Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  "I am the one who speaks. I have power," the spokesman said.

  "Then please," Musa said. She stroked his hand. Grasped his thigh. It was too easy. "Please, consider setting her free."

  The sticks were thrown and it was decided: the jailed woman would be released.

  They winched the cage to shore. The woman whimpered, screamed, rattled at the cage. Her skin was burnt red, peeled off, her hair a wild mess of knots and filth.

  "What will she do?" Tamarica asked the spokesman.

  "That's up to her. She may wish to walk home. We certainly won't stop her."

  Lillah's lover opened the cage door, and they stepped back. The woman cowered in there, her feet pulled up.

  Ster walked to the cage and reached out a hand. "Come on. It's all right." The woman took her hand and crawled out. She couldn't stand: her feet were rotted, her legs weak from lack of use.

  "Help me," Ster said, and Tamarica helped to carry the woman to the talkfire. Someone placed a stone in her hand, not smoothstone but smooth enough.

  The Order ignored them, went on with their work.

  "Can you hear?" Ster said. The woman nodded. She opened her mouth to speak but her mouth was dry from the screaming. Lillah brought her fresh water and she took it greedily.

  They sat with her for a while, as none of the locals would. She began to talk, when she could, and it was complaints. She said she had been jailed for ignoring the sticks, for being too loud, for talking too much. How can they lock you up for talking too much, destroy you damage you finish you end you destroy you for talking?

  The teachers tired of the sound of her voice. They soothed her one last time and moved away.

  The rain began, a gentle mist. The people stood out in it, palms upwards, reading it, it seemed. Looking for future in the water droplets. The whole community came out for this, including some older children the teachers had not seen before.

  "There are children here ready for school," Musa said to the spokesman. He could not take his loving eyes off her. "You need to prepare."

  "We can't think who should be our teachers. We can't take the leap of faith required to send the children away for so long."

  "They will not survive, then. Your Order will die. Nobody will choose such a place."

  "Help us, then. Help us choose our teachers."

  Lillah and the other teachers discussed it and agreed to help. They already knew which women they preferred; it was not a difficult choice.

  The locals gave them a pouch of dirt to take. A comfort for them; always connected to the earth.

  In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Jailed woman talks too much, water used to make things move, all decisions by sticks. It makes no sense the smart in one the not smart in the other. Lillah added to her map: Rock Wall three people high.

  Here, the Tree grows sharp, bitter apples. The leaves are crisp and the Bark soft and wet.

  Arborvitae — ASPEN — Sargassum

  Lillah told the children Phyto had moved ahead and they were all unhappy, though they had talked about it at Arborvitae and expected it. Zygo was the most upset. "He was a good man. He taught me a lot."

  "He's not dead. You'll see him at Osage."

  Morace said, "He was a good listener. They will be lucky to have him." He looked at Lillah and she wondered if he meant to say that she did not listen so well.

  The long walk seemed even longer without Phyto.

  It would be seventy days before they reached Aspen.

  As the school approached Aspen the sand squeaked. It gave a sense of cleanliness, and they tidied themselves. They stopped to comb the knots from their hair and change their clothing. Borag, who had grown more serious since Rham's death, helped each teacher with her grooming.

  "One day this will be you," Musa said. "You will be dressing for a lover."

  "Not me. I'm going to stay home, where it's safe."

  Lillah pulled her hair back into a bushy tail and said, "Right, Let's go."

  The sand was dry, soft. So very different from Sapin's Order.

  Lillah dawdled back from the others, thinking of her lover, how he had looked into her eyes, made them connect in a way she could never forget.

  News came to them of Erica. Lillah did not want to hear it. Erica had caught child, and she was happy. She would call the child Rham. She sent message to say that she felt gifted to be there, that no other place on Botanica could be so good.

  "That isn't news! Why are you telling us? That is just an opinion," Musa said, irritated.

  The messenger shook his head. "That is the information I received."

  They were asked to bathe on arrival. The people here walked lightly, airily. They didn't stand too close together for fear of transferring sweat. They spoke in soft voices and every word was gentle.

  In preparation for the feast, shells tied on strings were draped around the Tree. Fish bones on strings hung around the doorways. They were cautious here not to damage the Trunk. They did not like to spill the sap.

  One man sat on a low branch, playing the flute, making it sound like the sweetest bird you ever heard. Rubica gave them the wheel and received a wooden flute in return.

  The children did not fight; they seemed to want to avoid the usual childhood arguments. Even Zygo seemed peaceful, unwilling to make his usual comments. He started up a game with the other children, a gentler version of one he'd learned along the way.

  Men and women sat together weaving leaf plates. They used soft leaves so they layered them, many on top of each other, and held them together with long thorns.

  Before each meal, they bathed. Chattering and laughing, all problems solved, a simple wash to cleanse the body.

  "They're washing again," Lillah muttered to Morace. "Look at them."

  Morace nodded. He was a kind boy, Lillah knew, and she treated him too much like an adult confidante. "My mother didn't like to wash. She said your skin shed itself naturally and that washing removed too many layers of skin at once. She said clean people got sick much more easily."

  Morace seemed angry as he said this, not sad. He rolled his shoulders, as if feeling the bones.

  "We don't need to bathe this time. Let's wander along the Tree Trunk. I haven't seen where the spiders are yet."

  No one noticed as they walked away. Lillah felt a deep sense of peace, walking with her halfbrother.

  "Look!" he said. Ropes dangled down from high branches. They looked at each other.

  "I'm going to climb the ropes, see where they go," Lillah said.

  "Me, too." Morace jumped up, rubbing his hands together.

  "No, you should go and eat. You need the food."

  "I feel sick in my stomach. I don't want food."

  Lillah placed her hand on his belly. She reached in her pocket and took out a small, smooth pebble.

  "Suck on this. It'll stop you feeling sick."

  He took it obediently and Lillah knew then that, in an emergency, he would follow her instructions without question.

  "I still don't want to eat," he said.

  Lillah took his hand and led him to the first rope. "Can you reach? Can you do this?"

  Together they climbed up. Looked out. There was a ghost hole up there, which terrified Lillah. There were noises in there, voices. She scratched her legs in the scramble to get down.

  "Don't climb down, Lillah! I want to look more!"

  "You explore, Morace. I am not as keen on ghosts as you are."

  Morace laughed. "Lillah, you are too frightened. Stay!"

  She climbed to a lower branch, stopping to notice that the Bark there was red, dripping with sap.

  "What's the matter with the Tree?" Lillah called down to a young man below.

  "Nothing. That's what it looks like."

  "But the rest of your Order is terrified of damaging the Tree. The Bark is stripped here."

  "We don't need to follow all the Order does." He reached up and pulled a strip down which he let fall, wasted.

  "You can't do that to
the Tree. You're damaging it." Lillah jumped down and assessed him. Strong, with lively eyes and a smile he showed. He was good to look at and a talker, too.

  "It's huge, in case you hadn't noticed. It's not going to be hurt by one small strip. My brother is digging out a tunnel. He says we need a place to run in case someone decides our place is desirable and they want it for themselves."

  "You would run and hide? Not stay and fight?"

  He looked at her, curious. "Of course we run and hide. Then when they are sleeping we sneak out and fill their mouths and noses with sand." From his pocket he pulled a handful, which he let spill in a stream.

  "I've never heard anyone talk of stealing this place. It has barely been mentioned."

  "It wouldn't be," he said, gesturing towards Arborvitae. "Hiding behind that wall as they do. And they wouldn't there," here he pointed on to Sargassum, the next Order,. "Because they live in a beautiful place full of sun and are very happy." Lillah knew they believed gods lived in the sun.

  The young man made some love magic. A gentle touch with twigs. He laid them over the door to his cave and the magic worked. Lillah overcame her usual fear on entering a Tree cave. She did not like to be on the inside of the Tree. She felt as if she were entering its veins, swimming in its blood. Climbing through its bones. She felt as if she should not be there.

  "It must be hard to be away from home." He twirled Lillah's hair in his fingers.

  "It is. Don't you remember what it was like when you travelled with your school? And how it felt to reach home again?"

  "I do remember. I remember thinking that I would not like to leave home again."

  They sat in silence. "Where is your brother? I haven't seen him."

  "He's not very sociable. Not in big groups. But he likes small gatherings. Shall I call him to us?"

  Lillah felt a flutter of excitement, a rush of blood. She knew that some teachers took two lovers at once; she never had.

  "Call him in," she said. "I'd like to hear about his tunnels."

  The brother was a broad, muscly man with scar tissue running over both shoulders and down to his nipples. His hair was straight and long. He looked at her from under it.

  "Hello, teacher," he said. She stood up. He bent down; she kissed him. His lips were soft but firm and very warm. He reached around to grab her buttocks and lifted her that way, high so that she didn't have to stretch her neck.

  His brother stroked her hair as the kiss went on, and her neck, a gentle, feathery touch which made her shiver with delight.

  The kiss broken, the three looked at each other and laughed.

  Big brother knelt to the floor, still holding her, and between them they removed her clothes and stroked and kissed her from head to toe.

  She reached for the smaller brother and bade him to lie down, then she straddled him and let him enter her. His brother knelt behind, raising bumps on her flesh.

  The big brother bade her lie down and he entered her that way. He was bigger than his brother, harder, and she gasped. There seemed to be no competition between them. They were happy to work together.

  Afterwards, they lay there together and the brothers spoke of their irritation with the Order – how the rest of them were weak, ready to run, would not protect their village, hurt anyone to save it.

  The brothers thought the village was worth killing and dying for.

  It was a very different attitude to the rest of the Order, who were so fearful of people disappearing they would not fight anything. They said they had lost three to the Tree; three disappeared inside never to be seen again.

  Lillah thought of Rham, never to grow up, and of Thea and Gingko, grown and gone, never to be mothers.

  She wanted to stay. She liked the Order and she liked the brothers, but they were only two Orders from Gulfweed. She thought, "I will make Morace safe. Hand him over to his relatives. Then I can come back.

  Lillah and Morace held hands as they left. Another Order that hadn't made the connection between Morace and a woman dying in Ombu. Another time safe. Ster walked with them, too. She had gained strength, no longer mouthing Lillah's opinion. She took the lead more often and Lillah thought she would be welcomed in an Order where a leader was needed.

  Lillah wondered, as she had many times, what she was doing. All her learning told her that if Morace was sick, he needed to be sacrificed. But she didn't believe that. She didn't believe that he could cause destruction.

  • • •

  "This is a beautiful place. So peaceful," Tamarica said. Lillah nodded. To Tamarica, any place where the men weren't cruel was peaceful.

  In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Lovely brothers go to war, lovely brothers so nice together.

  Here, the Tree grows red fruit. The leaves are small and dense and the Bark drips red sap.

  Aspen — SARGASSUM — Gulfweed

  The market between Aspen and Sargassum was lively, full of laughter. People were different away from their homes. Some became dour and complaining, others seemed free of constraints and expectations and all the better for it. With only a two week walk, people travelled there often.

  It still seemed strange to be walking without Phyto. Zygo in particular seemed downhearted.

  "I hope he's all right. I wish he could have walked with us all the way home."

  "He has his life to follow. We were lucky to have him for as long as we did. He liked being around us, I think. He learnt a lot from you, too, Zygo."

  "This is where Aquifolia's mother lives. She came from here." Lillah said as they approached Sargassum. She wondered how poor, lonely Aquifolia was. Unloved forever, not even liked particularly well. But then, no, she had married Araucari and they were happy, Lillah was sure. He was a good man even without use of his legs.

  They saw the Order ahead and before it, the sand white and full of glare. It was odd; a bad omen.

  Morace ran ahead. "It's fish doors. All of it! Have you ever seen such a thing?"

  It was, too, the small white shell circles. Lillah had only seen scattered dozens before. Here, there were millions. Lillah and the other teachers did not remember such a thing from when they were students.

  The children, amazed by the shells, ran through them. Ran their fingers through them and collected them in massive piles.

  Ster and Lillah watched together. "I remember finding this Order strange," Ster said.

  "In what way?"

  "They seemed to know so much. They often knew what we would say and they seemed to know what would happen before it happened. They were never taken by surprise by Leaffall. Or by Spikes."

  "What are you telling me?"

  "I'm telling you that here we need to be careful. These people, of everywhere you or I have been, understand each other. They understand us. They are not as caught up in their own existence as most others on Botanica. They know people and remember the things they have heard."

  "The messenger would not have bothered to tell them about Rhizo, surely," Lillah said. "They would not be interested in the death of a woman they don't know."

  "They are interested in all deaths. And she is from the next Order, don't forget. They may know her in some way."

  They spent the night near the sea doors because the children seemed to love being around them and they had few joys. Lillah felt nervous. She saw them as a bad omen, as did the other teachers, but she didn't want to share that nervousness with the children.

  The Bark here was pale, almost luminous. Green onion shoots grew amongst the roots, so they had a tasty meal of flavourful fish.

  "In the morning we will walk into Sargassum," Lillah said. "I know a woman who came from there. She settled in my Order. She is the one who burnt me."

  She showed them her arm

  "Why did she burn you?"

  "She didn't like me much," Lillah said. "That's what I always believed. She said it was a message for her Order; I guess we'll find out."

  As they were settling to sleep, they heard, "Lillah!"

  "Who kn
ows you here?" Tamarica said.

  "No one! Who could know me here?"

  "Lillah!" they heard again. In the falling dark, a young woman came to them under the trunk.

  "Nyssa!" Lillah ran over to her childhood friend and they swung each other around joyfully.

  "You look the same! I knew you straight away!"