Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  Morace seemed angry, and finally he said to Lillah, "Why are you being so mean to Melia? It wasn't her fault. You should be nice to her."

  They found the market after thirty-five days, only by accident. Rham, cross at other children for laughing at her when she spent too long investigating a rockpool, walked near the Tree rather than along the shore line. Lillah could see her in the distance, kept her in sight.

  She came running down to the group, calling, "The market is here! Open!"

  There was excitement at the news. Lillah wondered what would be on display. It was a large structure, with shuttered windows. The teachers gathered items to barter and walked up to the market. It seemed quiet; certainly there were no bargainers gathered.

  "Is anyone there?" Phyto asked. Melia and Rham went forward. Rham stuck her head through an open small window.

  "There's someone asleep here!" she called back. The children ran up to look and the teachers followed.

  Inside, a large man with long, tangled hair slept on a bed of leaves and feathers. Flat on his back, his legs and arms spread, his hair filling much space around his head, he breathed deeply, his huge stomach rising and falling.

  The children began to giggle and he stirred. They ran, screaming, "The whale is awake! The whale will eat us!"

  Phyto called through, "Hello! Are you there?"

  The man leapt up with far more agility than the teachers imagined he would have.

  "Where did you come from? I'm closing up. Market is done."

  Phyto said, "You seem to have nothing to swap here. What sort of market are you running?"

  The man stepped outside, squinting in the light. He opened a storage box and pulled out some coconut straps which he ate himself without offering to share.

  "People took it. All gone."

  "People?"

  "Every time I fall asleep more of it disappears."

  "Why don't you go home, then? Or stay awake?"

  "I can't go home. I have nothing. I stay here until someone comes to get me."

  "This is an easy life then."

  "It's a hard, lonely life."

  "We will leave you to it, then."

  "Don't tell them. I will get more things for the market."

  Phyto shook his shoulder. "We won't talk of you at all."

  As they walked away, Phyto said, "He must like it here or he wouldn't stay."

  Morace said, "If that were my market, I would hire a boy to watch while I slept. Then nothing would be stolen. And when I was awake the boy could sleep, or he could collect more items for me to sell. I would never have a market with empty shelves like that."

  They walked on, Rham sticking with them this time.

  "Will you talk to me now, or is all talking done?" Melia said after a day's silence.

  "I'm sorry, Melia. It just seems so awful, to leave her there."

  "Of course. But she's made her choice. She's picked her Order."

  "We wouldn't have even gone there if it wasn't for you and your curiosity about the weather. That doesn't help anyone. Anyway, why should I speak to you? You think I'm a giant piece of fruit or something. When you are out of your brain."

  "I've finished those leaves. All I see is dull, flat truth now."

  "Is that really what you think of your world? I think you're selfish. Your own knowledge is more important than anything else."

  "That's true. That really is true. But I won't take the blame for this. We are obliged to visit each Order, regardless of the sort of people they are. That is how the school works. If Thea's guilt kept her there, that is her choice. You know that you were the only one who refused to see what she was. What she has done. What she may do again in the future. You didn't see it because you were blinded to the bad in her, because you forced her to come on the school. You couldn't stand to be wrong. You are as selfish as I am, in your own way."

  Rubica came forward. "Tamarica is happy talking to Morace about the tide, now. She says that there are bone collectors in the next Order. That most teachers are scared to walk in."

  "We've heard about those. But they leave living people alone. We have nothing to fear."

  Phyto said, "You can't skip quickly through another Order. This one will be fine, I'm sure."

  Birds circled overhead, huge ones. Tamarica said, "We usually shelter under some leaves when they fly over. These children are quite big, but those birds have picked up children that size in their claws and flown away."

  "Children, gather," Lillah shouted. "Come on. Let's rest under the Tree." The children ran so fast Morace and Rham fell over, laughing.

  They sheltered under the Tree as the birds circled them.

  "They don't come to land very often. The fish must be low in supply, or swimming deep in the water."

  The birds caught monkeys in their sharp claws and flew out to sea. "They will stay away now," Tamarica said.

  Still, they spent the night close to the Trunk, feeling safer there.

  As they moved along, the sand became very fine. It clung to their shins and sparkled when the sun hit it.

  This Order sent a delegation to meet them. "It's nice to be welcomed," Tamarica said. Three young men stripped to the waist, their skin golden brown and shining. The light on the water, the sky itself, seemed golden, smacked through with a burnished red that made Lillah think of roasted pepper.

  "It's like oil," Tamarica whispered. "Don't you think? They're covered with it."

  "I hope there are more than three of them. Three won't be enough for all of us," Melia said, and the teachers laughed. One of the men carried a large clay bowl.

  Lillah stepped forward and nodded.

  The men bowed their heads in welcome. The carrier placed the clay bowl in the sand. Lillah saw sea sponges floating in clear water.

  The tallest man picked up a sponge and squeezed away the excess water. He took Lillah's hand, squeezing her fingers gently.

  "This will refresh you," he said. He sponged her face so gently her eyelids fluttered closed. The water was warm and had a rich, flowery smell to it.

  "Sap. Life-giving. Very precious."

  Other men approached with bowls until each teacher had an attendant. The children ran ahead to the Order, ready to explore a new place. "Can you believe the difference from the men of Douglas?" Tamarica said.

  A massive pebble break stood at the tide line. It was three times the height of the tallest man, and stretched as far as they could see.

  "I've never seen one that big before," Melia said. She bent down to pick up a pebble. "This must have been forming since the Tree was a david-sapling."

  "We built it ourselves, mostly," one of the men said. The rest nodded proudly. "We gather every pebble washed up between here and there," he pointed to a rock pile further down the beach, "and soon we have a wall like this."

  "But why? You could use the pebbles to build shelters."

  "This is to keep the sea monster away. He lives just out there. You don't know; you haven't had him eat your people."

  Lillah noticed there was no seawalk.

  "He's a very angry monster. He came from the air and he can't escape the sea, now, so he's angry and wants to punish us. This pebble break lets him know we are in control, we rule the land. He can't get us."

  Along the high tide line, they had lined up large bird and fish skulls.

  "Bodies are laid out for the birds until bones are picked clean. Bones line the tide line. Then the ghosts steal the bones and we are done with it.

  "We line the pebble wall with bones to stop people talking their secrets. We have learned the hard way that speaking secrets is not good. The sea monster will use the secret against you. He gets angry if we take anything from the water. Only that which he gives us can be taken. A caught fish is full of poison."

  They used dried grass stalks, woven into mats, to sit on, and they used these mats to shield their view from the sea as well.

  "Do you trade these with Douglas?" Melia asked. "We noticed the market didn't seem too v
ibrant."

  "We don't like trading with them even though they are fair traders. They don't like to be cheated and will see a cheat where none exists."

  "Does anyone really cheat them?"

  "It makes them very angry."

  The sand was damp here, cold to sit on. It was good for building, though, and these people had made an art of sandcastles. Beautiful, intricate things, some of them so big you could crawl through the rooms. Lillah felt nervous doing so: she didn't like the walls of sand around her. Hated to think of them collapsing onto her face, breathing grains of sand in.

  This was a very serious Order. A new baby, born as they arrived, came without fanfare or fuss. Lillah liked it; the calmness of the baby's appearance took away some of the fears. The mother carried the baby around the village showing him off. The father followed her, a large green coconut in his hands. The mother would sip from it when she was thirsty.

  The baby's fingernails were as long as its small fingers. "A strong one. Nice long nails to hang on so he never slipped out."

  "And scratch up the poor mother inside."

  There was one man Lillah was attracted to, a sandy-haired, tall man with tiny downy hairs covering his body. Because the sand here was damper, heavier, it didn't cling to the body like it did in some places. His name was Sapin. Her heart beat quickly and she wondered if this was it. She had felt physical responses to men before, but not this heart-thumping change.

  He had not been here when she came through with her school because he was travelling with his. She'd heard stories of people finding a match at age nine or twelve, and that match surviving. Her own parents met that way, they'd told her.

  As they gathered for the evening meal, the Order built a tall sandhouse, as tall as Morace. The sand was so damp it set. On the walls they drew incredibly beautiful pictures, depicting the sea monster as something immense and powerful. Sapin was the main artist.

  Lillah sat down with Sapin and showed him her map.

  "You see how badly I draw. Can you fix it for me?"

  "What is it?"

  "It's our world. On paper. As I travel I mark it down."

  Sapin cried, looking at it. "This is our world," he said. He picked up a twig and laid it over her drawing of the centre of the Tree.

  "All you need to show is the stick to be our Tree."

  At the feast, welcomefire saw the swapping of the bird bone bracelet for a metal plate. The feast was all plant and animal, no seafood. Tamarica laughed loudly, danced around the men, enjoyed the smiles. "I feel so free. I feel as if I can be myself and not worry about being hurt."

  "Who would hurt you?" one of the men asked. He stroked her hair, her cheek, tender sweet. Lillah told them about the men of Douglas.

  "They took you by force? And made one of you stay?"

  Lillah and Melia exchanged glances. Melia said, "Yes. But Thea did stay willingly. We can't say otherwise."

  Tamarica said, "I didn't realise that wasn't the way other men behaved. I didn't know it. I couldn't stop it."

  "No one expected you to stop it. It's not your responsibility. And you're away now. You're with us. You can meet the good men of the Tree."

  "We have heard this many times before. We do

  trade with them sometimes, of course, share news. They treat us well. They never show an interest in the women of this Order," one woman said.

  "They are smart enough not to damage the relationship, I suppose. What can we do about them? We were warned on our journey, but they are hard to avoid. You don't believe what these men will be like, because you haven't met men like them before."

  "So what is there to do? These men should be punished."

  "It is not our place to tell other Orders how to behave. They may come here and find our behaviour offensive. We can punish those within our own Order for breaking the Way, but not those in others. People from such a community will be flawed. These people have no judgement."

  Lillah comforted Tamarica, pulling her in, head on shoulder. Tamarica smelt good, like a salty stew. "Not you, Tamarica. You are a good person and you will grow beyond your community."

  A flock of the terrifying birds flew overhead. One dropped a great chunk of fish, and the people ran to pick it up. The cook wrapped it in leaves and tossed it into the fire. It cooked quickly and was rolled out of the flames with two long sticks.

  "You'll eat that fish?" Melia said.

  "It's from the land."

  Melia sniffed at the fish. "It doesn't smell right to me."

  Borag, who had already taken a mouthful, spat the fish to the ground. She sniffed as well. "Not right," she said. "Too long out of the water. If it was salted it would be better."

  There were vegetables and greens, too, and they settled to their food. One of the women told them a story.

  "The Tree was so small once that children could leap over it. As it got higher, people held competitions to see who could jump it. Eventually no one could. Can you imagine jumping this Tree?"

  They looked up. You could not see the top of the Tree; you could not see the end of the Trunk.

  "It sprang from a seed in the belly of a woman who lived here long before memory began. She came from the stars, flew down and landed, but she died. The animals (there were large animals, then. More monkeys than there are now, bigger ones) buried her, because they knew the stink a dead body could bring. In her belly was a seed from the stars, and this is where our Tree came from."

  "Look at these plates," Lillah said. "Aren't they beautiful?" Someone had painted them all, edged them with delicate flowers and stars.

  "Deep in the water is the metal house. We don't go down to it, but when we need metal we will send out a sacrifice and some metal will come to us. We are fortunate in that. This metal sometimes washes up elsewhere as well. It is a very generous monster. He likes us because we do not forget him. But we never travel alone. No matter how much he likes us and our gifts, he can't resist a person alone. We do everything in a group. It is hard to think of being alone."

  Lillah had noticed there didn't seem to be any loners here. She had also noticed boys of five or six being breastfed: they would grow up to be good, strong men.

  "It's only people alone who get taken. We have lost some that way. One woman had an argument with her lover and she went to the water's edge alone to throw stones out there. She did not want to hit her lover although she did want to. So she threw stones, and they roused the sea monster. He came up quietly to the water's edge in the shape of a small child, and he put his metal hand in hers. Before she realised he was a monster, he tugged her into the sea where she drowned. Her body was found much later, after her lover had a new lover, many more. Her body turned silver, like the metal. The monster turned her into metal."

  "So no one lives alone here?"

  "Just one crazy old woman. She likes herself more than anyone else."

  Lillah envied loners their solitude sometimes. They didn't need to speak to anyone, or share, or sympathise. They were alone.

  She watched this old woman trip along the beach.

  "She's crazy. We couldn't send her as a teacher. Nobody wants her."

  "Doesn't she know it's dangerous, walking alone?"

  "She's not scared of the sea monster. He's taken her once before, spat her back out. She liked it."

  "Is that where…" Lillah said. Her friend nodded. The woman was covered in pockmarks; Lillah had wondered how she came to be so disfigured.

  "She won't even wear red to keep the bad away."

  This Order distrusted the sea more than any other Lillah had seen. Perhaps because people had been taken; it had actually happened here.

  "Sometimes our young men will walk out, taunting the monster. They think it proves their manhood. And, to be sure, they are considered very attractive when they return."

  He was so serious, Lillah felt like making him laugh. She wasn't sure how to, though.

  "I have another story to tell you. A love story," said Sapin. Lillah wondered why his voic
e was so deep and sweet. "There were once two davidsaplings which grew from the Tree. Unlike the other david-saplings, which stretched for sun and space, these two twisted together. They are still there today. You can gaze at them and see two lovers. You will see your face and that of your lover."

  "Be wary of men who appear to be perfect. They may be putting on an act in order to catch you," Melia whispered to Lillah.

  "These men do seem perfect! Let's just enjoy them. I think they are good men."