Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  "The teller is so old," Lillah whispered.

  "He is a newcomer. Appeared amongst us as a young man. He never chose to take a teacher. He has no children."

  "Do you know, in the last Order we saw a parade of the children born to brother and sister? They say that it should be avoided no matter what or deformities will be born."

  "They say, we say. The first woman and her lover were not brother and sister. Each new blood makes a change."

  They threw huge, dry leaves onto the talkfire and the heat was intense. The fire smelt like food, cooked meat, perhaps, or the soft scent of coconut milk scalded.

  Lillah felt the fire against her back, although she was a long way from it. She turned to see a young girl staring at her.

  "You're very red. Are you hot?"

  The girl shook her head. "I'm all right."

  It was hard to understand what she was saying: the girl had swallowed a burning ember as a challenge and her throat would always be scarred.

  The girl tugged at Lillah's hand. "Come to watch the deepfoodfire. They want you there."

  "I'll come soon," Lillah said. She felt uncomfortable in this place even if it was where Melia's mother came from. There was no joy here; the people distrusted a smile.

  The girl dragged her to a campfire away from the main buildings.

  "We acknowledge the fire because of the great gifts given us by our ancestor. He was famous for harnessing the power of hot stone, giving the way of cooking to the islands.

  "He could warm his hands between his thighs, then hold a stone until it burned white hot.

  "He found no one honourable enough to learn before he died, drowned when the sea monster sucked his limbs off so he couldn't save himself.

  "The magic of heat was lost for many years."

  The men had been working since the sun rose. "Some Orders will dig the hole in the days before cooking. This is inviting bad luck. Ghosts love holes; they will jump in and burrow down like a woodworm. Then, when you begin to cook they will burrow into your food. If ever you've tasted food that is ashen, you've eaten a ghost.

  "You can salt your oven to keep them away. We will always sprinkle a light layer, not so much as to affect the cooking. We like to dig our hole on the day. The men will dig the hole flat as a smoothstone and deep, then sprinkle the salt, lay the tinderwood and dry leaves, then the stones. Once the tinderwood is alight, they will layer the heavy wood and let it burn until it is white hot. Meanwhile, we wrap the fish and the root vegetables in wet leaves, and we tie them with vine to keep them together.

  "When the fire is ready, we place the food on the hot wood, then cover the pit back in.

  "Time to rest, swim, talk. Long time. Then uncover it and you have the good food. Some Orders use the surface. This is pure laziness. The hole needs to be deep and flat. Some Orders think sacrifice must be made for the food to be good, but we believe the animals themselves are the sacrifice."

  Borag listened to this with such attention, Lillah wondered if she was breathing.

  The men looked on the verge of tears. Not one of them seemed capable of seduction. They talked, asked questions, in their gritty voices. But that did not seduce.

  "Do we still sleep with them, simply because we feel sorry for them?" Lillah said.

  "Don't ask me. They're my relatives. I don't have to touch them," Melia said.

  Thea said, "I do feel sorry for them. I doubt spending the night with me will fix them."

  "True."

  The idea of being with one of these men did not appeal in any way. Lillah imagined their skin dry under their clothing, she imagined it flaking off, peeling away like the Bark on the Tree peeled away.

  After a while the men rose and they began to throw a coconut to each other, further and further, shouting. Zygo joined in, leaping around with them, fighting for the power of the coconut. They seemed happy and full of energy for that little time, then it lifted off them again and they collapsed, panting, leaving Zygo standing, triumphant.

  • • •

  Around the talkfire the youngest sat. There were not many. Babies were scarce in this place. The old, sad men couldn't attract the teachers. Only those like Thea, Lillah thought cruelly, who wouldn't be welcome elsewhere. Morace, Borag, Zygo and Rham sat watching. They sat closely together, forming a wall. They drew back from the fire, all of them frightened of it.

  One boy stood before the fire, his head tilted back. He held a burning ember tied on a string of wet seaweed.

  "Don't do that," Lillah said. The girl shook her head.

  "He has to do it. His voice is too gentle. Sweet. Who will love him like that?"

  "I don't want to see it, then."

  "But he likes you. He wants you in his cave."

  "I'm not attracted to him."

  "You will be."

  The boy, held up by friends on either side, lowered the ember into his mouth. He gagged, and his friends let him fall to the ground. One reached down and pulled the ember free. He gave it to the damaged boy.

  "Would you like it?" the boy croaked, holding it out to Lillah.

  There was a moment when she could have taken the ember from him. Closed herself off to feeling and done it for his sake, to make him feel like a better person.

  She didn't, though. She couldn't.

  "I don't understand why you would do such a thing."

  "No, you wouldn't. You have not burnt your throat. We learn humility through the burning; we learn not to question, not to speak too loud, not to shout. Fire is cleansing. You may not ever learn such a thing and I feel pity for you with that." Lillah saw Gingko looking and decided to show her a lesson. She leaned over to the boy, kissed his cheek, stroked his cheek. Gingko leapt into action, as Lillah knew she would, and walked slowly over to the boy. She spoke in a quiet, croaking voice, and she threw her hair back, exposed her throat.

  Lillah slipped away, smiling to herself. Gingko had stolen something from her she didn't want; that was good. She heard her name being called; Morace. She ignored him. She thought, The children are together. They can look after themselves for a short while. Leave me alone. She wanted to shout this at them. She wanted time to think without their questions and their neediness.

  Lillah backed away from the fire and walked to the water's edge. Melia was there. Crying, her face wet, her legs wet with sea water.

  "You're a mess, Melia."

  Melia smiled. "This place is so awful. My mother spoke about her life here only very rarely and I can see why. They are so dull and empty, living off imagined stories of the past, hurting themselves to prove something meaningless. I haven't dared ask them about my uncle. They are so hateful."

  Melia rubbed her face, rubbing sand into her cheeks. "I miss her. I want to tell her I understand why she hated this place. She told me they questioned but she lied. They ask nothing, know nothing."

  "At least you know where she is. At least you got to say goodbye to her."

  They tossed a coconut to and fro.

  Lillah said, "Those raspy voices are so irritating. Your mum's voice is not as bad compared to them."

  Melia looked back along the beach.

  "If she started walking after we left she'll be here, soon. Will she get here before we leave?"

  "She might hurry to say goodbye again. Or she might want to come here as herself, not as your mother."

  "We'll see."

  "When will you give your uncles the painted leaves your mother sent?"

  "The time has not been right. I feel as if they do not deserve such things. I'm worried they'll throw them in the fire and use the flames to burn themselves."

  "Perhaps that's what she intended, Melia. You need to give them the leaves."

  They were summoned: two women walked across the sand, their annoyance clear.

  "You are going to miss the Tree telling and you have not woven your seating mats. Even the children have done theirs."

  "Perhaps they could make ours then, if they are not busy," Melia said, smiling.r />
  "You will make your own mat."

  They were shown to the rushfire, where coconut leaves softened in boiling water.

  Melia carefully plaited coconut leaves, working on a small mat. "Lucky I've got a small bottom," she said. "If Aquifolia was here she'd be weaving for days."

  "I can help you," Morace said. Lillah and Melia exchanged glances. They thought that Morace was a little in love with Melia.

  The teller took Melia and Lillah to the base of the Tree, a barren area with odd, rusty mud that stuck to the feet.

  "You see where your uncle hung swinging, Melia? His blood dripped down and turned all this to waste."

  "Hung swinging?"

  "He was not happy on the ground, that man. He felt things that shouldn't be felt. He liked his sister far too much. Your mother didn't want to leave but she was forced to go. This was not the place for her."

  "She never told me her brother died."

  "She doesn't know. He took the climb after she left."

  Melia choked, coughing on something bitter in her mouth.

  "What will happen if she returns?"

  "She will be welcomed. There is no reason for her to be treated badly."

  There were other pictures, further up. Tall women, very tall, twice the size of Lillah. Lillah climbed the Tree to see their faces. Tongues sticking out, the rough Bark made them seemed scarred.

  She didn't want Melia to see these pictures. They were not truth. They were nightmare.

  The messenger came. He was a lazy boy, slow and languid in his words. He brought good news and bad; there was no difference in his voice when he told the two.

  "I have news from Ombu. Araucari, he of the useless legs and the useless appendage, will marry Aquifolia, who sent you on your way as she sends all teachers. She will give birth soon, they say. They say that his appendage is not so useless, because no other man will take to her."

  "Agara, now of Cedrelas, has had one child, a boy, and the Order say he is the strongest born in many generations. Does anyone have news to share?"

  "Tell my father I have the necklace still and it is protecting me. He needn't worry anymore," Lillah said. Mention of Aquifolia, who had been so bossy, who had deliberately burnt Lillah, made her irritable. The woman had the glory and really did nothing for it.

  Lillah didn't know where Melia was and couldn't bear to look for her. She was so sad, so angry about where she came from, and Lillah didn't know what to do.

  Lillah woke the next morning sure she was being punished for abandoning her best friend. Her womb ached in a terrible way, and she knew her bleeding was about to start. She had not had such pain before and she understood now what Agara went through each month.

  One of Melia's uncles came to see her with a tea infusion, saying quietly, "This will help the pain."

  It sent Lillah back to sleep, and when she awoke the pain was gone.

  "What was that tea you gave me? Can we take some with us?"

  "You can. I'll give you a large pouch of it. The leaves the Tree produces here give us this tea when dried and crushed. I don't know about elsewhere. It's a good tea. You take it in small doses for the pain, unless you have caught child. This tea is not good for a growing baby. It causes damage. Those babies will be born but must be left out to the Tree. The burden of them on any Order would not be worthwhile."

  "LEAFFALL!" It was the loudest cry they had heard, and it sent them into a panic. They looked up, and the leaves were shaking like they were having a fit. In every place the variation of leaf was vast. Some were the size of plates, some could be used for painting, some were so big and so sharpedged they could cause great damage.

  The rustling intensified slowly, so that when the leaves started to fall there had been some warning. Most of the Order pressed under the Tree, though Lillah thought it made more sense to be near the shore, out of range.

  "It's safer here," a man said. He pressed her gently up against the Trunk. He had an unpleasant smell about him. Not unwashed but as if his insides were not right and were exuding. Lillah did not regret not choosing him, or any of them, in the night.

  Gingko, emerging from her lover's cave triumphant, her hair a mess, her eyes half-closed from lack of sleep, walked forward. She wanted to swim; rinse clean. No one saw her, and she didn't notice Leaffall.

  She heard it, too late; a sheath of leaves, sharpedged, huge, floated down, back and forth, slicing, ready to slice. Too late she stepped away, and she was cut to shreds.

  When Leaffall ceased, everyone emerged to check for damage. Some of the houses had been hit, causing small damage.

  It was Rham who found Gingko's body. It was a terrifying sight and she screamed until the teachers ran to find their bloodied fellow on the ground.

  Lillah screamed, and the other teachers ran forward, lifting the leaves off, stepping back as Gingko's blood slicked out.

  "Keep the children back," Lillah shouted, waving her arm. They should know death but not like this. This was too horrible.

  But the children pushed forward, not stopped by any of the Order.

  "This will teach them to be wary of Leaffall," one of Melia's uncles said.

  They covered Gingko's body, weeping gently. They wept, but they exchanged glances: We are glad it isn't Agara. We are glad it isn't one of us. This wasn't a good teacher. She did not deserve to die, but we are glad it is her and not one of us.

  "It's quick when the blood runs out," Melia said, trying to find comfort. "And it makes you sleepy."

  Gingko's lover knelt in her blood and stared in disbelief. He thought she would stay with him, but not like this.

  The children chattered, so unaffected by the death that Lillah worried for their souls.

  "We barely knew her and she was cruel to us," Morace said. "She carried a sharp stick to scratch us if we didn't listen to her."

  "She didn't do that."

  "She did. Look." He showed her long, deep marks in his arm. Lillah felt sick to her stomach at how badly they had served the children. "We will

  be better teachers from now on."

  "You know the only bad thing about losing Gingko like this?" Melia said. "She didn't pass on the poem of the gifts."

  "We know it. It's fine. We remember each gift. We heard the poem often enough." There would be no news of Gingko.

  The messenger would tell her home Order, but there would be nothing beyond.

  Gingko was washed and dressed in leaves stitched together.

  The teller stood over her body. "This woman gave her life to the Tree, to the Tree's desires. We cannot judge the Tree for the lives it takes, the Tree knows all. We will not give the Tree the best of this woman; what remains after the deepfire pit."

  In what seemed to Lillah a very wrong ritual, they dug a deep pit and built it the same way they would build a food fire.

  It was far away from the Order, though.

  Gingko's body was placed in the pit over the stones then covered. "That fire will burn for many months. It will not go out while any of her remains. You needn't worry. We will care for her."

  A new teacher was chosen. She was a happy girl, much happier than those of her Order, and she made the children laugh. Rubica loved to run ahead with them and roll in the sand when there was a dune. Her cheeks reddened with it and she was very pretty.

  The children were happy with the choice.

  The other teachers taught her the poem of the 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 carried painted leaves for Parana.

  We carry coloured sand for Arborvitae.

  The teller said, "We have not received those painted leaves. Why have you waited? Do you despise us so much? Will you remember us so sadly?"

  Melia took the leaves. "These are for my uncles from my mother. She sends them with love."

  One of t
he uncles came to take them. "You should not have waited until this sad time. Now these leaves lose their meaning. Your mother would not be proud of you."

  "I am not proud of myself," Melia said, and she turned and ran away.

  Lillah followed her.

  "We aren't going to wait for them to dig up Gingko are we?" Melia said. "I want to get out of here. I haven't had a man in months." They both knew her desire to leave had nothing to do with men.