The Island of Two Trees

by Brian Kennelly

It was difficult to muster up much courage in the assembly of these flying contraptions. The feathers were clumped on top of the sails with a sticky clay, while underneath the sail sat a kind of wooden cockpit mended from thick limbs, a place where they could lay flat, with loops in the back for their feet to hold them parallel to the ground and a leather harness to strap across their chest like a seatbelt. The children practiced handling the levers to see which one flapped the wings and which one stretched out the sail. Between these two levers sat a throttle, like a joystick on an arcade game, that steered it. All three of them worked but the gliders creaked an unsettling amount when the parts moved.

  They decided to let the night grow darker to provide more cover. As they waited, Connor noticed the girls’ legs were jittering. He searched his mind for a way to distract their nerves.

  “Do y’all remember when we made the trail in the backyard with Dad?” Connor asked.

  “Of course,” Maggie said. “Why?”

  “I was just thinking how long it took to clear out all that brush. Coming through the forest made me think of that.”

  “That forest was way bigger than the woods in our backyard,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Connor said. “But do you remember when we finished, and we were playing Good Guy/Bad Guy with Daddy and he was chasing us on the new trail with that wooden sword, and-”

  “And his shorts fell down!” Lucy interrupted, giggling.

  “How could I forget that?” Maggie asked. “His shorts were too big and they fell down to his ankles and he tripped into the bushes trying to pull them back up so quickly.”

  “His face got all cut up,” Connor said, smiling, “but he was laughing so hard.”

  All three of them laughed, picturing their dad lying in those bushes with his shorts around his ankles, howling so much his eyes watered.

  Torches began to light up on various posts up and down the Shadow Tree. The children tilted their head up to the sky. Though the moon had been visible before, its light popped more in the darkness.

  “I hope the moonlight isn’t so bright that they see us,” Maggie said.

  “I think we’ll be okay,” Connor said. “Besides, Revin put the albatross feathers on the sail. Hopefully they’ll just think we’re birds if they see us approaching. Should we go ahead and strap ourselves in?”

  “Let’s wait until it gets a little darker,” Lucy said.

  “Lu, you’re just stalling,” Connor said. “We don’t have time to waste. You heard Revin; we have to kill Radicle before the Shadow Army reaches the mountain. They can’t withstand the attack for long; they’re outnumbered. We’ll be fine…I’m sure the gliders will get us up there safely.”

  “But can the two of us take out the guards up there?” Maggie questioned. “I don’t know if I can fly this thing and shoot an arrow all at the same time.”

  “We’ll rise above the top of the tree and glide down on the wind,” Connor instructed. “That way, you can keep your hands off the throttle and the levers and be free to fire. You can do this, Mags, and you can too, Lucy. Have confidence. You’ll only be successful if you believe in yourselves.”

  Connor rose from the branch they’d been sitting on and climbed above the canopy where the gliders rested. He strapped himself into the cockpit hanging below the sail, wrapping the leather harness over his chest. He waited anxiously as the girls did the same. When all three were ready, Connor said, “I’ll go first.”

  The branch bent under his weight as he inched out. He’d have to jump soon or it would snap. The ground rested several hundred feet below but he was thankful the night shrouded the daunting view. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  He leapt off.

  Connor thought he heard his sisters yelp as he fell towards the ground, but the rush of wind in his ears soon became the only thing he heard as he thrust his feet back into the loops behind him and glided through the air. He had half expected to plunge to the ground, but the sail held strong, catching a gust. Connor became so mesmerized by the free feeling of weightlessness he almost forgot that he was headed straight toward the Shadow Tree. His instincts took over. He turned the throttle and curved back around towards Maggie and Lucy. He sailed closer and gave them the thumbs up.

  “Okay,” Maggie said. “Here’s goes…”

  She inched her way out and leapt into the air. Her glider caught a gust and soon Lucy was watching both her siblings swirling over the trees. They truly did look like large birds, with the silhouette of their wings lying flush against the moonlit sky.

  Lucy shook her head and sighed. “This is just crazy,” she said to herself. She took off into a sprint and leapt into the air. The immediate rush of adrenalin outweighed the fear she had anticipated. She began to giggle with sheer joy as the wind blew through her hair, forgetting momentarily that an important mission still had to be carried out.

  Now all three children were circling above the forest. They rocked the lever back and forth, flapping the wings to raise their altitude. Slowly, they began to rise higher. Then higher. Then higher. The trees of the forest faded into blackness. The salty foam of the waves crashing on the island beaches turned into pencil-thin lines. The distant lights of the queen’s castle twinkled behind them. The stars grew so close Maggie wondered if she could hit one with an arrow.

  Their arms burned from rocking the lever back and forth. They wouldn’t be able to do this much longer, but they had to keep going. When they finally reached an altitude they felt was right, Connor signaled for the girls to drop. They would go first and take the shot. Maggie steadied the throttle to keep her trajectory on line with the tree and pulled an arrow from her quiver. Lucy did the same, pulling a knife from her belt. As they approached their landing spot, their targets became clearer: one hundred yards below, two demons stood at the very top of the tree in a lookout tower. Two torches were lit on either side, illuminating their horrid bodies.

  Maggie placed an arrow in her bow and Lucy flipped the knife around to hold it by the blade. They kept their eyes focused on the two creatures as the gliders rushed down upon them. The wind in the girls’ faces made it difficult to steady their aiming eyes. The demons began to sense their approach. They looked up and pointed, but did not yet seem alarmed, only curious, as if they thought it was just birds flying by.

  Their ignorance would only last another few seconds. When the children got within just feet, the demons finally realized the threat. They grunted to one another, pointing and jumping. One raced to the other side of the tower where a large conk shell was tied to a post.

  “He’s going to blow that horn!” Connor yelled. “Now, girls, fire!”

  Maggie let an arrow fly at the same moment Lucy flung her knife down. Both hit their targets.

  “Nice shot, you two!” Connor yelled from behind them.

  The children slowed their rapid descent by flapping the wings again, allowing them to complete a soft, running landing. They unstrapped themselves from the cockpit and slipped out, folding up the gliders and tossing them aside.

  Connor raced to the side of the tower, peering over the railing and searching the uppermost branches of the Shadow Tree for signs of trouble. But the branches were empty.

  Connor looked to his sisters. “Okay, we did it. We’re here safe and no alarms were sounded. Revin was right about landing up here. It seems empty, other than these two.”

  “Good,” Lucy said, grabbing another knife from her belt. “Let’s move down this nasty tree and go save Daddy.”

  25

  DESCENDING THE SHADOW TREE

  In the center of the lookout tower upon which they had landed rested an open hatch that led to a staircase. The children scampered down it and found themselves in an open room, a kind of den hollowed out of the giant trunk. Torches burned above two doorways opposing each other on either side. Both led to the upper most branches.

  “What now?” Maggie asked.

  “We go down,” Connor said. “We have to move as carefully as
we can and stay hidden. We can’t draw attention to ourselves or we’ll never make it down to the roots. There’s too many of them on this tree for us to fight them all. But if we do have to, we do it quickly and quietly. Have your weapons ready,” he added, pulling out his sword.

  The girls readied an arrow and a knife in their hands. They moved outside, crouching low onto one of the branches. It was at least ten feet wide with the guardrails on either side, formed from large twigs shooting up in the air like swords.

  The spiral staircase carved into the trunk fell to their left. This seemed a better and safer option for descending the tree than scaling down the trunk with one of the many vines. Connor went down first with the girls behind him. It was a narrow staircase and, since it curved with the trunk, their vision could only reach about twenty steps ahead. This made for a tense descent since they could not see what, or who, might be waiting for them.

  When they approached the first of the holes leading inside the trunk, Connor slowed down and motioned for the girls to do the same. He poked his head around the corner and peeked inside. The faint light from two torches stationed above the doorway revealed a series of hammocks hanging from the roof, though they were not like the ordinary hammocks you might be picturing, the kind you hang between trees in your backyard. These “hammocks” looked more like giant, brown leaves curled up and held to the ceiling by vines. There were about twenty of them suspended ten feet in the air, with ladders on the wall leading up to them. Connor figured this must’ve been a kind of barracks.

  Most of the beds were empty, but in one he saw an arm dangling over the edge where a sleeping demon snored away. It sounded as though more were tucked down in their hammocks unseen, as it was a chorus of snoring, not a solo, that shook the walls. He turned around and put his finger over his mouth. They tiptoed past the doorway and resumed their frantic pace down the stairwell for another minute until Connor again motioned for the girls to stop and get down. This time they didn’t approach a doorway into the trunk but rather another long branch that shot out. Several feet down it, two demons stood holding spears and staring out over the forest and the queen’s castle in the distance.

  “I’s don’t likey remainin’ here while they’s all march across the land for glory…yerk, sherf! Why couldn’t we be in the ranks to file, file, file over there’s and stick these here spears in that wretched queen? Hort! Truff!”

  “You knows I ain’t one to answer that…aren’t I here’s with ye? Yuggle-tist! I make no decisions about who sets out to battle, battle, battle and who remains here to protect master. But you’s better watch ye’ mouth…master hear’s ever’thing.”

  “I ain’t sayin’ I don’t want to serve master I just want the chance to see blood spill, spill, spill and watch that tree in the mountain fall, fall, fall…ug-ruf!”

  They both cackled as the children skirted past them without making a sound. Minutes later, just as they rounded another bend in the staircase, Connor stopped and the girls bumped into his back, nearly tumbling on top of him. He held out his arms, catching them, and shoved them back a few stairs. When they had recovered, he held up two fingers and pointed forward. They peeked around the bend where two more demons were filing in from the distant part of a branch, moving toward a hole in the trunk holding what looked like black balls about half the size of their bodies.

  “Hurry’s you up!” the one in the back said. “Dis one here’s about to hatch, hatch, hatch…vred’nct!”

  “Just go’round me,” the other said. “Dis one here’s a heavy load. Swart! Krty!”

  The “ball” in the hands of the second one began to wiggle as he moved around his partner and ran into the trunk. The other followed him in. With the coast clear, Connor waved the girls forward. As they quietly climbed down the stairs, they peered out over to the branch. For the most part, this branch looked much like the others, with only one difference – growing off the side were more of these black ball-looking objects, growing in bundles of two and three. It wasn’t until the children passed by the doorway and looked inside that they realized these were not balls but acorns, the ones the Shadow Tree grew that, as if like eggs, hatched the shadow demons.

  Inside this particular part of the trunk were dozens of acorns waiting to hatch, like a colony of insect eggs. The two demons stood with their backs to the doorway watching the one that had been wiggling. Connor, Maggie, and Lucy couldn’t help standing there and watching as the outer shell of the acorn ripped open. Up reached a gnarled, burnt arm covered in slime, its boney fingers grasping at the air. The infant demon burst out of the acorn. He thrust his arched back into the air and straightened it out, screaming a horrible shrill and kicking parts of the acorn shell off his body.

  The two demons watching leapt in the air and screeched, giddy like children about to open birthday presents.

  “Come, brother!” they screamed. “Join the battle, battle, battle! Yert-querf!”

  The infant demon thrashed about on the ground for a moment, struggling to rise to his feet.

  Connor pulled the girls from the open doorway and down the stairs. When they had gone down a ways, Maggie said, “I don’t think I can ever un-see that.”

  “Me neither,” Lucy agreed. “How many more of those are going to hatch?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Connor said. “Once we destroy Radicle, they’ll all die. Don’t lose focus!”

  He led them down several more turns of the tree. They weren’t even halfway down yet and their legs burned. It felt like they were running down the stairwell of a giant skyscraper. Still, they were making progress. The ground was getting closer and they were nearly level with the tops of the forest’s trees. Before, they had been too high and the darkness of the night too black to make out anything on the ground. Now, they could see the bunkers circling the base of the Shadow Tree, still manned by a few demons who peddled around like ants.

  After passing by yet another doorway, Connor halted their progress.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked, not seeing any signs of danger.

  Connor strained his ears, listening.

  Voices. Footsteps.

  Getting closer.

  Connor waved the girls back, glancing over his shoulder as they huddled up the stairs. Two demons came into view, circling up the stairs. Their eyes were drawn down to their feet as they spoke, but if they looked up a second later, they would see the children. Connor shoved the girls into a hole in the trunk.

  Though they had passed by this doorway earlier, they had not investigated what lay inside to see that it was a weapons cache. Rows and rows of daggers and spears hung on the walls between lit torches. The room was large but it was wide open, with nothing to hide behind, no tables or doors or anything. If these two demons were coming to get more weapons from this chamber, the children would have to take them down. Connor, Maggie, and Lucy backed up, pressing their bodies against the wall by the open doorway and gripping their weapons tightly.

  The demons were nearly there. The children could hear them approaching. Would they turn and enter the room? Keep climbing up the staircase? Turn and head out on the nearby branch?

  In fact, they did none of these things. They paused right beside the hole, just feet from where the children hid on the other side.

  “Ah!” one belched to the other. “Me so hungry… tft, blurg! When will our patrol be over, over, over?”

  “Quiet wid all dat complainin’, you’s,” replied the other. “They’ll be up to relieve us soon, soon, soon. Always with the moanin’, you is!”

  They leaned up against the trunk on either side of the hole, resting. Connor was closest to the opening and could see they both held spears. It didn’t appear they had any intention of moving, instead standing there and continuing to talk. The children had not been seen but were trapped inside this room. Several minutes went by. How much longer would they stall at this post? The children didn’t have time for this.

  Connor turned to his sisters. With hand gestures, he indicate
d he was going to jump outside and battle the demons. Maggie shook her head and mouthed, “No! Just wait!”

  Connor gritted his teeth. Another minute passed. The demons had stopped talking and were just standing there. The one they could see seemed like he might be about to doze off as he leaned up against the wall. Connor gripped his sword, ready to pounce. Now was his chance. They couldn’t afford to hide in this room for an hour as these two stood here on watch.

  But just as he was about to leap out, Lucy grabbed his arm. He turned to her, flustered. “What?” he mouthed silently. She pointed toward to the corner of the room. It had once been too dark to see into this back corner, but with their eyes adjusted now, they saw the top of a ladder descending into a hole in the floor. Connor looked back to Lucy and nodded.

  The children crept over to the corner, keeping their backs on the wall. When they reached the ladder, they peered down into the hole. It seemed to lead into another inner chamber in the trunk. Connor whispered, “I’ll go down first and let you know if it’s safe.”

  He put his sword back in its sheath and climbed into the hole to scale the ladder. Once through it and into the new room, he saw it was a dining hall filled with long rows of tables. Plates and bowls and scraps of food littered each one, but there was no one in sight. Connor motioned for the girls to come down.

  “I’m glad we found this place in between mealtime,” Lucy said when she got down.

  “Look, another ladder,” Maggie said, noting another hole not far from them in the corner of the mess hall. Like the one they’d just gone through, a ladder poked out above it. It appeared the circular staircase outside and the vines hanging from the top were not the only way to descend the Shadow Tree. These holes and ladders within the tree allowed the shadow demons to move up and down from chamber to chamber.

  The question was whether or not this was a safer and more covert way to go down than the staircase outside. The children deliberated over this in whispers, but when a gust of wind blew in through an open doorway and brought sinister voices with it, the children knew there was no decision to make. They sprinted over to the hole and scurried down the ladder. The children ducked out of view just as several demons entered the dining hall.