the pines around it swayed as smaller roots twisted across the ground, then burrowed into it. I climbed over roots, into the ways between them, and over more roots again until I could see the lake.
The yodeling cry of loons greeted me; five more had joined the one I had been watching. The pine didn’t seem to be growing any more, but long bands of brown bark were winding among the trees on the other side of the bay. I sat down, resting my back against a root. Dark veins snaked through the forest until the hills across the lake seemed enmeshed in a network of tunnels.
Strangely, none of the maples and pines seemed harmed by the roots, which bulged up and around the trees without crushing them. The loons bobbed on the smooth, mirror-like surface of the water, the turtles basked on their logs, and deer had come down to the opposite shore to drink. The birds and animals were undisturbed by the roots branching out around them; the loons filled the air once more with their wild laughter.
I turned away from the lake and clambered back over the roots. Above, the cabin nestled among curved brown walls, an outpost of order in the midst of disorder. The phone was ringing when I went inside. I waited for a bit, then picked up the receiver.
“Listen, Jennie,” my sister said. “I’m trying to understand, I really am. I’m willing to come back if you’ll promise to be sensible,” There was the sound of country-and-western music in the background, which meant Evie was probably calling from the Brass Rail, the only bar in town. “If you don’t,” she continued, “I’m going to call Curt and Sam, and discuss this, and we’ll decide what to do about you,”
“But you can’t do anything,” I said. “You won’t get past the roots. They’re all over the place now.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Didn’t you see them on your way out?”
“I thought it was only your manic-depression, but you’re really out to lunch. That does it, Jennie. I’m calling Curt as soon as—”
“Go ahead and call. You’ll just be wasting your money. There’s nothing you can do.” She didn’t answer. “Evie? Evie?”
The line was dead. I wandered through the cabin, trying to sort out my thoughts. The electricity still worked, and water came out of the bathroom faucets. If I didn’t look through the windows at the bark barriers entwined around the place, I could almost believe everything was still normal. Somehow, the burrowing roots weren’t affecting the cabin, but that probably wouldn’t be the case for long. Eventually I would run out of food, and the roots would keep me from driving into town for more. There was no reason to stay anyway. How could my sister and brothers sell this land now?
I packed some food and a canteen of water, then struggled over the roots down to the dock. The roots winding among the forested hills had settled down, but now a brown wall cut off Mr. Simmons’s camp from view. He had said he was on his way out when I called; he would certainly be surprised when he tried to drive back. There was no point in going to his place anyway. I would try for town. I didn’t think about what I would do if the roots had spread that far.
I dropped the backpack into the canoe, then climbed in and paddled out, looking back when I was halfway across the bay. The pine towered overhead, as tall as a skyscraper, dwarfing everything around it, its needles as long as arrows. The surface of the lake was dappled by the green shadows of giant boughs. There had been some peace for me under the tree my grandmother had planted; maybe its limbs would grow vast enough to shelter the world. I paddled out from the shadows toward the far shore.
I beached the canoe at a spot where the land sloped gently up from the water, then shouldered my backpack. The tangle of roots on the hillside above had cut me off from a path that led to the nearest road. I scrambled over one thick root, into a ditch and up another root, then sat down to consider my options.
Even if I managed to find the road, making it to town might be pointless. If the roots had spread that far, I would only find chaos, and be forced to try for refuge somewhere else. I lifted my head and gazed across the lake at the camp. The cabin was hidden, the great tree a branching green canopy shielding the forests below. Roots were looped among the reeds near the shore; I thought of them tunneling under the water. The mountains beyond the bay, made blue by the distance, were now covered by thin brown webs.
So the roots had already spread that far. In the middle of this unexplainable event, sitting on top of a root that gently pulsated under me, I was surprised to find that I could still think rationally. Reason told me that my only choice now was to find the road, follow it to town, and figure out what to do after I found out what was going on there. If I kept climbing this hill, I would eventually reach the road, however many roots barred the way.
The tree was still stretching toward the sky, as if time was accelerating. I imagined the great pine springing into space, its boughs embracing the moon as its roots clutched at the earth. A wedge of ducks, quacking loudly, dropped toward the lake; the water blossomed around them as they landed. Maybe that was keeping me sane, the fact that the birds and animals I had seen were acting normally, that the roots had not harmed or frightened them. Perhaps the animals were somehow blind to them. I narrowed my eyes and stilled my thoughts, and the roots became translucent, as if I were gazing at one image superimposed on another. But the root under me still throbbed, as though sap and nutrients were coursing through it, and I felt the ground shake as another root slithered past my feet. The great pine and its roots might save this bay from intruders. I wanted them to be real.
As I stared at the lake, an eagle flew out from under the great pine, soared over the bay, then dropped toward me and landed in a branch overhead. It watched me for a while, waiting.
“Well?” I said. The bird fluttered its wings, then lifted from its perch.
The eagle wanted me to follow. I didn’t think of why a wild bird of prey would want me to follow it anywhere, but sensed that it did. The eagle led me. Whenever I was lost and uncertain of which way to go, it would return and circle above me before flying on.
I climbed over roots and down into wide ditches, then thrashed my way through underbrush. Roots were looped around berry bushes and arched over creeks. The staccato tapping of woodpeckers filled the forest, and once I glimpsed a rabbit before it hopped over a root and disappeared. I kept going, following my feathered guide through the tangled tendrils of wood until my backpack seemed as heavy as a boulder and my arms felt like useless baggage; my legs were cramping from climbing over so many roots. It was beginning to dawn on me that I should have come to the road by now, that the eagle was only leading me even farther into the forest.
I leaned against a tree, cursing myself for my stupidity. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have stayed in my canoe, headed through the channel and then hugged the shore until I reached town that way. Now I was too lost even to find my way back to the canoe. I might have given up then if the eagle hadn’t flown back and landed on a branch just above me.
“I suppose you want me to go on,” I said. “Not that I have much choice,” The bird tilted its head. What was the point, after all, of going back to a world where I had always felt displaced, where something inside me had constantly threatened to burgeon as wildly as these roots? My previous life had been as uncontrolled as this growth, a manic lashing out followed by a burrowing into depression. Like the pine my grandmother had planted, I had been waiting to gather my strength. I don’t know whether my grandmother had meant this to happen, or if she had been ignorant of the pine’s power, but I would take my chances among the roots burrowing into the earth, among the trees the great pine was protecting.
“Grandma,” I whispered, “you planted some kind of tree.”
The deep green light of the forest grew darker. The eagle disappeared. I struggled on until I reached a small clearing. Ahead lay the largest root I had yet seen, a rounded ridge of bark as high as a good-sized hill.
I was too tired to go on. I stretched out, propping myself against the backpack. The air was still; the birds were silent. My ancestors had believed there were spirits in these mountains, but I was more fearful of animals that might be lurking nearby. Then a darker thought came to me, the kind of grim reflection I often had just before falling asleep, a thought that becomes a sinkhole swallowing every fragment of hope.
Maybe I was as crazy as Evie believed. Maybe the sudden growth of the pine tree and its huge, spreading roots were a delusion. I wanted to save this land so badly that I could imagine the supernatural had intervened to save it. I had called up this vision, and the small part of me that was still sane was able to perceive that the surrounding land and wildlife were unaffected by my imaginings. Maybe I would wake to find everything as it had been, and be unable to find my way out of the woods. Fear locked my muscles and dried up my mouth. I might wander these mountains until I joined the roaming spirits of Indians who had never been laid to rest.
“Perhaps you will,” a voice said. “Maybe this is all an illusion after all.” The voice was inside me, but I opened my eyes to see a woman standing near the root. She wore a long cloak decorated with beads and a band with eagle feathers over her brow, but the darkness hid her face. “Perhaps what you see is only a vision that will vanish, and you will return to the world you remember. But you cannot find your way back to your canoe without help, and even if you made it to the town, what then?”
“My sister’s there,” I replied, “and she thinks I’m a few cards short of a deck as it is. She’d have all the reasons she needs to put me away. Can’t really blame her, you know—she has other priorities.”
Eye of Flame Page 13