Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  Logan carried on with his business: fishing and collecting the wood. He pretended he had no interest in the teachers, that he wanted to remain single and have to worry about no one but himself.

  "Why should I take on a dependant? I'm perfectly happy with you and our parents demanding things from me."

  "So why have you taken your shirt off, then? Not trying to get browner in the sun out there?" Lillah said. She cupped saltwater in her palms and flicked it at his back. The droplets hung on the pale hairs there and he shivered.

  "Right!" he said. He put down his net and picked up a wooden bucket. Lillah squealed as he scooped it full.

  "Children!" their mother had called. "Stop playing and get moving. Come on, they'll be here soon." They could see her shaking her head on the shore.

  "You see? If I get married, no one will call me a child anymore. I'll have to be a man."

  "There is nothing manly about you," Lillah said. "Nor will there ever be." They grinned at each other. Logan went back to catching fish.

  "They won't be here for three days, though," Logan said. "We'll need to keep the fish in the water basket."

  He lowered the fish into a basket kept anchored on the shore, then dropped it under the water. The fish swam frantically, banging against the walls of the basket, able to breathe but not able to escape.

  Lillah felt breathless for them. How awful, to be locked in a cage in the water. She grimaced. "The poor creatures. It must be terrible to be trapped like that, still able to breathe but not able to swim away. Or even move very much. It must be awful."

  "We have to keep the fish fresh, Lillah. We don't want to poison the Number Taker."

  They both widened their eyes at the very idea.

  "I'd better go back and see what Mother needs," Lillah said. "I hope she doesn't let hopelessness take over. Her knees go weak and that's all she can think about."

  Lillah walked back to shore, feeling excitement in her heart. She hoped Logan's future wife was coming. Someone fun, clever, to keep him thinking and not let him turn into a mess of a man, flesh with eyes, like so many of them once they'd fulfilled their parental seeding.

  She reached her parents' house and entered. She smelled baking bread and wondered how her mother would keep it fresh for three days. She found Olea with her head on the kitchen bench, surrounded by flour.

  "Mother! What's wrong?" Olea lifted her head and Lillah snorted with laughter before she could stop herself. Olea's tears left runnels in the flour on her cheeks.

  "It's not funny, Lillah. It's a disaster. The Number Taker's favourite sweet is semolina balls soaked through with cardamom and I can't find the main ingredient."

  "Someone'll have some cardamom, Mother. If no one here does, I'll run to the market and get it. You keep going with your other arrangements."

  "I can't do it, I just can't manage," Olea banged her head on the bench. Lillah stood beside her and stroked her back. "Mother, you've cooked for dozens before. You're famous for your cooking, not just here but in Aloes and Laburnum, too. People take your recipes away with them."

  "But what if they don't this time? What if I fail this time, make everyone sick at the thought of my food? It would be better if I wasn't known. Then they wouldn't have any expectations, be looking at me to fail."

  "Nobody wants you to fail and you won't. I'll find you what you need then we'll do it together. Is there anything else you haven't got?"

  Olea named a few things and Lillah nodded.

  "Don't take a long time. No chatting or news spreading today. Hurry hurry hurry," Olea said. She wiped away her tears and got flour in her eyes. Lillah smothered a laugh.

  "It's all very well for you to laugh. You didn't grow up in the same Order I did. I would be beaten for failure, there. They hate success and envy it, yet they punished failure with great cruelty. If it wasn't for your uncle, I don't know that I would have survived. Yet he was Outcast, because my cruel mother didn't feed him from the breast."

  Lillah didn't really believe Olea, who loved to dramatise things.

  Lillah went out of the house leaving her mother blinded, dabbing at her eyes with a cloth.

  It was nightfall before Lillah returned from knocking at every door in the community. She was laden with prizes of all kinds, treasures.

  Dried fish, slow salted and delicious. Dried berries, very rare. Small cakes you could fit in your mouth all at once. The cardamom her mother needed.

  She hoped it would help to relax Olea. She was glad she'd found all the ingredients on Ombu. She didn't want to run to the market between Ombu and Laburnum because it was far away and the walk stony, until you reached the market where seaweed washed up to the sand. Closer to Laburnum, seaweed covered the sand. Seaweed always came to the beach in Laburnum. Lillah and her friends were sure that was why Laburnum was known for the perfume they made. They needed to cover up the smell.

  Only in a powerful wind did the smell reach Ombu. At those times people felt lucky to live in Ombu, not Laburnum.

  Although the time alone, walking six days to market and back again would have been nice, her mother could not have borne the time. Lillah reminded herself to talk to the trader, ask for some spices on his next trip.

  The Number Taker's group was spotted on the horizon at dawn.

  "They're here! The school!" shouted one of the children. The arrival of new people lifted them all. The Tree Hall had been cleaned to perfection, and colourful material draped about to make the room look welcoming. The single men had washed and scrubbed, scraped away hair, pulled on their best clothes. Even Logan had done it, "out of respect for the Number Taker", though he winked at Lillah as he said it. At the very least he would have sex with one of the teachers. All the men knew they had a good chance of sex, and their voices were louder, talking over one another, and they wrestled, physically unable to keep still.

  The women laughed at them, though kindly. The men all worked hard and deserved some release. This was the natural way of things.

  The single men had all arranged places they could go to be alone with an interested teacher. Some had arranged bedrooms, sending roommates to sleep elsewhere. Others had warm woodcaves, prepared with rugs, candles, sweet treats.

  Lillah watched it all and fantasised about the day she, too, would be welcomed like a queen.

  "They're coming! They're coming!" the children yelled on the run, racing along the beach to greet the schoolchildren, wanting them now to come into the village to show them toys, hideouts, climbing places, swimming spots.

  The adults were more restrained, but all gathered on the beach to greet the Number Taker and the teachers.

  "He's very tall," whispered one girl. They squinted. He did seem very tall. Too tall.

  "No, he's got a teacher on his shoulders," someone shouted, and they laughed, all of them, joyful at the joke of the Number Taker carrying a teacher.

  "How many teachers with them?" called Thea's oldest brother, Tax.

  "Too many for you to manage!" a father said.

  "Here's one, running for me. She can't wait," Tax said, pushing his way forward.

  The teacher ran towards him, arms out.

  "Civilisation! Hooray!" she said, and the crowd surrounded her, all chattering at once and offering her sustenance. The other teachers followed more sedately.

  Lillah watched the Number Taker. "He seems to be struggling," she called. Logan turned to look, squinted, then ran along the beach.

  The Number Taker fell to his knees as Logan approached, grappling with the young woman riding on his shoulders. Logan dashed forward and grabbed her. He held her in his arms as the Number Taker rose, then they walked together, Logan carrying the teacher, towards the crowd.

  The crowd moved forward to greet the Number Taker, take him in, look after him.

  Lillah ran to find a blanket then laid it down so Logan could place the teacher on it.

  "Thank you," the teacher said. She winced. "I cut my foot on a sea urchin." Lillah glanced at the foot and could se
e it was swollen and discoloured.

  The Birthman stood over them. "The Number Taker said we had an injury here," he said. "Wouldn't take any refreshment until he knew you were okay."

  "He's very kind," the teacher said.

  "This is our Birthman, Pittos. We call him Mr Miracles."

  The Birthman blushed. He was a shy, red-faced man whose wife had just lost their sixth child. She had Morace, a lively child, ninety-six moons old. They had failed to have more.

  "I'm Lillah, and this is my brother Logan."

  "I'm Magnolia," the teacher said. She held out her hand and Logan took it. He sat beside her, still holding the hand.

  "Thank you for carrying me," she whispered. Logan leant close to hear and she kissed his cheek. He said nothing.

  "He's a bit shy," Lillah said, dropping on to the blanket beside them. The Birthman cleared his throat.

  "It's too crowded here for me to work. Lillah, go get some juice for our patient. Logan, you can stay and hold her hand. This may hurt." Logan squeezed his face up.

  "Not you, me!" Magnolia said.

  The Birthman removed the spines and cleaned the wound

  "Thank you, Birthman," Magnolia said. Her cheeks were flushed from the pain. Logan took a washcloth and ran to the water to soak it. He came back and gently stroked her cheeks and forehead with the coolness.

  Her skirt had worked its way up to her thighs. When Lillah came back with the juice, she saw Tax lying a short way down the beach, angling his head and grinning at what he thought he could see.

  "Shoo, Tax," Lillah said. "Shoo, fly. Go find a rock pool to put your head in."

  Magnolia laughed and fixed her skirt. "Don't worry, I've seen worse than him."

  The three sat on the blanket and laughed and talked until a messenger came for Lillah.

  "Your Mother's crying on the front step," he said.

  "Oh, rubbish," Lillah said, rolling her eyes. "I'd better go help. She's preparing the feast singlehanded, according to her."

  "I'll help, too," Magnolia said. She lumbered into a standing position and tested her heel by putting her full weight on it. She winced slightly. "It's fine," she said. "If you could help me up there then I'll sit to chop or roll or whatever," she said.

  Magnolia walked between Lillah and Logan. They exchanged smiles behind her back, nods.

  Magnolia and Lillah had met twice before. When Magnolia's school walked through Ombu, Lillah was nine and about to leave for school herself, Magnolia eleven. Logan was eleven, walking the Tree, at school. Lillah hated him being away. She was sad, even as an adult, about those years they could have shared. Lillah's school walked through Magnolia's Order when Lillah was eleven and Magnolia thirteen, and just returned from her five years away. They both remembered that meeting very clearly. Magnolia had been very kind to Lillah, finding her sweets to eat when she felt sad and left out.

  Magnolia was good with numbers and Logan watched, bemused, as she made the figures show who had been what age at what time.

  The feast was a great success. In the end everyone helped with the cooking and the serving, even the Number Taker who took great delight in cutting the bread into perfect slices.

  "Look at that!" he'd say after each piece. "Perfect!"

  "Is that how they slice it in Torreyas?" one of the women asked.

  "I barely know how they do things in Torreyas, I'm there so rarely." He tipped his broad-brimmed hat back, leaving a shiny forehead.

  The men in particular listened to his every word. A man who travelled was such a rarity, and from the way he spoke, they could see why. 'Who would want a life like that?' the men said to each other. 'Never at home. Always away. How could you know who you are?'

  Lillah and Magnolia had screeched with laughter at the sight of Tax the swaggering so-called heartthrob of the village (not Logan. There was no swagger about Logan). Leaving his trousers to sag loosely below his hips, showing pubic bush combed with twigs, the fashion of the day amongst some. Leaving tiny twigs amongst the curls. Lillah had turned away, her shoulders shaking at the foolishness of him. Magnolia had joined her, laughing too. Two teachers were fooled by Tax, though; they fought for his affections. Lillah, Melia and Agara watched the women snarl at each other with fixed smiles. One managed to spill hot food on the other but that plan backfired: Tax took her away to clean her up.

  "We'll never be like that, will we?" Agara said.

  "Certainly not over someone like Tax," Melia said. "A fool from a foolish family."

  Thea sat at a distance, but her shoulders flinched.

  "She heard that," Lillah said, whispering.

  "I don't care," Melia said, whispering so loudly she may as well have been talking.

  With all that, all the fighting and fuss, neither woman chose to stay. Tax's charms were shortlived. At least he was clear in his base intentions, Lillah thought. One thing in his favour.

  The teachers paired off with young men for the night, everyone else stayed up shouting and singing until well past the very dark. Lillah missed Logan's presence but was thrilled he was with Magnolia. At one stage he came back for more Bark wine, his eyes bleary by firelight, his hair mussed. He raised his eyebrows at Lillah and grinned, a very happy man.

  Six days later, when the Number-Taker's school prepared to move on, Magnolia announced that she would stay, if she was accepted. Logan turned cartwheels till his face was red and Olea took Magnolia in a tight hold. "You are family," she said. "I will thank the Number-Taker for bringing you to us."

  Thea watched as the group left. Lillah tried to be kind to her out of pity; her only friends were her brothers Tax and Dickson. "Did you like those

  teachers?" Lillah asked.

  "I will stop with them if I ever go to school. I will stop where the numbers are."

  Olea was kind to Magnolia but it was clear she was unhappy.

  "Logan has someone now. What am I for?" she said to her husband Myrist.

  "Lillah will need help preparing for school."

  "School. What good did school ever do?"

  "We would not have met and made our children if you had not taught with your school."

  "Again, I say, what good did school ever do?"

  Myrist shook his head and turned to Lillah. "I don't know what is wrong with your mother's tongue, but she doesn't speak for me."

  Lillah had seen this in her mother long before anyone else did.

  "Your brother is so important. I left my brother Legum behind to teach school, and then I heard word that he disappeared. Our brothers are the most stable relationship we have. Our love for lovers comes and goes. We tire of them. Our brothers will always love us, and we will never forget them. I wish I knew Legum was safe." She touched her ear. "He listens. All the disappeared listen."

  Soon after this Olea went walking and did not return. Sometimes Lillah woke in darkness and felt as if Olea was there, watching, but the dark room showed her nothing.

  • • •

  The baby began to mewl and she realised she had been lost in memories, not seeing the present. Lillah kissed her nephew's head. That seemed so long ago, and now she would be travelling, seeking love, preparing for motherhood herself.

  Thea joined her as the baby began to grizzle. "Shall we bathe him?" she said. "Babies like to bathe." So they filled a large bowl with water and carefully undressed the tiny thing.

  Thea held him, lowered him slowly into the water. Lillah turned to collect a soft sponge.

  "Careful!" she said. Thea had let the baby's shoulder slip back and his face was almost underwater.

  "So small," Thea whispered.

  Lillah talked and cuddled him as she dressed him and was sad to pass him back when his parents returned. Magnolia checked him all over for marks and smiled nervously. "I'm sorry, Lillah. You're not like the others, I know."

  "What others?"

  Magnolia held the baby close. "Everybody."

  Logan kissed the crown of her head. "All mothers worry terribly. You are safe here."
>
  Wind began to howl around them and Magnolia pulled her child even closer. The noise of the Tree increased.

  "Does it have to make so much noise?" Magnolia said, covering her baby's ears with a blanket.

  "It'll be okay," Logan said. "It'll pass."

  Some of the more frightened amongst them packed up containers of food and warm clothing and made camp at the base of the Tree. This was the safest place when the leaves were being shed. There were stories from other Orders of people being killed by a massive Leaf. It had never happened in Lillah's Order. The Leaves of the Tree had a varied nature and size. Some could be used for plates, others to insulate walls, and there were the huge leaves, the dangerous ones.