Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  "Are you the teller?" she asked.

  "No. I wish I was. Ours is lazy and thick-tongued. Very poor with speech."

  Later, after the men had bathed, they gathered for welcomefire, where nut oil was exchanged for fruit wine. More fruit wine was swallowed. And more.

  "Where's that blond man? The handsome one," Melia said.

  "His name is Phyto. Interesting man. He showed me some of their Tree carvings," Lillah said. "Though they seem prouder of their craft. Seaweed woven into patterns to hold plants and hang off a Tree Limb."

  "I think I will go and find him," Thea said. "I'll see if he will talk to me differently."

  Melia looked angrily at her. "I saw him first."

  "Leave him be. He'll join us when he's ready. He's not so good with big groups," one of the men said.

  Melia filled her cup with wine and took another. "Maybe I'll go make a small group, then."

  One of the others grabbed her leg.

  "Stay with me instead. You'll have no luck with him. No luck at all. You need one of these for luck with him."

  He pulled aside his shorts to show his penis, which rested fatly against the base of his thigh.

  "You say he doesn't have one? How sad for him," Melia said.

  "Sad for him but not for me," he said. He gave Melia more fruit wine, and she threw back her head and swallowed the lot.

  Agara was louder than they had ever seen her, screeching with laughter and leaping about the place. She looked beautiful, Lillah thought. Rested, red-cheeked and thrilled to be alive.

  The lively night time people were very different in the day. Lazy, sleepy, they slouched around the place kicking over the remains of unfinished projects: half-built fires, one wall of a home, part of a pot. All begun with enthusiasm, then discarded.

  At night, they lifted again, and put on a hilarious performance for the visitors.

  In it, the monkeys were the kings, and they ruled the Order. Everybody dropped to the floor with laughter, though Lillah realised the more fruit drink she had, the funnier it all was. Morace joined in, and was the funniest of the lot.

  After they had been there three days, Agara collected the other teachers together to give them some news. "I've decided to stay. I like it here; they rest a lot, and they aren't strict, and they're so happy all the time. And I don't want to walk anymore. I'm tired of the walking. I like them here."

  Lillah, Thea, Melia and Erica leapt up with joy. "Our first one! Our first one gone!"

  It was a strange feeling. Like the first time they'd realised they were women, at the first moon bleed. It meant they were grown, now. Serious. That they had to make decisions that would change their lives.

  The wedding feast was set; it would happen before the school left, on Oldnew Day, the day between the old year and the new when anything is possible.

  Agara stood on the shore, looking along the coastline.

  "I wonder what's ahead," she said. Lillah squatted and ran her hands through the sand.

  "Could be anything. Are you sure you want to stay?"

  "I like it here. Like the pace. And the fruit." She shaded her eyes and squinted, as if to see beyond the rocks far in the distance.

  Thea sat quietly. She seemed angry to Lillah. "Is everything all right, Thea?"

  "I wanted to choose this place."

  "But why? You've had no physical connection here."

  "That's all that's important to you, isn't it? That's because you have nothing to forget in your past. You can live with your history. I like the forgetting of this place. When I drink that fruit wine, it's like my actions never took place. My family is not what it is. I do not look or act the way I do. When I'm here I can be happy."

  "You can't stay in that state forever," Lillah said. Sometimes Thea wearied her to the point of disgust.

  Agara reddened her cheeks with red salt dissolved in sap. She rubbed a sea urchin against her lips until they looked swollen.

  They heard calls behind them and turned to see most of the Order gathered. They held an armful of twigs and sticks. The stronger amongst them carried or dragged large branches to build the weddingfire. Agara's chosen mate came and took her hand.

  The dress of painted Bark had been softened in lemon juice and painted with signs of love and children. Agara's dress showed her lineage: mother, father, beyond.

  Her betrothed had spiders in the great reaching branches of the Tree on his shirt. They promised to adore the Tree and allow each other freedom of movement.

  "The Tree came from man, grew from a davidstake thrust through his heart. We should always treat the Tree with the respect we would give the man."

  This ceremony was not important in other Orders they'd visited. Many partnerships were made without it.

  Here, they liked the idea of holding onto an ancient tradition they barely understood. They knew it came from the ancestors: they had heard their grandparents telling stories about their own grandparents.

  The teller sat down and told them a tale. "There was always a Tree sitting here but there were not always people. The Tree was here a very long time, roots deep to get to water, branches long, twisting up to get to sun. It seemed the branches grew together, like they were lonely for the touch of another, and soon they grew into the shape of a woman.

  "The rain fell for many days, one hundred or more, and when the sun came at last she started to bounce to set herself free from the Tree.

  "'You'll hurt yourself when you land,' the Tree whispered. 'Wait until my leaves drop and drift down with them.'

  "The woman wasn't waiting, though. Too much to do, too many things. So she shook and trembled till the branch holding her tight cracked, and she tumbled to the floor in a mess and all.

  "The Tree covered her with leaves and she slept through two seasons. She woke up hungry, thirsty, lonely. When she rose, she saw in the shape of her body in the sand a stone the size of her hand. She had no bruises or marks from this stone, because it was smooth and flat. She didn't know if her body had pressed it that way but she picked it up and carried it with her."

  The children pulled out their own smoothstones, wondering at the history, the age of them. Zygo, who had interrupted all the way through with comments to make the children laugh, gave them a push, to try to knock out their stones. Morace said, "Zygo, no one wants you to play this game. I will fill your mouth with stones if you don't stop."

  Zygo span around a dozen times, dizzying himself. "Ah, now I can see you!" he said. "You are such a weak man I need to spin my eyes in order to see you."

  "Listen to the story," Thea hissed.

  "So she ate fruit and drank its juice, then she set off, walking to find a mate. That's why we walk around the Tree. Because it's always been done."

  Someone bent down and selected a switch. Agara stepped back, thinking she was about to be purified like they'd seen in Aloes.

  "This ruth-stripling represents the first woman and the spirit of her adventure," they said.

  The audience stood rapt, loving every word. One woman stood slumped sideways, and the child at her breast sat high in her arms, stretching her nipple until it popped loose.

  The teller asked for tales from the teachers. "The visitor brings new stories to the group. These are welcomed". At least on the surface, Lillah thought. They did not like it if stories contradicted their own.

  Melia told a story that made the teachers laugh, so full it was with familiar detail of their home.

  The locals enjoyed it; Melia told a story well. They didn't laugh, though. It was the familiar that made the teachers laugh. The laughter of homesickness.

  Lillah told the story of Araucari, the man who was trapped by the Tree and survived. It impressed them, that someone would have the spirit to live on after such an event. She loved to tell stories, to keep the attention like that.

  Then the drinking began. Lillah could never remember, later, how she'd managed to get undressed even. She certainly didn't remember sex with anyone, and was hard pressed to unders
tand how the men could manage it. She had a vague memory of morning, of the sun coming up before she went to bed. She remembered taking her morning-after moss. And she knew that Agara had kissed all the men in the Order, confirming her intention to treat them as equals, to consider them all husband. The locals tipped wine into the water but Lillah was beyond caring why.

  When she woke, Lillah felt ill. Her head ached and she felt as if her stomach was in her mouth. She roused herself when she heard a timid knock at her door.

  "Lillah? None of the other teachers will get up. The children are sick."

  Lillah dragged herself up, feeling dizzy. She opened the door and squinted into the sunlight. It was one of the Order women, looking healthy and bright.

  "You are not used to the fruit wine. You drank too much. Many newcomers do. And all of the men. Plus you didn't make offering to the sea monster. He likes the flavour, you know." The woman passed her some water. "In the water is a squeeze of fruit. You will find it good to help you."

  Lillah drank it, and it did make her feel a bit better.

  "The children?"

  "I'm afraid they took the fruit wine as well. No one noticed as we were concentrating on our own enjoyment. It won't hurt them. They feel very sorry for themselves, though."

  Lillah and the woman took water and juice to the children, and mopped their brows with water. Morace was so pale he seemed to disappear.

  She felt an empathy for the children, more affection than she'd felt till now.

  "This is sick," he whispered loudly.

  Lillah shook her head quickly at him.

  The celebrations and storytellings went on for two days.

  Agara's replacement was chosen, a pleasant girl called Gingko, and they spent many hours in lesson; Agara teaching Gingko the poem of gifts.

  We carry shells for Osage from Ombu.

  We carry a necklace from Myrist to Olea in Rhado.

  We carry sticks for Sargassum.

  We carry a parcel of secrecy for Torreyas.

  We carry painted leaves for Parana. We carry coloured sand for Arborvitae.

  Phyto did not take a lover, managing to avoid both Thea and Melia. Lillah wondered if he yearned for elsewhere.

  She asked her lover, a bouncy, almost sexless man himself, about him.

  "Is it true he has no penis?"

  Her lover laughed. "They say that because he never takes a lover. We do not dare to say it to his face, though."

  The young men here liked to prove their bravery by dancing in the shallows, taunting the sea monster. Those who lost a toe or a finger were the bravest of them all.

  Lillah's lover had all his fingers and toes.

  Lillah remembered the talk she had had with Phyto and was interested to find out more about him and his choices.

  "What is it, Phyto? Are you deformed in some way?"

  He laughed. "I know that's what they say about me. But I do not find any woman desirable. I simply don't. I think it would be dishonest of me to pretend. It is men I find attractive. Men I think about. But I have no hope of such a thing."

  Lillah thought for a while. "You know, we've heard that the people in Osage are like you. A messenger came back not long ago, saying that the men were with men, the women with women."

  "I had not heard that." He spoke quietly.

  "You should go there. You'd be much happier."

  "I'm not a teacher."

  Agara had joined them. She said, "He should go. Why not? He should go. It's too hard for him to live without passion."

  "He'll have to stay hidden in most places until we're sure the Orders don't mind men travelling. He'll be jailed, otherwise. Hobbled. We've seen those men. Ones who try to travel."

  So it was decided. Phyto would travel with them. He was sorry to leave his home Order, but he knew he needed to seek out love, or lust, seek out what the rest of them had so easily.

  In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: stuffed fruit eating wild fruit drinking my mother not here and all are happy quiet in sunlight not at night problems forgotten and never solved.

  Here, the Tree grows sweet fruit that ferments. The Leaves are mottled and the Bark marked with dark spots. The ground lies dark and damp beneath the Tree.

  Cedrelas — RHADO — Thallo

  Phyto helped carry bags and loved to talk to the children. He could listen to their chatter for hours; the teachers loved him for that. He kept them going through the long days of walking. A messenger passed them without stopping, running at a steady pace; it exhausted Lillah just to watch him.

  The first test of how his presence as a travelling man would be taken by society came when they reached the Cedrelas/Rhado market after three weeks' walk. Those from Cedrelas who knew him were not concerned. Those from Rhado assumed he was trading and were also not concerned. It was a busy market, lively with jokes and laughter, people not rushing to get back to their Order.

  Lillah had only distant memories of travelling to Rhado during her school trip. She remembered it was her special place; the place her mother came from. She had slept in the bed her mother had as a young girl, and saw the stones that had been set into the wall before her mother left as a teacher.

  Things had changed since then. Many women had left, travelling as teachers or taking the long walk home.

  Lillah remembered a friend she'd made here, a girl called Nyssa. Lillah was ten. Nyssa was seven. Then Nyssa went through Ombu when Nyssa was thirteen and Lillah was fifteen. Lillah had been home for a year, school like a dream in her past.

  They had laughed so hard, so long, the others were annoyed. Strange to find a friend so quickly, and one you knew would be gone in only days.

  They found a smoothstone each and exchanged them, so they would not forget each other.

  Lillah had long since lost hers, but she would never forget Nyssa.

  Lillah felt an ache from her heels, up the back of her legs. Each step was a jolt and her head thumped with it. Magnolia's hessian bag wasn't heavy but she felt as if it weighed her down.

  "I'm almost frightened about seeing Mother and her family again. What if they hate me now I'm grown? Mother always said they didn't like her much. They thought she was too different. What if they think I'm a failure, or ugly? What if they think I'm not her daughter, that I've been switched for a ghost from inside the Tree?"

  "What were they like when we walked through with school?" Melia asked. "I don't remember."

  "They were kind. But I was a child, then. They don't judge children. They think children are unformed. I'm a teacher now."

  "It'll be all right," Melia said. "It's nice to go home. Think how we've been when a daughter comes to us."

  "But why is this supposed to be home and not Ombu? Ombu is where I was born, where I've spent my life."

  "Ombu has changed already, Lillah. You know that. Just by us leaving, it's different."

  They could see a small crowd gathering on the beach up ahead.

  "Can you see your mother? I can barely remember what she looks like," Melia said.

  "I can't see her yet. She will be fixing a meal, knowing her." Lillah looked at the children straggling behind. "I hope they enjoy themselves here. It wasn't so much fun at the last place, when we got sick."

  "It's not always about fun," Erica said. "It's about learning. Meeting people. Finding understanding." She had not yet slept in anyone's cavity.

  "There are my people, here," Lillah said. "You might find someone you like."

  Erica blushed. "Time enough for that. Time enough." They heard a shout. Morace had fallen again, pulling Zygo down with him. "You're a pain, Morace. You hurt my arm that time," Zygo said. They liked Morace, most of them. He was funny.

  Morace had sand down his front and he limped. Suddenly aware she'd barely spoken to him in two Orders, Lillah took his arm and helped him walk.

  "How are you?" she said. His arm felt very thin, like a twig covered with sun-warmed Leaves.

  "I'm all right. I've started thinking about Mother. How do
you think she is? Is she all right?"

  "We'll get news of her if anything happens."

  "Yes, but whatever it is will be long over by the time we get the news."

  Phyto carried children on his shoulders and told them stories, exciting tales of adventure and bravery.