Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  He had a second small room in his house, walls lined with metal, and the floor was hard, too, striped through with metal and tough on the feet.

  "You are clever with metal, all right."

  He nodded. "We have to be. We are taming the Tree by not being so reliant on it. The Tree grows each year, towards water. Stealing our land sliver by sliver."

  Lillah found this adversarial relationship with the Tree odd, and wondered if other Orders she'd visit would have a similar attitude. They carved symbols into the Trunk, things she didn't understand.

  They were sorry to leave Ailanthus. The food was wonderful, and they would miss that flavour, but they took bowls of nuts with them and they knew the method. They hoped they could cook for themselves.

  Corma sat sulking on a rock as they prepared for the next walk. She said, "Do you know how many babies die here? Have you seen the bones?"

  "Of course more babies die here. More babies are born. Can't you understand that? Just as many die in Ombu. You said yourself they are experts at this. They know how to stem the blood."

  "They'd better not use spiderwebs. That's all. I don't want those on me."

  "No, I asked. They use shredded coconut fibre. You'll be fine. You're eating better than you've ever eaten. You'll be fine."

  "Go climb the Tree, Lillah, I won't be fine. I'll never remember all their rules."

  "They need rules to bring luck. Babies take luck. You need to follow them because your baby will take luck."

  Lillah's grey-haired lover said, "We need a lot of extra luck. We have more babies and babies need all the luck they can get." His father, who had looked at Lillah in an unpleasant way, said, "Babies steal the luck." He didn't like the children; the teachers had warned their charges to keep away from him.

  "Some men are never chosen, and that makes them angry and bitter," Melia said.

  "I was chosen. How else would I have a son, you monstrous fool?"

  Lillah's lover pulled his father away and Lillah put her hand on Melia's shoulder.

  As they left, one of the women came up and tried to press a gift upon them. "Take this for my brother," she said. "I miss him so terribly."

  It was a beautiful ring, carved from the bone of a large fish.

  "We can't do that. We are not chartered to take gifts from anywhere but our own Order."

  "How can it hurt? How can it be wrong?"

  "We cannot risk the bad luck it might bring," Lillah said, knowing that would make sense to the woman.

  After she'd gone, Melia said, "Why do they think we should cart their foolish gifts for years for them? We can't carry everything."

  "Thank goodness for rules," Lillah said.

  They were fully half a day away when Morace noticed he wasn't wearing his hat. Every minute that went by made Lillah happy; he was learning to do without it.

  He couldn't breathe, though, once he noticed, and he blinked his eyes to clear the tears.

  "My hat, Lillah. I've left my hat."

  The temptation for cruelty was great; she could justify it as being in his best interests. She pulled the hat from her backpack though. It was up to him and she didn't want the guilt of taking the hat from him.

  "I saw it as we were leaving."

  The look he gave her was one of pure adoration.

  They were further along, another one meal's walk, when a young boy caught up with them. He shook with exhaustion, his hair wet with sweat.

  "What is it?" Morace said. "Why are you running after us?"

  Agara gave the boy some water and the children put down mats for him to lie on.

  It took him blinks but he was young and healthy. "It's that girl, Corma, you brought her with you. She's having her baby but it is not going well."

  "You have your Birthman."

  "No, they have sent me because it is going very badly. The girl is screaming and fighting, she says they are killing her baby."

  "Where is the husband?"

  "He has gone to sleep like this." The boy stood, then rolled his eyes back and collapsed to the ground.

  "Sometimes people sleep when they don't want to be awake. He sleeps like a sea snake, my mother said. They want you to come back and help."

  "I'll go. Agara, will you come too? The rest can camp here until we get back," Lillah said.

  "I'll go," Thea said. "The children will be sad without Agara."

  "Not sad without me?" Lillah said. Thea did not understand how cruel her words could be. How foolish she was.

  It was a good spot to stop. The leaves were quite light overhead and the sand wide. There were rockpools with small silver fish, easy to catch using a shirt.

  Lillah and Thea couldn't keep up with the boy once he'd regained his puff. He didn't answer any of their questions and it became a game with them.

  "Is there a band of snakes living around your ankles?"

  "Is your father a good cook or does he make you eat your sand raw?"

  "How many leaves does it take to make left-over plates for evening meal?"

  Thea and Lillah thought they were funny, but the boy ran faster until he left them behind.

  "I guess he's not ready for school," Thea said.

  It was strange to be walking in the other direction for so long. The horizon looked wrong, at a strange angle, making Lillah felt dizzy.

  As they approached, one of the fathers, a long scratch on his cheek, ran towards them.

  "A ghost has taken her. More than one, perhaps. We don't know if one has taken her child. She calls for you."

  "She's not from Ombu," Lillah said. "Not from where we are from."

  "Still, she calls."

  Lillah and Thea both knew that women in birth can seem possessed. They heard a low moaning, almost like the seawalk after a long rain, drying out in the sun.

  They entered the room and were sickened by the smell. Vomit and shit, and always jasmine, the jasmine oil over the stench of everything else.

  Corma saw them and moaned softly. "They are trying to kill me."

  "They are not."

  "I am dying."

  "No, no you're not," but the Birthman behind her, holding her shoulders steady to guide her, nodded his head.

  "You moss-muncher. You liar," Corma screamed.

  Lillah walked to the bed and held her hand. Her pulse was irregular and weak.

  "Is the baby coming?"

  "No baby," the Birthman said. "There will be no baby. There will be flesh and bone for the Tree."

  One of the children ran in carrying a turtle.

  "You see? This will hold your child's soul. It will drift safely over the sea to the Island of Spirits."

  He placed the turtle beneath the sheets, between Corma's legs.

  "He will snap up the soul."

  "Aren't you going to help her birth?" Hippocast said, woken from his faint.

  "Of course. Water, you. And ask the women for some soft cloth."

  Lillah went out, but put her hand on Thea's shoulder. Stay. She did not like the way the Birthman behaved, how sad he seemed.

  She went out and spoke to the people there. One woman humphed, a furious noise. "Wasted on a failure. Our good materials. This one will die. It is clear in her blood beating, and the colour of her."

  "Why do they send us the weak ones? This place is for the healthy."

  Lillah looked at their faces. They liked healthy births, easy ones.

  "She won't fail."

  "She already has."

  Lillah went back inside, feeling numb and helpless.

  Thea sat by the bed. Her large hands twitched, plucking imaginary leaves.

  Corma was void, empty, her head forward, shoulders slumped, hands untouched. The sheets were red with blood.

  Hippocast wailed, "Why didn't you staunch it? This is what you do."

  "The ghosts had her. There was nothing I could do."

  "The ghosts didn't have her. She's healthy and strong. If you'd helped she would have been all right."

  The Birthman said, "No.
The baby was taken some time ago. You know what happens to an old bird. Dead in the roots. You've seen it. Smelt it. This is what poisoned her. I let her bleed hoping to release the poison, but it was too late."

  "What about my baby?"

  "He will not be saved."

  "How do you know it's a boy?"

  "Only boys kill their mother."

  Lillah wept with Hippocast. He shook with it.

  "Cut her open!" he shouted. "Take my baby out so at least I can know his face."

  The Birthman nodded. He took a sharp knife and sliced Corma across the belly.

  "My sweet Tree Lord," he whispered. "My sweet, sweet Tree Lord."

  They heard a baby cry.

  "It… is a boy. He lives."

  They stayed with Hippocast overnight, but Lillah knew they could not remain for much longer. She said to Thea, "We must go now. We can do nothing for the baby."

  "Can Hippocast care for him? Perhaps I should stay with him."

  "That really isn't up to us," knowing that Hippocast would not want Thea.

  The Birthman said, "This baby was born dead and yet his limbs moved as if filled with a sea serpent, a frightening sight."

  "Do you think perhaps the baby was alive all along, then?" Lillah said. The Birthman didn't comment.

  "I wonder what would have happened if the baby was born malformed. Corma spent so much time in Jasmine before agreeing to leave. Do you think she knew, as she died, that it was her own fault? That she caused her own death and almost killed her baby? And she would have thought her baby dead as she died. That's what she would have

  died believing."

  "Be quiet, Thea. You speak poison."

  As they prepared to leave for the second time, Lillah's grey-haired lover came to her and held her. "Perhaps you are meant to stay with me. Perhaps this tragedy needed to happen to bring us together again."

  He kissed her hard and passionately, but she didn't like it. She was sad to be so attracted to his mind, and his words, but not his body.

  "I'm sorry. It's not time for me to stay. I liked being with you." She kissed him. She left.

  In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Birthman Birthman more than one, rules for safety rules for luck, fish in water puffing out salt, fish in nut coat.

  Here, the Tree grows soft nuts. The leaves are soft and the Bark pale and tender.

  Ailanthus — CEDRELAS — Rhado

  There was no market day between Ailanthus and Cedrelas. Morace was disappointed. The stall lay empty, leaf-covered. Lillah wondered what this said about the people of Cedrelas. It was a long, eight week walk between the two Orders.

  Lillah remembered her mother talking about Cedrelas and the stuffed fruit dish they were famous for.

  "That's where I should have continued to," Olea used to say when Lillah was young. "I should have kept walking till I got there. I had forgotten how much I loved that fruit when I went through with my school as a child. I thought to myself then; this is where I will stay. But I forgot, and I ended up in Ombu."

  She didn't seem to realise how cruel she was being.

  "But then I wouldn't be here," Lillah said. "I'd be there, and my life would be different." Lillah was fourteen and questioning the choices life brought.

  "I would be with my own people. I would be happier amongst the cooks. They don't appreciate my food here. I'm considered a nuisance. I know this. I know this for sure."

  But Lillah knew her mother liked to be the best cook, the one others turned to for advice.

  Her father had whispered to Lillah before she left for school, "Your mother might be there, at Cedrelas. She might have stopped there, rather than walk all the way home to Rhado. Be prepared to see her."

  So as they approached, Lillah felt her heart beating faster, and tears forming at the very thought of seeing her mother. She missed her, although it was not the way they were supposed to feel about their mothers. They were supposed to let them go, send them away without any guilt, set them free. Lillah was hot and sweaty and wished for rain, although during the wet season she tired of rain so easily.

  "My mother might be here," she said to Melia.

  "And if she's not here, then she'll be in the next Order. That's hers, isn't it?"

  "It is."

  They could hear the shouts and laughter as they approached.

  "I think they started the feast without us. Listen to them!"

  There was no one to greet them, and when they reached the central meeting place, they saw the whole Order gathered, drinking from large shells.

  "Aha! You're here!" shouted one, and everyone cheered.

  "Spikesbringers are here!" and they cheered again. The teachers would find these people hard to understand for some time. They seemed to laugh at things not funny, be angry at things not worth worrying about. Why would they cheer the deforming Spikes? Lillah restrained herself from looking at Morace. They couldn't possibly know yet. News hadn't come from home about Rhizo and her health.

  "Too serious! Here, have some of our special drink." The teachers were handed shells, and the children, too.

  Lillah sipped hers. It tasted like fruit juice, almost, but with a spiciness to it, a tang. It made her feel dizzy.

  "We add a tiny drop of sap, you know. You will smell it in your sweat for days. This is a special treat."

  When they heard that the school was from Ombu, they said, "Ah, you do the semolina balls with cardamom."

  "You've heard of our semolina balls?" Lillah asked. "How did you hear of it?"

  "A woman walking home made it for us. It was delicious."

  "So she didn't stay? I think that was my mother."

  "She stayed a while, but she wanted to keep moving. She was a wonderful cook."

  "Lillah's her daughter. She knows," Melia said.

  So Lillah cooked the balls for them, and they were pleased indeed.

  "I'm sorry your mother's not here. She'll be in the next place, for sure. But now, we need to feed our visitors," they said, and the men set off to catch the dinner.

  As the men worked, drawing in the nets full of fish, the teachers watched. There were some crabs amongst the catch; these creatures were thrown into boiling water by an old man, summoned to do the job.

  "He touches no one but himself," someone said. "So he can touch the crabs when they are alive."

  Borag watched carefully. "They have different colours to the ones we have eaten. How do they taste?"

  The old man scratched at his arse, his underarms, and Borag held her stomach. "He makes me feel ill."

  "Hey," Thea said, holding out her arms. Borag ignored her.

  Agara poured a cup of lemon water. "This will help, Borag."

  Borag swallowed it. "He's such a disgusting old man."

  Thea held her arms out to Borag again, who didn't move.

  "Better?" Agara asked. Borag nodded, and ran to nestle in Agara's arms. Thea stood, arms still open, inviting, ignored. Lillah saw anger in her face. Anger at the rejection.

  "He's got a very nice back. That one," Melia said, pointing to a man with long thick hair who worked tirelessly, sharing glances like the other men did, tossing jokes around like balls of fluff.

  He didn't look at the teachers though; an odd thing. It was as if he barely noticed they were there.

  For Melia, that meant a challenge. She liked the ones who weren't so forward; the ones who didn't fall at her feet. "Who is that?" she asked a young girl.

  "That's Phyto. Don't worry about him."

  Lillah took a walk under the Tree, wanting to find where the spiders sat. It had become routine for her to find the spiders as they settled into each community, just in case. The handsome man, Phyto, joined her. "You like to explore?" he asked. His voice was deep and strong. She nodded.

  "I do, too," he said. "I like to walk the Tree, also. It helps me to think. Sometimes I feel as if I could touch the Trunk and gain all knowledge, know the truth of whether the Tree grew from a stake, a david, thrust through the heart of the first
man, or did it grow from a seed dropped by a bird from far away."

  Lillah listened to him speaking his thoughts aloud. He didn't try to stroke her, kiss her. He didn't look at her in the usual way.