Tree Magic

by Harriet Springbett

  Trish puts an arm around her.

  “You’ve gone all white.”

  It feels as if her soul is being sucked out of her skin. She takes seven deep breaths in an effort to curb the sensation.

  “Let’s sit down for a minute,” says Trish.

  They sit down on the grass.

  “Sorry.” Mary’s voice is weak. She has to divert her thoughts from trees. “So, what are you planning to do now?”

  “I’m going to start by taking my A levels, then I’ll get a university degree, and after that I’ll head into the world of marketing. I’m going to do lots of voluntary work with the gang at the same time. They’re trying to raise awareness about the importance of trees to the environment. The idea is for me to work for them once I get my marketing degree. It’s really worthwhile. I can get you involved if you–”

  “No!”

  “Oh.” Trish looks taken aback. “What are your plans now your A levels are over, then?”

  Mary visualises the Eiffel Tower and begins to feel better.“I’m spending the summer with Katia. Then I’m going to university in Paris for a year. I’m off tomorrow.”

  “That’s great. You’ve wanted to live in Paris for ages.”

  “We’ll only be in Paris until the middle of July. After that we’re going to stay with Katia’s cousins for the rest of the summer. They’ve got a farm in the countryside, near a little town called Cognac. You know, like the drink.”

  “Cognac. Whereabouts is that?”

  Mary stands up and links her arm through Trish’s.

  “I’ve no idea, but it sounds cool from Katia’s description of the summer festivals there. I feel as if I know it already.”

  Chapter 35

  Rainbow

  Rainbow’s second lycée year finished in June and she immediately started a summer holiday job in the local garden nursery. It was an escape from the dullness of the commune and a breathing space before she entered her third and final year. If only she hadn’t failed her first year, she’d be free now.

  Domi had suggested she work as a palm-reader during the summer holidays. She felt a fraud when she read palms. People thought it was magical, whereas she simply analysed lines and sensed the client’s personality. At least the work in the nursery meant she was in touch with nature. Plants were honest. Her gift only worked on trees, but garden plants responded well to her handling. Her boss said she had la main verte – which was the French term for green fingers.

  This morning she was at the cash till. It was the part she least liked. While she waited for customers, she usually read through the gardening books or sketched. When they arrived, spilling the earth from her baby plants over the hardwood counter, she would silently bid the plants farewell. She scarcely noticed the people buying them.

  Today, she was finishing a drawing while she waited. She closed her eyes and visualised the small-leaved elm she’d found at the weekend. The bark of its tender branches was characterised by corky ridges, which made the young boughs look old and wrinkled. They reminded her of her hands. She opened her eyes and sketched, consulting the outline sketches in her scruffy notebook.

  When she’d finished the tree she added a caricature of Amrita. She smiled to herself. The picture of Amrita comparing her hands to the tree’s bark had a hint of humour in it. She’d sketched Amrita for years now and felt she understood her personality. She added a touch of red and pink to Amrita’s sari. This made Amrita leap to the forefront of the picture and become its heroine, its focal point.

  “Can I have a look?”

  Rainbow jumped. She snatched the sketch pad towards her chest and looked up. The French voice belonged to a boy of her age. His eyes were the blue of jays’ feathers and he had a stubby brown pencil tucked above his right ear.

  Her back began to tingle. She gasped. It was stronger than the other time she’d experienced it, in the cedar tree two years ago. The shivers ran down her spine, tripping on each vertebra. She clutched her book in anticipation of her soul lifting far into the air. It was slower this time, as if her soul was heavier. She stared at the boy, poised for spiritual flight. But there was nothing more than a continual ripple that raised the hairs all over her body. It was unpleasant, actually. Not like last time at all. She shook herself.

  “Are you all right?” the boy asked.

  Last time the tingling had gone on for less than a second. This time it wouldn’t stop. It was like waiting at a level crossing for the carriages of a goods train to trundle past.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  The boy glanced backwards and then passed his hand in front of her face. She blinked and managed to ignore the sensation.

  “Oh. Sorry about that. Can I help you?” she asked in French. He was holding a yucca plant.

  “Would you like me to call someone?”

  He reached out and touched her arm. The tingling stopped. She looked down at the hand that had worked magic on her. He had bitten nails, long, stained fingers that looked as if an ink cartridge had exploded on them, and he smelt of lemons. He took his hand away and the tingling returned, though in a lower key. It was a manageable hum now. She smiled at him, lighting up a dazzling reflection of a smile on his lips.

  “Are you one too?” she asked.

  His smile quivered. “Sorry?”

  “A healer. Are you a healer?”

  A frown extinguished his smile. “Certainly not. I’m an artist, not a con artist.” He smiled again. “My name’s Nicolas Lalande.”

  Rainbow opened her mouth to argue that not all healers were dishonest. But she didn’t want him to turn off his smile again. And the tingling was increasing.

  Nicolas slid the yucca plant onto the counter and held out his hand. Rainbow eased her hand into his and shook it. The tingling stopped.

  “I’m Rainbow Linnet.”

  “Rainbow,” he repeated. He didn’t ask the usual follow-up questions about her strange name. “Can I look at your drawing?”

  Hours seemed to have passed since he first asked the question. She laid the sketch pad flat on the counter and turned it to face him.

  “Wow!”

  He picked up the pad, held it close and then at arm’s length. Rainbow could sense him fizzing with excitement. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and ran his hand through his hair.

  “Wow! I can really feel those colours. It’s her.”

  “Do you know her?” asked Rainbow.

  “She’s just what I’ve been looking for. She’s my character; in my graphic novel.”

  He picked up the pad and waved it at her as if this explained everything.

  “You’ve got to work with me.”

  His enthusiasm was infectious. “Yes!” she said. She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she knew the answer was yes.

  “Good. What time do you leave work?”

  She dragged her eyes from his face and looked around her. She was still in the nursery.

  “Oh. Six o’clock.”

  Nicolas nodded furiously, pulling out the pencil from behind his ear and a tiny sketch pad from his back pocket. He scribbled down his address in the town of Saintes and tore out the page.

  “Bring all the stuff you’ve done with this character,” he said, and passed her the page. He reached out to shake hands, changed his mind and kissed her on each cheek. “I’m so glad I’ve found you.”

  He picked up the yucca and swept out of the door.

  “See you later,” murmured Rainbow.

  She sank into her chair. It was only when the next customer arrived at the desk that she realised Nicolas hadn’t paid.

  Sitting in the train to Saintes that evening, she resolved to ask Nicolas for the money. The moment he opened the door and kissed her, however, she forgot about the yucca plant. He whisked her into his world of pencils and paper in the studio shed at the bottom of his parents’ garden. The room smelt lemony from his deodorant and was deeply silent apart from an intermittent scratching from a branch against the window.
She hardly noticed the shelves of comic books, the pots of ink pens and water, trays of crayons and piles of drawing paper on the floor. Her mind and spirit were overpowered by his effervescence.

  He sat her at the drawing board in the centre of the room and circled her, pulling out volumes of comic books, showing her his first graphic novel, pointing out the framed, signed pictures on the walls. He told her to call him Nico, shortened her name to Renne, went through page after page of sketches from his current graphic novel and electrified her with excitement for his project. She soon grasped the storyline: a gipsy boy called Enzo loses his memory in an accident and meets a traveller girl. This girl takes Enzo through pages of different scenery and helps him pick up the pieces of his memory. Nico used scenery to show emotion. His problem was how to depict the messianic quality of his traveller girl and integrate her into his backgrounds.

  “Draw her for me,” he said. He whipped a piece of paper from one of the piles and slapped it onto the drawing board.

  The paper was big, white and empty. “Doing what?”

  “Let’s have her meeting Enzo. Standing. Looking enlightened.”

  Rainbow sketched. With Nico standing beside her, she worked faster. Her lines were defter than usual and Amrita looked more confident.

  “Good. Now let’s have her walking.”

  Rainbow sketched.

  “Running, her hand in Enzo’s, pulling him forwards.”

  The evening continued. Sitting. She sketched. Lying down. She started a new piece of paper. Looking sad. Crying because Enzo has just recounted something terrible he’s remembered.

  It was dark outside by the time Nico was satisfied that they had worked enough. Her fingers were numb and her stomach was growling. He grinned at her.

  “I’ll come to your house tomorrow evening. Then we can really get started.”

  It wasn’t until she had kissed him goodbye and he’d closed the front door that she realised she was exhausted.

  She rigged up trestles and boards in her loft bedroom the next evening so they could work in peace. She waited outside the commune and, as soon as he’d parked his grey Peugeot 205, she led him indoors before Mum could see him. The kids, sitting at the outdoor table, looked up. Nico didn’t appear to notice them and they returned to the board game they were playing. Only Sandrine stared. Rainbow paused on the threshold. Sandrine’s expression was horrified. Rainbow never invited friends home, apart from Sylvia. This would be the first time a boy had come into her bedroom. Was Sandrine worried about what they might do together? Or was she having a bad clairvoyant moment?

  Nico turned around to see what Rainbow was looking at, and she quickly led him upstairs. She didn’t want him to suspect that Le Logis was a spiritual commune.

  “This is perfect,” he said. “Plenty of light. Lots of room. And a long way from your family.”

  She opened her mouth to correct him. But in some ways he was right. The commune was her family. He needn’t know about their line of work. She helped him lay out his pencils and inks, and listened to him enthuse about the ideas he’d had for the graphic novel after she’d left last night.

  Once his tools were ready, he started to sketch Amrita in the doorway of a caravan. Rainbow watched him. He stopped moving when he was drawing. The energy of his aura became focused on his pencil and he seemed to disappear, devoured by his work. She sat close beside him, wanting him to look up and notice her. But it was only when she started to draw a panel with Amrita swimming in a river pool that her connection to his intensity returned.

  “Merde! She won’t come,” he said.

  Rainbow looked at his panel. The girl he’d drawn wasn’t Amrita. There was something wrong with the shape of her face. Or was it her eyes? Each feature individually was correct. The problem was her overall demeanour: she looked ordinary.

  He slid the sheet of paper towards her. “You draw her.”

  She rubbed out his work and replaced it with the familiar lines. It worked. She sat back and smiled at Nico.

  He was almost buzzing with excitement again. “You’ve got something dead special there.”

  “Really?” She glanced down at Amrita and then back into Nico’s shining eyes.

  “Really. You’ll have to draw her in the panels and I’ll do the rest.”

  She could feel herself glowing in pride, glowing from the current he was discharging. This was going to be the best summer of her life.

  Chapter 36

  Rainbow

  Rainbow and Nico worked together most evenings and every weekend. Rainbow concentrated on encouraging Amrita to express the ideas Nico demanded of her. Each time she succeeded, he rewarded her with a burst of excitement and an exclamation of pleasure. She basked in his admiration. If only it would last more than a few seconds.

  He drew page layouts, wrote scenes and explained the concepts of la bande dessinée until Rainbow dreamt in panels and speech bubbles. He wanted to enter the student section of a local comics competition being held in August. Their entry had to be ready by the end of July.

  She no longer sketched Amrita as an afterthought to her tree drawings. Instead, she spent hours putting her into different situations. Away from trees, Amrita paled. Rainbow struggled to fit her into the traveller-girl role without losing the essence that shone through when she was in contact with trees. Then, one evening, she had an idea that would make things easier with Amrita and also allow her to tell Nico about her gift.

  “You know you want to show the traveller girl as a kind of messiah?”

  Nico nodded without looking up from his paper.

  “Well, why don’t we make her into a tree spirit? Enzo can discover the truth at the end of the story.”

  Nico frowned. “No. We don’t want any freaky stuff to spoil our story.”

  “It needn’t be freaky. Just a little spiritual.”

  “It’s out of the question. I don’t want my name associated with rubbish like that.”

  She bit her lip. How would he react if he found out he spent most of his time in a house full of freaks?

  Eventually she managed to bend Amrita to her will. When she added her to Nico’s settings, their strength brought Amrita to life. And Amrita transformed his pictures from beautiful landscapes into a story. Rainbow was envious. She had given Amrita a destiny.

  Sometimes they met at his house but most of the time they stayed in the commune, where she’d asked everyone to respect Nico’s attitude to spiritualism and not mention their work. Occasionally, she managed to persuade him to leave her bedroom and work in the woods or beside the River Charente. He took more notice of her when she was outside. She loved it when his sparkling eyes looked into hers. It compensated for all the things he didn’t ask about her and for the brief answers he gave when she encouraged him to talk about himself.

  The weeks passed and Rainbow began to plot as much as Nico, although her plot didn’t concern Amrita. She was plotting a way to make him see how much she wanted him to kiss her. However sensitive he was to the appearance of the people he drew, he seemed to be completely ignorant of what went on inside real people.

  Sylvia couldn’t understand Rainbow’s dilemma.

  “Tell him you fancy him,” she said. “Or just kiss him. Then he’ll realise how you feel.”

  Rainbow remembered the disastrous kiss with Christophe. “What if he pushes me away or says he doesn’t fancy me?”

  “You could do a striptease. That’ll catch his attention – though, knowing him, he’ll probably just try to draw you.”

  Sylvia was the only person Rainbow had confided in about her feelings for Nico.

  “Being with him is like drinking a fizzy drink,” she’d said.

  Sylvia hadn’t looked impressed. “Maybe. But once the fizz goes, they’re flat and tasteless. And Renne is a stupid nickname.”

  When Sylvia had met him, just after this, she’d immediately asked him whether he had a girlfriend. Rainbow, red with embarrassment, had whisked him away. Sylvia had taken an ins
tant dislike to him, although Nico barely noticed her. After a while, she accused Rainbow of being weak, girly and boring in his presence. And she’d told her she was wrong to drop her best friend for a selfish git.

  Rainbow also felt a chill from the other commune members when Nico was at Le Logis, although nobody had said they disliked him. It was probably just because he didn’t share their beliefs. Mum had asked if she was in love with him. Rainbow had hotly denied it but Mum had insisted on embarrassing her with talk of unwanted pregnancies and protection against diseases.

  Domi was silent when Nico stayed for dinner. The few times he did speak, he usually let drop a reference to trees and she would have to shut him up before Nico suspected something. She didn’t have the time for trees anymore, especially as Nico knew nothing about her relationship with them. Luckily, Nico didn’t pick up on hints. He was quite like Sylvia in that respect.

  Sandrine was also quiet. She refused to utter a word when he was there, but this was easy to explain to Nico: Rainbow told him she was going through a pre-teenage crisis. He’d replied that it was one of the drawbacks of living with your uncles, aunts and cousins.

  Sylvia’s striptease suggestion was intended as a joke, but the idea caught Rainbow’s imagination. One day, when Nico was in her bedroom mulling over the end of the story, she saw an opportunity to put her plan into action. He was wondering what the traveller girl could do once she’d helped Enzo remember who he was.