Tree Girl (2 page)

Anna went back to fixing the fish. She started to sing softly, with no particular tune—something she often did for the master. She felt sure, at times, that her voice pleased him, though he never said so outright.

She sang about cresting waves and long-necked gulls, leaping dolphins and bright blue shells. Then came a song she’d made up long before:

While she worked and sang, Anna tapped her bare feet on the dirt. Every so often, she kicked a leg out to the side, or even spun a turn. But the master didn’t seem to notice.

After a while, he grunted and cast the net aside. Stiffly, he stepped over to the hearth. He blew on the coals, then added some shards of wood. The room warmed, and the wet sweater started steaming.

He reached for his pipe, carved from a chunk of purple coral. Taking some dried kelp from his pouch, he packed it into the pipe, along with an ember from the hearth. After a few puffs of greenish smoke, he turned to watch Anna sing and sway.

At last, he said, “Ye be outside when I came home.”

She glanced up from the mackerel. “Yes, sir.”

“Ye not be enterin’ the forest while I’m gone?”

“No, sir.”

He kept watching her, and for an instant his face seemed to soften. “Dancin’ on the beach, I’ll wager.”

Her cheeks flushed a little. “I do love to dance.”

“Aye, that ye do. Ye be a-dancin’ ever since ye started to crawl.” He waved his hand that held the pipe, leaving a stream of smoke. “Right here on this very floor.”

Anna nearly grinned. The master’s mood had
improved. “What was it like, that day you found me in the forest? You’ve never told me a barnacle about it.”

He stiffened. “Nor will I! Don’t ye be gettin’ curious about the forest, now.”

“I-I’m not curious about that.” Though her voice warbled like a baby gull’s, she added, “Just about where you found me. Where I…belong.”

“Ye belong right here!” he shouted. “Right here, in this cottage. Nowheres else! Do ye understand?”

She lowered her head.

“Well, do ye?”

“Aye,” she said weakly.

“Good.” He gave a sharp nod, making gray locks bounce on his forehead. “And don’t even think about lookin’ closer at yon trees. Them ghouls have no mercy, even for a foolish girl.”

Anna just bit her lip and started to lard the skillet.

“Claw ye to bleedin’ shreds, they will.” He rubbed his knuckles. “Or crush ye, bones and all, with their graspin’ feet! Why, I only enter the forest when I truly must, to fetch—”

“A wooden post or some vines for the nets,” she finished from memory. “I know, Master, I know.” Not seeing his glare, she slid the fish into the skillet and carried it over to the hearth. “You needn’t remind me again.”

His hand shot out and caught her by the elbow. “Indeed, I do, Rowanna.” His gray eyes glowed, and he squeezed so hard, she almost dropped the skillet. “For the ghouls be a-waitin’, jest hopin’ ye’ll make a mistake.”

She shook free and backed away, rubbing her sore elbow.

A spider’s web of lines creased his brow. “’Twas nine years ago, Rowanna, when I first came through that forest. When I found ye, barely a babe, all alone—wailin’ in the roots of the High Willow.”

Anna winced in surprise. “The willow? You found me
there
?”

“I found ye in the forest! Thunder and blast, girl! That’s all what matters.” His voice fell to something like a sigh. “They got yer parents, that’s certain. And I swear by the ghost o’ me own mother’s grave, they almost got us.”

He frowned. “That haunted woods be no place for someone of human blood. No place at all. Ye understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Slowly, she turned back to the hearth. But she couldn’t keep from wondering at his words. The willow. She’d been found at the willow!

Neither of them spoke again. Anna placed the fish over the fire and tended the coals. Before long, sizzling sounds and tangy smells filled the cottage. Firelight pranced over the walls and the sooty thatch above their heads.

A sudden wind blew open the shutter. When Anna rushed over to close it, one of Burl’s branches reached inside and tickled her forearm. But she just pushed it away and latched the shutter. This wasn’t the time for pranks. She had something more to say to the master—something she just had to ask.

She looked into Eagle’s nest. The little bird was sleeping, though one foot slapped at the air. She set a crust of seaweed cake beside him. Then, returning to the hearth, she flipped the fish and added some sea cabbage and bladder weed. Soon the meal was ready, and she brought it to the table.

For some time, they ate in silence. When Anna poured the master some duneberry ale from his
flagon, he barely grunted in thanks. Finally she drew a deep breath and leaned forward.

“Could I ask something, sir? Just one thing? And if you answer, I’ll never ask again.”

The old man just scowled at her.

She cleared her throat. “What was it like up there…at the willow?”

His fist clenched.

“Just tell me a little,” she pleaded. “Was there any sign, any at all, of my mo—”

“No!” He pounded the table so hard, it rattled. “All I saw was ghouls out to devour me! Be ye lame in the head, Rowanna? That blasted tree—that whole forest—holds nothin’ but death. Do ye hear?” His eyes blazed.
“Nothin’ but death.”

Meekly, she nodded. And from beyond the cottage walls came the mournful call of an owl, echoing in the night air.

E
AGLE GREW STRONGER BY THE DAY
. Stronger—but no bigger. He looked more like a shrunken milkweed pod with feathers than any kind of bird.

He did grow more adventurous, though. By the time spring’s first blossoms appeared and new green needles sprouted on Old Burl, the sparrow had started to strut along the shelf, the table, or Anna’s outstretched arm. He began to whistle. And to follow Anna wherever she went, inside or out.

But not to fly. His twisted wing hung at his side, a clump of feathers that dragged beside him. Even so, he never missed a chance to attack whatever object, dead or alive, caught his fierce little eye.

“Bring that back now, Eagle,” demanded Anna. She was kneeling over the garden that she had, at long last, coaxed from the sandy soil—after three years of collecting seedlings, bulbs, and tubers from the forest edge. “That’s my only garlic clove! Rotting ravens, Eagle! I need it for planting.”

The bird paid no heed. Holding the garlic in his beak, he shook it and dragged it away, just as he would a poisonous snake. He writhed on the sand, kicking ferociously, beating at his foe with his good wing. Sometimes he’d give a savage whistle, barely loud enough to be heard over the tumbling waves of the sea.

Anna couldn’t help but smile. “It’s that warrior in you, aye. Well, all right, then. Might I have it
after
you’ve killed it?”

Eagle paused in his scuffle. Without releasing his prey, he turned a yellow eye on the girl. His head bobbed, almost a nod.

“Good,” she replied. “I’ll tend to these onion bulbs, then.”

Her hand reached into the basket she’d woven from supple stalks of kelp. She plucked out a tiny green bulb and packed it into the soil. Then, without looking up, she reached for another one.

This time she felt nothing but air. The basket was gone!

She sat erect. Where could it have gone? It had just disappeared, sure as sea foam. Suddenly she spied it—resting on a rock at the edge of the forest.

“Now, that’s odd.” She glanced over at the fir
tree she knew so well. But no, even the long branches of Old Master Burl couldn’t reach that far. Strange! And she’d felt only the mildest wind.

Puzzled, she stood up and walked over to the basket. Just for good measure, she gave Old Burl a stern glance. But the tree merely shrugged, dropping a cone on the beach.

The basket sat alone on the rock, shaded by a young oak tree just starting to leaf out. And none of her supplies had been disturbed: She found all her seeds of carrots, red cabbage, radishes, and cauliflower, plus her root cuttings of sea kale and the rest of her onion bulbs. She cocked her head, wondering—then heard something new. It was a faint rippling sound, almost a laugh. And it came from somewhere in the thick tangle of trees beyond the oak.

She looked into the forest, but saw nothing strange. “
Hmmm.
Probably just a squirrel playing tricks.”

Shaking her head, she fetched the basket and went back to work in the garden. By midday, she’d planted everything, including the garlic that had been slaughtered by Eagle. She watched a lone crab scuttle past the garden’s edge, then stretched out
on the sand, her hands behind her head. A salty breeze swept in from the sea. Eagle hopped over and sat in the shade of her leg.

She watched the streaming clouds overhead and tried to find shapes—a scallop shell here, a frond of kelp there. But the shapes kept stretching themselves into trees. Tall and slender, wispy and full, the trees filled the sky. Just as they filled her thoughts.

One tree in particular. Growing one place in particular. But that was a place she shouldn’t go, not even in her mind.

She sat up. Eagle had fallen fast asleep beside her on the sand, his ragged wing serving as his blanket. Right now he didn’t look like a warrior. Not at all. If he really could fly, where would he go? And where would she go herself, if only she had wings?

Her throat swelled. She got up and stepped over to Old Master Burl. The fir’s gnarled trunk almost seemed to bend her way in greeting. She breathed in that familiar smell, both tart and sweet.

“I know where I’d go,” she said softly. “The High Willow.”

The old fir shuddered with a fresh gust of wind.

“All right, I know it’s far away. And dangerous, too. But something calls me there, Burl.”

She dug her big toe into the fallen needles among the roots. “I can’t explain it. Mayhaps it’s just to climb the highest tree around! Or to get away from here for a while. Or…to find some sign of my real parents. My real mother.”

She started up. Climbing Burl was never hard, one hand over the next, but this time she felt mainly needles in her face, slowing her down. And sticky sap on her hands, feet, and knees. Before long, though, she reached the top. And peered, her eyes wide—beyond the dark lair of the ghouls, beyond the clacks and groans of countless branches, at the distant ridge.

Rotting ravens.
No willow! It was completely hidden by mist.

Anna stared, hoping to pierce the vapors with her very sight. Whatever the master would say! Even if she couldn’t see the High Willow up close, she had to see it now, from afar. Just had to.

Yet the more she looked, the more mist gathered. Her eyes watered from so much staring. By the sea and stars, that tree just wouldn’t show itself! Finally, she climbed back down. Old Burl’s
branches seemed to stroke her shoulders. But she hardly felt their touch.

On the ground again, she glanced up at the whispering boughs. “I know, I should think of a song. Aye, something full of cheer—to sing for Eagle when he wakens.”

She frowned. For there was no music in her head. Just the endless slapping of the sea. She turned toward her little garden—then stopped, rooted like a tree herself. Her basket was gone again!

She whirled around, scanning the shoreline, the cottage, and the dark edge of the woods. No basket anywhere.

Suddenly she spotted it. Right where she had rested on the beach just moments before! She squinted, for there was something even more strange. The basket was standing upside down, balanced on its handle, next to the sleeping bird. And it was shading him from the sun, like a hat held above him.

Or, she realized, like something else: a tiny tree, sprouting from the sand.

W
EEKS PASSED
. Anna’s first radishes poked out of the ground. And wrinkly leaves, softer than thistledown, sprouted from the branches by the forest edge. Aye, and how she loved to rub them on her cheek as she danced down the beach, kicking up sand!

But none of this meant as much to Anna as her growing desire to see the High Willow. To touch it with her eyes, since she couldn’t with her hands.

At least once a day, sure as the turning of the tide, she climbed Old Burl. Of course, she always waited until the master had finished his morning grumbles, eaten a slab of smoked fish, and lugged all his nets and gear to the boat—looking like a hermit crab with too big a house on his back. Then, after his rowboat had slipped into the lagoon and dropped over the horizon, she did what he’d forbidden: She climbed those branches. And looked to the far ridge.

To the tree where she’d been found.

Sometimes she saw what looked like an uplifted branch, poking through the mist. Or a faint hint of green. Or a shadowy shape behind the clouds.

But she never saw the whole tree. Not once.

Flying fish eggs, that was annoying! And something else bothered her, too. Something strange. Odd things kept happening, just as odd as her upside-down basket, or that rippling laughter from the woods. And just as hard to explain.

First came her sandals. She’d set them out to dry in the sun after a walk in the shallows to collect a few sea urchins. Then, a moment later, the sandals were gone! They had simply vanished from the beach.