BRIAN KENNELLY
TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
The Island of Two Trees © 2019 Brian Kennelly
All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in critical review, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Caroline Green
Cover art by Laura Elizabeth
Interior sketches/art by Laura Elizabeth
ISBN: 978-1-5051-1475-1
Published in the United States by
TAN Books
PO Box 410487
Charlotte, NC 28241
www.TANBooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
To My Children,
You are the heroes of this tale, but your mother is the true hero of our family. Love her every day.
I love you.
Dad
P.S. – God waits at the end of every adventure. Never stop exploring.
CONTENTS
1A Strange Noise
2Moon Lightning
3A Sea Voyage
4An Island on the Horizon
5Missing Children
6Going Ashore
7Climbing through the Mountain
8Visions of the Island
9Meeting a Queen
10The Story of the Two Trees
11A Dangerous Mission
12A Faint Light
13A Night in the Castle
14Meeting the Master Swordsman
15Training for Battle
16Back in the Garage
17Standing before the Mysteria Tree
18Down the Mountain, Through the Village, and Into the Forest
19Trouble amidst the Trees
20Battling an Enemy Patrol
21A Night in a Cave
22Daddy’s Tears
23To the Far Edge of the Forest
24A Flight to the Top
25Descending the Shadow Tree
26The Final Assault
27Into the Mud
28Radicle
29The End of Shadows
30A Hero’s Welcome
31Back Home
1
A STRANGE NOISE
The night it happened the children sensed something was different, or at least the girls did. The air was still and heavy as they left their grandparents’ house, where they had just enjoyed a delicious dinner and dessert cooked and baked by their Mumsie.
“You’re right, no wind at all,” Maggie told Lucy as they hooked their seatbelts.
“So there was no wind? So what?” their older brother, Connor, mocked from the backseat of the van. “You always look too much into things.”
“You’re just saying that because that’s what Daddy says to Mommy,” Lucy said. Their mother and father, eavesdropping from the front, glanced at each other and smiled. “Besides, it wasn’t just the wind, or, I mean, how there wasn’t any wind. Something was strange all day.”
“That’s true,” Maggie agreed. “Remember those animals watching us play?”
“What animals?” Connor asked.
His mother turned and shushed him. Baby Mary had finally dosed off to sleep in her car seat.
“What animals?” Connor whispered, and the children’s conversation from here took place with such whispers so as to not wake their sleeping sister.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Lucy said. “When we were out back in the woods, Maggie and I saw two little chipmunks watching us from beneath the fallen leaves, and that giant hawk on the tree limb above us, he was watching us too.”
“And don’t forget about the tiny squirrel who was so curious about us,” Maggie added.
Connor thought back to their escapades in the wooded area behind their home, before they had gone over to their grandparents’ house for dinner. He didn’t recall any critters taking an interest in them, or any giant hawk.
“I still think you two are crazy,” he said with a chuckle.
But it was then that Connor glanced out the window and noticed something that was indeed… strange. Each street lamp they passed flickered and turned off at the precise moment they drove beneath it, then flipped back on just seconds later. The last lamp they passed, a large bird—perhaps the hawk?— landed on top just as it turned back on. Connor furrowed his brow, wondering what would cause the lights to do this. And was that the hawk the girls had been referring to?
Once home, Mommy put Mary in her crib and the rest of the family went through their normal routine. After brushing their teeth and saying their prayers, Mommy lay down with the girls in their room while Daddy went to say goodnight to Connor and lie down with him. He was twelve now, probably too old for this bedtime ritual, but he slept better when his father lay down beside him at the end of the day. It eased his mind as they rested and talked in the dark.
“Good day, buddy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you stay out of trouble?”
Connor nodded.
“What was all that talk of strange things happening?”
“Probably nothing. Those girls are always thinking stuff is a bigger deal than it really is.”
Daddy smiled.
“I don’t know, buddy, something is in the air. Do you see that moon out there?”
Connor turned toward the window. The moon was full, brightening the night sky and the land beneath it and the rows of homes falling down their street.
“They say strange things happen when the moon is full, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it as full as it is now, not in all my life.”
“What sort of strange things?” Connor asked.
“Well, let me ask you something, son. Have you ever heard of the Giggle Monster?”
Connor rolled his eyes. “Dad, stop. I’m too old for this.” He turned toward the wall and pulled the covers up over his shoulders.
“He’s a ghastly beast that feasts on the giggles of little children,” Daddy went on, undeterred by his son’s cynicism. His voice grew deeper as he slowly rose from the pillow. “He roams from room to room, waiting for a young child to let lose just one little giggle…”
He raised his hands like claws, as if he were an animal about to rip into his prey.
“The only problem is he’s blind. He can only find the children if they giggle. The Giggle Monster could starve if he doesn’t find fun-loving children.”
Connor did feel too old for this nonsense, nonetheless, he found himself choking down laughter. When his father got down on all fours, stomping around the room, Connor let lose a slight giggle. The Giggle Monster snapped to attention as Connor slammed his hand over his mouth, trying to hold his laughter prisoner. The Giggle Monster crawled quickly back to the bed, sniffing it up and down.
“I think the Giggle Monster heard something a moment ago. It came from this region…”
When Daddy began to sniff Connor’s face, he burst out laughing. The Giggle Monster roared and began to eat all the giggles that filled the room and the boy they erupted from.
But as they romped on the bed, Daddy grabbed his head. “Ah!”
“What is it, Dad? Is it your head again?”
“No, I’m fine,” he said, rubbing his temples. “You go to sleep now, okay buddy?”
Daddy ruffled the top of Connor’s shaggy hair and smiled before rising from the bed and leaving the room, heading down the hallway toward the girls’ room. Connor, meanwhile, turned over toward the window and the moonlight cascading into his room. He was worried about his father. He had been getting a lot of headaches lately. Mommy had been urging him to go see a doctor but he didn’t want to. Connor heard these conversations when his parents d
idn’t think he was listening.
The sound of his sisters giggling found his ears from down the hallway. He knew Daddy had gone next door to hug them goodnight and morphed into the Giggle Monster again. Unlike Connor, it only took the girls about two seconds to start laughing when Daddy got down on all fours. Maggie was only ten and Lucy eight, ages more prone to childish games.
The door cracked open, pouring the hallway light into his room.
“G’night, my little Connor,” his mother said, approaching his bedside. “Sleep tight, okay?”
She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead.
“I’m not little anymore, ya’ know?”
“I know. Don’t remind me. I don’t want you to grow up…be a child forever.”
Before leaving, she blew him a kiss from the doorway. He pretended to catch it and slap it on his cheek. They both smiled.
Connor stared at his ceiling and thought about lots of different things, but mostly his father’s headaches. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed (since time becomes a rather tricky thing to measure when you’re drifting off to sleep) when his door cracked open again. This time, the hallway light did not creep in. In the darkness, he saw two little figures scurry into his room.
Maggie and Lucy climbed into their brother’s bed, dragging their beloved stuffed animals behind them; Maggie had a white bunny and Lucy a raggedy pink dog. They both still insisted on sleeping with them each night.
“What are you doing?” Connor asked, sitting up from his pillow.
“We heard something,” Lucy whispered.
“In the garage,” Maggie added. “Or, we think so anyway.”
“It’s just your imagination.”
“No,” Maggie protested, “we heard it. It was a banging…or shuffling…or something.”
“Well, what was it exactly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go tell Dad,” Connor demanded, pulling the covers up over his head.
“Their light is out,” Lucy said, still whispering. “You know they get mad when we wake them up.”
“That’s because you get scared every night like this and wake them up,” he said. “But that’s supposed to be their problem, not mine.”
“Please, Connor,” Maggie pleaded. “Come with us to see what it was.”
Connor was about to kick his sisters off his bed when he heard a loud screech, as if a table was being dragged across the room. It grasped his body, like something capturing him. He slowly pushed the covers back from his face and eyed his sisters. He knew they were right; they had to go down and investigate the strange noise.
2
MOON LIGHTNING
It was a wonder their parents had not also heard the strange noise and woken up. But they were both heavy sleepers, unlike the two girls, who would wake up at the sound of snow falling outside.
The children filed down the stairs and through the kitchen. Their golden retriever, Brody McKenzie, wagged her tail as they passed her lying on the kitchen floor. She was too old to get up and investigate the mischief. In her younger years she would have been barking at the sound—whatever it was—but now the children wondered if she even heard it at all. Her hearing had begun to go, that poor old dog.
Connor led the way and the girls followed as they approached the garage door down the hall from the kitchen. When they got within a few feet, they heard it again. The screeching. Connor stopped, bringing Maggie and Lucy to a halt as well, their hands flying to their mouths to muffle their whimpers.
“Quiet, you two!” Connor whispered.
His sisters nodded, now holding hands and still grasping at their stuffed animals.
When they reached the door, Connor placed his hand on the doorknob. Immediately, he noted how cold the brass knob was, as if it had been sitting inside a freezer. Undeterred by the bitter cold touch upon his skin, he turned the knob and in they went. Once inside the garage, Connor discovered it, too, was freezing cold. The girls went from holding hands to bundling themselves together.
“Why is it so cold in here, Connor?” Lucy asked. “It’s summer out.”
“I don’t know,” Connor replied, watching his breath fog before him. But the cold was not the only thing out of the ordinary. They were also overwhelmed by the fierce brightness of the moonlight flooding through the garage windows. The children could see everything as if it were daylight. Connor stole a glance out the window at the moon, pinned against the dark sky like the earth’s very own nightlight.
Suddenly, there came the sound again! The rumbling and screeching. The children screamed and jumped back as the source of the noise became clear. The island was moving.
It might be necessary to pause for a moment and explain what “the island” is, since it is not normal for an ordinary family to have an island in their garage.
You see, some years ago, Daddy began telling his children a story. But it was not like most stories that live only in the mind of the storyteller or perhaps on the pages of a book. This story was meant to come alive in other ways.
They started by building a giant table, a table so large it took up nearly the whole garage. With the help of their Great Uncle Bob, who was quite the handyman, Daddy and the children nailed wide pieces of plywood atop oak legs and braced them with metal brackets. Mommy was not so pleased about this because she would lose her garage to childish activities and could no longer park her car in it. This especially annoyed her when it was raining and she was forced to run in from the driveway soaked to the bone, and even more if she was carrying groceries! But she knew Daddy only intended to have some fun with the children and let him proceed (often Daddy could not partake in his games for the children until Mommy gave him permission).
And so, the project went forward, and on that giant table they began to create an island, their island. They molded the land from clay and shaped it to their liking, leaving the edges free to paint blue for the surrounding seawater, and before the blue they painted yellow sand for the beach. A mountain rose out of the sea on the west side with a river flowing down it. The river, created by Maggie’s skinny brushstrokes of blue, picked up speed as it descended the mountain, falling over a cliff and forming a powerful waterfall (since the waterfall hung in midair it was formed of clay and subsequently painted blue like the river). This waterfall fed a freshwater lake in the midst of the plains and in the shadow of the mountain. Once beyond pastures of green pear-colored paint, a thick forest teeming with wild trees took up half the island, model trees that they had purchased and glued to the hardened clay.
A dry, rocky region—a lifeless desert—blanketed the eastern side of the island. The children wanted to turn this region into a sprawling garden, but Daddy insisted otherwise. When they asked why, he said, “Because every story has a bad guy.” But we have not yet arrived at that part of the story.
That was the terrain. But there were going to be people on this island—characters in their father’s story—and of course these people needed a place to live. So they built a castle atop the mountain, also constructed from clay. Actually, the castle was built into the mountain. The mountain had hollow sections within it—caves and tunnels—that were turned into large rooms and long halls, while the actual castle was built up from the stone of the mountain, with sturdy walls and cloud-piercing turrets toped in banners that waved in the wind (or at least when you pretended there was wind).
As wonderous as this mountain castle was, it only served as protection for something far more wonderous. About halfway up the mountain in a giant hollow cave, there grew a tree. Though it grew in this dark cave, it received sunlight through several holes in the upper crust of the mountain that allowed yellow cones of light to descend upon it. But you might then wonder how this special tree got the water it needed to live. That is why this tree was so extraordinary, you see, because it did something that bordered on magic. Actually, it really was magic, Daddy said.
Normally, a tree needs water to soak its roots. But with this magical tree it w
as the opposite. It did not receive water from the land, it watered the land with water! It grew atop a mound of dirt, across which its roots extended in all directions. From the tips of these roots dripped water—lots of little waterfalls—into a spring within the mountain. The spring fed the river flowing down the mountain to the waterfall, which splashed into the freshwater lake that gathered in the plains and in the shadow of the mountain.
One could see why this tree was so important, then, because it provided all the freshwater for the island, which is rather important when you’re on an island in the midst of the sea. Daddy called it the Mysteria Tree, which he said was just a fancy word for “mystery.” The children could not actually see this wondrous tree, because remember, Daddy had determined that it grew within a mountain cave, so the children simply had to imagine, and trust, that it was there.
As for the castle, Daddy said that an important queen lived in it, and it was her job to protect the Mysteria Tree. As the tree’s guardian, she was known as the Mysteria Queen, though she had other names too. She had many servants who loved her and brave warrior knights who protected her and the sacred tree in the mountain. Daddy had taken the children to the store and bought little knight figurines and strategically placed them at various posts in the castle and on the mountain where they stood watch. Some of these servants and knights—the important ones anyway—lived up in the top part of the castle near the queen’s quarters, while the others lived down in the caverns of the mountain.
On the backside of the mountain, a toy ship rested beside the cliff shore. Daddy had said this was the Mysteria Queen’s ship, captained by a grumpy man named Kristoff who was plump and fat and had a long beard. This ship, when it wasn’t out at sea, remained docked thousands of feet below the mountain castle, beside a cave cut into the side of the cliff. This cave led to a secret passageway—a burrowed tunnel—that stretched all the way up into the hollow part of the mountain where the Mysteria Tree grew. So long as you had the strength and energy to climb high enough and a torch to light your way, you could leave the ship and enter the cave, and continue up and up until you entered the castle.
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