Tree Girl (8 page)

Soon I’ll be there
, she said to herself. She might even learn, before this day was out, what really happened at the High Willow. To herself. And to her mother—whose face she couldn’t remember, but whose songs still held her heart.

The sun’s rays poked through the trees, wavering like branches of light. Anna and Sash ran across parades of toadstools and beds of blue-green moss. And oh, the aromas! She smelled the mustiness of wood turning to soil, the sweetness of resins warmed by the sun, the tanginess of rillberries
washed by a stream. And more, too—so many smells, she couldn’t even start to name them all.

“Slow down, Anna.” Sash, running by her side, tapped her shoulder. “You’ll be all tired out before we’re halfway to the ridge.”

Anna just shook her head. Her steps were getting more choppy, but she tried to run even faster. “We’ve got to make it,” she panted, “all the way…there and back…by tomorrow night.”

“We’ll make it.”

“But not if—” She tried to leap over a broken branch, but caught her foot and crashed to the ground. She rolled into some ferns.

Sash bent over her. He pushed aside the ferns, not bothering to hide his smirk. “Ready to walk now?”

“No, you old barnacle!” She stood and pulled some leaves out of her hair. And then pulled Eagle out of the tangle of brush where he’d landed. “But I will, I guess.” She elbowed Sash. “So long as you’re sure we can make it.”

“I’m sure. That is, if you’ll quit taking naps in the ferns.”

They set off again. Into the trees they
plunged—trees with more shapes and sizes and colors than Anna had ever dreamed possible. So many different kinds! Even their shadows were different: tall and poky for pines, soft and round for rowans, dark and patchy for hawthorns.

How could she have ever thought of the forest as a single thing? It seemed that way from the shore, all right. But no, it was really more like a village—a village of trees. And everyone who lived there was as different from the others as Old Burl was from the silver beech at the glade.

There stood an ash tree, holding a family of raccoons with star-bright eyes. And there—a young elm, swaying gracefully as they strode past. It didn’t just carry its leaves, but wore them, as a dancer would wear a shimmering gown. Beyond stood a spruce tree, its trunk stooped and bent, its branches sweeping the ground. And over there, an ancient oak, spreading great arms over the saplings that grew at its roots.

What path they followed, Anna couldn’t tell. If there was a path at all! Sash seemed to see one, though. Or at least to sense where they were going.

In time, Anna started to notice other things.
Branches, on every side, that snapped and creaked and groaned. Leaves that rustled like someone’s raspy breath. And cries, strange and haunting, that echoed through the trees.

Hard as she tried, she couldn’t forget the master’s stories. Couldn’t stop wondering what the spirits of all these trees were doing. Aye, right now!

They passed through a thick grove of evergreens. Suddenly she caught sight of something moving beside them. A shadow! One that looked like a tree—but strode with long, floppy steps. She whirled around and peered into the dark mass of trunks, roots, and branches.

Nothing.

She rubbed her chin. Where had that shadow gone? This was all too strange. And strangest of all…the shadow reminded her somehow of Old Burl.

“Come on!” Sash waved at her from up ahead. He was standing by a sunlit walnut tree, whose branches smelled like nuts roasting on a hearth. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

She ran to him. Right away, they set off again. And they continued, never slowing, across ground
muddy and dry, steep and flat, sunlit and shadowed.

Before long, Anna noticed something new. As the day went on, the trees grew quieter. Much quieter. A hush came over the forest, filling it like a mist.

Fewer branches clacked or groaned, fewer leaves whispered. Even the squirrels stopped their chatter. Before long, there was almost no sound at all, but for two pairs of padding feet.

Rotting ravens
, she thought.
What’s going on?

At last they paused for a drink at a rushing rill. Anna cupped her hands and filled them, while Eagle hopped over to the edge of the bank. For his part, Sash plunged his whole head into the water. Then he shook himself, splattering the others. Eagle squawked and slapped the air with his good wing.

Anna leaned back against a young beech, whose smooth bark shone like a sea-washed shell. “Sash, why does it feel like the trees are, well…
waiting
for something?”

“You feel it?” He gave a small grin, but said no more.

Onward they trekked, over a hill blackened by
fire years before, and around the edge of a mist-shrouded marsh. For lunch, they ate the tops of some stalks of golden grass that Sash called
nutashala
, along with some of Anna’s radishes. Then they continued on their way, rounding a lake nearly covered with lily pads. Fat green frogs sat on the leaves, strangely silent.

All the while, the quiet grew heavier. Like a storm cloud ready to burst.

As the late afternoon light shafted through the branches, the land started to rise steadily. Up they climbed, over rocks and tumbled trunks, as if they were mounting a stairway to the sky. Anna’s thighs stiffened, and her calves ached. But even more, she felt the weight of all that stillness. That growing tension in the air.

And she felt something more—a subtle thrill swelling in her chest. For she knew, without asking, that they had started to climb the great ridge. Not far now! She craned her neck and peered up into the mesh of boughs. She couldn’t see the top of the ridge, or the willow that stood there. Not yet, anyway.

But she was close. Really close.

The slope grew steeper. Her knees and calves
throbbed. She knew that she’d need to rest sometime soon. But how could she stop now?

Just then Sash pointed to a carpet of thick moss under a towering rowan tree. “There,” he said in a whisper. “That’s as far as we go today.”

Despite her wobbly legs, she objected. “Can’t we go a little higher? We must be halfway up the ridge by now.”

“More than that.” He lay down on the moss and stretched out his legs. “But this is where we stop.”

Anna could tell it was pointless to argue. She sighed and lay down on the soft, thick carpet. Her body sank, it seemed, into the ground itself. Eagle hopped off, finding a bed of his own in the tufts.

Then, like the forest around them, they waited in silence.

F
OR SOME TIME
A
NNA AND
S
ASH
lay on their backs in the moss, quiet as the trees themselves. Just watching. One by one, every leaf and needle and twig sparkled with the day’s last light, gleamed for a while, then faded into darkness. In the rowan branches above them, the eyes of a nesting thrush glowed an eerie orange.

Anna turned from the deepening shadows to the boy beside her. “Are your, ah…people…somewhere near?”

“The drumalos are here, all right. But they’re waiting. For what comes next.” He chortled. “It happens only once a year, on High Hallow Eve. And it’s something, I’m sure, no human has ever witnessed.”

Until now
, thought Anna.

The tension in the air increased. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and goose bumps swelled on her arms. The sky seemed ready to split open in a storm. But she’d never known a storm like this.

Slowly, the last blush of sunlight disappeared.
Anna shivered, and not just from the chilly air. She slid across the moss until her shoulder touched her friend’s.

Just then the lowest leaf on the rowan’s lowest branch started to quiver. It trembled ever so slightly at first—then faster, and faster. Next more leaves, higher on the tree, started to shake, as if touched by the same swelling wind.

Except there was no wind. Not that Anna could feel, at least.

Like Sash, she sat up, clasping her knees, watching.
What was happening?

All around them, trees shivered and quaked to the hidden wind. Then came a single, low-pitched note from somewhere in the forest. Like a great wooden horn it blew, with a sound so deep that it shook the very ground. And shook Anna, too, somewhere under her skin.

Another note came—somewhat higher, ringing like a faraway chime. Then another. And another.

Soon a whole chorus filled the air. Blown and bonged and whistled, the notes rang out, echoing from every grove, rolling in a great river of sound. As the notes lifted higher, so did the trees, their boughs raised upward like thousands of arms. And
as the notes fell lower, burly roots stirred and dug deeper into the soil.

A new wind gathered, a wind that moved the air as well as the trees. It wailed through the forest, shaking elmwood and oak, hawthorn and beech. Leaves and cones and flakes of bark spun all about. The air smelled of cedar sap and walnut oil. Branches tapped and creaked and shushed, joining with the chorus in one united call.

This was the call of the forest itself—its truest cry, its deepest voice. Anna was sure of it. Aye, this was the voice of the wild woods alive!

She glanced over at Sash, and he met her gaze. His green eyes sparkled as if embedded with stars.

High Hallow Eve had arrived.

Suddenly Anna turned. A face—right there in the bark of the rowan tree beside them! She stared at the face as it sprouted from the trunk. Her whole body tensed. And yet…this face looked very different from the one she’d seen before in the forest. This face was round and cheery with huge eyes and a wide, wrinkly mouth. And despite the deepening darkness, the eyes shone with their own inner light, a greenish glow that looked like moonbeams on leaves.

Anna watched, holding her breath. Here was a tree spirit, about to emerge from its home!

The rowan’s face bulged outward, swelling like a burl on the trunk. Then came two long-fingered hands, a belly as round as the tree itself, and a pair of bumpy feet. Slowly the figure pulled apart from the trunk, oozing out from the gaps in the bark. Finally, with a moist, sucking sound, it came free.

Standing on his own at last, the fat little fellow raised his arms above his head and started to dance. He slapped his feet on the tree’s roots so hard, his round belly jiggled. With a broad wink at Sash, he twirled himself around, howled with joy, then twirled again, faster than before.

All around, spirits emerged from their trees, pulling themselves out of knotholes, through chinks in bark, or up from roots. Right away they, too, started dancing. One elder spirit, as knobby as the old oak where he lived, spun himself in so many circles that he fell to the ground with a thud—and a dizzy grin. Pale-skinned birch spirits threw aside their dangling braids and turned cartwheels and somersaults on the forest floor. Above Anna’s head, a thin girl hung with both hands from a branch. She wore a suit of summer grasses that covered
even her fingers and toes. As she swung slowly to and fro, her long hair fluttering across her arms, she looked every bit as graceful as a young elm.

Anna didn’t know which way to look. It was all so real—yet so amazing.

While the drumalos danced, the strange music swelled even louder. The wind swelled, too, swirling and gusting through the forest. Needles and twigs and leaves filled the air. Everywhere, saplings stomped their roots to the rhythm, while older spirits swayed to each and every note, rowing the air with their branches. And Anna could feel the beat pulsing in her bones.

Someone grabbed Anna’s wrist. Sash! He pulled her right into the revelry, whirling her around the rowan. Hands held tight, they jumped and spun and kicked their legs high. Anna threw back her head and laughed—aye, just for the thrill of it all.

“Oh, Sash…” She leaped over the shaggy head of a cedar who had sat down to rest. “I love this, I do!”

“Not bad!” he crowed. “With some more practice, you could almost keep up with me.”

“Then let’s practice all the time!” She smiled as they twirled past a family of elms who were spinning
in unison. Here she was, dancing with the very creatures she’d thought were ghouls! “Sash, this is the best day of my life.”

“Just wait till tomorrow,” he shouted. “When we go up to the willow together. And when you find out—”

“Wait,” she interrupted suddenly. Her dancing slowed. “I’ve been thinking. I want to go up there alone.”

“Really?”

“Really. Something tells me it’s better that way, just me and the willow. I’m not sure why—just that it’s better.”

He shook his sandy locks. “Well, all right. But you won’t have nearly as much fun without me.”

“Aye, that’s true.” She squeezed his hands. “That’s always true.”

Just then someone dropped a wreath of white berries on her brow. She let go of Sash and spun around to see who had done it.

Before her stood a gnarled old fellow with a crooked grin. He wore a floppy hat studded with cones. And as he bowed stiffly to Anna, she caught a familiar smell, both tart and sweet.

“Burl!” She threw her arms around the neck of her old friend.

He wrapped his own leathery arms around her, and they started dancing a bouncy sort of jig. “Now there, me girl!
Hoho, hoho.
Methought you might not know me.”

“Oh, Burl. I’d always know you!”

He shook his head to the thumping beat, spraying some cones from his hat. “’Tis good to see you so free, me girl.”

She whirled herself around, and danced all the faster.

Sash tapped her shoulder. He bowed to Old Burl, then pulled Anna into a new freewheeling frenzy. Her bare feet flew above the ground, hardly touching before they flew again.

Like all the others, they romped long into the night. Sometimes they danced as a pair, and sometimes as part of a long, twisting vine that wound its way among the trees. And sometimes Anna just danced alone, twirling herself around and around in the light of the rising moon.

And when, at last, the festivities ended, she continued to dance in her dreams.

S
TILL SWAYING IN HER DREAMS
, Anna woke up.