Walking the Tree (7 page)

  "We'll never be like that, will we?" Agara said.

  "Certainly not over someone like Tax," Melia said. "A fool from a foolish family."

  Thea sat at a distance, but her shoulders flinched.

  "She heard that," Lillah said, whispering.

  "I don't care," Melia said, whispering so loudly she may as well have been talking.

  With all that, all the fighting and fuss, neither woman chose to stay. Tax's charms were shortlived. At least he was clear in his base intentions, Lillah thought. One thing in his favour.

 

The teachers paired off with young men for the night, everyone else stayed up shouting and singing until well past the very dark. Lillah missed Logan's presence but was thrilled he was with Magnolia. At one stage he came back for more Bark wine, his eyes bleary by firelight, his hair mussed. He raised his eyebrows at Lillah and grinned, a very happy man.

  Six days later, when the Number-Taker's school prepared to move on, Magnolia announced that she would stay, if she was accepted. Logan turned cartwheels till his face was red and Olea took Magnolia in a tight hold. "You are family," she said. "I will thank the Number-Taker for bringing you to us."

  Thea watched as the group left. Lillah tried to be kind to her out of pity; her only friends were her brothers Tax and Dickson. "Did you like those

teachers?" Lillah asked.

  "I will stop with them if I ever go to school. I will stop where the numbers are."

  Olea was kind to Magnolia but it was clear she was unhappy.

  "Logan has someone now. What am I for?" she said to her husband Myrist.

  "Lillah will need help preparing for school."

  "School. What good did school ever do?"

  "We would not have met and made our children if you had not taught with your school."

  "Again, I say, what good did school ever do?"

  Myrist shook his head and turned to Lillah. "I don't know what is wrong with your mother's tongue, but she doesn't speak for me."

  Lillah had seen this in her mother long before anyone else did.

  "Your brother is so important. I left my brother Legum behind to teach school, and then I heard word that he disappeared. Our brothers are the most stable relationship we have. Our love for lovers comes and goes. We tire of them. Our brothers will always love us, and we will never forget them. I wish I knew Legum was safe." She touched her ear. "He listens. All the disappeared listen."

  Soon after this Olea went walking and did not return. Sometimes Lillah woke in darkness and felt as if Olea was there, watching, but the dark room showed her nothing.

 

• • •

 

The baby began to mewl and she realised she had been lost in memories, not seeing the present. Lillah kissed her nephew's head. That seemed so long ago, and now she would be travelling, seeking love, preparing for motherhood herself.

  Thea joined her as the baby began to grizzle. "Shall we bathe him?" she said. "Babies like to bathe." So they filled a large bowl with water and carefully undressed the tiny thing.

  Thea held him, lowered him slowly into the water. Lillah turned to collect a soft sponge.

  "Careful!" she said. Thea had let the baby's shoulder slip back and his face was almost underwater.

  "So small," Thea whispered.

  Lillah talked and cuddled him as she dressed him and was sad to pass him back when his parents returned. Magnolia checked him all over for marks and smiled nervously. "I'm sorry, Lillah. You're not like the others, I know."

  "What others?"

  Magnolia held the baby close. "Everybody."

  Logan kissed the crown of her head. "All mothers worry terribly. You are safe here."

  Wind began to howl around them and Magnolia pulled her child even closer. The noise of the Tree increased.

  "Does it have to make so much noise?" Magnolia said, covering her baby's ears with a blanket.

  "It'll be okay," Logan said. "It'll pass."

  Some of the more frightened amongst them packed up containers of food and warm clothing and made camp at the base of the Tree. This was the safest place when the leaves were being shed. There were stories from other Orders of people being killed by a massive Leaf. It had never happened in Lillah's Order. The Leaves of the Tree had a varied nature and size. Some could be used for plates, others to insulate walls, and there were the huge leaves, the dangerous ones.

  The school would leave after the arrival of the next messenger. It was good to go out fully informed, and he would bring news from Laburnum that might be useful to them as they travelled.

  He came late in the night, and his news was not important enough to wake them. In the morning they gathered to hear word of a new batch of perfume being completed, and of a school on the way containing a child who could scream so loudly the cups would shatter.

  "None of our children will behave like that," Lillah said. "Ours will be a joy to look after, and the messengers will run ahead shouting, 'Oh, you should see these children! These children are the most beautiful you've ever seen.'"

  "Why do you always have to be the best, Lillah? Sometimes we can just be, you know. We don't have to be known as the best school ever."

  "You may not, Melia, but I do. You ask your questions; I'll be proud of what I do."

  The messenger was sent back with the clay pots Lillah's Order specialised in, to hold the perfume. In the next Order, where they made jasmine oil, the pots were well respected too.

 

The night before they left, the Order gathered for a party. The celebration turned rowdy. Raucous laughter, shocking stories. Lillah felt light-headed. Queasy. She walked away from the group to give herself some space.

  "Who's there? Who is it?" she heard.

  "It's me, Tilla. It's Lillah. Your rhyming friend."

  The Bark of the Tree was very dark, mottled in places. Sometimes Bark shed like dried flakes of skin from the scalp. Tilla's face, old and lined, reminded her of the bark.

  "Good. Come and tell me what's going on."

  Lillah had not forgotten how poorly he had treated her in the Tree Hall, but she walked towards his voice, squinting in the moonlight. She found him sitting on a jutting rock, his fat walking stick resting beside him, his old legs dangling down.

  "However did you get up there, Tilla? You can't manage to fish or wash, but you can climb onto a giant rock."

  Tilla snickered. The sound gave Lillah the giggles. Most people laughed loudly, mouths wide open. "I am the watcher, looking out for secrets. I climb where I can. What's going on over there?"

"Why don't you come and see?"

"Hah! Expect me to talk to those fools?"

"You'll have to talk to somebody some time."

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

  "Yes, but Tilla, I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm going away with the school."

  Tilla choked and Lillah stepped closer, thinking he had swallowed a night bug.

  "Tilla? Are you all right?"

  He was crying. Tears trickled down his old face and he didn't wipe them away.

  "Why do they send our best to die?"

  "I won't die. I'll find my partner. I'll send news back with the school."

  "They won't be back. They never come back. Haven't you noticed? They go away to die." Lillah realised that was why he had been so hard on her earlier, in her teacher interview.

  "Oh, my Tree Lord, Tilla," she said. "You went yourself. Don't you remember?"

  "I remember a strange dream a long time ago, that's all."

  He gazed out to sea. "The shore gets smaller every year. I can see it. Every year the Trunk gets thicker and thicker. It won't be long before the beach is gone altogether. The pot my ancestor buried for my inheritance is covered, now, by the Tree. I'll never get to it."

  He looked up the Tree. "There's stories up there long forgotten. Lost. No lesson learnt."

  "You still remember a lot of it. And the younger men are learning it. Some of our people tried living in the Tree, you know. Many years ago. But it went wrong, very wrong. They could not put their babies down, you know. Not even to sleep. This is not the way a person should be. A person needs to sleep alone at times."

  He scrabbled in his pocket. "Here," he said. "Tell them to bury this with you. At least they'll know where you came from."

  He handed her a flat rock. She could feel that it was etched but couldn't see the design.

  "Look at it tomorrow," he said. "Go now, I'm tired."

  "Will you tell me just one story? One I can share with the children on a lonely night between Orders?"

  "I'm tired." But he smiled at her; he loved to tell stories. "I'll tell you about a time when the canopy was not so vast. When we could stand at the water's edge and receive sun all the time, not just when there has been Leaffall. Every year we lose more sunlight as the Tree grows and casts more shadow."

  "Tell me the story."

  "This is the story of your uncle. Your father's brother. We were dear friends."

  "He doesn't talk about his brother."

  "He misses him too greatly."

  "I know that he floated out to sea on a large piece of Bark he found shed from the Tree. I never knew him; he sailed before I was born. He said he was seeking the other side of the world, but he never returned. The Order believed he'd been taken by the sea monster. I think that could be true. My mother said they looked out to sea sometimes, hoping to see him returning to them."

  "You have exploration in your blood, Lillah."

  "Why would he do such a thing?"

  "He wanted to know. He wanted to see what else there was, if it was an alternative to living on this island. He knew that the Tree was growing and he had a different sense of vision to most people. He knew that in ten generations, the land would be gone and other homes would need to be found. He believed there was another place to live on land; although not the Island of Spirits."

  "How could he know such a thing? No one knows where it is but that doesn't mean it isn't there."

  "He did not believe that is where the spirit went after death."

  "So what did he do?"

  "We had no idea he was about to take to the water. A school had just left and he had made love to three of the teachers. None stayed; they were only from Bayonet, two Orders away, and they were not ready to settle. These women talked a lot about children, of ten children each, of building Order. There were arguments around the talkfire, most believing that keeping our population low is the way to keep ourselves safe from disease. These women did not agree, nor did they care. It was not the most amusing evening.

  "Your uncle was furious with them for their lack of understanding, and he said that he would find a way to avoid sharing the land with them. That was when he made the plan to enter the sea."

  "He had a plan?"

  "He was very organised! He took food, drink, clothing, implements. If anyone could survive, it would be him."

  "Yet he never returned."

  "No. Some say it is because he was sucked into the Tree on his little vessel, and that in there are ghosts who live on our blood. They use our blood to fill their veins. Your uncle is ghost food."

  Lillah looked at him, horrified. "This is not a story to tell to children."

  "It is your story, Lillah. There is no lesson in it. Your father will not tell you, but it is your history."

  Lillah thought she had too many lost relatives.

  "Can I help you down from your rock, Tilla?"

  "NO! Just go away," he snapped. She climbed up and hugged him quickly. His hard body stiffened then relaxed. "Find someone else to talk to, okay?" she said.

  He grunted, and she walked away.

  It was only on celebration nights they stayed up past dark. Other times it was early to bed. Early up in the morning. Lillah wondered if other Orders slept differently.

  She didn't join the others in drinking sap wine. She needed to keep her head clear for the morning. The first couple of days were the hardest, she'd been told. The third day was painful as the muscles screamed, and they usually rested on that day.

  "It's not meant to be tortuous," Aquifolia told them. "Pain is okay in small doses but no one can think when they are hurting. Stop when you need to. There is nothing weak about it."

 

Lillah woke early on her first day of school and thought, "Sometime soon I am going to have sex." She lay in bed for a while, imagining what her lovers would look like. Not so different from the men in her Order. The only real difference was that she could sleep with them.

  She sat up, dizzy. She had not slept well in the night; the anticipation of leaving on her first day of school proved fertile ground for imaginings.

  "Lillah. Come on. Breakfast with the family." Her brother spoke through the door, then knocked and pushed it open. He poked his head in. His eyes were puffy. He looked like he hadn't slept well, either. "Come on, Lillah. We won't see you for many years. Until you get homelust and come back to us."

  "That's if I meet the man of my dreams," she said. She and Logan exchanged glances, not quite of longing, nor of regret, but a mixture of both. "I'll pack my bags then come to join you."

  "Breakfast first. Father has prepared a feast."

  Lillah nodded. "He's going to be lonely. Without me."

  "He'll have plenty to do with the baby. He's a great help to us."

  Lillah shook her head. "Don't let that be his existence. Promise me? He is more than grandfather. Make sure he travels to the markets sometimes, sees others his own age. Make sure he has a hobby, not just holding your child."