The Family Tree

by Sheri S. Tepper

A rustle, a yammer of branches scraped across one another, a shiver of leaves, nothing I could understand, though he evidently thought it to be a problem which magic might solve. He took his kit from Flinch’s saddlebag, set it upon a convenient stone, then went looking for something to build a fire with, finding some branches cast aside along the roadway. These he shaved into kindling, building a little tented shape of small sticks above them and dousing the whole liberally with a powder from a jar labeled Sorc-a-Powr.

  Izzy saw me watching him and remarked, “For generalized ensorcelment, the castle wizard always swears by Sorc-a-Powr. It comes from Isfoin and its cost is twice that of any other enabling agent, but our wizard considered it well worth it.”

  “Um,” I said, unhelpfully.

  “Skimping on ingredients is an infallible sign of mediocre, minor-league magic,” Izzy said firmly.

  “What are you going to do?”

  He mumbled, partly to himself, partly to me. “One tree, at least, has to have a mouth and vocal cords. Either that, or I would have to modify myself to understand them as they speak.”

  “Would that be easier?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I was brought up on stories of sorcerers who enchanted themselves for some reason or other and then found themselves unable to perform the disenchantment. Many of them are, presumably, still wandering the world in the guise of enchanted swans or white deer or frogs.”

  I shivered. I had never much liked frogs. So cold, and rather slippery.

  When all was in readiness, he lit the fire with a snap of his fingers and spoke commandingly into the smoke. He had phrased the spell in Uk-Luk, and now uttered it three times, dipping his staff into the fire and then pointing it at the foremost tree. Green lightning darted from fire to tree; the tree writhed, its trunk erupting into blotches and swellings that shortly resolved themselves into features, including a wide, angry mouth.

  “Oh, woe,” howled the tree in trade language, lashing its branches belligerently.

  Flinch reared, whinnied, put his ears back and fled at top speed up the hill, where Soaz caught him with some difficulty. Izzy picked himself up out of the dust where Flinch had knocked him. I helped him brush himself off as he swore mildly.

  “We want to help,” he said to the frantic tree, also speaking in trade language. “But we have no idea what you’re going on about!”

  “End of forest! End of tree! Death to saplings! Death to seedlings! All that is as never was, so all is woe! If it doesn’t unhappen we won’t happen.”

  “Who?” demanded Izzy, after sorting out this last outcry. “Who is ending the forest?”

  “The traveler, the fixer, the season walker, the changeling. The evil creature. The being with the ax. The walker on fire feet.”

  “Who is he? Where is he?”

  The forest heaved, branches lashing. The talking tree mumbled and bleated. “Everywhere, nowhere. He goes to kill everything. Forest. Creatures. People! All to die. All their roots to be cut.”

  “Everything is to die?”

  Long silence ending in an agitated rustle. “Carrots may live, maybe,” offered the tree sadly. “Maybe parsnips, maybe hay.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Izzy crouched on his heels, shaking his head.

  “Where did you learn of this?” he asked.

  A windy sound, a troubled lashing of leaves, as though a question were asked in one place then passed from tree to tree, the wave of agitation moving from here to there, somewhere, then back again.

  “Trees say north, near the sea.”

  “At St. Weel?”

  Another lengthy conference, from which we gathered that the trees didn’t have names for places. There were river places and sea places and high and low, rocky and deep soiled, and the place where they heard this particular thing was a high rocky place facing east beside a river that ran into the sea where the gervatch flower bloomed.

  “Listen,” Izzy cried, having no more notion than I of what a gervatch flower might be. “I was given a prophecy. I was told I must solve the Great Enigma or the world would end. Are we talking about the same event, here?”

  “Who knows,” cried the tree, while a shiver of anxiety ran through the grove surrounding it. A short distance to Izzy’s left, one tree bashed another, who bashed back. The mouthy tree stopped speaking and turned toward this disorder, bumping another in the process. The bumpee lashed out with a large branch, hitting another tree. The disagreement spread, degenerating almost at once into a branch-flailing, trunk-butting battle between and among various factions. Izzy packed up his things, took me by the hand and trudged up the hill where the others sat watching. When we arrived and looked back, we saw that the fray had degenerated into numerous small battles that had broken the solid phalanx. The road lay open.

  “Very clever,” said Soaz.

  “I didn’t do it,” mused Izzy. “Though I suggest we take advantage of the confusion before they settle down and start saying woe is me again.”

  The which we accomplished, Izzy stopping only long enough to scatter the fire, thus putting an end to the spell. We put off any discussion of what troubled the trees until we had gone some distance beyond them.

  “And they didn’t say who?” asked Sahir for the third or fourth time.

  “They don’t know who,” replied Izzy. “Someone. Some entity. I guess that could be one person or a whole collection. And some of the trees think my puzzle may be part of what’s happening. I mean, this Enigma thing.”

  “And some of them don’t believe that,” said Lucy Low.

  “But they’ve agreed it’s happening,” I remarked.

  “And you’re headed in the right direction,” commented Soaz rather lazily.

  “As to that, yes,” Izzy said, patting Flinch on his neck. “It is happening, and I, at least, am headed in the right direction.”

  16

  Dora and the Family Tree

  “Today, lunch, we got a date,” Phil said to Dora.

  He had scarcely spoken to Dora the last couple of days, and this announcement bewildered her. “You and I have a date?”

  “You and me and this friend of mine. I told him what you said. He wants to meet you.”

  “What friend?”

  “My professor friend. He’s a biologist.”

  “I told you—”

  “This’s got nothing to do with you, Dora. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with man-woman stuff. This is just about the trees, that’s all.” He frowned, a little shamefaced. “I got to thinking about what you said, about the trees being…intelligent, like.”

  “Well, they are.”

  Phil made a face. “That’s what he wants to talk about. What you saw. Where it started. This whole business. I think you’re crazy, I think he’s crazy, but like I told you, he’s a good friend, he was a neighbor of mine. His wife died, he sold the house, moved over to the university, but we stay in touch. Way I figure it, stuff doesn’t get solved by people not telling other people stuff, even if other people think they belong in a loony bin.”

  She didn’t try to sort this out. She got the drift.

  The city center was still tree-free. Buses still ran to and from, though fewer and fewer cars were able to get out of the suburbs. Highways were clear. Railways were clear. Airport runways were clear. People could still travel, they could still make dates for lunch. If they chose to live in residential areas, including the suburbs, however, they would have to make a twice a day trek by rail, foot, bicycle, or horseback. The few stubbornly angry men who were still trying to clear their land with chain saws were still being killed. Autopsies established that the trees were the possessors of lethal stinging cells, nematocysts, previously thought to belong only to creatures such as sea anemones and jellyfish.

  Phil and Dora went to a downtown restaurant which was doing a good business, considering everything. There Dora was introduced to Abilene McCord.

  “Phil’s told me about you,” he said, offering his hand. He was a slender man wi
th a narrow, foxish face, pointed nose and chin, curly mouth, and long-lashed watchful eyes. His teeth were likewise narrow, and very white, though his skin and hair were foxish also, reddish and tawny, freckled and curly haired.

  “You’re a biologist,” she said flatly.

  “Um,” he said, staring at her.

  “Could we, like, sit down,” suggested Phil.

  “Oh, sure,” said Abilene, still staring.

  “Did I hear right? Your name’s Abilene?” asked Dora, feeling a little nervous. The way the guy was looking at her, maybe she had a spot on her nose or something.

  “My mother’s idea,” he said, finally looking elsewhere. “It’s where she and Dad went on honeymoon, for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom. I’ve just been glad they didn’t go to Niagara Falls. You can call me Abby, if you like. A lot of people do.”

  He grinned at her, and Dora gulped. It was a very foxish grin. Knowing, in a wild kind of way.

  They sat. They ordered. Dora drank half a glass of iced tea all at once, trying to put out a sudden warmth in the pit of her stomach. Abby watched her curiously. When she set her glass down, he asked:

  “Tell me about the weed where you used to live.”

  So she told him, baldly, in few words, making it sound like nothing. He nodded, as though satisfied.

  “It was more…eerie than that,” she confessed.

  “It had to be, yes,” he said, moving his napkin out of the way of the waiter, who had showed up with their lunches. “The fact you don’t try to make it sound dramatic is impressive, however. If you were inventing or imagining—which is what my friend Phil here thinks—you’d probably make a better story out of it.”

  “I don’t tell things very well,” she said, glaring at Phil.

  “The hell,” said Phil. “She writes great reports.”

  “You told it very well.” Abby smiled. “So then, you moved. And the weed moved with you.”

  “Part of it. Or another one,” she confessed.

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Maybe it likes to be talked to,” she hazarded. “At least, that’s all I’ve ever done for it.”

  “No little sips of fertilizer? No polishing its leaves? No playing music to it?”

  “I never thought of that,” she said, astonished. “The way it looks, so healthy, I never thought about it needing fertilizer. And with all the birds singing to it, why would it need music?”

  “She says it gave her an apple,” said Phil, in a skeptical tone.

  “Did it?” Abby asked.

  “Yeah,” she confessed. “And some cherries.”

  “Your weed?”

  “No.” She stopped, confused. “No, two different trees. One outside my house and one where I left my bicycle. Oh, and they’ll take care of your bicycle for you, too, if you ask them to. And if you ask for some seedlings, it’ll give you a little one. A sapling or whatever. My friend Loulee wanted one because it eats garbage.”

  And that was another story. And the garden was another one yet. “Yesterday, these two trees grew me a hammock,” she said. “Two nice strong vines, one down each side, and this lacy little mat of shoots across the middle. You can lie on it, just like a hammock. There’s a leaf pillow, and it swings by itself.”

  Abby put down his fork, chewing and swallowing a mouthful of lasagna before he spoke. “Did you hear about the new flora that’s growing around the Mediterranean?”

  “Something on TV. The flocks are doing real well on it.”

  “They are. Or were. It seems the plant is a first-rate fertility control agent. There have been no pregnancies among the sheep and goats since they started eating the stuff.”

  Phil said belligerently, “Now that’s rotten. Those poor people probably need their animals.”

  “No,” said Abby. “They need far fewer of them. It was the unrestricted breeding of sheep and goats that deforested the entire area. As may be happening here, as well.” He turned to Dora once more. “Phil said you mentioned the missing herds of cows. I suppose you’ve figured out if it could eat garbage, it could eat a herd of cows.”

  She stopped chewing, eyes unfocused. “I never thought of that.”

  “But then, if it killed the cows and ate them, why didn’t it eat the people it killed?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head slowly. “They were left right there, where other people could see them.”

  “Do you think it could be because people learn by example, but cows presumably do not?”

  Phil grunted, shaking his head. “You’re both nuts.”

  Dora nodded, however. “It could be that. But then, you got to remember Jared’s all right. I mean, it hasn’t come after him or anything.”

  Abby grinned at her. “Then the plant could be said to be defensive but not vengeful. Can we take a look at his place?”

  Dora forbid herself from returning his grin. What was this? She felt like…well, like she’d swallowed something buoyant. Something that wanted to soar! Unwillingly, she said, “I’m not sure it is his place anymore. Someone might have bought it by now.”

  Abby lined up his silverware thoughtfully, watching her from the corners of his eyes. “Not many people buying property these days. Things are too uncertain.”

  She shrugged, giving up. “I don’t have a key with me, but you’re welcome to look at the outside.”

  When they finished lunch, Phil went back on duty, saying he’d cover for her until two, when she could meet him outside the deli where they usually had lunch. Dora went with Abby in his little convertible, the warm air lashing her hair into tangles. They drove to the avenue, then down the swervy side street, stopping at last in front of Jared’s place.

  “What kind of tree is that?” Abby asked, pointing upward at the looming bulk of the Tree.

  Dora confessed she didn’t know what kind of tree it was.

  They got out and walked through what had been a yard and was now a little forest, between two green mounds that had been houses, to the foot of the huge tree. In Dora’s eyes, it seemed to have grown another twenty or thirty feet since she’d seen it last, and it had been huge then. “The roots go all the way across the next lot. Last time I was in the garage, I saw the roots were breaking up the floor.”

  “The roots of a tree this size could reach that far, though I don’t know what kind of tree it is either,” he said with a puzzled smile. “Which is rather interesting. Trees being my specialty, I ought to recognize it.” He pulled down a branch and looked at the leaves. He started to pick one.

  “No,” said Dora. “Don’t take it. Ask it.”

  He stared at her a long, inscrutable moment, then turned back to the tree.

  “May I have a few leaves, please?”

  A tremble of foliage, a sound, as of wind through the boughs, and then a plop. The sprig lay on the ground next to his feet, an emerald spray drooping gracefully from a green stem.

  He said in a very soft voice, “I live in a townhouse near the university. I’ve looked at the trees, but I haven’t had any close contact with them. I didn’t believe you.” He drew a deep breath and fixed her with his eyes. “I honest to God didn’t.”

  He picked up the sprig, and they went back to the car. He opened the trunk and stored the sprig in a specimen case before rejoining Dora. “I still don’t recognize it,” he said. “Leaves rather like an oak, but oak leaves aren’t arranged like that.”

  “I always thought of it as an oak,” said Dora. “It’s been there forever. The nearest house is where the Dionnes lived. Before the fire.”

  Which led to her telling him all about the Dionnes, and her attempt to locate them.

  “When Harry Dionne calls you back, will you call me?” he asked, giving her his card. “Please.”

  “You think they know something?”

  “Not necessarily. One thing leads to another, though. You know that.” He smiled at her and something inside her took fire once more. “You have beautiful eyes. In fact, you’re
an exceptionally lovely woman,” he said with a laugh. “Especially for a cop.”

  She flushed, not knowing what to say to that, hoping he wouldn’t say anything else like it, then hoping he would.

  He didn’t say anything at all, just dropped her off where she was to meet Phil, lifting his hand in farewell. His card was in her pocket. She could feel it there, like a little sun, making a heat all its own.

  “Nice guy, huh?” asked Phil.

  “Very nice,” she said primly, keeping her face straight.

  “Think he believed all that stuff?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, Phil. I think after the tree handed him the leaves he wanted, he probably did.”

  Phil clenched his jaw and refused to ask. Dora, barely able to suppress laughter, pretended she hadn’t noticed.

  17

  The Countess Elianne Welcomes Travelers

  “Though the armakfatidi are a tribe which is unique in being unable to communicate with other tribes in speech, through a standardized combination of grunts and gestures, many armakfatidian peoples are perfectly capable of making themselves understood and thus taking part in the agriculture and commerce of the realm. They are a strong and ancient people, and their contributions to the arts of cookery and perfumery have never been surpassed.”

  THE PEOPLES OF EARTH

  HIS EXCELLENCY, EMPEROR FAROS VII

  Blanche went in search of the countess. She found her mistress on the west terrace having a midafternoon snack from the greenhouses, peaches so ripe that Elianne’s hands and face were smeared with juice. The countess looked up from her enjoyment, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

  “The guards have intercepted a party of travelers on the high road, Your Grace.”

  The countess started to lick the juice from her hands as a younger Elianne would have done, then, seeing Blanche’s unwavering gaze, wiped them delicately on a napkin instead. “I imagine the guards intercept travelers several times an hour,” she remarked loftily. “And what is that to me?”

  “It’s the assortment of the group,” said Blanche in her harsh voice. “Pheled, ponji, scuinan, onchiki….”