Tree Magic

by Harriet Springbett

  “You see. Same as before.”

  Michael ran his hand over his bald head.

  “Even on tiptoes, you barely touch the branch. It’s incredible.”

  Rainbow scowled. “I was on tiptoes before.”

  “Listen, Rainbow. Is this really for a school project?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I think you should leave it out. It’s too unusual to write about in a project. What do you think?”

  Rainbow turned around. “Where’s Acrobat gone?”

  Michael laughed and laid a hand on her arm.

  “Come inside. I’ve got something to show you.”

  Chapter 6

  Rainbow followed Michael indoors. Acrobat was curled up on her rucksack in the front room. She sat down at the table and stroked him while Michael hunted through one of the cardboard boxes. He soon found what he was looking for and slumped a thick photo album onto the table. Then he drew up a chair beside her.

  The brown-and-white photos he showed her looked more like drawings than the proper colour photographs she was used to seeing. There were babies in flowing white dresses, children posed like grown-ups and a severe granny sitting in a high-backed chair with an ornate walking stick in her hands. Michael flicked through the pages, slowing down once or twice when Rainbow wanted to study a particularly interesting photo: three girls in stripy swimsuits standing on an empty beach, flower-encrusted hats skinned to their heads; a family picnic complete with rug, hamper and crockery. She wished she had a photo like this of her dad.

  He reached a frilly edged photo of a grizzled man leaning on a rough-cut staff, and stopped. He squinted and passed his index finger over the old man.

  “Here he is.”

  “Who is it?” she asked, intrigued by the shepherd. “He looks like Patti’s pictures of Jesus.”

  “This is my great-grandfather, the one who started our tree nursery,” said Michael. “When you asked me about stretching trees, I said I’d never seen it done. But I have heard of it. There were rumours about my great-grandfather being a wizard. When I was five, and fascinated by witches and wizards, my great-grandfather died. He must have been at least a hundred years old. After the funeral, everyone came back to the house and I heard two old ladies talking about his magic. I already knew he had healing hands and could make people well, but these ladies were gossiping about his magic with trees. They were telling each other about the times he’d changed the shapes of trees. They talked about how he’d cured trees of diseases, repaired their damaged bark and rebalanced them when they’d been uprooted. So I asked my grandfather what they meant about his father’s magic. But he growled at me and threatened me with a hiding if I ever spoke about it. He was wicked with a belt.”

  “So other people can make trees grow?”

  “Well, I haven’t heard the like of it since, and the rumour was never confirmed by anyone, so it can’t be very common. And when something isn’t very common, we have to be careful what we say.”

  Silence pressed in on her. It felt as if Michael were sharing a huge secret with her, not the other way around.

  “You mean keep it secret?”

  “Yes. It would be best for the moment. How many people know about your gift?”

  “No one really. Bob saw what I’d done to grow my tree house but I think he believed my lie.”

  Michael didn’t look reassured.

  “What about Jasmine?”

  Rainbow jerked up her chin. “How do you know my mum’s name?”

  “They told me in the pub. Does she know about your gift?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I shouldn’t mention it to her – mothers tend to over-worry.”

  “Not mine. I did tell her I had magic hands, but she wasn’t listening and just told me to magic myself away.”

  Michael shook his head, smiling slightly.

  “What do you think would happen if people knew about your gift?”

  Rainbow crossed her arms and considered.

  “If it’s really spooky, I expect the newspapers would do a piece on me and I’d get lots of money. And everyone at school would call me a weirdo and not want to hang around with me.”

  “Right. You’d be exploited. Do you know what that means?”

  “Of course.”

  “Your life wouldn’t be your own. You’d be like a celebrity, but worse. People would treat you as an oddity. That wouldn’t be much fun, would it?”

  “I’m used to that. At school they give me sideways looks every time I ask a question.”

  “Do they?”

  “They did. Now I don’t ask questions.”

  Michael grinned and then shook his head. “Actually, being exploited would be far worse than the sideways looks. You’d better not mention your gift for the time being. When you’re older, you can think about whether you want to use it as a basis for your life’s work.”

  “You mean as a career? Shaping trees?”

  Her mind flitted back to an old story, a legend her mum had told her years ago, before she’d started school: something about a foreign girl risking her life for a tree. Rita something? Rita Devi? No, Amrita Devi. That was it.

  “Maybe,” said Michael.

  “I like the sound of that,” she said.

  “Good. It’ll be our secret. Can you keep secrets?”

  The memory of Fraser and Mum laughing together over her secret about Mrs Jones flitted into her mind. She frowned. But Michael didn’t know Mum. Rainbow vowed she would never let him get near her. As long as they didn’t meet, it would be fine.

  “I can keep it secret,” she said, “but what about you? Do you promise not to tell anyone?”

  Michael held up a finger and drew it across his throat. “Cross my heart, hope to die.” He paused for a moment, then continued: “If you like, I can teach you what I know about trees. Then when the time comes for you to decide whether you want to develop your gift, you’ll already be a tree expert.”

  “You bet! I don’t know anything about them.” Rainbow scooped up Acrobat from where he was pawing a panicking beetle on the floor. “But I’ve got to go now. School starts tomorrow.”

  She began the new school year reluctantly. Each day was a trial to be passed until she was free to do the things that really mattered: shaping trees and sketching. Michael was the key to both, and she sketched or learnt about trees with him most evenings on her way home from school. Sometimes she’d watch him sculpting and other times she’d ask for help with her homework. His job sorting mail in the local town meant that he worked early in the mornings and was always at home by late afternoon.

  He told magical tales about his travels in Europe on his motorbike before his accident. He’d never lived in one place for more than a year, and admitted that he found it impossible to settle down. Sometimes he’d regretted running away, but when she asked him why, he changed the subject. Rainbow imagined a lonely girl standing on top of a hill with tears running down her face, watching him leave. She didn’t press him for more details.

  More than anything, they talked about trees. Rainbow told him which ones she’d shaped and brought him leaves so they could identify them in the book he’d given her. The only disappointment was that he couldn’t walk very far because of his leg. He never accompanied her on her tree-research trips to the surrounding woods.

  One Saturday afternoon in late October Rainbow couldn’t stand being shut indoors any longer. She’d spent all day hoping for the sun to appear so she could grow some trees but it was still gloomy outside and would soon be dark.

  As soon as Mum and Bob had wandered their separate afternoon ways, she shoved open the sitting-room window and breathed in the essence of decomposing leaves. An autumn mist shrouded Wymer Hill. Rainbow wished she could live in a parallel world where there were no rules and no school; just her and nature and Acrobat … and Michael.

  She loved this season. Early autumn meant swirling leaves, gales and drizzle before the crunchy frosts of November arrived. On windy da
ys she was powerful: a witch running through the fields, the wind buffeting her, hair whipping around her face as she twirled to the whistling fury in the treetops. The wind gave her power. It could make her fly, she was sure. She could almost hear voices in it, calling to her, beckoning her to climb to dizzy heights and launch herself into its invisible embrace.

  Today, however, was calm and dank. She left the window open to fill the stuffy room with damp October air and pulled on her favourite red anorak. Calling Acrobat, she picked her way through the wet grass to the tree house. Acrobat shook each paw as he lifted it, making their progress tortoise-like.

  “Come on, Fatty Batty!”

  Autumn had stripped her weeping willow of leaves. She hoisted Acrobat onto the pole she’d placed at an angle between her den and the ground as a bridge for him, and climbed her rope ladder. She’d made another change too: the roof was now lined with some plastic sheeting Michael had given her, which meant she could spend time here when it was raining.

  In her box she kept the guide to common trees that had belonged to Michael’s great-grandfather. Her favourite pages were the black-and-white photos of different barks. She could imagine them under her fingertips as she studied them. This helped soothe the ache when she hadn’t touched a tree for a few days. On each page there was a space for notes. Here, she drew the trees she’d shaped and wrote how each one felt to her hands. Some trees were easier to shape than others; some made more of a whistle than a creak while they stretched, and some left deeper marks on her hands.

  She’d already worked on half the trees in her book. Today, the page fell open at the beech tree. She studied the picture of the canopy shape, the sketches of the leaf and beechnuts and the photo of its bark. She wouldn’t have time to do any growing before night fell but she could search for a beech. She turned down the corner of the page, slipped it into her rucksack, and left her tree house. Acrobat poked his nose around the plastic sheet that acted as the door, twitched his whiskers and returned inside.

  “See you, Bats. Don’t let anyone in,” called Rainbow.

  She dragged open the five-barred gate that separated the garden from the muddy lane and walked down the hill, stepping around pothole pools, her hands buried in the fur of her pockets. She thought she’d seen a beech tree on the way to the village. The trees passed, looking down at her sleepily, as if she was stationary and they were moving. She stopped at the oak she’d stretched on her way home from school the week before and examined its bark. The place where she’d laid her hands showed no signs of damage.

  It didn’t take long to find the beech tree. She was a redheaded beauty, almost symmetrical, the exception being the side hanging over the lane. Tractors had mauled the branches on this side as they towed trailer-loads of hay up the lane, giving the tree the look of a home-haircut. Rainbow fingered her own hair, remembering the disastrous fringe and her classmates’ sniggers. Mum hadn’t understood why she’d grown out the fringe.

  On the side of the lane, in the passing space that was already thick with a batter of fallen leaves and mud, lay a topping of beechnuts. They were prickly under her booted feet. She bent down and studied the hollow-cheeked pyramids, then slipped a few clean ones into her pocket.

  The bark of the beech tree surprised her. It was as smooth as it looked in the photo and reminded her of wallpaper. Its irregular, horizontal knife-scores gave it relief. They lipped up as she ran her fingers up and down the trunk. She would enjoy growing this one. Its trunk divided into tributaries at the height of her shoulders, so she would be able to climb into it easily. Not today though: it was too wet. And it was starting to get dark.

  She wondered whether she had time to visit Michael. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d lent her a torch so that she could turn it on if any cars came along the lane on her way home. It was a five-minute walk to his house. The previous evening he’d mentioned an idea for a shared drawing project. She’d been working on caricatures, and her favourite was a girl she liked to draw sitting in trees or hugging their trunks. She called the character Amrita and had told Michael what she remembered of the Bishnoi legend.

  Her decision was quickly made. She jogged down the lane to join her best friend in the Drunken House.

  Chapter 7

  “You’re late again!” Bob bellowed. He was downstairs.

  “It’s your fault for setting a rehearsal at such a stupid time. On a Sunday, too,” shrieked Mum.

  Rainbow, sitting upstairs in her bedroom, wondered why they had to shout when they were in the same room as each other.

  “Four o’clock is reasonable for any normal person. Look at the state of you!”

  “Just because you’re dressed up for that slut, it doesn’t mean I have to be.”

  Rainbow covered her ears with her hands. For a moment, all she could hear was the reassuring pound of blood coursing through veins and a slight creaking as her fingers stiffened and relaxed. Then Mum and Bob’s voices forced their way into her cocoon.

  “Shut up!” Rainbow yelled. “I’m trying to do my homework.”

  Acrobat, curled up on her lap, dug in his claws and stretched.

  There was silence.

  Ten minutes later Mum put her head around Rainbow’s bedroom door. She was heavily made-up and dressed in purple and black with orange trimmings.

  “We’re off to our rehearsal, love,” she said. “Will you be all right on your own?”

  “I always am, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, you act more maturely than a certain person I could mention.”

  Rainbow refused to be drawn in. “You’d better go. You’re already late.”

  She turned back to her maths homework and pretended to be absorbed in the figures. Mum dropped a kiss onto her head and left the room.

  “Rainbow! Don’t let the fire go out,” shouted Bob.

  Rainbow tickled Acrobat’s ears with her right hand and twiddled her pen in her left. Mum was starting to talk about Bob in the same tone of voice she used for Dad, on the rare occasions she mentioned him. She’d married Bob when Rainbow was only a year old and Rainbow couldn’t remember being on her own with Mum. Would Bob leave them too? She wouldn’t care if he did, except that she’d have to cope with Mum alone. She imagined Mum turning wild, wandering aimlessly around the countryside and singing her depressing songs until ivy grew over her and transformed her into a gnarled statue. At least Bob kept Mum in touch with reality. Dad had given up on her.

  She dropped her pen in surprise. There was no Dad-ache! She usually felt a longing when she thought about her dad. But since she’d met Michael and started to learn about trees, the hollow inside her seemed to have closed up. Michael meant much more to her than Fraser had ever done. He was her secret, her accomplice. She mustn’t let Mum bewitch him.

  Acrobat miaowed. He shook himself out of Rainbow’s grip and fell to the floor, his tail wagging.

  “Oh, Bats! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  She picked him up and squashed her face into his ginger fur.

  “Let’s go out. Maybe Michael will help me with this maths.”

  She took one last despairing look at her maths homework. It was taking forever to finish. The numbers stared stubbornly back at her. They refused to team up and rearrange themselves into brackets. She folded her answer sheet into four and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. Mr Cunningham talked about solving problems with numbers, but Rainbow couldn’t get to grips with this concept. How could you solve a problem with numbers? She wondered whether she could solve the Mum and Bob problem with numbers. Which ones would it take?

  She threw on her red anorak, left the house and jogged down the road to Michael’s. A yellow stain of light in the mist outside his window showed he was in. She knocked at the door. While she waited, she pulled the beechnuts out of her pocket and examined the starred husks. They were bristly, but the bristles didn’t hurt the toughened skin of her palms as they once would have done.

  “Hello, Rainbow.” Michael opened
the door wide.

  “Hi. Are you busy?”

  “No. I had a friend here, but he left a minute ago.”

  She stepped inside and shut the door against the October chill.

  “Shall we finish our picture?” he continued. “I’ve hidden it away so I’m not tempted to look at your half, and so you don’t look at mine.”

  “Where have you put it?”

  He tapped the side of his nose. “It’s safe under its tiled roof.”

  It would be easy to follow him and discover his hiding place but her concern, for the moment, was her maths. She asked if he’d help her and he agreed. She took off her coat and hung it on her hook. After two months of occupation, the Drunken House was warm in the middle but still a little damp around the edges.

  “So who’s your friend?” she asked.

  “A bloke called Fraser. You may know his daughter. She’s called Becky.”

  “Fraser?”

  “Oh dear. It sounds as if you don’t like them.”

  “I hate him.”

  Michael rubbed his head.

  “Does he know I come here?” asked Rainbow.

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Good. Don’t ever say my name to him. Please.”

  She couldn’t bear to think of Fraser talking to Michael about her; to imagine them laughing together over things she’d said and done.

  “You haven’t mentioned my gift to him, have you?”

  “Of course not.” Michael paused. “Do you want to tell me why you feel so strongly?”

  Rainbow shook her head. She pulled her homework out of her pocket and put it on the table. Michael stared at it.

  “Talking of secrets,” he continued, “does your mum know that you visit me?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Doesn’t she wonder where you are?”

  “Mum doesn’t notice I’ve gone, let alone wonder where I am. Bob knows I’m out, but he thinks I’m defying Mum and hanging out at Patti’s.”