Tree Slayer

by Harriet Springbett

  Then the wind dropped as suddenly as it had started. Did this mean the Tree Slayer had succeeded and the One Tree was dead? Would the Tree Slayer come and kill her next? Amrita had said they would all perish if she failed. Please let it be a false alert, she willed.

  Her tyres swished along the road and she squinted through the sheets of rain. Argoad was busier than yesterday. Cars were parked everywhere, including outside Druana’s house, though there were no people in sight. They were probably in the bar, sheltering from the cloudburst. She stopped and pressed the bell at the Cazenaves’ gate.

  There was no answer. She rang again. Still no answer. Shivering, she dropped her bike, climbed over the gate and banged on the front door. Nobody replied.

  She was drenched. And frozen. Opposite her, on the other side of the street, the windows of the bar were steamed up and she could make out the shapes of dozens of people. Warm, dry people. It didn’t feel right to think of her comfort while the One Tree was dying somewhere in the forest. But if she didn’t warm up, she’d shiver to death.

  She dashed across the road, her teeth chattering.

  It was lunchtime and the tables were full. Everyone seemed to know each other: the food must be really good for people to come all the way here to eat. She laced through the crowd to the bar and leant against it, rubbing her cold upper arms as she waited to order a hot chocolate. Her leaflet was still on the board. The men beside her were discussing the horse race they’d bet on, and she recognised Jacques from the day before. She wished the long-haired barman would hurry.

  At last she caught his attention. He nodded at her, frothed the milk, and served her drink. She took it and warmed her hands.

  “Got caught in the rain, did you?” he said. “Can’t complain about it, though. Bet you’re glad it’s brought the workmen to a stop.”

  “The workmen?”

  “The foresters. You do know they arrived this morning, right?”

  “What?” She clacked down her cup onto its saucer. Serge had said they’d begin on Monday.

  “Yeah. No messing. Druid Oak will be first, so they say. Soon as the rain stops.”

  “No way! They’re not supposed to cut it down! They agreed to keep it.”

  “That’s what I thought too. Maybe Jacques got it wrong, eh, Jacqui?” He slapped down her change and turned to Jacques. “That old oak there. They told you they’d have it down?”

  “Aye. Got the papers for it ’n’ all. They wanted to give it the chop this morning, before anyone found out.”

  “I’ve got to do something,” she said.

  “Too late for that,” said the barman.

  There must be something she could do. She looked around for inspiration. She needed to divert them. Could she vandalise the workmen’s machines? Pour water in the petrol tanks? Cause an explosion? Her eyes fell on the gas bottles she’d sat next to yesterday. There was one thing she could do.

  “Can I have the key for the gas bottles?” she asked the barman.

  “You want gas?” he asked, then chuckled. “Of course not. You want the chain.”

  “Yes. Please?”

  He shook his head. “Crazy ecologists,” he said. But he reached below the bar and then handed her the key. “I suppose I’ll have to go and get it back when the police drag you off to prison.”

  “Maybe. Thanks loads.” Rainbow grabbed the key and dashed outside into the rain. She couldn’t help the One Tree, but she would do her best for Druid Oak and the golf course trees.

  Eole’s mind was fuzzy from exhaustion.

  He’d done it.

  This is what his special skill was for. His mind felt blurred but his brain was clear and it was telling him what to do next, even though he hadn’t planned any part of this sudden impulse since the screaming had started. He pushed his wet hair from his eyes and, after hiding his bike, marched along the forest path to Argoad. The screams had lessened into wails and the rain had almost stopped.

  He stopped opposite the Bar des Sports. He had to find Rainbow, and this part was going to be far more difficult than what he’d just done. There were lots of people inside. He hesitated. The door opened and a couple of men with cameras around their necks came out onto the terrace, holding out their palms and looking at the sky. They smelt of paper print. After lighting cigarettes, they huddled under the stripy awning of the bar beside some gas bottles.

  He mustn’t calculate tables of questions and responses. He would just cross the street and go into the bar without thinking what to do next, because whatever had taken over his brain would come up with the next instruction once he was inside.

  He splashed through puddles and pushed open the bar door. A bell buzzed. The room was full of people but he didn’t need to look at them or analyse their body odours or smell the coffee-chips-lasagne-cheese-red wine in the air. He just needed to look for the little cabin, probably next to the toilets, and if there wasn’t a little cabin he would ask the barman for help, and the barman looked a bit like Jean Marlot in Arras-en-Lavedan and Jean was friendly despite his overgrown hair so even that would be OK: but look, he didn’t need to speak because the little cabin was right at the far end of the bar and actually it was better that the bar was crowded because nobody noticed him walking across the room and getting out his phone card, and yes it was empty.

  He pushed his card into the slot and tapped Rainbow’s home number. When a girl’s voice answered, he asked to speak to Rainbow and the girl said, “She’s not here, Eole,” and his mind wondered how the girl had known it was him and who at the commune had a voice like little bells, which made him forget the question he had to ask next, and the girl asked about Darwie and if he was happy now he was with the sheep and he couldn’t reply because he didn’t know how Darwie was, and instead of answering her he said, “Where’s Rainbow?”

  And the girl said Rainbow was in Paimpont at the campsite, and then her voice changed and she said he must help Rainbow, and her words didn’t come out in straight lines but were a tangle of ‘death’ and ‘motorbikes’ and ‘darkness’ and ‘chains’ and ‘screaming’, and as her voice scrambled out more words Eole felt overfull like the time he’d secretly eaten the whole quiz cake and had been sick, so he put his hand that wasn’t holding the telephone receiver over his ear, and then he realised he didn’t have to listen and he hung up.

  He rested his forehead against the telephone unit on the wall. The voices in the bar rippled over him in little waves. After the stress of the telephone voice it was actually quite nice to hear people talking without them addressing him directly. It made him feel invisible, floating on a sea of words, and he felt light in his head but heavy in his body and it was good to relax for a moment while his brain calculated the quickest way to get to Rainbow at Paimpont campsite.

  Rainbow cycled along the street, through the rain, desperately hoping she wasn’t too late for Druid Oak. Mary resisted, making the cycling even more difficult. She wanted Rainbow to go home to safety, as far from the Tree Slayer as possible. Rainbow, furious at her stubborness, swore at her.

  At last, panting, she careered round the bend in the lane. Druid Oak was still standing. She may not be able to fight the tree-slaying wind spirit to save the One Tree, but she could fight humans and save this innocent oak.

  Her wet brakes screeched and she stopped. A workmen’s cabin, which hadn’t been there yesterday, stood in the lay-by. Beyond it, facing Druid Oak, were a yellow bulldozer, a tractor and a trailer. The machinery was silent in the drizzle, and she couldn’t see any contractors or felled trees. She flung down her bike, heaved off her rucksack and tried the cabin door.

  It was locked. All she had was a chain, a padlock and herself. It didn’t seem much against the machines. In her imagination a heavy chain crossed and re-crossed her body, making twenty rounds of the trunk so that she was hardly visible beneath it. In reality, she’d be lucky if the chain went once around Druid Oak’s circumference.

  She hurried across the wet grass and laid the chain around
the base of the tree. After five minutes of trying to grasp both ends, she realised it wasn’t going to work. If Eole had been with her, he could have pulled it over the trunk’s knots and it would have been long enough. But she was alone. She’d broken up their symbiotic team and she was weaker because of it. Thierry was right about teams being better than loners.

  While she searched for another idea, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The workmen would soon be back. If she couldn’t chain herself to the outside, perhaps she could climb inside. There was plenty of room, but Mary screamed that the contractors might not see her there before they started bulldozing. Anyway, there was no anchor for the chain. They would simply pull her out.

  She reached for Druid Oak’s communication spots, remembering how hard it had been to find them among the trunk’s wrinkles. This time – perhaps because it realised she wanted to help it – the oak seemed a little more accessible. She relaxed and emptied her mind, concentrating on the slow sap-beat.

  Hopelessness invaded her. It was the black of storm clouds, the emptiness of space, the rot of decomposing leaves. Death was coming for Druid Oak; darkness seeped up from its roots and through the undergrowth like a poisonous gas. The One Tree was dead. The tree spirit was dead, and her demise spelt death for the whole forest. For all the forests in France. For all the trees in the world. And there was human death, too: a girl’s death.

  Rainbow disconnected herself from the tree’s feelings. The girl was no doubt her, Rainbow, as Amrita had warned. She was too late. She’d failed. There was no point fighting. She let her hands fall to her side, leant against the tree, and struggled to open her heavy eyelids. She would never see Amrita again. Her mission was over and she was going to die.

  She felt as defeated as Druid Oak.

  Druid Oak may be old and sad, but its leaves were still growing. It was still producing acorns. She could at least try to help it, to lighten its consuming depression and give it hope. She had to succeed in one thing, even if she’d failed in her mission: especially as she’d failed in her mission.

  She ran her hands over its ancient bark and summoned positive thoughts of comfort: carpets of green acorn shoots on a forest floor; the sun filtering through twigs; gentle rain tapping on leaves, trickling down branches and trunks and moistening the soil. She drew energy from the damp air around her and imagined it pouring through her hands into the tree’s soul.

  The tree refused to absorb her offering. Deep despair billowed from every fibre, repelling her efforts. She took a breath, ready to try again – then paused as a memory flashed into her mind: the beech tree in Dorset. When she’d forced it, she caused one of its branches to fall. It was wrong to insist.

  She let her hands drop. The One Tree was dead, Amrita was dead, Druid Oak was dying and the Tree Slayer was probably coming to kill her. She wasn’t even capable of chaining herself to a tree to save it.

  She was a total failure.

  Chapter 34

  While Eole’s brain calculated the probability of Rainbow being at the campsite, his mind listened to the bar chatter.

  A voice mentioned Druid Oak. It came from a group of old men who were talking with the barman and discussing a girl who’d had a fatal accident at the tree.

  He thought about Rainbow, but the name they used wasn’t hers – and, in any case, it had happened last week, before he and Rainbow arrived. He continued listening to the discussion about Druid Oak: why it was going to be cut down, and what a shame it was after all these years, but how it was right to fell it after such an appalling accident, and that it was like those dogs that are friendly until the day they kill a child. Then the men talked about a druid who had hidden in the hollow tree to escape his enemies, which is where the tree’s name came from. And then they talked about–

  “You all right there, mate?”

  Eole reminded himself that the barman resembled Jean Marlot in Arras-en-Lavedan, and nodded. He tuned back into the voices of the old men. They were discussing a baby.

  Jean Marlot spoke again: “What can I get you to drink?”

  “A baby?”

  No! He hadn’t meant to speak out loud. He looked at Jean Marlot, mortified. But Jean somehow understood that he wasn’t trying to order a baby from the bar.

  “Yeah. They found a baby there, years ago now, didn’t they, Jacqui?” He turned to one of the old men, who smelt of stale sweat. “At Druid Oak,” he continued. “That poor girl, though, falling to her death. It’s a sad time for Argoad.”

  Eole’s mind thought about the comfort of Druid Oak’s roots on Wednesday night and how he’d dreamt of crying babies. He thought about the newspaper article and the baby abandoned at the foot of a tree. His two thoughts fitted together like Venn diagram sets.

  He was the intersection.

  “But this lot are more interested in those film stars,” Jean Marlot added, nodding to the crowded tables. “That’s journalists for you. I bet that’s why you’re here too, eh? To see the stars?”

  Eole shook his head and looked down at his feet.

  “It’s your lucky day, then. The journalists reckon the stars’ll do the photo shoots in this part of the forest, so you might want to hang around. Can’t complain, eh, Jacqui? Good for business. We should have warned that ecologist girl, though.”

  “Ecologist girl?” asked stale sweat man. “The one what made off with your chain just now?”

  Eole’s brain stopped calculating campsite probabilities and his mind ceased its Venn diagram extrapolations. An ecologist girl and a chain. Druid Oak. Rainbow had told him a legend about a girl who’d chained herself to a tree: a human version of that Amrita she was always talking about.

  “Yup. Clean forgot to tell her about the film stars, what with her panic about them chopping down Druid Oak,” said Jean. “Anyway, what’ll you be having, Golden Boy? Best get your order in before the journalists queue up to pay.”

  Eole didn’t reply. He put his phone card back in his pocket and walked out of the bar. His brain had decided on the next part of its plan, and all he had to do now was follow its instructions.

  The sound of a faraway engine jogged Rainbow out of the gloomy realisation that she’d failed in her mission. The contractors were coming back now that Eole’s storm had passed. There was nothing she could do.

  She staggered a few steps away from Druid Oak.

  Her despondency lifted like a veil. It wouldn’t help Druid Oak for her to fall under its spell of depression. She must try to talk to the contractors.

  The first one arrived on a motorbike. She sat down on an exposed root and watched him park the red and black machine in the lay-by. He was alone: no doubt the boss, setting a good example. She pulled out her campaign notes and started to re-read them.

  “Hey!”

  The voice was wrong. She looked up.

  “Chris! What–? How–?”

  She took the hand he held out and stood up. Oh, the familiarity of his touch, the way his hand fitted hers so well. A sob rose in her throat, and then his arms were around her and he was murmuring “Rainette, Rainette,” and it felt so right.

  She looked up into his face. “What are you doing here? I thought you were with Emilie.”

  “Emilie? I told you, she’s not the girl I love.”

  “But Domi said you’d taken her to meet your mum at the commune. I presumed you changed your mind about her when I left.”

  He looked puzzled and then his expression cleared. “I took her for a reading. Nothing more.” He smiled at her, his brown eyes warm and strong. “Domi said it was important to give you some space and let you do this. So I did.”

  “Oh!” She wasn’t sure if she was pleased or angry with Domi. “So why did you come? I mean it’s so cool to see you, but–?”

  “Sandrine made a prediction about you. It sounded pretty grim, so I thought I’d come and check it out. Domi told me you were in Paimpont. There’s some kind of environmental festival there this afternoon, and the streets are full of people talking abo
ut a film director who may be coming to Argoad today for photo shoots. I got talking to some biker guys, and they mentioned a girl who died here at Druid Oak. I thought I was too late, until they said her name. They told me about the golf course too, and I immediately knew you’d be here. The woman at Le Brécilien bar gave me directions. They’re really friendly round here.”

  “Hang on. A girl died here?”

  “Yes, I think they said she was called Druana, or something strange like that. Druana Cazenave.”

  “Druana? I don’t believe it! I was looking for her yesterday. What happened?”

  “Apparently she was climbing the tree barefoot when she slipped, fell and died,” said Christophe. “Everyone’s shocked because she was only eighteen.”

  Eighteen? Someone so young – even younger than her – had organised a protest group? She wished Druana hadn’t died, that she’d been able to meet her. They might have got on like sisters. Sadness for the girl she’d never known welled up inside her.

  She wanted to tell Christophe about her connection with Druana. She wanted to ask about the details of Sandrine’s prediction, and find out whether he’d gone to the Pyrenees alone during his holiday. She wanted to ask after Apple and Acorn. But more engines broke the woodland peace, and three cars pulled up.

  Christophe bent down and picked up one end of the chain.

  “Let’s get you attached,” he said. “I presume that’s what you want?”

  Rainbow ignored the walled-in part of her mind that wanted to speed home to safety on the back of Christophe’s motorbike.

  “I do,” she said.

  Eole didn’t bother looking up at the sky, which was normally his first reaction when he left a building. His storm had served its purpose and now he needed to reach Druid Oak and Rainbow as fast as he could. The road would be quicker than the path. He should have come to the bar by bike.