Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  "I will always send messages back," Lillah said. "I will map the Tree, too. I will map the shape of Botanica."

  "She learnt about food on her journey. From her home Order, Rhado, she brought knowledge of how to grill meat and keep it tender. In Bayonet they taught her how to grind nuts and coat a piece of fish. In Chrondus she discovered the secret of stuffing fruit into more fruit and poaching it in honey."

  "Now I'm hungry again," Lillah said.

  "I've got some lovely fruit drying out there. The taste of the sun will warm you when you're on the dark side of the Tree. You will need to keep your wits about you. Don't be fooled by a pretty face and an easy wit. You dabble and play as much as you like, my dear, so long as it is your choice. Never let anyone decide for you; always follow your own instincts and desires. And stay clean. Wash yourself often. Use the wood soap. It will keep you healthy. And never make do. There will be someone for you, and if you make do you might miss him. And… I have so much to tell you." Her father breathed heavily, too many words.

  Lillah felt sudden sharp pain at leaving him.

  "Will you be all right? You seem sad."

  Logan put his arm around Myrist. "I am here, Lillah. It isn't all up to you."

  Lillah smiled. "You are a good brother."

  Lillah almost leapt away from the house, as if the tie that kept her there had been released. She felt free, unburdened, young.

  The feeling did not last long. She was summoned by the Birthman.

  "My wife needs to speak to you. It's about Morace."

  Lillah did not like being too close to Rhizo, Morace's mother, but she tried to conceal her distaste from Morace. It would not do to have him think his mother frightened people. He was unconscious of smell and her look.

  Lillah breathed through her mouth in the small room. For some reason (probably Rhizo, it was the sort of thing she would do) they kept fresh air and light out of their home. Windows tightly shut, covered with the sort of thick material not often seen. Blanket material, precious for keeping people warm at night. The beeswax candles were bright, casting sharp, strange shadows at all hours. Lillah hated to feel enclosed.

  Morace's mother sat in a wooden chair, smiling. She said, "He's got his bag packed. All the things you need for a night away from mother." Lillah stared at her, mouth open. The parents were supposed to prepare the children so the tears could flow before school began. There would always be tears as school left; Lillah remembered crying herself. Melia had not cried and thus set herself up as the strong one.

  "Morace, why don't you go out and choose your smoothstone, now. Something to make you think of home. You'll know it when you pick it up. It will sit in your hand and calm you," Lillah said. She smiled at the echo of her father's words of comfort about choosing a mate.

  Morace jumped up, excited. His hair was plastered to his head, greasy. His mother didn't let him swim in the ocean. She thought it would make him sick. Lillah couldn't wait to see the boy swimming, bathing. He would be more popular once he was clean.

  "Morace!" his mother said. "A kiss!" He came back and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll only be gone for a few blinks, Mother," he said.

  She sighed as he left. "I'm still not sure we should send him," she said. "I think I can teach him just as well at home." Lillah looked around at the closedoff room.

  She said, "He'll learn nothing here." As the words came out, she realised they were terribly harsh. "I'm sorry. But school is so vast. Physically, it gives them the basis to be strong adults. And he would never learn all he will learn about the Orders of the Tree, and our history, sitting here protected by you. It's one of the things that keep us peaceful, the understanding of the children of other cultures. It is a leap of faith to send our children out. We understand that. A sacrifice of those years with your child for the good of Botanica. So that children will grow up knowing people everywhere, and will be less inclined to plan hurt against people they have known."

  The mother blinked. Her face reddened, and Lillah felt frightened. This woman was, after all, a mother, albeit a seemingly weak one. Lillah stood up. "I'm sorry I made you angry," she said. "But if you expect him to marry, he needs to go away to school. No girl would choose a boy without experience of the Tree. That's just how it is."

  Rhizo stood up. She stepped over to Lillah and took hold of her wrist. She leaned close and Lillah tried not to recoil from the smell of her breath.

  "I'm going to tell you something, Lillah. This is a deathly, deathly secret. Can I trust you?"

  Lillah nodded, but she wasn't sure. Already she was thinking of how she would tell Melia this story.

  "Everyone thinks we smell because we don't wash," Rhizo said. Lillah laughed in embarrassment, then covered her mouth.

  "Sorry," she said.

  Rhizo smiled. It lifted her face for just a moment. "I know that's what people think, and I don't care. I want them to think that, Lillah. Because it keeps them from seeing the truth."

  The woman sat down again. "Bring us tea," she called. Her husband Pittos, the Birthman, stepped into the room. Strange how shy he seemed when he wasn't working.

  From the day they married, he had quietened. Rhizo came from an Order where people liked to be quiet, which made the whole Order quieter. People said she had married him for his loudness, but then hated him for it. He had learnt to speak in a whisper.

  "Tea and something sweet," he said. Lillah thought he was the kind of man she wanted to choose. Though she wouldn't quieten him.

  "Yes, nice," Rhizo said. "I'm going to tell Lillah."

  "Are you sure?"

  She nodded. "I can trust you, can't I, Lillah? I would tell the fathers, but they are not the ones going with him."

  "So you will send him?" Lillah said.

  "Well, I have to. If he's got any chance. I can't keep him here."

  "So what's the secret?" Lillah said. Rhizo closed her eyes. "I think I'm sick, Lillah. Very sick. I have terrible pain, now, in my lungs and my stomach. Nothing will help it. I've tried jasmine in all its forms, camomile; I've tried everything I ever heard about, anything the teachers brought with them. I don't know if it's Spikes, if it's catching. The others aren't sick. It's just I'm worried. If I die when Morace is away, what will happen to him? If they decide I am contagious. What will they do?"

  Lillah had some idea but she hated to be the one to say it. There had been three sick children passing through Ombu, in her memory.

  These children did not continue with the school. They were treated.

  They disappeared.

  "But if he stays with you he might get sick."

  "If he goes with you and I get sicker, they will be after him. They will watch him for the slightest sign. Lillah, I'm telling you because I want you to care for him. Keep him well."

  "I can care for him like I will the other children. But I can't stop him from getting sick."

  "You can hide his illness from the others. Particularly those of the Order you are in."

  "You can't fool the Tree, Rhizo. The ghosts. I can't do anything about that. Once he sickens, the ghosts will start to eat his bones."

  Rhizo squeezed her eyes. Squeezed a tight smile. "You are a great believer, Lillah. As you say, you can't affect that. You can affect the people around you, though. If news comes that I have died…keep him safe. I will try to pay the messengers not to bring true news of me. Please, Lillah. Please. I will give you everything I have. My smoothstone; I will give you that."

  "I don't need you to give me anything." The older a stone, the smoother it was, the more value it had.

  "Take it anyway," said the mother. "Take anything. You deserve the earth if you will keep him safe."

  "I need to think," Lillah said.

  "I don't want Morace to know how sick I am. I don't want him to worry."

  "He'll have to know eventually."

  "I know, but if he's away from me when it happens, the distance will help. It will give him time to get used to it. It won't seem real until he gets back hom
e."

  Lillah stood up and went to hug Rhizo. "I can't believe how brave you are," she said.

  "I guess I am brave."

  "Is there anything for now? Anything you want?"

  Rhizo sighed. "You know what I miss? The smell of the leaves. I'm so closed in no smell reaches. Could you bring me some leaves? I don't want to ask my husband. I don't want him to know how much I miss outside, or he would make me go out."

  "Why don't you go out?"

  Rhizo started to speak. Her eyes shifted slightly as she thought, and Lillah wondered what it was she was hiding.

  "I don't want people to know I'm sick," she said. "It is so different here. Where I'm from, we were worshipped by the people in the next Order. Worshipped! Can you imagine? Here I am nothing."

  Lillah felt too inexperienced to see beyond the words. "I'll get some leaves," she said. "A sackful, different colours."

  Outside, Morace and some of the children waited. Rham, with big eyes and a quiet tongue, saw all. She nodded at Lillah. "Will he be coming? I hope he comes. He is good to talk to." She had a small carved wooden puzzle only she could solve; she carried it everywhere.

  "You will have plenty of children to talk to along the way."

  "But many of them are so dull. I like the bright ones. I'd rather talk to grown ups."

  As she collected the leaves, it dawned upon Lillah what Rhizo was asking her to do. Risk every Order they visited. Take Spikes with them, perhaps. Leave each Order sick, all to keep one child from treatment.

  Lillah returned with her leaves. "I'm sorry, Rhizo. I don't think I can do such a thing. This is not how we are brought up to think."

  "No. No. You're right. I shouldn't ask you. But I did ask you for a reason. I thought you knew; I thought your father would have told you."

  "Told me what?"

  "I have held him back from school these last two years until you became a teacher. I know the others think it is because I cannot bear to let him go. That is true. But there is another reason. It is something most people are not concerned about, but that my husband," here, she lowered her voice and looked in the direction of the room Pittos sat in, "does not know. He is an unusual man in that he suffers great anger if I am not his alone."

  "I am confused. What is this to do with my decision?"

  "Morace is your half-brother, Lillah. My husband could not give me a child, so I went to your father. Morace is your family. You have to look after him."

  Lillah walked to her father, who fished at the water's edge.

  "I have been talking to Rhizo," she said.

  "I thought she might talk to you. I wondered if she would call upon you."

  "I wonder why you didn't say anything. I have always liked Morace and would have cared for him anyway, but I wonder he wasn't part of our family."

  "Rhizo is a very odd woman. She was more bothered by the process than anyone else I have met." He put down his fishing pole. "I'm sorry not to have told you. I would have, at some stage."

  "It doesn't matter." It was odd, though, to realise there had been a secret for ten years.

  "I think perhaps you should not tell the other teachers. We do not want them judging your teaching or his learning because of your relationship."

  "You're right. We will keep the secret."

  Lillah's best friend, Melia, emerged from the water. Her hair was wet, slicked back, shiny as a seal's. Her skin glowed with good health and her body was brown. She was a sun worshipper, always had been. When she was too young to understand about cycles and shade she would cry in the days of darkness.

  Lillah and Melia had been to school together; had learnt about the sun and the Treeshadow, how when part of the country was in shade, the other part saw the sun. They were good days, though lonely without their families.

  This time, they were adults. Adults seeking a partner.

  Lillah felt the blood rush between her legs. She had no fear that she would be nervous. She wanted this. The only hard part would be concentrating on the children.

  "Lillah! You'd better hurry and bathe. We'll be leaving soon."

  "Can I borrow your soap? I forgot mine."

  "Of course. Here. Hair soap, too. Your hair is looking greasy. You want to look your best when we set out. Make the boys ache to think of you leaving."

  "I doubt they will ache," Lillah said. "Laugh, perhaps, at us dressed as adults. Teachers."

  "I suppose. Anyway, the others have bathed already. You're the last."

  "I was talking to my father. I'll bathe then I'll visit Magnolia. You know, she seems to have forgotten how much that baby hurt. I don't think I ever want a baby. It hurts too much."

  "I've heard there's places you can go where it doesn't hurt so much. They give you things to take the pain away. My sister sent back word. I think its one of the reasons she picked her husband. And there's another reason. I'll tell you at school."

  Melia winked. Lillah winked back. The things they would talk about on the trip! Melia's sister Ulma had sent messages with every passing school, full of stories of marriage and love making, what a man did, what he said.

  Lillah ran into the water. It was cold; bumps rose on her arms and legs. She dived into a low wave, letting the salt fill her eyes, her pores. She felt the tingle of it cleaning her. She stripped off her wrap and used it to clean under her arms, her neck, behind her ears, between her legs. Out here in the water it was easy to pretend nobody else existed; that there was no beloved sister-in-law; no magnificent nephew; no father preparing for the loneliness of losing a daughter, no crocodile of children, eight, nine and ten years old, all of them, these children waiting for Lillah and the four other teachers to lead them around the Tree. It was a five year journey. Lillah had begun hers as a nine year old and come back educated. It would be interesting to experience it again as an adult, through adult eyes.

  Though truth be told, Lillah at twenty-one did not feel much more experienced or knowledgeable than at fourteen, when wearily, too full of information to speak, they had arrived back in their own town.

  She walked out of the water and wrapped her sulu around. It clung to her wet body so she pulled another over the top. Here, in her own Order, she needed to show prudishness. Once away with the school and so long as the children were safely under the attention of other adults, she could be what she wanted to be. Lillah finished bathing and dressed carefully. She gazed out to sea and fancied she saw a glimmer of an island out there. She turned around once, looked again. Nothing. Her heart calmed and she relaxed. To see the island of the spirits twice meant death to someone in the Order.

  She knew that Annan, the Tale-teller, would be at work by the Tree and she wanted to be witness to it.

  He smiled when he saw her. "None of the others take an interest but you, Lillah. You like to see the words being spoken, hear them for yourself."

  "I'm just checking to make sure you get it right. Can't have you telling the Tree the wrong information." She smiled at him. She would miss Annan in an odd way; he was the Tale-teller, yet he rarely spoke beyond Telling the Tree. He knew all, though, saw all, kept it to himself, and the Tree.

  "Many times you have stood with me and helped me remember the days, the moments worth recording."

  Lillah bent her head to rest it on his shoulder. He was a short man, not much taller than she was. He was getting stouter in his old age. He knew the history so well he recited it in his dreams.

  He leaned into the Tree and put his mouth to a small smooth hole in the Trunk. He spoke the names of the teachers and children leaving, and he spoke of the birth of Logan's baby. Lillah felt satisfied hearing the words, as if now nothing would be lost to her memory.

  "Everything is cyclical," he said. This was one of his favourite sayings.

  The Tale-teller or his allotted helpers were the only ones allowed to tell the Tree. It was important that the information was correct. There was a time when nobody wanted to take on the responsibility of Tale-teller, so everyone just spoke whatever information th
ey thought important or interesting. Unfortunately, not everyone took it seriously: one young man kept a tally of the teachers he slept with, including names and crude drawings he etched into the Trunk. This information was not relevant and it did not speak to inheritance. He did not impregnate anybody and many of the names were invented.

  Also, people forgot to tell the Tree on the day of events and would do it months later, sometimes forgetting precise times. The Tree sickened, stopped giving fruit, and after it was decided to vote for a teller from the citizens, the position was filled once again.