The One Tree of Luna (4 page)

“Yeah,” I said wondering at the sudden change of topic. “Why?”

“Did you see anything unusual?”

I should have told her. I really should have, I realize that now. But then, just after “miss
smarty-pants” I wasn't quite thinking at my best. And … ghosts? Can you imagine how
my mom would have reacted to that?

“I didn't get to finish the sweep,” I told her honestly. “I got this emergency call.”

“Your father said to keep an eye on the forest,” Mom said. She made a worried face. “I think
he's scared …”

Scared? My Dad? Of what?

I should have told her then. I should have but I felt bad that I hadn't told her the first time.

“I can't go into the air again today,” I said, consulting my flight log. “But I'll be extra careful tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Mom said, nodding to herself. “That'll do.” She still looked worried as she added, “It's probably nothing.”

 

“Hey guys, I'm sorry but I gotta jet,” I said to the pod as they collected at the end of the last class that day. I pointed to my back. “Angels tread and all.”

“Yeah, right,” Carey said, rolling her eyes. “You're just going off to try out your latest costume for the parade!”

“Am not, squirt,” I told her as I found a clear spot in the crowd. “Stand clear!”

I took two quick steps, leaped up and unfurled my wings. Just to annoy Carey, as I flapped up higher, I strobed the lower edges of my wings in rainbow colors. I could hear Carey's squeal of delight and indignation and the cheers of the others as I made it past fifty meters and then I steered toward the school thermal and slowly glided up to the very top of the safety limit — can't get too high. It's not that my wings might melt, rather that my wings might tangle with some wiring or other important piece of infrastructure trailing down from above.

A quick check on all my displays and I veered sharply port, towards the agricultural section.

The first thing I noticed was the tree. Actually, the first thing I noticed was all the leaves under the tree. I stooped and dropped down to the top of the tree, swinging in a fast, tight circle, examining and filming every bit of it.

This was bad. It looked like someone had purposely set out to destroy the tree. The special tree. The one my dad always talked about it hushed tones. The one he planted the day I was born. I was just about to call him when I realized — he was on Earth.

Something flickered at the base of the tree. I dropped down to the ground and furled my wings even as I ground to a halt. I squinted at the shape but I couldn't make it out.

“You need to go,” a ghostly, faint voice said.

“Are you okay?”

“He's coming back and he won't come if you're here,” the voice said. “He'll want to kiss you, not me.” And then, the voice went on dreamily, “He kissed me yesterday. I want him to kiss me again.”

I cranked my video recorder up to four hundred and eighty frames per second and suddenly the shimmering shape resolved itself into a human form.

“Are you okay?” I said. The ghost of the girl I'd seen yesterday was older, near my mom's age now and she looked listless and weak. Sort of like the tree whose limbs were drooping even as I watched.

“Three kisses,” the ghost girl continued, not seeming to hear me. “Three kisses and I'll be his forever!”

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Name?”

“What do people call you?”

“
He
calls me his life's blood, the heart of his heart, the only thing that matters,” the ghost woman replied. Her eyes seemed to smolder as she glared at me. “What does it matter my name?”

“I'm Jennifer,” I said, wondering why I was trying to sound so reasonable while dealing with someone who was exhibiting symptoms similar to oxygen starvation. “Can I get you anything?”

“You can leave,” she said. “He'll be coming and I don't want him looking at you.” She stretched her hands out and held them up to her eyes. “He won't think I'm too old, will he?”

“I thought you said he was an old man,” I said.

“He was,” she said, a smile fleeting across her lips. She was beautiful in her own way. “But now he's my handsome suitor. Three kisses and he'll be mine forever.”

“I should really get my father to look at that tree,” I said, pointing to the tree she was leaning against. “And you should treat that tree with more respect. You shouldn't be here.”

“My mother doesn't mind,” she told me, raising a ghost hand. It seemed to disappear as she wrapped it around the trunk. “She's tired but that's to be expected.”

“Your mother?” I said, frowning. I looked around. “Where's your mother?”

“Right here, silly,” the girl said with a dry laugh that sounded like wind through leaves.

“We should really get more water for that tree,” I said. “And I'm going to have to report you,” I added, chiming my comm. Unit. “I think you need help.”

“I need
nothing
from you!” She roared and suddenly she loomed up large and charged right through me. A cold, freezing chill took my heart even though none of my sensors recorded it. “Begone!”

A wind rose up and pulled me off the ground before I could react. I was airborne, in gusts I'd never before experienced — and I was very scared.

I can't say how or how long I battled with the storm that shouldn't have been. For several moments it looked like I was either going to be speared on the trees or dashed against the roof and it was all I could do to survive.

My alarms went off and then my comms went dead and my heart was in my throat as, for a moment, my nano-wings flickered, dissolving into lifeless streams.

Help!
I cried to myself, not knowing what to do. The ground was rising and then — my wings were back. I flexed them, warped to veer away from the storm that had tossed me and finally found myself in still air.

My comms burst back into life loudly with several security guards all calling at once. With a shaky voice I told them that I was all right, that I was about to land and I'd give them a full report when I'd discovered the source of the fault.

“Do you need someone to get you, Jenny?” a voice asked and I nearly died. It was Stan Morgan.

“Did anyone get a read on the freak weather over the forest?” I asked, trying to sound mature and relaxed.

“There are no alerts anywhere in the domes, Jenny,” Stan replied after a moment. “Are you sure you're all right?”

“I don't know,” I told him, knowing that honesty was the best policy in a conversation that was monitored and recorded — and pretty much heard by everybody. “Maybe I hit some micro-climate or maybe … I'll run a systems check when I get home.”

“You do that,” Stan said. “You never know how those upgrades can interfere with each other sometimes.” There was a pause and then he added, “I'd hate for you to run afoul of them.”

Did Stan Morgan care about me? My heart skipped a beat.

“Sure thing, clear skies, Stan!”

“You, too, Jenny,” he said feelingly — which might only be because of my recent thunderstorm.

 

I was running through diagnostics for the third time when my mom came in. One look at her face made it clear that she had bad news.

“Your father has to stay on Earth,” she said without preamble. “He wants to know if you checked up on the forest.”

“I did,” I told her.

“Stanley Morgan commed me,” mother added.

“I had some difficulty with my suit,” I told her, waving toward the diagnostics unit. “I've
run diagnostics three times but —” I shook my head.

“Maybe you should stay on the ground until your father gets back,” Mom told me.

“Mo-ommmm!” I cried. “You know I've got a job to do and —”

“And there's the parade,” Mom finished for me, nodding. She reached a hand toward me. “Honey,
I know how important it is to you but your father's worried —”

“Worried?” About me? Why? “I think he'd be more worried about his tree.”

“His tree?” my mother said quickly, giving me a sharp look. “What about it?”

I told her. I told her everything and as I did I felt a lump in my heart ease but at the same time, I found another growing in my throat — because while it was a relief to tell someone, my mom's reaction was terrifying.

“You've got video?” Mom asked.

“I don't know,” I said, gesturing toward the suit and the diagnostics. “I didn't download what I got yesterday and if something happened to the suit all of it might be gone.”

“You say that yesterday she was a girl and today she's a woman?”

“Yeah,” I said. I knew it sounded silly, so I added, “At least she
looked
like the same person and she seemed like she remembered me.”

“But — older?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Maybe …”

“Maybe nothing,” my mother said. She glanced over to the shelves where I kept the old
spaceship models and shook her head. “Oh, I wish your father had stuck with spaceships
—”

“Dad?” I cried, completely amazed, turning toward the models. “
He
made those?”

“Well you don't think
I
did, did you?” Mom snapped with a laugh and then, seeing the look on my face, added sympathetically, “Oh, baby, you mean you didn't know?”

“No,” I said, finding my entire world turning upside down. Dad, into spaceships? That was nuts! He was a tree guy, into plants and growing stuff.

“Did you ever ask about your grandfather Ki?” Mom said and then shook her head, “No, of course not.” She seemed to be talking to herself as she added, “We thought that there was still time.” She shrugged and pulled herself together, letting out a little sigh — the sort of sigh she gave when she was forced to admit that I was growing up faster than she wanted. She gestured to my bed. “Sit, we're going to be here for a bit.”

“But my homework!” I cried. “My projects!”

“They'll wait,” mom said, grabbing a chair and pulling it to sit opposite me. She let out a long sigh. “Your father should be the one to tell you but I think it's time you knew.”

“Know what?” I asked. Was my dad some sort of Japanese elf or a wood spirit? And then I knew. “She's a wood spirit, isn't she? That tree, dad's tree, she lives in it.”

Mom looked amazed and then smiled, reaching forward to ruffle my hair. “Very good! Very, very good! You're as smart as your dad, little one!” She shook her head ruefully. “I suppose I'll have to stop calling you little one, won't I?”

I shook my head. Mothers say silly things — it's okay.

“But you're only part right,” she said when she brought herself back from her reverie. “Your father's tree died long before he came to the Moon.”

“It died? How?”

And my mother told me. Now my mom has always been the smartest, most logical, scientific person that I've known — and I've got lots of other people who agree with me on that. So the story she told me was so far from what I'd expected that my eyebrows rose to the top of my forehead and stayed there pretty much the whole time.

“Mom,” I said slowly when she'd finished, “are you sure that dad wasn't just pulling your leg?”

“It's how he won my heart, honey,” Cheri Ki told me with a shake of her head and bright spots
in her eyes. “I'm a botanist first and I know my craft.” She shook her head. “I not only
examined the wood but I went to the other plantings —”

“Plantings?”

“There were six seeds,” mom told me. “Your father planted five on them on Earth and the sixth one here.” She nodded toward the forest. She smiled at me. “You know, we're always learning and we're always discovering that we don't know everything. It was your father showing me those saplings that showed me how much more there was to know and learn.” She paused for a moment. “So when he asked if I'd like to live with him on the Moon and make a new garden, I could only say yes.”

“But you're a nutritionist!”

“I grow things,” mom reminded me. “I grow things that help us breathe, that let us eat, that let
us
grow and survive.” She gestured with one arm in a wide arc, taking in all of the Moon. “We've made life where there was none, built a promise for the future.” She smiled as she met my eyes. “Built a home for your children.”

“You said that dad's tree died,” I said, remembering her story.

My mother is a very smart, very empathic person: she caught my unasked question with a twist of her lips. “The tree he planted here in the forest, that's
your
tree sweetie.”

“What happened to the other trees?” I asked in a very small voice.

My mother heaved a deep sigh. “Your father is trying to find out.”

“But what happened?”

“We don't know,” mom said. “All we know is that they're all dead.”

“So mine is the last tree.”

Wordlessly, Mom nodded.

“Well then, that makes things simple,” I said, rising from the bed and moving toward my diagnostic unit.

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to save my tree.” My eyes went to the model rocket ships on my shelves and suddenly I realized that I'd begun to understand my father.

This is the point at which, according to all the Earth books I've read, my mom would have taken charge. But you as you've
gotta
know by know, we're Loonies and we don't do thing the way you do on Earth.

“What are you thinking?” my mom asked instead.

And that's when I knew I wasn't a kid any more.

To be honest, she took me by surprise. It was a moment before I had a reply.

“Is there a way we can identify this man?” I asked. “I mean, surely if he were a Loony we
would have —” I broke off when I caught the way mom was looking at me.