Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  "She died in the service of the Tree," Tamarica said. "She gave us great blessing."

  "Blessings you need. There has been a lot of death, hasn't there? The child, Rham. Your lack of care for her means you have no right to instruct me."

  The teachers felt under attack with this. As if there was not enough guilt already.

  Phyto walked ahead of them; when they caught up with him he was pale, shaky. Too cold to speak, although the weather was not so freezing.

  "I'm lonely," he told Lillah. "I'm aching with loneliness."

  "We're here."

  "You are very dear, but I am out of my place. I want to race ahead, be with those people."

  "You should walk ahead, then. Really, we are slow. I'm surprised you haven't walked on before. It will take us over a year to reach Osage."

  "I felt like you needed me."

  "I love having you around but I know you need to go."

  Lillah could see that Phyto had trouble sleeping. She and Tamarica kept him company, watching the moon light the sea.

  "Are you thinking so much of Osage?" Lillah asked him.

  "I've placed so much expectation on the place. What if I don't like them? What if they're awful men?"

  "They can't be," Tamarica said. She dusted sand off his face, rubbed red powder onto his cheekbones. Practicing for arrival in so many months.

  He pushed her hand away. "I want to arrive as a man. If these are my people, they will accept me for that."

  Later, he said to Lillah, "I think Tamarica is interested in me as a lover. Doesn't she realise I don't want her?"

  Lillah laughed. "She has no interest in you at all, you fool. Haven't you noticed? She's like you. She doesn't want a lover on the other side. She wants a lover like her. She wants a woman."

  Phyto stood at the Order's edge. "You are closer now, Phyto," Lillah said. "Closer to where you should be. I wish I could watch you arrive at Osage."

  "What if they think I'm ugly and dull?"

  "Not possible, Phyto. And I think you should take the shells we have carried from Ombu to give to them. I think it is best if you do it."

  They hugged each other, treasuring this rare friendship.

  "Stay safe, Lillah. Keep Morace safe. Perhaps he will do something great; perhaps not. But don't give him up."

  "I won't. I'll get a message to you somehow."

  The air felt odd; the wet season should have come but hadn't. The air felt strangely dry.

  "There are people in the next Order who can't hear," Ster said to the children as they walked. "They are quite isolated and don't have a lot of communication with other Orders."

  "What do you mean they can't hear?"

  "Their ears don't work. There is only silence in their heads." The children were silent then, imagining.

  "I wonder if it's Spikes that took their hearing," Rubica said. "Should we walk straight past?"

  "No, they are born that way. They don't fall ill," Ster said.

  No one had told them what to do in this situation.

  They came across a wall of rock from the water to the Tree. Some large rocks but mostly small, rising higher than their heads, unstable. Sticks ranged along the base of the wall, poking up like seagrass. Light along the top reflected off the small shells stuck there.

  "We can't climb that," Rubica said.

  "We'll wait till the tide's out and paddle around if we can," Lillah said. "It will only be a few hours." She felt like the mother to them all, having been with the school since the start. It hurt to see the children attaching themselves to the other teachers, because she wanted them to love her, rely on her. And she hoped they remembered their departed teachers Erica, Gingko and Thea. Melia and Agara, the women she grew up with and would never see again unless they safely made it back to Ombu once their children were reared. Most believed you should let people go, let memory drift. It was easier that way.

  But to forget her mother? For Morace to forget his? When both had died so wrongly, when there had been no time to say goodbye? That she didn't think was possible.

  The bigness of the wall filled her, gave her that sense of vastness she sometimes experienced, a sense of every space filled with bigness. The Tree filled so much of her vision, and yet she had seen only the bark. The outside, the surface.

  The children built a house with small rocks while they waited for the tide to shift. They went at it with such determination the teachers were struck quiet, watching them with great pride.

  Later, they gathered their things high on their shoulders and picked their way carefully around the edge of the wall.

  On the other side, a man sat in a thick wooden chair, looking out to sea.

  He rose when he saw them, lifted his arms in greeting.

  "Welcome to Arborvitae. You will find us a pleasant place to visit."

  Lillah exchanged a look with Tamarica. Why would the man be here to greet them alone?

  "I am one who uses my ears and tongue. There are more like me, many more not. We communicate differently here. You will understand. You must have patience, as will we. We only talk if we have something to say. We do not discuss the weather unless it will affect the way we spend our day. And we do not discuss our food unless it is poisoned. The silence is not caused by Spikes; you are risking nothing by entering."

  "The feast is going to be fun, I can tell," Musa muttered.

  "You are such a happy being. I'm so glad you took the place of my best friend Melia."

  "Oh, yes, the wonderful Melia, who cares so little she stayed in a place full of death without a care for you."

  Lillah realised this was true and it filled her with fury. "She deserted us, didn't she?"

  "She did. You should be happy she is gone, Lillah. I will always be a better friend to you. I will be honest and true, even if you don't like what I have to say."

  "You know that one of the reasons Melia stopped at Alga was to get away from you? She hated you that much."

  "That says more about her than it does about me."

  Their spokesman led them towards the Tree; the limbs here were hung with broken branches, tied on with seaweed.

  "No ghosts here," Tamarica said. "Plenty of protection." Around a large home, the people sat. They opened theirs mouths without sound and used their fingers as signals.

  "They are happy to see you," the spokesman said.

  One skipped forward and threw a pile of sticks to the ground. They squatted around the sticks, pointing and smacking their lips together.

  "They are deciding what next. Feast or bathe," the spokesman said.

  "I'm hot and sticky," Morace said. "I'd like a bath first."

  The spokesman put his fingers over his lips. "The sticks will decide."

  The sticks called bathing, so they went to the water's edge. Huge baskets appeared, with light, rough stones for scrubbing, sweet smelling oils.

  They stepped into the water. Lillah swam under the surface while she could hold her breath, happy to be in her own world.

  She banged into something in the water, something that rattled and she opened her eyes under water. A cage. Inside; two feet, green and white in the water, pockmarked with dissolved skin.

  Lillah choked, rose to the surface.

  The woman in the cage screamed, screamed, cowered away from Lillah.

  "Monster! Monster!"

  Her panic calmed Lillah.

  "I'm not. I'm Lillah. I'm a teacher. Sorry I banged into you."

  The woman kept screaming, mouth open. The spokesman swam over to say, "Don't talk to her. Her head is done with."

  "Why is she jailed?"

  The spokesman shook his head. "We don't discuss the crime. It gets no hearing here." But later, someone whispered, "She had love while her father was in the village. Can you imagine breaking such a taboo?"

  The sticks were thrown again for the feast and to decide who would be the storyteller. It was Lillah.

  Welcomefire first; the morning-after moss exchanged for a perfectly carved whee
l and the coloured sand, sent by one of the mothers of Ombu, given to a grateful relative.

  "The people of Parana told me the story of why they acknowledge the fire. They said their ancestor gave them great gifts. He showed them how to use hot stones for cooking. He had very hot thighs and he could warm his hands between them then heat the stone. They say he was so disgusted with his apprentices, he did not teach them the art.

  "He drowned when the sea monster sucked his limbs off so he couldn't save himself. Those are the words they used. Then the lesson of the hot stones was lost for many years."

  The Order nodded politely, but Lillah knew she had not told the story well. Then one of them stood up and showed her how to do it.

  "There was once an island full of stones, each stone tall as a Tree. Each stone pouring out a deep well of sap because beneath the sand grew Trees, upside down, reaching into the underworld. In the underworld were men of power and hearing, noise and calm. They lived lives of taking, nothing belonging. Above ground only the stones, barren ground, no place for a child. Then one day an underground woman tired of the men there. Men there did not respect the women. They would use them, mistreat them. The woman decided to move above ground, but she did not realise that the pressure of the air up there would take her hearing. Deafened, she made sure the other women underground knew the choice they would be making if they joined her. The sacrifice they would be making. But they didn't care. They would prefer not to hear than to live with those men any longer."

  • • •

  "Come and look, Lillah," Morace said. "They are making a great wheel turn using fast-running water."

  "What is the point in that?"

  "They say the wheel could turn the spit for the meat, or a wheel to spin a pot. They say when they get it right it will mean more rest for everyone." The wheel was like the one they had been given at welcomefire and they realised its great worth.

  Lillah was entranced by such cleverness, and she wished she could stay forever to observe it. They were too sickly, though. They had damaged ears, and they were weak, and they couldn't think clearly, some of them. In other Orders these people would have been treated as ill. Lillah thought of Morace, though she hated to. If he was really sick, what would she do? She couldn't bring Spikes to an Order or they would end like this one.

  Their spokesman stretched up and plucked down a spider as big as his hand. He let it crawl over his arm, up to his shoulder. Then he plucked at it, pulled off the legs.

  He held the spider over a flame; ate it.

  The others watched in horror. "You can't eat a spider."

  "They do," he said. He pointed into a cave, poked his head in there. "They eat spiders. I've heard them talking about it."

  The teachers and children backed away from him, horrified. All but Morace, who stayed to ask him questions.

  The main house had a veranda like the main house in Ombu. Lillah had not seen this elsewhere; other Orders thought it used too much precious wood.

  But Ombu had received a great wave of planks, some coloured with flaky green, flaky red. They used the wood well.

  "We receive a lot of drift-in wood. We think our inlet calls for wood," the spokesman said.

  Lillah felt at home on the veranda. Nice to sit up and look out.

  The sand was oily here, damp and greasy to the touch. The children moulded round balls out of it and they held together.

  The wall of rocks on the other side of the Order was even higher. Here, children and young men climbed to the top. They had pressed sticks, sap and seaweed between the gaps to make it sturdy. Morace and the other children climbed up too, the effort wearying Morace so he looked pale and weak by the time he came back down. Zygo climbed up, down, up and down, shouting with his vigour, showing his power.

  The teachers lost all caution when they spoke. They forgot who could hear and who couldn't, and for a while spoke freely. Then, after three days in the place, they felt a quiet peace descend. They spoke less, gestured some, but mostly they let natural teamwork take over. This had happened to those women who chose to stay in the community. Some had forgotten how to speak, others chose not to.

  Lillah missed Melia again, knowing she would have loved this Order.

  A great bough cracked and fell to earth. No one was hurt; a line of sticks had kept people out of the area. These people knew wood, knew the Tree, they knew when a bough would fall. They had to; they couldn't always hear it.

  The spokesman told them, "It means there is a lack of purity amongst us. Don't take it to heart; a branch will often fall when we have a school to visit. It is the different way of thinking. Of behaviour."

  They set up a fire and one of the young men walked along the trunk. He found dark red twigs and tossed them into a pile; Lillah picked one up and smelt it. There was a perfume, a rich scent.

  "These twigs grow in that place only. They are very strong and will only snap when there is need of a purifying fire."

  They built the talkfire. The smoke was thick and seemed to take the shape of a man.

  "All is well," the spokesman said. "We are purified."

  Lillah watched the young firemaker, and she thought he would be her lover as he took up a piece of wood and began to carve it. She marvelled at his gentle, clever hands. Many of them had huge carved bowls from one piece of fallen wood.

  She stood close to him, letting her thighs touch his back.

  "That's beautiful. My father makes cradles."

  "He can't hear you, Lillah." The spokesman cupped his hands over his ears. "We are lucky here. The wood is drier, so the boughs drop off more easily. They are larger. We can do good work," he said.

  The worker put down his tools. His cheeks were red and there was a sheen of sweat on his shoulders. His shyness, his lack of confidence, was odd. He took her hand. The spokesman walked with them.

  "Do you have caves here?" Lillah said.

  "We do. But the heat is too great there in the Tree. We like our huts better."

  "But it's cold out here. Warmth would be good."

  "That isn't warmth. It's heat. Burning fire to frizzle your hair away."

  "Where does the heat come from?"

  "From the eternal fire. The undousable flame. The Tree burning from within, and one day the Tree will crumble to grey ash. Only those connected to the Earth will survive. We keep our feet touching the earth. Some part of us connected to the earth at all times. We carry a sack with a pinch of dirt if we need to, so that we always touch dirt."

  Lillah had noticed they were always barefoot.

  "Because all was created from the Tree. A great woman stood still for so long her toenails grew and took root in the earth. We do not walk on the sea or climb the Tree."

  "Why did she stand still for so long?"

  "She waited for her lover to return from his bath in the sea. But the monster took him and spat out his bones."

  Her lover rubbed his face against her cheek and she pulled away from its scratchiness. He laughed. Most men had soft facial hair or nothing at all.

  "I'll leave you now. You seem to be communicating well enough." There was bitterness in the spokesman's voice. Always talking, never loving.

  Her lover took up a knife made from sharpened shell and rubbed his chin with oil. He dragged the knife across his skin; Lillah flinched to watch it, but he didn't cut himself.

  He rubbed his face into her thighs. Smooth, oh, very smooth. The silent loving was long and sweet.

  The children were very disturbed by the jailed woman. They sat by the water's edge, watching. Sometimes crying. Finally Musa approached the spokesman.

  "Is there chance of her release soon?"

  "Release?" He shook his head. "Usually they are dead before there is any talk of release."

  "It upsets the children. I know that won't and shouldn't effect your decision, but it would be good to pass along with a positive memory of Arborvitae."

  "You don't feel positive?"

  Musa looked at him. She had not experienced th
e bad men of Douglas but had heard about them many times. She knew about men wheedling and whining to be chosen, using pity, taking advantage.

  She didn't care for the jailed woman but she cared that the children were distressed.

  "How much power do you have here?"