"Morace is busy."
"He misses you."
The Birthman turned his back. "I will see him at the birth of Dickson's child. He will assist me then."
"Dickson! I haven't seen him yet."
"You go. I am busy."
"We heard some terrible news when we travelled. About Dickson and a child. How he kept her in a cave until she died."
The Birthman turned to face her again. "Strange. What strange news. We did have a terrible tragedy here, but Dickson did all he could. It was a student, only fourteen years old. It seems that one of the men of Laburnum took her. That's what they said. The child came to us, without her school. She had caught child. Dickson cared for her in one of the Tree caves, bringing her food and making her feel safe. From all accounts she was cared for well. But she died in childbirth, and the child did as well. We were all there. We all saw it. He did all he could and so did I. Messengers can not always be believed."
Lillah felt great relief to hear this, though also anger at the message they had received which had caused them grief in Gulfweed.
Morace said, "That is not what we heard."
"Perhaps your ears are at fault, then," Pittos said. He did not look at Morace as he spoke.
• • •
"You see?" Morace said as they walked away. "He doesn't care about me."
"I'm sure he does care. I think he cares too much," Lillah said. "You remind him of Rhizo and that Rhizo was not only with him. That must be hard."
"But how can he not love me enough to get over that?"
"Because he loved her more. That is how men are. They love the women in their lives more than they love the children. That's how it should be. You'll feel that way about a woman one day."
"Maybe. Dickson does."
"Let's go see him. I'm so happy to learn he is not guilty of killing a child."
They were at home, sitting to a meal.
"Lillah!" Dickson jumped up. He looked fatter around the cheeks; he liked to eat. "My dear girl."
His wife put her spoon down and stood up. "Lillah. The explorer. I'm Capri. Mother of his four children. All four!"
She took Lillah's hand. She was tall, with strong features. Around her neck, a beautiful shell necklace.
"Did we meet along the way?" Lillah asked.
"I remember your school as you passed through. I remember thinking how clever you were, and thinking your community would be a good one."
"Where are you from?"
"Douglas. I left for school soon after you left."
"We were distracted in Douglas. I'm sorry I don't remember you. I'm glad they let a school group go."
"It was Thea, mostly. She inspired us. She told us of the other people, other places. Before she died."
"I'm glad she did some good."
"She really did. Clever sister," Dickson said. He seemed genuinely happy and in love. Lillah did not talk to him about the young woman he had tried to save. She would do that another time.
His children seemed healthy and happy.
Smoothstones lined a shelf on the Tree, those gone, those returned, those dead, those settled in new Orders. There were the stones for Rham and Thea; the dead remembered. The others weren't there and it seemed odd to Lillah that here they didn't know Gingko, Rubica, Tamarica, Musa, Ster or Phyto.
As she touched all these stones, an older woman joined her.
Lillah stared too hard, barely recognising her.
"It's me. Aquifolia. You see the lives of the girls I've turned into teachers. Written in the lines on my face."
"In other places, they just gather together and go. They don't have someone to look after them like we do. The girls here are very lucky. We are very lucky." Lillah blinked at her, thinking of Maringa, Aquifolia's scarred mother. "Your mother saved us. She is an amazing woman. Slightly terrifying. She understood the message you sent. She saved my life, Aquifolia. And Morace's."
Lillah stroked the burn scar on her forearm. Maringa had seen black air, hard to breathe. She wondered if she was looking back, not forward. Seeing the place they came from, not the world they were making here.
"We heard about you and what you did. You cursed us. Cursed us all. You have cursed the womb of every woman here by not choosing to have a child," Aquifolia said.
"And yet I see the bellies full around me," Lillah said, wondering why Aquifolia hated her so much.
"And your friends. A bad bunch from what we've heard. Thea a killer by all accounts, and your Melia so unpopular with the children."
"Melia did fine," Lillah, unwilling to talk about the many betrayals. She had realised that her expectations of Melia were too great. Lillah had needed more than Melia could give. It was always going to end badly.
"I am married now, you know. You haven't congratulated me or told me I am fortunate."
"We heard on the school. Araucari is a good man."
"Don't you talk of him. Don't you go near him. He is my man, not yours."
"I don't want him, Aquifolia."
"That's not what he says," the woman muttered. Lillah took her arm.
"He is your man, Aquifolia. He married you. Not me. I have no desire for him. He is a good man, but he is yours."
Aquifolia shook her arm off. "I know that. And you know that. But does he?"
Next, Lillah went to see Annan, the Tale-teller. "Lillah! My greatest listener!" He was older and so full of stories the day passed and night fell before Lillah said goodbye to him.
"You are the best Tale-teller of the Tree, without comparison," she told him. "They should learn from you."
"Ah, I'm too old for that. You have done well, Lillah, as have your companions. Ster, Tamarica, Musa and Rubica are settled happily, we are told. Tamarica stayed with Phyto at Osage and she is very happy. Melia is a mother and happy with it." Though Melia's father told her afterwards that while Melia had three babies, she had lost a fourth to drowning. Lillah didn't talk of the irony of Melia, the great protector of children, having one die in her care.
"I am so pleased for all of them. I miss them."
"That is the nature of the Tree, Lillah. We must let go, bud out. There is no other way."
He scrabbled in his belongings. "Here. This is from Tilla. He left you a message. We buried him at sea not two years ago."
It was a smoothstone, carved with a beautiful bird. "He means to say that he was wrong. He means that he now accepts that the school is not dangerous and that you are safe."
She wished she had said goodbye to Tilla.
That evening, at the feast, Lillah sat while her Order celebrated around her. The younger children didn't know who she was, but they brought her small gifts, showed off smoothstones, if they were old enough. Borag, red-faced but unflustered, cooked a wonderful feast of crabs, fish and greens.
They sat and reminisced about the school, and only mention of Rham made them silent. The thought of a great teacher killed before she became one.
Annan said, "We are thinking of your punishment, Lillah."
"My punishment?"
"You concealed an illness. Morace's. You kept him safe by endangering life all around the Tree."
"But he wasn't sick!" Lillah said.
They nodded. "True. True enough. We will let you know."
Lillah knew it would be all right. If they threatened to jail her she would run into the Tree and find her insiders.
Lillah watched the young women prepare for testing. It was a great thing, the school. It kept the island whole and living with understanding. One of the things Lillah realised is how they needed each other to continue. Each element of life different to another but vital to it.
She shared what she knew with her people, told them the things she'd learned inside the Tree. The history, the background. Why they were there. It did not find a good audience: she was saying that all creation myths were false. Also that they came from a diseased place. Lillah saw the flaws in her own community after she had been away from it. It wasn't the perfect place she tho
ught it was.
But she liked the way they listened to her when she talked of her experiences. When they felt she wasn't trying to give them a lesson. She liked playing the role of Tale-teller.
Santala had said, "All else in this world are dead. They may be small enclaves, or large Orders like ours on other islands. Maybe they keep to themselves like we do. Maybe they have laws passed down, don't cross the water. Keep the island pure from deep sea footprints."
The child-adults told her of the Orders she'd missed:
Chrondus they spoke very little of. "They believe in punishment there," Zygo said, and his eyes slitted. His lips turned down. If even Zygo found it disturbing, Lillah did not want to know.
Osage, full of beautiful golden skinned men. Phyto waited for them there and he was happy, but not blissfully. "He realised that life is never perfect," Borag said. "They made nice food there."
Bayonet where the old woman who'd walked behind them for so long belonged. They were very fearful of illness.
Laburnum, of course, which Lillah had seen and smelt but not experienced. "They were good, there. You didn't meet your replacement, of course, but she stopped there. I think she was nervous of reaching home with us. She thought we never thought she was as good as you."
Zygo brought Lillah a bowl of coconut milk.
"I'm not an old woman, you know. Nor am I crippled."
"No, you're not." His voice was deep but his face still boyish.
"Tell me more about Phyto. Do you remember? How was it when you got to Osage?"
Zygo laughed. "Happy. Very, very happy. He had that look you teachers get sometimes, when you see the men and they see you. He said they were cautious at first. They told us some schools couldn't understand. That the men had to pretend, or the teachers got angry. Most teachers are happy to form brotherly friendships, though."
"I was," Lillah said. "I wish I'd seen him settled."
"We'll send him a message that you've come home. He will want to hear."
They ate some fried coconut.
"Part of me wanted to stay with him. With them," Zygo said.
"You feel that way?"
"I don't know. I'm attracted to women, but I like men as well. I like Morace."
"You will have to see how life plays out."
Lillah wondered if Zygo was meant for something great. And Morace too. Any justification she had that she was saving him for something great may well be proven wrong. She had saved him for no other reason than individual survival.
Later, she asked them if they still have nightmares about the rituals they witnessed. They did; every one of them dreamt bad, and Lillah felt furious that the other teachers had allowed them to witness it.
Zygo said, "Have you explored enough? Or would you be willing to take on more?"
"Such as?"
"Spirit Island. Just to see. As you've seen inside. New land."
"They told you why we shouldn't travel."
"Not a long way. Just to Spirit Island. To take away the fear."
"We'll be killed on return. Banished, at least. We won't be welcome back."
"Perhaps."
Morace said, "Me, too. I want to come."
Lillah knew that Zygo had spent a lot of time with
Logan. "He's a thoughtful young man now," Logan told her. "He questions, and makes connections. It's been wonderful to see him grow."
The Birthman approached her. "Lillah, are you here to stay?"
She had not spoken to him since their first conversation. She couldn't speak of Rhizo; it made her angry.
"Yes. I will not seek children."
"Then perhaps you will agree to be our Tale-teller once Annan passes. You have the skills beyond any other. And the knowledge."
Lillah had been hoping to hear this question. She had been hoping to hear it for many years; hoping that she would not have children, that she could tell the tales.
"Oh, Pittos, thank you. To be the Tale-teller would be my greatest dream. But Zygo is right; there is so much more to see. So much more for me to learn. I want to know all that before I become the Tale-teller."
"You don't imagine Annan will die tomorrow! He has many years. You should do what you need to do, Lillah. You will make our community great with knowledge."
And I have promised Santala, she thought. The day would come when his insiders came out, and she would need to join them. She did not know how she could do it, knowing that he was dead.
"What about your son, Pittos? What about Morace? He is in pain every day. He did not ask for any of that to happen. He is the same boy as when he left, except he knows so much more. He needs you."
"I know, Lillah. Every morning I wake up hating myself, and every night I go to sleep with the same thoughts. I will come to love him for himself, not as my son. But it can't happen so quickly."
"Maybe a little more quickly," Lillah said, smiling.
Rutu, the trader, returned from visiting Laburnum. "I can't believe you've returned!" she said. "What things you've learnt and seen!" Lillah knew that in Rutu she would always have someone to talk to. Someone who found pleasure in the new and the mysterious.
Morace told Lillah, "I want to be the market holder. They have told me I must be the Birthman, but I want to be the market holder. I can't be both. Can you talk to them? Tell them that I must be happy?"
"I will try, Morace. But who will be the Birthman in your place? And why do you imagine Rutu would give up her position?"
"There are many who want to be Birthman, Lillah. Many young people you don't know. It is a great glory, to be Birthman."
"I don't know what I can do, Morace. You are old enough now to sort these things out for yourself. You must talk to Rutu first. See if she will be happy to share the job."
"She likes to walk but she does not like to stay at the market and sell. I can stay there."
"Then that is what you'll suggest to her. You are not scared of the ghosts?" Lillah smiled as she said this.
"Lillah, my own people sliced half of my thigh away and would have sliced the rest if you had not saved me. I have no fear of anything after that. You and I know about the ghosts, Lillah. I intend to trade with them as well. You know that I can do it."
"I know, Morace. You will change the world."
Lillah showed the potmakers how to use groundup seaweed to bind the clay.
"They have a lot of knowledge in there," the potmaker said. Lillah had a worry. Would the outsiders think they could take what the insiders had? Would they even believe her when she told them of how the insiders lived, of their intelligence and love, of their rituals and beliefs? She resolved not to talk about it yet. She did try to convince people there was no such thing as ghosts. This was important; to lay the groundwork for when the insiders were ready to come out.
The last thing Lillah did each night was to place a pouch of salt inside the ghost cave, for those inside to spice their food. She hoped it helped.
While she was there she told the Tree all she had heard in the day, all she had seen, all she had learned.
She told the Tree the truth.
Dramatis Personae
(in order of appearance)
Lillah
Main teacher
Morace
Main student
Logan
Lillah's brother
Magnolia
Logan's wife
Melia
Lillah's best friend
Thea
Teacher
Dickson
Thea's brother
Tax
Thea's brother
Pandana
Lillah's favourite teacher
Olea
Lillah's mother
Rhizo
Morace's mother
Erica
Teacher
Tilla
Old man in Ombu
Sapin
Lillah's true love
Cynthia
Melia's mother
Gingko
Teacher who replaces Agara
Walking the Tree Page 36