Tree Girl

by T.A. Barron

  A sudden cry made her jump. It came from just outside the tree! She turned toward the entrance—just as a bear cub bounded into the glade. His brown fur, covered with burrs and clumps of mud, looked as messy as Eagle’s feathers. And his lanky legs, oversized paws, and floppy ears made Anna want to laugh.

  Just then another bear, with sand-colored fur, bounded over. Without even slowing down, he plowed right into the first bear and knocked him flat. Though smaller and more scrawny, the sandy bear seemed to burst with mischief.

  The two cubs started wrestling. Over and over each other they tumbled, flattening the grass of the meadow. The brown one landed on top, but the sandy one twisted away. Then the smaller bear pounced, only to be hurled into a patch of ferns. Back he came again, quicker than a darting minnow. Legs, paws, and furry necks wrapped around each other. Shrieks and growls echoed through the woods.

  At last, they broke apart. The brown bear collapsed in some ferns, panting, while the other kept bouncing around, nudging his friend with his nose. The sandy cub clearly wanted to play some more. But the other wouldn’t budge.

  Anna watched them snuffle and grunt at each other. Oh, what fun to be a bear! Then the sandy cub reared back on his hind legs and made a new sound—rippling, almost like a laugh.

  She gasped. It was the same laugh she’d heard before!

  The cub suddenly froze, then turned toward the great beech tree. For the first time, Anna caught sight of his eyes—wild eyes, fiercely wild. They were green, like her own, but darker. They seemed as deep as the forest itself. And they glowed—aye, like a pair of magical moons.

  Ears flapping, the bear loped toward the tree. Anna’s heart pounded. He was coming straight at her! She shrank deeper into the cavern, holding Eagle’s beak closed.

  “Quiet, Eagle,” she whispered. “Not a sound.”

  Just before the cavern entrance, the bear stopped. He crouched low and sniffed among the twisted roots. Seconds later, he raised his head. Something was sticking to his tongue. The honeycomb! With a delighted growl, he started to swallow it—when Eagle suddenly broke loose from Anna’s grip and whistled angrily.

  The bear jumped backward. He spat out the honeycomb. Then, with a snarl, he shambled closer to the cavern.

  All at once he thrust his head into the opening. He was nose to nose with Anna! They both shrieked in terror, and their voices rang inside the hollow.

  The cub whirled around and dashed off into the forest. His companion in the ferns bounded along behind. And Anna herself ran off—but the opposite way, back to the shore.

  Now the glade was empty again, the ferns and spring bluebells lit by slanting rays. Only a small slice of honeycomb, left on the mossy ground, hinted that something strange had just happened.

  Chapter 6

  IN THE DAYS AFTER THEIR ENCOUNTER in the glade, Anna often wondered about the strange, green-eyed bear.

  “He’d play with me, Burl! I’m sure he would.” She stood in the shadow of the tree one morning, not long after the master had left for the day’s fishing. Her toes tapped against the mossy roots. “And mayhaps…he’d be my friend.”

  The scraggly old fir shrugged. Some needles fell and sprinkled her hair.

  “We could run together. Hide from each other. Aye, and climb some trees!”

  More needles.

  She looked down at the blackened skillet in her hand, which she’d brought outside to wash in the sea. It still smelled of that morning’s breakfast: smoked herring and seaweed cakes. She grinned, knowing that was a breakfast the bear might have loved—though he’d probably rather just have some fresh berries. Aye, big ripe ones from somewhere in the forest.

  Her mouth turned down. Somewhere in the forest. Finding the bear would mean going back there again. Deeper than before, probably. And playing with him would mean going deeper still. Right into the arms of the ghouls!

  She shook her head and leaned against Old Burl. “I guess it just isn’t easy to find a friend.” Her jaw quivered. “Or a mother.”

  She looked up into the branches. “What really happened to her, Burl? And to me? And where was I born? Did she bring me to the forest for some reason? Or did I just drop to the ground one day, like one of your needles?”

  Anna sighed. Nobody could tell her those things. Nobody…but the High Willow. And she couldn’t go there to find out. Not with all those ghouls in the way.

  She patted the fir’s trunk, then walked down to the water’s edge. A cool breeze lifted off the water and tousled her hair. Eagle hopped on the beach beside her, always on the watch for a surprise attack from a starfish or an oyster shell. His feet left a thin trail of prints on the sand.

  She knelt on the beach at the highest reach of the tide. When the next wave arrived, hissing and sloshing, she dipped in the skillet and scrubbed with a small bit of sponge.

  “Quit your dreaming,” she scolded herself. “You don’t have a mother, that’s true. But you still have Old Burl. And Eagle, too. And…someone else.”

  Her head turned toward the cottage. The little home built long ago by the master. His sturdy work had kept out so many storms—and forest ghouls. Even on the one night each summer when he rowed out to the Farthest Reef and slept on his boat, and ghouls had come to the cottage and rattled the door, she’d been safe. Thanks to him.

  She stood and shook off the skillet. “Aye, someone else—a person, like me.”

  Anna drew a deep breath. “He’s not spry enough to climb trees. But he speaks my own language. And he lives right here.”

  She walked back to the cottage with the skillet. And a plan.

  Over the next few weeks, spring burst into bloom around the cottage. Leaves and vines, needles and flowers, sprouted from the trees at the forest edge. Berries dotted the brambles, and tiny blue flowers as bright as periwinkle shells popped through the sand. Anna’s garden looked more leafy by the day, almost a forest itself.

  On top of that, waterbirds arrived—all kinds, from all directions. Egrets, gulls, cormorants, ducks, pelicans, and even a huge, stiff-legged crane, landed right on the beach. All day long they strutted down the shore, nibbling at minnows in the tide pools and slapping the air with their wings. From sunrise to sunset they spluttered and squawked and honked at one another. And also at Eagle, who marched among them like a dwarf among giants.

  But the greatest change of all happened inside the cottage. It started when Anna made a new pillow for the master, putting the downy feathers she’d found on the beach into a sack of woven grass. And it kept happening when she changed the straw in their sleeping pallets, hung onion and garlic from the main post, cleaned out the hearth, and fixed the driftwood chairs. She patched up the sealskin that held their fresh water. And gathered fresh mint from the stream that flowed out of the forest. She even found a butterfly’s cocoon and draped it on the shutter.

  At first, the old man didn’t seem to notice. Or say anything if he did. But slowly Anna began to sense a change in him.

  He seemed to curse a little less in the evenings, and to linger at the cottage longer in the mornings. He asked her to sing more and more—which she gladly did. Sometimes he gave her the bigger portion of fish, or helped her chop scallops for the sea broth. And once, to Anna’s complete surprise, he squeezed her shoulder gently before going out the door.

  The cocoon opened. A pink striped lady-of-the-tides climbed out, with wings all wet and crumpled—like newly sprouted ferns. And for several days, that butterfly flitted around the room. It darted over Eagle’s head, ignoring all the whistles, and sipped at Anna’s bowl of flowers. Once it even landed on the master’s ear—and then laughter, right out loud, shook the cottage walls.

  Then came a day when the master stayed home from fishing to fix the rotten planks in his boat. Anna worked alongside him. While she gathered the sap from Old Burl’s bark and boiled it till soft, he chopped new slats of driftwood with his axe. Then together they fit the wood into the hull and worked the sticky sap all around, plugging any gaps they could fin
d.

  This was Anna’s favorite part. How she loved the feel of the wood! Even after years of being worn and beaten by the sea, its grain still ran true. And she wondered if each different wood had a special grain of its own. The way different people have footprints of their own.

  The old man looked up from the hull. “Sing to me, would ye now?”

  And so she smiled, and sang:

  Wood on the water, boat on the waves,

  Gray gulls a-soaring high:

  I am at sea.

  Salt on my tongue, wind on my brow,

  Endless horizons here:

  Now I am free.

  When she finished, she ran her fingers along the newly fitted plank. “It’s good to work with you, Master.”

  “Aye,” he replied without looking up from the hull. He blew a puff of greenish smoke from his pipe. “One day mayhaps ye’ll come fishin’ with me. Ye can haul the nets if ye like.”

  Anna started. He’d never before offered to take her along in the boat. “Oh, I do like, I do!” She ran to his side and hugged his neck. “Please let me come!”

  “All right, girl. When ye be jest a bit older.”

  She released him and skipped back to her end of the boat. She danced a pair of perfect twirls on the beach, spraying sand against the hull. And another twirl after that, just for good measure. Then, before starting back to work, she smiled at the master. “You’re a much better friend than that bear could ever be.”

  The old man froze. He dropped his chunk of sap and stared at her, his face suddenly as hard as his coral pipe. “Did ye say…a bear?”

  Meekly, she nodded.

  His eyes flashed. “Have ye been goin’ into the forest? While I be gone to sea? Tell me the truth, girl!”

  “Aye, b-but it was just—”

  “None o’ yer excuses!” He slammed his hand against the boat. “Or yer lies! I’ve told ye ten thousand times what could happen in there. Do ye thinks I want to come home someday and find yer carcass in a tree?”

  “No, no.” A sob bubbled up from her throat. “I don’t…I mean, it’s not—”

  “Hush! Ye fool-brained girl, ye’ll be me own death, too.” He grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at her. “Now get back inside where ye belong!”

  Anna stumbled, sobbing, back to the cottage. She’d ruined everything. Everything!

  She slammed the door hard. The cottage now seemed so bare, so empty. For it lacked what she so much wanted.

  And what was so wrong about wanting a friend? The master didn’t understand. Didn’t care! She knew now that the master could never really be her friend. But that didn’t have to stop her from finding someone else.

  She wiped her cheeks with clenched fists. “I’m going to find that bear again,” she declared. “Aye, wherever I must look! Back to the glade. Or the trees beyond. Or even…”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the open window. “The High Willow.”

  Chapter 7

  THE MASTER STAYED HOME the next few days, finishing his boat. Though he often grumbled at the slapping sea, he said not a barnacle’s worth to Anna. Even so, he kept a close eye on her. And she did nothing to make him suspect her plans.

  Finally, on a morning when gulls and cormorants called to the rising sun, he went to sea again. Anna thought about helping him by holding the boat steady while he loaded all his gear. But her sandals were still missing and there were lots of urchins in the shallows. And besides, she just didn’t feel like helping.

  So she just watched, her feet planted on the sand, as he shoved off. Eagle’s own feet drummed against her shoulder.

  “Mind ye, girl,” the old man called out to her. “Stay out o’ those woods! Do ye hear?”

  Anna nodded. She heard.

  He started to heave the oars. She watched him pull away. And watched as, minutes later, he vanished over the horizon.

  She waited another moment. Then she turned and strode up the beach to the row of brambles at the forest’s edge. She paused for a last look back. The branches of Old Burl stirred as if to wave good-bye.

  “I’ll be back, old friend. Don’t worry.” But she felt a strange lump in her throat as she said the words.

  She stepped over the brambles—and into the forest world. Her feet crunched on dried needles here, sank into soft moss there. “Oh, Eagle, smell! It’s so different in here.”

  The bird, standing on her shoulder like a soldier on guard, just squeezed her skin with his feet.

  Meanwhile, new smells flowed over them like an invisible tide. The air was sharp and sweet and musty all at once. Spots of light danced on the branches, side by side with glittering leaves. Anna felt an urge to dance herself…yet she couldn’t forget all the master’s warnings.

  Alert. That’s what she had to be. Aye, alert and careful.

  She noticed then something strange. The forest seemed quieter than before. No branches rustled, no squirrels chattered. No birds whistled at the sparrow on her shoulder. And she had the uncomfortable feeling she was being watched. By someone she couldn’t see.

  “What is it, Eagle? Do you feel it?”

  The bird shifted his weight uneasily.

  At last, they approached the glade. There was the great beech tree. And the meadow of flowers, even more colorful than before.

  She paused under a twisted pine. Where would be the best spot to wait for the bear? Over there in the cavern of the beech? She chewed her lip. And what should she do if the cub didn’t come back to the glade? Despite her vow to find him, she didn’t feel ready to go any deeper into the forest. Not yet, anyway.

  Thunk! A pinecone dropped on her head, glancing off the brim of her bonnet.

  Eagle screeched at the tree, as Anna peered into the thick branches above. She picked up the cone and hefted it in her hand. “Just a little welcome from this old tree,” she told the bird. “Probably a cousin of Burl’s.”

  Eagle made an annoyed squawk.

  She started to walk closer to the glade, when thunk! came another cone. This one smacked the middle of her back.

  Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not very nice of you, tree.” A slow grin spread across her face. “Unless, of course, you mean to play toss.”

  Taking the first pinecone, she heaved it as hard as she could up into the branches. It vanished, with a swoosh, into the mesh of needles. Then, a few seconds later, it came back down, gently enough that she caught it with ease. Again she hurled it up into the tree. She waited, but this time the cone didn’t come back.

  Her grin broadened. “Good catch! Mayhaps we’ll play again sometime.”

  She turned again to the great beech and the glade beyond. Even as she started to walk nearer, another object dropped from above, just missing her nose. It slapped the ground at her feet, spraying fallen needles into the air.

  Anna stared, aghast. It wasn’t a cone. It was one of her missing sandals!

  Before she could think what to do, the other sandal sailed out of the branches and landed right beside the first. She jumped back, craning her head upward. And then, from the canopy of branches, came a laugh that she’d heard before, rippling like a splashing stream.

  “It’s you!” she exclaimed.

  In response, the sand-colored bear scampered down from the boughs. With a shower of needles, he flung himself onto a branch above her head, hooked his legs over the limb, and swung upside down. He hung there, his ears dangling down and his black nose very close to her own. Close as a clam to its shell!

  The bear sniffed at her face. But Anna held still. She looked straight into his eyes. How they sparkled! With wildness. And with something close to magic.

  For a breathless moment, they gazed at each other. Then Anna burst into words—not really expecting the bear to understand.

  “Um…hello. My name is Rowanna.”

  The bear kept peering at her, though he wrinkled his furry brow. He grunted. Then, all at once, he made a new kind of sound. “Hashalasha nat sasharash,” he said in a voice like swishing branche
s.

  Anna blinked in surprise. She’d never heard words like that before. And yet somehow, in a way she could not explain, she almost understood them.

  “Sasharash,” she repeated. “Your name is Sasharash.”

  The bear pawed at her playfully. Then he swished another phrase, pointing at the rumpled bird on her shoulder.

  “Oh, that’s my Eagle. One day he’s going to fly, but for now he keeps me company.”

  At this, the bear released another rippling laugh. “Romalasha loo!”

  Eagle threw back a scornful whistle and glared at the upside-down cub.

  Sasharash grasped the branch with his forepaws and swung himself upright. He shifted his four legs and stepped along the limb. Then he stopped, eyeing the beech tree across the way. His shoulders hunched. Suddenly, he leaped out of the pine and into the open air.

  Anna winced, expecting him to crash to the ground. But no—he landed safely in the great beech, his paws clasping its silver branches. Leaves showered the ground as he bounced up and down. Now it was Anna’s turn to laugh!

  She ran to join him. “Let’s climb together!”

  Just as she neared the beech, though, her foot caught on a stone. She tumbled down, slamming hard into the tree trunk. Eagle shrieked and fell into a tuft of moss beside her.

  Anna sat up, dazed. The bear crouched next to her. He swatted at the air and growled, “Masha, mashamala sho?”

  “I’m all r-right,” she answered weakly. “Just my leg…”

  She halted, seeing the deep gash in her thigh. Sliced by the jagged point of a broken branch! Blood flowed, dripping down her skin and onto the moss. She’d never been cut so badly before. Never! And all that blood…Suddenly dizzy, she leaned back against the trunk.

  Sasharash turned and bounded over to a black alder sapling at the far side of the clearing. He bit off a twig and clamped it between his paws. Then, using his teeth, he deftly stripped off the bark, like someone peeling a piece of fruit. He chewed the shredded bark for a few seconds—then raced back to the beech.