by T.A. Barron
The stick moved! The twigs, joined by others above and below, began churning like little legs. The knobby shaft bent as it clambered down the cedar’s flaky bark, over the roots, and into a patch of ferns. In a few seconds, the stick creature had vanished. So too had my desire to find a staff.
Then I felt a familiar urge. Climb one of these trees! Not all the way to the top, perhaps, but high enough to gain a view of the upper canopies of branches. Choosing a lanky linden tree, whose heart-shaped leaves trembled like the surface of a running river, I started up. My feet and hands found plenty of holds, and I moved swiftly higher.
From the distance of five times my own height above the ground, the view changed dramatically. Much more light pierced the mesh of limbs, improving my vision. Through the quivering linden leaves I noticed a round, green clump of moss near my head—although given my experience with the stick I decided not to touch it. Then I glimpsed a pair of orange and blue butterflies floating among the branches. A spider, its web pearled with dew, swung freely from a nearby limb. Squirrels with large eyes chattered noisily. A golden-plumed bird moved from branch to branch. Yet one quality from the forest floor did not change: The strange whispering continued.
Turning toward the edge of the forest, I could make out the grassy field where I had encountered the merlin. Just beyond, flowing toward the wall of mist that I knew marked the sea, I spied the sparkling water of the great river. To my surprise, a strange wave lifted from its rapids, a wave that seemed almost like a huge hand. I knew that it could not be so. Yet as the hand of water emerged from the river, dripping water through its broad fingers before plunging back down with a splash, I felt a surge of wonder and fear.
Then, from far above me, a huge bundle of leaves broke loose. Rather than falling straight downward, though, it flew outward and across to another tree. Miraculously, the second tree’s branches caught the bundle, cradling it in sturdy boughs, before flinging it outward again. Another branch caught it, bent with the weight, then flung it back. The bundle spun through the air, sailing over branches and between trunks, spinning like a dancer. It seemed almost as if the trees of this grove were playing catch with one another, throwing this bundle as children might throw a ball of string.
In time, the bundle of leaves dropped lower and lower among the limbs. Finally, it rolled onto the forest floor, coming to rest at last in a bed of brown needles.
I gasped. From the bundle, a long, leafy branch suddenly protruded. No, not a branch. An arm, wearing a sleeve of woven vines. Then another arm. One leg, then another. A head, its hair bedecked with shining leaves. Two eyes, as gray as beech bark with a touch of blue.
The leaf-draped figure rose and laughed out loud. The laughter, full and clear, rang through the trees with all the beauty of a bell.
I leaned forward on my limb, trying to discern more detail. For I could tell already that this bundle of leaves was, in truth, a girl.
14: RHIA
Without warning, the limb gave way. I tumbled to the ground, my fall broken by several boughs along the way. My chest smacked hard into one limb, as did my lower back, my shoulder, and both thighs. With a thud, I landed in a cushion of needles.
Groaning, I rolled to the side. In addition to the stiffness from my voyage, and the usual pain between my shoulder blades, my entire body ached. Slowly, I sat up—and found myself face-to-face with the girl.
Her laughter ceased.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Although the light was spare, I could tell that she was about my own age. She watched me, standing as still as one of the trees. But for the touch of blue in her eyes, her garb of woven vines consisted of so much green and brown that she could almost have passed for a tree. Yet the eyes could not be missed. They flashed angrily.
She uttered a command in a strange, rustling language, waving her hand as if to brush away a fly. Immediately, the heavy branches of a hemlock wrapped themselves around my middle, as well as my arms and legs. The branches held me tightly, and the more I struggled the harder they squeezed. Swiftly they lifted me into the air. I hung there, suspended, unable to move.
“Let me down!”
“Now you will not fall again.” The girl spoke in my own tongue, the Celtic language I had spoken in Gwynedd, but with a curious, lilting accent. Her expression shifted from wrath to mirth. “You remind me of a big brown berry, though not a tasty one.”
She picked a plump purple berry growing in the moss by her feet and put it in her mouth. Puckering, she spat it out again. “Ecchh. No sweetness left.”
“Let me down!” I roared. I twisted to break free, but the branch around my chest tightened so much that I could hardly breathe. “Please,” I croaked. “I meant . . . no harm.”
The girl eyed me severely. “You broke the law of Druma Wood. No outsiders are allowed here.”
“But . . . I didn’t . . . know,” I wheezed.
“Now you do.” She plucked another berry. Evidently it tasted better than the first, because she bent and picked another one.
“Please . . . let me . . . down.”
Ignoring me completely, the girl went about her berry picking, swallowing them almost as fast as she plucked them. At length she started to leave the glade, not bothering even to glance in my direction.
“Wait!”
She stopped. Looking annoyed, she faced me. “You remind me of a squirrel who has stolen someone else’s nuts and gets caught. Now you want to give them back, but it’s too late. I’ll come back for you in a day or two. If I remember.”
She turned to go, stepping quickly away.
“Wait!” I gasped.
She disappeared behind a curtain of branches.
I tried again to wriggle free. The hemlock squeezed tighter, pressing the Galator, still under my tunic, deep into my ribs. “Wait! In the name of . . . the Galator.”
The girl’s face reappeared. Tentatively, she returned to the grove. She stood beneath the mighty hemlock, looking up at me for some time. Then she flicked her wrist and spoke more rustling words that I could not understand.
Instantly, the branches unfurled. I dropped facedown onto the ground. Pulling a handful of needles out of my mouth, I struggled to stand.
She held her hand up to me. Not wishing to be imprisoned by branches again, I obeyed and did not move.
“What do you know about the Galator?”
I hesitated, realizing that the Galator must be famous indeed to be known even in this remote land. Cautiously, I revealed as much as I dared. “I know what it looks like.”
“So do I, at least by legend. What else do you know?”
“Only a little.”
“Pity,” she said, more to herself than to me. Drawing closer, she peered at me curiously. “Why do your eyes look so far away? They remind me of two stars that are hidden by clouds.”
I stiffened. Defensively, I snapped, “My eyes are my eyes.”
Again she studied me. Then, without a word, she pressed the last of her purple berries into my hand.
Unsure, I sniffed them. Their aroma brought back just how hungry I was, so against my better judgment I popped one into my mouth. A sudden burst of sweetness struck my tongue. I ate the rest in another swallow.
The girl studied me thoughtfully. “I see that you have suffered.”
I frowned. She had noticed the scars. As would anyone who looked at my face. And yet . . . it seemed as though she had seen something beneath the surface, as well. I felt an inexplicable urge to unburden myself to this strange girl of the woods. Yet I resisted. I didn’t know her, after all. Only a moment ago she would have abandoned me to the trees. No, I would not be so foolish as to trust her.
She rotated her head slightly, listening to some distant whispering of the branches. I noticed the intricate dressing of leaves in her curly brown hair. Although I could not be sure in the dim light of the grove, it appeared that her ears were somewhat triangular in shape, pointed at the top much like my own.
Did that mean that she,
like myself, had endured teasing from others for having ears like a demon? Or . . . might everyone in this strange land have pointed ears? Was it possible that this girl and I actually belonged to the same race?
I shook myself back to reality. It was just as likely that angels themselves would have pointed ears. Or that demons would have lovely white wings!
I continued to watch her as she listened. “Do you hear something?”
Her gray-blue eyes swiveled back to me. “Only the words of my friends. They tell me that an outsider is in the forest, but that I already know.” She paused. “They also tell me beware. Should I?”
I tensed, recalling the voice of the shell. “A person should always beware. But you need not be frightened of me.”
She seemed amused. “Do I look frightened?”
“No.” I felt myself grinning, as well. “I’m not very scary, I suppose.”
“Not very.”
“Your friends you spoke of. Are they . . . the trees?”
“They are.”
“And you speak with them?”
Once again the bell-like laughter echoed in the grove. “Of course! Just as I speak with the birds and beasts and rivers.”
“And also the shells?”
“Naturally. Everything has its language, you know. You only need to learn how to hear it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why do you understand so little?”
“I come from . . . far away.”
“So that is why you know nothing of Druma Wood, or its ways.” Her brow furrowed. “Yet you know of the Galator.”
“Only a little, as I said before.” I added wryly, “Although I would have said anything to get those horrible branches off me.”
The hemlock boughs overhead wavered slightly. The sight made me cringe.
“You know more than a little about the Galator,” the girl declared confidently. “One day you will tell me.” She began to walk, somehow certain that I would follow. “But first, tell me your name.”
I stepped carefully over a fallen branch. “Where are we going?”
“To get something to eat, of course.” She bore to the left, following a trail that only she could detect through a patch of hip-deep fern. “Now will you tell me your name?”
“Emrys.”
She glanced at me in a way that told me she did not quite believe me. But she said nothing.
“And what is yours?”
She stopped beneath a beech tree, which, though old and twisted, had bark as smooth as a young sapling. Raising a hand toward the graceful boughs, she said, “My friend will answer.”
The leaves of the old beech stirred in gentle rustling. At first the sound meant nothing at all to me. I looked at the girl quizzically. Then, slowly, I began to hear a particular cadence. Rrrrhhhhiiiaaaa. Rrrrhhhhiiiaaaa. Rrrrhhhhiiiaaaa.
“Your name is Rhia?”
Again she started walking, passing through a stand of long-needled pines, sturdy and straight. “Rhiannon is my full name, though I don’t know why. The trees call me Rhia.”
Curious, I questioned her. “You don’t know why? Didn’t your parents tell you?”
She hopped across a slow-moving stream, where a plump mallard drifted among the reeds. “I lost my family when I was young, very young. The whole thing reminds me of a fledgling who falls out of the nest before she can fly.” Without turning toward me, she added, “It also reminds me of you.”
I stopped short, grabbed her by the arm. Seeing some branches bend menacingly lower, I released my grip. “What makes you say such a thing?”
She looked straight at me. “You seem lost, that’s all.”
We strode farther into the forest without speaking, past a red-tailed fox who did not stir from a meal of fresh grouse. The terrain began to slope upward, rising into a steep hill. Yet even as the walking grew more arduous, Rhia’s pace did not slacken. In fact, it seemed to me that her pace only increased. Puffing hard, I struggled to keep up with her.
“You’re like . . . Atalanta.”
Rhia slowed a bit, her expression quizzical. “Who is that?”
“Atalanta,” I panted. “A heroine . . . in a Greek legend . . . who could run . . . so fast . . . nobody could . . . catch her . . . until somebody . . . finally tricked her . . . with some . . . golden apples.”
“I like that. Where did you ever learn such a story?”
“From . . . someone.” I mopped my brow. “But I . . . wish I had . . . some of . . . those apples . . . right now.”
Rhia smiled, but did not slow down.
As we ascended, enormous boulders, cracked and covered with pink and purple lichens, sprouted like giant mushrooms from the forest floor. The spaces between the trees grew wider, allowing more sunlight through the canopy of branches. More ferns, as well as sprinklings of flowers, crowded around massive roots and tumbled trunks.
At one point, Rhia paused to wait for me beneath a white-barked tree by a ledge. As I labored to catch up with her, she cupped her hands to her mouth and made a curious hooting sound. An instant later, three small owl faces, flat and feathery with enormous orange eyes, poked out of a hole about halfway up the trunk. The owls watched us intently. Then they hooted twice in unison and disappeared back inside the hole.
Rhia turned to me and smiled. Then she continued to climb the hill. At long last she reached the crest and halted, hands on her hips, taking in the view. Even before I caught up, I sniffed a new, juicy fragrance in the air. When at last I stood beside her, panting, the sight before me took away what little breath I still had.
In the rounded clearing before us, trees of all sizes and shapes and colors twined together, covering the entire top of the hill. Their branches, heavy with fruit, draped almost to the grass. And what fruit! Bright orange spheres, slender green crescents, tightly packed bunches of yellow and blue gleamed amidst the flashing wings of butterflies and bees. Round ones. Square ones. Hefty ones. Wispy ones. Most of the varieties of fruit I had never seen, nor even dreamed of, before. But that did not stop my mouth from watering.
“My garden,” announced Rhia.
Seconds later, we were devouring whatever fruits we chose. Juices ran down my chin, my neck, my hands, my arms. Seeds stuck to my hair, while half-chewed rinds clung to my tunic. From a distance, I might have passed for a fruit tree myself.
The orange spheres exploded with tangy flavor, so I peeled and ate my fill of them before I started trying other kinds. One variety, shaped like an urn, contained so many seeds that I spat it out in disgust. Rhia laughed, as did I. Then I tried another, circular with an open hole in the middle. To my relief, it tasted like sweet milk and bore no seeds at all. Next I swallowed half of a gray, egg-shaped fruit. Although it had almost no taste, it somehow made me feel sad, aching with longing for all the things my life lacked.
When she saw that I had tried that particular kind, Rhia pointed me toward a spiral-shaped fruit, pale purple in color. I took a bite. A flavor like purple sunshine burst in my mouth. Somehow, it swept all the aching feelings away.
For her part, Rhia swallowed a huge quantity of tiny red berries growing in bundles of five or six on a stem. I tried one, but it was packed with such overpowering sweetness that it made me nauseous. I had no desire to eat more.
I watched in astonishment as Rhia downed them ten at a time. “How can you eat so many of those?”
She ignored me and continued eating.
At last, I started to feel full. More than full. I sat down, leaning against one of the thickest trunks in the garden. Afternoon light sifted through the leaves and fruit, as a gentle breeze flowed over the hill. I watched as Rhia eventually reached her limit of the sweet red berries. She joined me by the trunk, her shoulder nudging my own.
She opened her arms to the wondrous array of trees around us. “All this,” she said gratefully, “from a single seed.”
My eyes widened. “A single seed? You can’t mean that.”
“Oh yes! The seed of the shomorra tree yields not just one tree, but many, n
ot just one fruit, but hundreds. And though the shomorra yields so much, it is so difficult to find that its scarceness is legendary. As rare as a shomorra, the old saying goes. In all the Druma, there is but this one.”
I drank deeply of the scented air of this clearing. “This is not my home, yet I feel I could stay here long and gladly.”
“Where then is your home?”
I sighed. “I don’t know.”
“So you are searching for that?”
“That and more.”
Rhia twirled a vine from her sleeve. “Isn’t your home wherever you are?”
“You aren’t serious,” I scoffed. “Home is the place you come from. The place where your parents live, where your past is hidden.”
“Hidden? What in the world do you mean by that?”
“I have no memory of my past.”
Although she seemed intrigued, Rhia asked no more questions. Instead, she reached for another cluster of red berries and popped them in her mouth. Through this mouthful, she said, “Perhaps what you are seeking is nearer than you know.”
“I doubt it.” I stretched my arms and shoulders. “I will explore some more of this place, but if I can’t learn anything about my past, I will build a new boat and sail as far as I must. To the very horizon, if that’s what it takes.”
“Then you won’t be long here, I suppose.”
“Probably not. Where is here, anyway? Does this place have a name?”
“It has.”
“What is it?”
Her expression darkened. “This place, this island, is called Fincayra.”
15: TROUBLE
I jumped as if I had been struck by a whip. “Fincayra?”
Rhia eyed me with interest. “You have heard of it?”
“Yes. Someone told me a little. But I never imagined it could be real.”
She sighed somberly. “Fincayra is real enough.”
So it is, I thought to myself. As real as Y Wyddfa. As real as Olympus. If only I could tell Branwen! I tried to call back what she had said about Fincayra. A place of many wonders, she had called it. Neither wholly of Earth nor wholly of Heaven, but a bridge connecting both. She had mentioned bright colors, too. That part I knew was true! And something else. Something about giants.
