Tree Slayer

by Harriet Springbett

  Since the vision, her Amrita nightmares had stopped. Rainbow hoped it was because she’d decided to take action and not because Amrita’s life force had already expired. She’d come up with a plan, which she would explain to Christophe at the restaurant, once he’d dropped off the apprentice at the supermarket and joined them.

  First, she and Christophe would find a woody campsite in the Val d’Azun. Then they’d ask the villagers to direct them to the sheep pastures. Well, Christophe would. He was far better with people than she was. Much as the idea of going there alone had alarmed her, being with him would make it fun. If she could get him to enter into the spirit of finding her shepherd, it would be an adventure. It would have been even better with Apple and Acorn, but it made more sense for the apprentice to look after them for the weekend.

  Thierry was talking about trees, as usual. Rainbow put her anticipation for the weekend to one side and listened.

  “… so they concluded that the giraffes stopped eating the leaves because the acacia trees upwind had sent a warning message out to the other acacias,” he said.

  Rainbow imagined prickly acacias in the savannah sending invisible messages to each other.

  “Did they communicate through their roots and mycelium, then, like the trees in Massane forest?” she asked.

  “No. That’s the interesting bit. The researchers reckon that when an acacia tree senses a giraffe eating its leaves, it gives out a warning gas. The wind carries the gas to the other trees, and they produce an unpleasant taste in their leaves. Clever, eh? That way, the giraffes don’t eat the leaves of the acacias downwind of the one attacked by the giraffe.”

  Rainbow gazed out of the van window and thought about how the wind could both help and hurt trees. Maybe there were helpful winds and unhelpful ones: tree-slaying winds and tree-saving winds. She’d have to make sure she vanquished the right one.

  There was a biker at the traffic lights opposite. He looked like Christophe. The helmet was the same as his and the bike was the same colour as the bike he’d given her, which he always rode. But a girl was riding pillion. A girl with long, blonde hair curling from under her helmet.

  It was Rainbow’s helmet. The boy was Christophe, and the girl had her arms around him, even though they were stationary and she didn’t need to hold on.

  She stared. Christophe was supposed to be with the apprentice. Was he using the apprentice as an excuse to see this girl? The apprentice always needed him for something or other.

  Mary urged her to wind down the window and shout at him. But she couldn’t. What would she say? Her Christophe. Her reliable, honest Christophe.

  “Trees react the same way when caterpillars bite their leaves,” came Thierry’s voice through the red mist in her mind. “The researchers say the signals are electrical, though. Everything is slow with trees, so it takes a long time until the leaves all produce a substance that’s toxic to that particular caterpillar. I’ve seen this kind of thing myself, though I knew nothing about the signals. I just saw caterpillars attack and then, an hour later, they stopped eating. How about that? Rainbow?”

  The lights changed and Christophe whizzed past. The helmet covered the girl’s face, but judging by her long legs in tight leather trousers, she was tall. Tall and blonde: the complete opposite of Rainbow. Mary’s frustration boiled, demanding that Rainbow get Thierry to turn around and follow him. But last time she’d let Mary’s anger spill out, the oak tree had been killed. She must only listen to Mary when she was calm.

  There had to be another explanation for the girl. Mary was always quick to believe the worst. Christophe wouldn’t have given Rainbow the kittens – their kittens – if he planned to run off with another girl. In a few minutes she would see him at the restaurant, where he would explain everything and tease her for over-reacting.

  “Everything all right, sweetie?” asked Claudette.

  “I’m fine,” croaked Rainbow. “Just tired after my exams.”

  “A good meal is what you need. Stop rabbiting on about trees, Titi, and give the poor girl some peace.”

  They parked and walked towards the riverside restaurant. There was a splash, probably from a coypu, and a group of wild ducks squawked. Rainbow hardly noticed them, nor the desecrated woodland. She followed Thierry and Claudette to their table on the terrace and sat down, facing the entrance. They ordered their meals, and then Thierry cleared his throat.

  “Let’s get down to business,” he said. “I’ve got a proposal for you.”

  “A proposal?”

  “Yes. How long have we been working together now?”

  Rainbow’s eyes slid back to the entrance. Still no Christophe. He was late. Was he lingering over a last kiss?

  “Since December. Six months,” she said. Three months shorter than the time she’d been going out with Christophe.

  “That’s right. And during those six months you’ve never let me down. You’ve worked as hard as me, and you’re always ready to learn – unless I’m trying to show you chainsaw techniques, of course. There’s still some room for improvement there.”

  His voice seemed to register several seconds after he’d spoken. Now he was chuckling. She fought off the image of Christophe and the girl kissing, and concentrated on Thierry.

  “So I’d like to sponsor you for an arboriculture course,” he said. “There are some excellent sandwich courses locally, so you could do your work placements with me and study at the same time.”

  All thoughts of Christophe fell away. “Really? You mean it?”

  “I most certainly do,” he said. “I’m not promising you a job afterwards, mind. We’ll have to see what the market’s like in a year’s time.”

  “That’s so cool! Thanks, Thierry.” She jumped up from her chair and kissed both him and Claudette.

  “There’ll be no slacking off, though. You’ll have to study hard. And you’ll work for me this summer too, of course. I’ve got a project that I think you’ll like, starting on Monday.”

  “A summer job and sponsorship? You’ve made my day.” She grinned at them both. She’d be back from the mountains on Sunday evening, having found her shepherd and vanquished the Tree Slayer. They could deal with Koad the weekend after. “So what’s the project?”

  “I’ll tell you on Monday. Eight o’clock sharp, OK?”

  “You bet!”

  “I think champagne is in order, don’t you?” said Claudette. “Just as soon as … Ah, here he is.”

  Christophe walked across the terrace, unzipping his leather jacket. Mary’s anger surged, almost knocking Rainbow off balance with the force of her desire to demand an explanation. Rainbow’s joy evaporated. She could hardly make a scene here, right in front of Thierry and Claudette. Not after they’d just shown their confidence in her.

  “Hey, Rainette.” Christophe leant forward to kiss her. “How was the exam?”

  “Fine,” she said, tilting her face away. She couldn’t kiss him on the lips that had just kissed another girl. “Did you deliver your apprentice?”

  “Of course. Only fine? Didn’t you finish all the exam questions?”

  He was lying. “I said it was fine, OK?”

  She frowned at the crownless spikes of trees behind the restaurant, struggling to keep Mary’s fury in check. If she were honest, the anger didn’t only come from Mary.

  Thierry passed Christophe a glass of champagne. He looked surprised, and when she said nothing, Thierry explained why they were celebrating. Christophe exclaimed and enthused, over-compensating for Rainbow’s silence. They toasted her future as an aborist as well as her nineteenth birthday, and sipped. She couldn’t force a single drop down her dry throat.

  Thierry turned to Christophe and winked. “How’s that young apprentice getting on?”

  Rainbow frowned. Why the wink? Did he know Christophe was using the apprentice as a cover to see Blondie?

  “Fine,” said Christophe.

  He was blushing.

  Rainbow choked and spat out her champa
gne. She wasn’t the fool they believed her to be. She didn’t have to take this. It would be easy to give in to Mary’s rage and shout at him, slap him, storm off.

  Christophe patted her on the back. She flinched, but he didn’t even notice. He was asking Thierry about his new motorbike.

  She stood up and pushed back her chair. It fell over. Thierry’s words tailed off and all three of them stared at her. She mustn’t scream or shout, as Mary wanted. She had to leave before she gave in or burst. She stumbled across the terrace.

  A chair scraped and she heard quick footsteps. She walked faster, leaving the sickening smell of grilled steak far behind as she entered the leafy shelter of the woodland.

  Christophe ran up beside her and clasped her arm. “Rainette! What’s going on?”

  She shook off his hand and carried on walking.

  “Rainbow?”

  “You tell me,” she said.

  “Tell you what?”

  She stopped and glared at him. “Are you kidding me? Do you really have nothing to say? About that girl?”

  “What girl?” His voice was uncertain.

  “The blonde girl. On your motorbike just now.”

  “You mean Emilie? What about her? I told you I was taking her to the supermarket.”

  The river, trees and path all slanted to one side. She was slipping off the world.

  “Her?” She swallowed. “The apprentice is a girl?”

  He nodded, his cheeks still pink.

  “You told me she was a boy,” she said.

  “I didn’t.”

  She ran his comments about the apprentice through her mind. She couldn’t find an example to contradict him. How could she have been so stupid, so sexist, as to presume it was a boy? Maybe Mary was right in accusing her of being stereotyped in her asssumptions.

  “OK, I presumed she was a boy,” she said. “But you never corrected me. Why not, Chris?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  All those lifts he’d given the apprentice. The times he’d stayed late to help her in the workshop. The way he never talked about her in detail. She wasn’t sure if this was better or worse.

  “So there’s nothing between you?”

  “Well … No.”

  That single second of silence, in which he had to think whether the girl meant more to him than she should, stabbed her heart. It was definitely worse.

  He took her hands. “We haven’t done anything, Rainbow. Honestly.”

  Another stab: that “we”, which meant him and her, Christophe and Emilie. Not Christophe and Rainbow.

  She swallowed. “But you want to?”

  His brown eyes avoided hers. He took his hands away and shoved them in his pockets.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” A sob caught in her throat. “What about the kittens? Our kittens? Why did you get them if you want us to split up?”

  “I love you, Rainbow. It’s just that–”

  She covered her ears. “Don’t say that. You’re not allowed to say that anymore.”

  “It’s just that there’s this thing happening inside me.” He reached towards her, then dropped his hands and sighed. “So what do we do now?”

  “You do what you like. I’m off. I’ve got stuff to do. In the Val d’Azun.”

  “On your own? You can’t go alone.”

  She wasn’t alone, technically. Difficult though Mary could be, she was with her, boosting her confidence right now and encouraging her to go through with this. Mary wouldn’t fall in love with someone else and abandon her. Together, she and Mary could do this. They had to do this. Nothing else made any sense.

  “Well, I can’t stay here,” she said. “Not when I might bump into you and her. I guess this is goodbye.”

  “Wait! Rainbow!”

  She turned and ran into the forest.

  He didn’t follow.

  Chapter 8

  Eole’s exams had finished yesterday, and today was his eighteenth birthday. Inside the barn, he checked his watch and then whistled to Darwie. Patou and the sheep that no longer had any milk were ready: fed, wormed, painted with a blue stripe on their rumps (except Patou), and separated from the goats. In two minutes and forty seconds he’d be allowed into the house for tea, and then they’d do the transhumance.

  He crossed the yard. Four of their seven cats were miaowing at the door. Darwie snapped at them and they exploded in different directions, where they sulked from the wall, the tractor, the roof of the cheese room and the wood shed. Maman never turned away strays. She took them all in and fed them. She didn’t know about the kittens, which Papa dealt with in the stream. Maman took in stray people, too, and Christmas meals were complicated because there was always an archaic villager sitting at their table and asking Eole illogical questions about school. Unfortunately, Papa didn’t deal with them in the stream.

  Eole went indoors, took a deep, steady breath and concentrated on the smells. Maman made the best, most difficult quiz cakes for his birthdays. The air flowed past his olfactory receptors and down into the giant labyrinth of his lungs. Darwie whined. The overriding smell – besides the normal mix of curdled milk, cat piss and lilac – was one of burnt sugar.

  The quiz cake sat on the worktop beside a pile of five (no longer six) plates. It wasn’t even iced, and looked as disappointing as it smelt. Maman was leafing through an orange folder. She smiled at Eole, and then went to the door and shouted at Hestia to wake up and come downstairs for tea.

  “Papa’s gone to get Brigitte,” she said. “OK for a birthday kiss?”

  He nodded and bent down so she could kiss his cheek. It was no worse than Darwie sliding his wet nose into his hand, and it was the birthday tea tradition. Even so, he couldn’t help straightening up immediately afterwards. Maman cleared her throat.

  “While we’re alone, I’ve got something to say. Now you’re eighteen.”

  She scrunched her mouth to one side and tapped her chin, looking at the folder. It was the same expression as when she’d had a bad phone call from the headmaster.

  He waited.

  “Well, you’re eighteen now. An adult,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Which, in theory, means we’re no longer responsible for you. But that’s just the law. In practice, nothing changes. We’re still here for you, whatever you may need, darling. OK?”

  “OK. Is that all?”

  The door opened and Hestia appeared, yawning.

  Maman closed the folder and turned to Hestia. “What time do you call this? Don’t forget we’re taking the sheep up after tea.”

  “Uh-huh.” She looked hard at Eole as they bumped fists. “Happy birthday. You look pale.”

  “Yes, you do,” said Maman. “Exam fatigue, I suppose.”

  He did feel pale today, even though he wasn’t tired and the exams hadn’t been particularly demanding. He felt even paler with them both staring at him.

  Papa and Brigitte arrived. Eole took a step back from the sudden bustle and slid into his chair by the wall. Hestia opened the fridge and took out a bottle. It was Moët & Chandon champagne, just like the bottles from the Paris days.

  Maman took it from her. “There’s Champomy for you.”

  “I’m sixteen, not six!”

  Maman opened the fizzy apple juice and served Hestia a champagne glassful while Papa poured the real champagne. Eole took the glass with the least in it, thinking of his neurones and his mapopedia.

  Everyone sat and held up their glasses to chink, except for Papa. He’d picked up the orange folder and his lips were pursed. Maman was watching him.

  “Pa-a-a-trick!” sang Brigitte in her nanny-goat bleat. “We’re waiting for you.”

  Papa slid the folder across the worktop to the far corner and chinked glasses. Maman had a sip and then left the room to get Eole’s present. Papa turned to pick up the cake. Eole felt a kick on his foot. This was one of Hestia’s signs, so he q
uickly looked at her face. She winked at him and exchanged their glasses, then smiled at Brigitte and put her finger to her lips. Brigitte giggled. Eole nodded. He wouldn’t need to destroy any neurones now. His mapopedia would remain intact.

  Maman returned and they each attempted to guess the contents of the quiz cake before eating it. The ingredients had never been so easy. Eole unwrapped his presents, which were always books, and nodded his approval at the titles: A History of Aviation, Multiverse Theories, and Electronics & Computing. The computing book reminded him how he and Tintin had taken apart Tintin’s old Amstrad computer, tested everything, and then rebuilt it.

  Brigitte explained that Tintin had chosen the multiverse book for Eole before he died. Instead of being a portal to new knowledge, Multiverse Theories now looked more like a gravestone.

  The final part of his birthday was the measure, which required him to stand against the door frame while Maman climbed onto a stool and marked his height.

  “It’s official,” she said. “You’ve stopped growing. You’re the same height as last year.”

  And that was the end of his birthday.

  Brigitte and Maman went to the cheese room and Papa left with Darwie to get the shepherd crooks. Eole cleared the table while Hestia swallowed the champagne dregs.

  “Is Maman OK?” he asked her.

  “Oh. My. God. You’ve actually noticed something.”

  “Two facts indicate a problem,” he said. “Her quiz cake was too easy. And she burnt it.”

  “Yeah, something’s up. She’s all agitated. Maybe she’s realised I’m right about you needing to get a job with other people this summer rather than staying here on your own. Or she’s worried about how you’ll cope alone at uni.” She broke off. “What?”

  “La, la, la, la, la,” droned Eole, his hands covering his ears.

  The idea of going to university had to ease gently into his mind. It had to make a space and turn around a few times, like Darwie in his basket, before it settled down. Once it was comfortable, he would face it.

  “You’ve got to prepare for uni,” Hestia continued. “We need to find you a friend in Toulouse this summer, someone who’ll stick by you.”