Tree Slayer

by Harriet Springbett

  He urged his legs into a run. They were shaky and wanted to slow down, but his brain wouldn’t let him rest. He stumbled along the road, his brain chanting at him to hu-rry, hu-rry, hu-rry. It was louder than the trees’ wailing laments.

  A car overtook him. He thought about hitching a lift, but knew he’d never manage it. The tree wasn’t far away. In a few minutes he’d reach Rainbow.

  Christophe closed the padlock and pocketed the key, and then tightened the chain by yanking it over a knobble.

  Rainbow held onto his hand. “I’m so glad you came, even though you didn’t believe in Amrita’s mission.”

  “I still don’t know about Amrita. But I do know it’s wrong to cut down so many trees for a golf course. This is important. This is real.” He kissed her. “Anyway, your Amrita girl – the real one from India – she did exactly this, didn’t she? And she survived.”

  Rainbow hadn’t told Christophe there were two versions to the legend’s conclusion. In fact, she was starting to believe that Amrita had died – otherwise, the legend wouldn’t have had such a strong impact. It was naïve to think Amrita had saved the tree and lived.

  The contractors started to congregate outside the cabin. One of them had a chainsaw.

  “Here we go,” said Christophe. He kissed her once more and then sat on a log a few metres away.

  This wasn’t how Rainbow had imagined a protest. She’d thought there would be shouting and slogans, banners and excitement. She’d pictured herself beside a middle-aged Druana at the centre of an organised group of demonstrators wielding dead branches and forming a barrier between revving machines and the forest.

  A woman in overalls and fluorescent jacket split away from the group of men, came up to Rainbow, and folded her arms.

  “So, we have a protestor. Does the protestor speak?”

  “Do I need to speak?” said Rainbow. “It’s obvious that you shouldn’t be felling trees, and certainly not this thousand-year-old oak.”

  “I agree. We shouldn’t. And if we’d had the choice, we’d have left this old boy standing.”

  “You do have a choice. You can choose murder or … or mercy.”

  “It’ll be euthanasia rather than murder. For the tree, not you. You are going to take the key out of your pocket and undo your padlock like the reasonable girl you appear to be. We’re already four days late.”

  The woman turned around and whistled. The men by the cabin stopped talking, and she shouted a request for someone to bring the file. A young man hurried towards them.

  The chain was cutting into Rainbow’s waist. She wiggled to loosen it, but only made it worse. She stroked the trunk.

  “Forget your papers,” she said. “Come and hug the oak. Come and touch it and feel the life you want to destroy.”

  The woman riffled through her file. “Haven’t got time for that kind of thing. Here, take a look at this tree surgeon’s report. It clearly says the branches are a danger to the public.”

  Rainbow took the report and skimmed it. She didn’t recognise the tree surgeon’s name. Gripped by a sudden impulse, she dropped it on the damp ground, stamped on it and twisted her foot so that the paper ripped.

  “Oi!” The woman pushed Rainbow’s foot off the ruined document and retrieved it.

  “The branches can be propped up,” said Rainbow. “Instead of destroying the tree, we should help it. We should work around it.”

  The woman wiped the report on her overalls.

  “Look, we’ve got a job to do. If there’d been another alternative, the tree surgeon would have suggested it. Now, kindly unlock yourself and run along home.”

  “No.”

  Another car arrived. It was Serge’s jeep. Rainbow felt a few centimetres taller.

  “Here comes the man from the Forest Friends association,” she said. “He’ll stop you.”

  The woman snorted. “We’ll see about that.”

  Serge jumped out of the jeep, ignoring the contractors, and paused when he saw Rainbow. He didn’t greet the woman, and a knot of triumph flared in Rainbow’s heart. He looked resolute. There’d be enough room for him inside the chain if he loosened it from the knobble.

  “Serge! They reckon they’ve got the right to cut down Druid Oak!” she shouted. “After their promise to keep it alive. Felling the forest is bad enough, but killing this ancient tree is a crime. They can’t do it!”

  Serge arrived and looked mournfully at the tree and then at Rainbow.

  “Tell the contractors about your agreement with the council,” she said.

  “Right. Well. The thing is, Rainbow, there’s really nothing we can do about Druid Oak. Madame Moulin” – he indicated the woman in overalls – “showed me the report this morning. I checked it out, spoke to the tree surgeon, discussed other possibilities to save the tree, and even got him to quote me for the cost of branch props. But the mayor says it’s too expensive. And it would be too dangerous for the golfers. I’m sorry. We’ve got no choice.”

  “What? Of course there’s a choice. I’ll pay for the props.”

  “It’s no go. The council won’t have it,” he said.

  She could feel the prick of tears behind her eyelids. She mustn’t cry. She looked away from Serge and the woman, up into the leafy branches of Druid Oak, and willed her tears to be re-absorbed.

  “There is some good news, though,” said Serge. “A local artist is going to make a sculpture out of the trunk.”

  “A sculpture? That’s sick!” she said. “You’re sick! Both of you.”

  She turned her head away as they exchanged glances. Through her blurred vision she saw Christophe stand up and face them. He asked if the local people were aware of the decision, and when Serge admitted that they weren’t, he suggested they should be informed. She heard him talk about delaying the plan for Druid Oak until the rest of the area had been cleared, about giving them time to organise a fund to protect the tree and make it safe, about the trouble it would cause if they felled an ancient tree without consulting the environmental agency in the village of Concoret.

  He carried on talking, and although Rainbow heard him, she couldn’t concentrate. She was trying to blink away her tears so she could confirm what she thought she could see. Or, rather, who she could see striding towards her in a straight line.

  Part V

  One

  Chapter 35

  The Tree Slayer was coming for her.

  “Chris! The key!” she said.

  “What?” Christophe turned away from Serge and Madame Moulin, stepped close to her and took her hand. “Don’t give up now. You can do this.”

  “Please. I’ll explain. Just give me the key. Quick!”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “I’ll explain–”

  But Christophe spotted Eole. His eyes widened and then he looked hurt and released her hand.

  “You said he’d gone home. You told Domi you’d left him.”

  “I did leave him, I promise. The key, Chris. Please.”

  Christophe dropped the key in front of her, just out of reach of her feet. Then, without a word, he strode to his motorbike.

  “Chris!” she pleaded. “Come back! I’ll explain.”

  Christophe didn’t turn around.

  Eole’s dismay at seeing Christophe with Rainbow turned to satisfaction. His task would be easier without Rainbow’s boyfriend. The chain was perfect. It would hold her in place, and the workmen even had a chainsaw, should it prove necessary.

  He listened to Christophe’s motorbike rev up and roar away, hoping the man and woman with Rainbow would leave too. But the man bent down and picked up the key. He gave it to Rainbow, saying, “Boyfriend trouble, eh?” – which was obvious because boyfriends were always trouble – and then he and the woman walked towards the workmen’s hut. Rainbow was alone. Eole continued towards her and watched her stretch towards the padlock.

  Rainbow glanced at Eole. He wasn’t brandishing a weapon, though it would be easy for him to strangle h
er or grab the chainsaw – or just blow down the tree and her with it.

  “Stop right there, Eole. Don’t come any closer.” She groped for the padlock with the tips of her fingers.

  Eole stopped. But now she was reaching to fit the key into the padlock. His brain told him to act. He lunged forward and snatched the key.

  “Give it back!” She tried to wriggle free, but the chain was tight around her.

  “No.”

  She stopped wriggling. He’d never disobeyed her before. Either he’d changed, or the Tree Slayer was in full control.

  “OK, keep the key,” she said. “You and the Tree Slayer may have killed the One Tree, but you won’t kill me so easily. I only have to scream, and all those people will come rushing over.”

  Eole looked confused. Rainbow relaxed a tiny bit. He hadn’t changed so much, after all. She needed to understand what the Tree Slayer intended so that she could help him fight it, but she must keep things simple.

  “I know you broke your promise and blew up that storm earlier on. You’ve let the Tree Slayer take control of you and kill the One Tree, and now it’s telling you to kill me. You’ve become the Tree Slayer.”

  Eole shook his head. It hurt, but he shook harder. No matter how hard he shook, the words stuck, like the bloodsucking tics behind Darwie’s ears. He’d only done what his brain told him.

  Rainbow watched as his feet begin to twitch. She could sense the battle in his head: the influence of the Tree Slayer against his conviction that he was her soulmate. She had to get him to speak so she could loosen the Tree Slayer’s hold over him.

  “So where’s the One Tree?” she asked. “Tell me. It’s your turn to talk.”

  “I’m not the Tree Slayer.”

  Even to him, it sounded wrong. He mustn’t get sidetracked. He had a task to fulfil. Here she was, all bound up and unable to get away, and his mind was muddying his brain. His fingers touched the contours of the key. That’s right, he had the key. The key to the trees. He must carry out the second part of his brain’s plan.

  He took a deep breath and began.

  He explained how he’d understood that the voices really were the trees, and that although they still weren’t talking to him, he heard them screaming when he came out of the library – where he’d discovered he was left to die at the foot of a tree when he was a baby. The trees were panicking because some foresters were about to kill them. He’d followed the screaming and found the workmen about to cut down Druid Oak and its neighbours, and he broke his promise and sucked in a gentle storm to prevent them, being careful not to hurt the trees, and it had worked!

  He told her he thought she’d gone home, and that he’d hurried to the bar to phone her and tell her about the workmen and their machines because he couldn’t keep a storm going forever and needed her help for a long-term solution. Then he learnt that the tree where he’d been abandoned was Druid Oak, which meant it was even more important for him to save it.

  At the bar, crammed with journalists hoping to see some film stars, he’d heard that a girl had left to chain herself to Druid Oak. He deduced it was her and quickly came here to tell her all this. He didn’t know how he’d get her to listen without her making another excuse and deserting him again, but luckily she was chained up so she had to listen to him, and he didn’t even have to touch her or threaten her with the chainsaw. Now they were reunited, and as soon as the workmen obeyed Rainbow and went home, the trees would stop their wailing.

  And then, because her mouth was in an ‘O’ shape and she still hadn’t made the T-sign, he told her the Tree Slayer hadn’t taken control of him, that his brain had simply developed a special skill in planning.

  “The Tree Slayer doesn’t take advantage of the wind I make,” he said. “It didn’t do so today and in fact I don’t have any evidence of its existence. The gale last month was all my fault. It’s cowardly to blame anyone else. I blew down those poor trees because I was angry with the chestnut tree, and now I’m really, really sorry. I did a bad thing and Tintin would have been cross with me.”

  Rainbow’s mind was whirling from Eole’s revelations.

  “You could be right,” she said, when she was sure Eole had finished. “Maybe Amrita called you the Tree Slayer because you killed all those trees in revenge for Tintin’s death. By making you promise not to blow up another storm, we stopped you killing any more trees. And now you’ve come to value trees and regret what you did, the Tree Slayer in you is vanquished.”

  She hadn’t vanquished the Tree Slayer: Eole had done it himself, though she had perhaps influenced him a bit. He had proven far more important in her quest than she’d ever imagined. She could never have done this alone – but he would never have done it alone either. They were good together. They were two halves that made a whole. Of course! Amrita had said she must learn to accept her other half – she didn’t just mean Mary, she meant Eole too. Eole would argue that it was impossible to have two other halves. But Amrita was a tree spirit, not a mathematician.

  “I was the Tree Slayer, but now I’ve found you and I’m going to make amends and help you find and save the One Tree, which will make me a Tree Saviour,” said Eole.

  “I don’t know about that,” she said, all her delight at understanding Amrita’s message disappearing. “The One Tree and Amrita are dead. I felt Druid Oak mourning them.”

  Eole shook his head. “I don’t know exactly where the One Tree is, but it can’t be dead. The trees are still wailing because it’s in danger, so it’s probably in this condemned part of the forest. You must tell the workmen to go home, and then we can save my Druid Oak and the One Tree at the same time.”

  “You think it’s still alive?” Had she misinterpreted Druid Oak’s feelings? Were they the effect of the tree’s depression rather than the reality? She couldn’t reach its communication spots from where she was chained. She’d have to trust Eole, who was nodding in answer to her question.

  She thought back to Amrita’s message. Amrita hadn’t actually said they must save the One Tree from the Tree Slayer – she just told Rainbow to rescue the last One Tree, without specifiying what to rescue it from.

  She knew Druid Oak wasn’t the One Tree, because it hadn’t spoken to her in images and words. Maybe Eole was right: the One Tree was in the part of the forest destined to become the golf course, and they had to save it from the contractors. Amrita hadn’t told Rainbow to actually find the One Tree, just to rescue it. Perhaps she was never meant to find it.

  Since they didn’t know its exact location, they’d have to protect this part of the forest, or even the whole forest. It would be much more difficult than protecting one tree. It would be a lifetime’s work. A destiny. At least, it would be a destiny if they could stop the golf course being built. For the moment, it didn’t look as if they’d even overcome this first challenge.

  “It’s not quite that easy,” she said to Eole. “I can’t just tell the contractors to go home. They won’t listen to my pleas to spare Druid Oak, let alone cancel their plans for the forest.”

  “But we have to stop them,” said Eole. “We have to save the trees.”

  Rainbow’s head started to throb. The mental wall between Mary and herself was stretched taut: Mary had an idea. But Rainbow could never carry it out. She wasn’t as daring as Mary.

  She’d managed to match Mary’s determination so far because they’d been the same person until they were thirteen. But she needed more than determination to carry out Mary’s idea. It would take nerve – and she lacked Mary’s nerve. This particular character trait must have come as a result of Mary’s experiences after their split. The difficulties Mary had faced had forged her personality and made her audacious. But Rainbow hadn’t had the same experiences. She wasn’t intrepid like Mary. She didn’t have the same confidence. She’d never pull off Mary’s idea.

  Unless.

  There was another way, though she risked losing her own personality. Was Mary offering this idea simply to escape her mental capti
vity? Would she share her strengths with Rainbow, or simply enforce her desire to go home to safety? Did Rainbow dare lower her mental wall and let Mary in?

  Domi had advised her to keep the wall, but his mother’s memoir had said sharing could happen, even though the cases of reaching equilibrium were rare. The memoir had also mentioned dire need. Rainbow was in dire need of Mary’s audacity. She thought back to Amrita’s message about only being able to help if she were truly whole. Amrita had known this total integration would be necessary.

  Rainbow’s only hope of succeeding was to become One with Mary. She must trust Mary to share.

  She took a deep breath, relaxed the mental wall, and invited Mary in.

  The desire to go home to Chris overpowered her. She clenched the chain. A flood of tumultuous feelings rushed through her, as if the act of fully accepting Mary was releasing ten months of frustration. An unfamiliar hard lump lodged inside her. Was this hate? There was also a certitude that the legendary Amrita had died in her attempt to save a tree. She searched desperately for something positive – the source of Mary’s self-confidence – but there was too much turbulence to discern anything definite.

  The rush of emotions calmed. It was a settling of water after the opening of a lock gate – and with it came the understanding that in one parallel world, Amrita had lived, while in another she had died. The two versions of the legend could live in perfect harmony.

  Did this mean she had become One?

  There was no time to wonder whether she was truly RainbowMary. If she didn’t act now, it would be too late.

  “I have an idea,” she said to Eole. “We must get the local people on our side. And for that, we need publicity. The media are already here, waiting for the film stars. Thanks to you and poor Druana, we now have an original ‘people angle’ to attract them.”

  She explained the details of her idea to Eole.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “You’ve got to. It’s our only chance,” said Rainbow.