The Green Man

by Ellen Datlow

  Charlie kept walking, trying not to look at the young oak standing alone in a little clearing of mowed grass. But it was no use. Every time he passed it, he glanced at it and remembered, with a dart of pain.

  Compared to many of the trees, the oak was young, slender, the branches light and uplifted. The wind worried the soft green leaves, and dense clusters of new acorns bounced at the tips of the branches. His baby sister had been born in the house, and as a toddler, Celia had claimed the sapling oak as her own. She wrapped her arms around it, sang to it, sat beneath the small circle of its shade and played with her dolls and stuffed rabbit. Though Charlie was older by three years, she would let him join her, her face solemn as she served tea in acorn caps or plastered sticky maple seeds to his ears and nose.

  The summer she was four she began to sleepwalk. They heard her wandering in odd hours of the night and rose to retrieve her from the kitchen, where she would be standing still asleep, jiggling the back door knob, or from the study struggling to open a window, or from the front hall pressing against the locked door. “It’ll pass,” the doctors said. So they locked the doors, made sure the windows were shut and slept fitfully, listening for the sounds of her feet in the night.

  It stopped in the late fall almost as abruptly as it had started. She slept the night without stirring, a thumb in her mouth, the toy rabbit in her arms. Charlie, used to waking, still got up in the night and went to look at his sister. She was annoying, but he loved her. She was short and stocky, a head wreathed in dark auburn curls that bounced when she ran. Her cheeks were full and always streaked with dirt, her nose a rounded button over a pale pink mouth. She guffawed from deep in her belly, and Charlie loved it that he was the one who could most easily make her laugh. He’d check the window, draw the covers higher over her shoulder and return to his bed.

  So how did it happen? He must have asked himself that question a million times in the last ten years. And still he had no answer. It was winter, just after Christmas, the days short and dark. The snow had fallen steadily for a few days. The night before her fifth birthday, it had finally cleared and became cold and crisp. He remembered seeing the bright moonlight casting a silver light over the woods outside Celias window. She was there sleeping, the rabbit in her arms and he had returned to bed. But in the morning he knew something was wrong. He felt the cold draft that brushed a hand over his face, rifled his hair. He woke shivering beneath the comforter and went to Celiar’s room.

  She wasn’t there. The covers had been thrown back revealing the indentation of her body in the rumpled sheets. He ran through the hallway, down the stairs following the cold breeze. He called for his parents as he saw the front door wide open, snow drifting in from the porch. How had she unlocked it? The key still hung high on the hook near the doorjamb. He threw on his boots and a coat over his pajamas and ran outside. He could hear his parents shouting, calling her name, his mother’s voice frantic in the still morning.

  His breath had curdled into milky steam as he ran, searching for her outside, his boots crunching the dry snow on the pavement. And then he stopped, seeing her, a fallen leaf in a green nightgown, curled at the base of her oak tree. He went to her, terrified by her stillness. He called her name but there was no answer. He touched her sleeping face, rimed with frost. It was stiff and cold, ice crystals on her lashes, her lips blue around her thumb.

  That was a long time ago. Yet, standing in the spring sunshine Charlie shuddered with the chill and made his feet move quickly down the street. It had taken forever for his mother to stop weeping. For his father’s stone face to soften beneath the mask of stifled grief. And for the unbearable loneliness of his own heart to stop aching in Celia’s absence.

  “You’re late,” a girl called from across the street.

  Charlie looked up and gave a Nina a lopsided smile that was meant as an apology. She waited for him, balled fists resting on her hips, the red lipstick mouth pursed. She tossed her head, flicking her long hair angrily over her shoulder.

  The pit of Charlie’s stomach squeezed pleasantly as it always did when he caught sight of Nina. He crossed the street to her, feeling his grin widen at her pouting face. She was almost taller than him, her shoulders surprisingly broad for a girl, her waist narrow above the smooth slope of her hips and long legs. She was on the swim team and her blonde hair had faint greenish chlorine-dyed streaks. She wore a blue T-shirt that pulled tight across her breasts and a pair of jeans worn low on her hips, displaying a slice of bare skin above her belly. A warm flush stained his neck, and Charlie tried to rub it away as he approached her.

  “Don’t be mad,” he murmured. He circled his arm around her waist, pulled her close, and kissed her lightly. The lipstick tasted of cinnamon. She smelled peppery and creamy, a mixture of chlorine and bottles of lotion smoothed over the water-soaked skin.

  “You’re always late, Charlie,” she complained with a laugh and draped her arm over his shoulder. She caught a handful of his chestnut hair in her fingers and tugged gently.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” he replied and kissed her again.

  “It never is.”

  “No really,” he lied, looking earnestly into her clear blue eyes, the color of the municipal pool. she swam in every morning. The “urban mermaid,” he had called her once after workout, looking for the webs between her white wrinkled fingers. “My parents wanted to talk. I got my acceptance today from Brown University.”

  “Awesome,” Nina said. “Congratulations. That is so cool.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Charlie answered.

  “You guess?” she repeated, frowning. “You’re going right?” she asked. “Tell me you’re going.”

  He slipped his arm from her waist and sat down on the stoop, leaning back on his elbows, his legs stretched out in front of him.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t seem very happy,” she asked, sitting down beside him.

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said with a shrug. “I guess, I guess I thought I wouldn’t get in and then I’d go to school here. You know, with you. I could live at home. My parents would probably like that.”

  “Yeah, they probably would,” Nina said dryly, “you being the perfect son and all. But is that what you want, Charlie? Do you really want to stay here? I sure as hell don’t,” she added vehemently. “I’m holding out for that swimming scholarship to Florida State so I can get away from home.”

  “Away from me?” he asked a little hurt.

  She gave him a pained grin. Then bending low, the curtain of her hair shielding them, she kissed him, softly at first and then more forcefully, her tongue slipping between his teeth. She snaked her hand up under his shirt and laid her warm palm against his bare chest. He tried to do the same to her, his fingers reaching under the tight T-shirt, but she stopped him and pulled away from the kiss with a breathless giggle.

  “Not here, you goof.” Her eyes glanced over the top of his head. “My mom’s watching out the window.” She looked earnestly at Charlie again. “Don’t you see? That’s why I need to go away. To be my own self for a change. To figure out who I am. I love ’em but I can’t stand my parents looking over my shoulder all the time. Don’t you feel the same?”

  Charlie shrugged again. “Yeah, maybe,” he answered softly and looked away. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t understand his life. Nina had four brothers, one older and three younger. None of them had died. It wasn’t up to her alone to make her parents happy. To keep them preoccupied so they wouldn’t remember the child they had lost. The obligation he owed them. Suddenly he felt his throat constrict again, renewed panic thread his pulse. He needed to get away. “Listen, I just came to say I couldn’t hang out today. I promised my mom I’d do some errands for her,” he said inventing his excuse.

  “But you said you’d come with me to practice. And then we’re supposed to meet Elliot and Katie at the movies.”

  “I’m sorry. But I gotta do this instead.”

  Nina stood brusquely and brushed fallen maple se
eds from the backs of her jeans. “Yeah, sure,” she said, her voice chilly. “It would’ve been nice if you could’ve let me know sooner. Or at least got here on time. You know, I do have a life too.”

  “I’m really sorry. Can I call you later? Maybe I can catch up with you guys at the movies, later?”

  She gave him a measured stare, then swept her hair off her shoulder with a single irritated gesture. “Yeah, maybe.”

  She went back into her house and left Charlie sitting there wondering if he shouldn’t ignore his panic, ring the doorbell, apologize for being a jerk, take her out somewhere with their friends, eat, laugh, celebrate like normal kids did when they got good news. But that was the problem, wasn’t it, he thought as he dragged himself up from her stoop. He couldn’t bring himself to realize that it was good news. He knew it was what was expected of him, but the thought of leaving was like a vague black hole in front of him, a chasm he didn’t know how to cross, or even if he wanted to cross.

  Charlie shuffled toward home, hands in his pockets. The air was warm, the loamy scent of damp earth exhaling from the woods. The green leaves, newly unfurled and dappled with sunlight were soothing to look at. Branches whispered verses as they rubbed together in the slight breeze, and the leaves rustled a gentle applause. Charlie turned off the side-walk and pressed himself between the low shrubs of dogwood, wild honeysuckle, and brambles until he was standing surrounded by the dark columns of the trees, the high canopy of leaves sheltering his head from the open sky. He held up palms, gathering in the muted sunlight sieved and stained green through the filament of leaves. He moved easily through the trees, a fish in water, a bird through bush, touching the familiar trees, and inhaling the sweet fragrance of rising sap. The sounds of the city disappeared and there was a hushed silence in the woods.

  But he remembered those other silences. When Celia died, the silence in the house had been thick and suffocating as wool, broken only by the soft murmur of his mother’s crying. His father ground his jaw, lips pressed tightly closed, fists clenching the usually jingling coins in his pockets. The loss of his sister and his parents’ anguish had weighed on Charlie so heavily that he imagined he carried the burden of it strapped across his back everywhere he went. It had been his fault that she had slipped away. He should have heard her; known the moment the door was opened and she had wandered out. But he hadn’t and so it was up to him now, the only child left to fill the gaping hole of his sister’s absence. In the days and months after the funeral, he expanded, recreated himself huge and loud, pliable; stretching and accommodating, fitting himself into every corner of his parents’ lives, stroking away their fears and disrupting the muffled silence with noise enough for two children.

  And it had made him stronger, Charlie thought drifting between dappled patches of sunlight and green shadow. The responsibility wasn’t so heavy anymore, but second nature now. He could hold his parents’ lives, their wants and needs, like two polished stones in his hand. He knew them so well, his mother’s anxious hovering, her love dense and sweet as fruit-cake, his father’s feigned gruffness that turned tender in brief hugs. They had survived this loss because he had willed it for them. And he had survived because he had found a place in which he could temporarily forget his own grief.

  Walking into the woods to the lightning-blasted oak, Charlie would climb the stairway of branches high into the leafy canopy. The dusky fragrance of the trees in the summer reminded him of his sister’s scent, the sharp green of new leaves the color of her eyes. Cradled in the supple branches he could remember without sorrow her sturdy arms reaching for him, her plump hands holding his as he swung her in circles. Only in the woods could he find the sense of her again, only in the cross-hatchings of branching shadows on his ceiling could he imagine her child’s face once more and tamp down, deep inside of him, the loneliness that gnawed at him.

  But the future was coming, and he wondered how his parents would manage when he was gone. Who would hold the silence at bay? Who would carry them, like the polished stones, from day to day, as he did?

  Charlie reached his oak tree, ran his hand along the flank of the blasted branch, now alive with a carpet of emerald moss. He stepped on the branch, feeling it give under his weight and then seeming to lift him again into the arms of the higher branches. He rested midway up the tree in a crook between two stout limbs. He was sweating a little, his face hot as he leaned his back against the tree and closed his eyes.

  If only he could stay here. Forever. Keep this peace, this sweet silence that wasn’t dense with need, but buoyant and comforting. Not have to worry about his parents’ lives, not have to feel this overwhelming responsibility, the need to atone for the loss of his sister, nor the swallowed sorrow of her death. The tree swayed in the wind and Charlie opened his eyes with a smile. He climbed higher until he had reached the upper branches, long slender limbs arching out over the ground to intertwine with the limbs of its nearby companions. Charlie grabbed two branches, held on tightly and let his body and feet dangle in the air. He bounced lightly, the freedom of weightlessness in the gusting wind, suspended between earth and sky, only his grip on the slim branches keeping him from falling. He stayed there, swaying, until his arms ached, the muscles begging for release. Then reluctantly, his feet found a perch and with a heavy sigh he began to scramble down toward the earth again.

  “Hey Charlie,” a husky voice called above him. “Come away with us.” Bits of bark, tiny dried twigs, and laughter drifted down through the leaves.

  Surprised, Charlie nearly lost his footing. He clung to the tree trunk, his head craned upward, peering through the tangle of branches.

  “Who is that? Who’s up there?” he called.

  “Come away, Charlie. You belong to us!”

  Slowly, Charlie began climbing upward again, his eyes searching through the green foliage. Something darted between the branches, a sudden flash of rusty red, like the flutter of bird wings. A child’s face appeared between the leaves and grinned from ear to ear and then quickly disappeared again.

  Charlie climbed faster, burning with curiosity.

  “That’s it, Charlie, come away with us,” another voice called from the canopy.

  Charlie hauled himself hand over hand into the upper reaches of the trees, the branches growing thinner and more delicate. It was a ladder of green wood reaching effortlessly into the sky, the leaves like hands pressing against his thighs, the small of his back, brushing him higher into the vaulted ceiling of branches and leaves. And as he climbed, still more voices joined in, a chorus of children, women, and men, calling out greetings, welcomes, and urging him to climb ever faster. Charlie climbed until his arms grew weary and the muscles of his thighs trembled with the strenuous effort.

  And all once, he discovered that he could climb no further. The branches flattened into a broad floor of matted leaves. He pulled himself up onto its leafy surface and rolled over on his back, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with astonishment.

  A bowl of clear blue sky was above him, broken by arches of blooming dogwood, rowan trees that dangled orange berries, silver aspen, and dark brooding yews. The sunlight slanted across the curved sky and a pale moon like a drop of milk nestled on a green horizon. Children stared down at him, their faces brown as polished wood, their cheeks tattooed with whorled patterns. They were mostly naked, bracelets of seeds on their bony wrists, a twist of grass tied around a stick thin finger. One girl wore a pair of red wings tied across her shoulders. A boy next to her, his hair a thatch of furry snarls, wore a necklace like an owl’s ruff beneath his pointed chin. His large, tawny eyes blinked slowly at the sight of Charlie sprawled over the floor of leaves.

  “Charlie’s away!” the girl in red wings trilled over her shoulder.

  Charlie sat up and raked his fingers through his hair, catching fragments of twigs, moss, and bark tangled in the curls.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  The children clapped their arms over their stomachs, doubled over and laughed.
/>
  “The Greenwood,” a soft voice answered behind him.

  Still sitting, Charlie turned and saw an older woman standing, swaying as the floor of matted leaves lifted and fell with the wave of winds beneath it. A girl waited beside her, berry-colored lips pressed into the hint of a smile. He scrambled to his feet, hands held out to steady himself on the sea of leaves.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The older woman smiled, her teeth white in the olive-colored skin. Across the broad plane of her brow she wore a crown of oak leaves dotted with clusters of tiny gold acorns. Thick ropes of raven and gray-silk hair coiled around her neck and fell in long plaits down her back to her feet. A scar of knotted flesh puckered the skin of her neck, spilled over one squared shoulder and left seams on one of her breasts lying flat against her chest. The scarred flesh eased away just below the faint outline of her ribs. A thin sheath of green fabric wound around her hips, clung to the long thighs and floated above her knobbed ankles. She inclined her head as she spoke to him.

  “I’m known by many names, Charlie, most your mouth cannot say. But you may call me the Greenwoman, and I will answer to that.”

  “How do you know me?” he asked awed.

  “You have climbed my arms many times seeking refuge. My ears have heard your whispered cries. There is little of your life that I don’t know, Charlie. But come, don’t be afraid. Feel welcomed here. Refreshed. It is your home too. Let my daughter set your mind at ease.”

  The girl stepped forward, took Charlie by the hand, and easily pulled him to his feet. Her grip was firm, her palms cool and moist. She smiled broadly, her round face framed by a heavy mantle of auburn hair. Tiny green fans of maple seeds were trapped in the curls, and she wore a crown of twisted coils of fox grape.