by Jesse Reiss
Chapter 8
As she had done the day before, Paula dropped Angelina off at school and promised to pick her up. After Morning Prayer, the first class was world history. People, as a subject, interested Angelina and held her attention. She was fascinated when she was learning about different conflicts and wars centered on the simple differences in people’s features, skin color or language.
She recalled when she was younger and in elementary school, she had innocently posed a question to her father, asking why there was racism in Los Angeles. His answer had gone something like this:
“Hundreds of years ago the different people around the world lived separate from each other, so they hardly mixed together. There were red people and yellow people and black people and white people. They had wars to try to take over each other’s land and prove which people were the best. This was all because they saw each other as different and therefore couldn’t get along. Then it was like one day God had had enough of the fighting and he picked America up, using Florida as a handle — see it is shaped like a handle — and the various people that all looked different from each other fell down into the corner, here in Los Angeles. They were forced to live together so they could come to respect and love each other. Los Angeles is God’s last effort on Earth to get people to start learning to live together in peace. It hasn’t been easy, but it is getting better and better.”
Angelina had pondered this idea many times since. She felt her unique background and ethnic heritage were an advantage and made her special, and many times she had proudly explained her parent’s lineage to those who would listen. She could trace her family roots to the far corners of the globe with her father having Asian and Irish parents and her mother, African American and Native American. In one classroom at the Immaculate Heart she would stare at the large anthropological world map on the wall showing all races and people the world over originating from one central place in Africa seventy thousands years ago. Her teacher explained that this was the likely place where Eden is and that is why Jesus came from the Middle East. Angelina thought all those arrows spreading around the globe should all turn around eventually and come to Los Angeles, where everything became one again.
As the routine school day progressed along, Angelina found herself distracted and unable to pay attention. Her mind kept wandering back to the tree and to the owl. Something about it all seemed so familiar and calming to her, like she had known the owl from before or something, but couldn’t place what it really all meant. She was determined to explore it further and get an answer to what had truly happened that resulted in the conversation with the strange man and the gold coin showing up in her backpack.
After lunch she reported to the school reception and told Sister Rosemary that she had a doctor’s appointment to follow up from a visit the prior day when she wasn’t feeling well. She said she would wait outside by the gated entrance to be picked up and where she could get some fresh air. Sister Rosemary said she understood with a large dose of sympathy and watched her walk out with a smile.
A minute later, her backpack over her shoulder, Angelina was walking up the street and into Griffith Park. She texted her mom that she had a ride home so she wouldn’t be surprised to find Angelina not there when she tried to pick her up.
It took half an hour to reach the tree, which was deserted. She saw no owl anywhere in its branches. A couple minutes later she had reached the bough where things had gone crazy before and she felt her stomach go into a nervous contortion. She looked down. It was about the highest height she had ever dived off, and she thought that if she fell from here it would be sore knees or a sprained ankle at least. Balancing herself by holding onto the bough above her head, she took a step forward along it.
Like the last time, things went dizzy again, only she had no chance to steady herself as she felt something grab her free arm and yank her forward. She didn’t faint this time. She stumbled forward to her knees and noticed the bough had increased in size, like before.
Inches from her face were bare feet. She looked up at their owner and let out a loud scream. She tried to lunge back, but the man who had pulled her forward had a strong grip on her arm and wouldn’t let go. He seemed no more than a few years older than she and wore only doeskin breeches over his dark skin. His body was thin and muscular with long black hair tied behind his head. His eyes were dark, but gentle, with a hint of curiosity. Angelina saw a large smile form on his mouth and she eased up on the straining to get away.
“Well, Angelina, what a way to make your presence felt in first introductions,” the man said with an odd accent she hadn’t heard before. “I am Tyoo-Rut. I am your Grandfather,” he said with an even bigger smile. He paused, “Of many grandfathers ago that is.”
“You are not my Grandfather,” Angelina protested, but immediately thinking herself crazy to be talking to someone who was probably a delusion in her mind.
“Well, of many Grandfathers ago, on your mother’s side that is. Let’s see,” he said furrowing his brow in deep concentration and began pointing in the air with his fingers like he was counting in his head, while maintaining his grip on Angelina’s arm with his free hand. “If you take your mother’s father and his father and keep going back fifteen times, you will get to me!” He looked at her, satisfied for having figured it out.
Angelina didn’t want to believe this was happening. She felt lightheaded and dizzy and a drugged look came over her face. She looked down to the ground far below. She felt herself panic and an urge welled up in her to get away from this crazy man and from the tree and back to safety. She opened her mouth to scream, but no words came out. She was losing her consciousness.
Things went black.
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When Angelina awoke, everything was out of focus and she felt woozy. As things came too, she could see a thin woman with a pretty face and blonde hair was smiling down at her and stroking her head. “How you feeling?” the woman asked softly.
Angelina didn’t recognize the person, but felt safe. “Like I had a weird nightmare,” she responded. Things came into focus and she saw she was lying on a soft bed and looking up at a wood ceiling with fancy carvings and shapes on it, like a monochrome Sistine Chapel.
“I understand. There is a lot to be explained for it to make sense,” the woman said. Angelina noticed the girl wore a colorful headband and her hair was braided into a dozens long strands with colorful beads adorning each. She had red, yellow and pink flowers brightly painted on her face and arms. Various leather and bead necklaces were around her neck, and from one hung a large peace symbol.
“Well, good thing you are awake now. Nightmares aren’t fun!” an effusive male voice behind her said. The same crazy man! Angelina bolted up and looked over at the man in fright. “Acorn tea?” he said with a smile, offering a wooden cup.
The woman spoke up in a reprimanding tone, “Tyoo-Rut, that is what is called being rude! Like — can’t you see you are getting the chick all freaked out? We need to take things slowly!”
It was then that Angelina noticed her surroundings. She was in a large room, possibly as large as her house, with various oak furnishings. The walls, floor and roof were all oak timber, beautifully crafted with ornate finishing, flourishes and various carvings throughout. “Who are you people?” she asked in fear.
“We already met back—”
“That’s enough Tyoo-Rut!” the woman jumped in, pointing a finger into the air like a dagger. “Let me do the talking. This is like when we first met. I am more from her time than you are, so you go hang loose somewhere until she chills, okay?”
“Okay,” the man said in a resigned tone, seating himself on a large rocking chair that looked like someone had taken a hundred years to carve from solid oak.
“My name is Mary and I live here in the tree with your Great-something-or-other-Grandfather here. You will find he is actually a very sweet and romantic guy. He has been learning English for the past hundred and fifty years, but hasn’t had much work with his
manners, as there are so few people to practice on. I am working on it though,” she said as she smiled and winked over at him.
Angelina reached over and pinched herself deeply on her arm, trying to wake herself up. She felt the sharp pain and released it. Nothing changed in her surroundings.
“Oh, this is real child. You aren’t like dreaming or tripping or anything. You best lie there and let me tell you a little about what’s going on and then you can ask questions, okay?”
Angelina nodded, feeling her hands over the bedrail as if they might disappear in a moment when she woke up.
“All right. Let’s see…how do I make this make sense?” she asked herself, thinking with one eye squinted. Angelina noticed the girl was wearing a tie-dyed sleeveless shirt, cutoff jeans and sandals that had laces that went up to her knees. “You climbed a tree, right?”
Angelina, with her jaw half ajar, nodded robotically.
“Yeah — so did I. And then you found yourself in this strange place with strange people like us, right?”
Another head nod.
“But you didn’t fall or die in the tree though?”
Another head nod.
“Well, that’s a first! It seems that you have gone from the world you used to know and which we used to know, into the world you are in now — like that of a tree. Dig it?” she finished with a smile.
Angelina dazedly shook her head from side to side.
Tyoo-Rut butted in. “The great spirit of the tree has welcomed you into its world, though you are the first we know that has come without having shed your mortal body. We here all died — well, our bodies died — in the tree and that is how we are here. But you, you are in the blood line of my ancestors and have fulfilled a prophecy that I will not be left alone.”
“In the tree’s world?” Angelina asked slowly, coming to grips with the realization that she wasn’t sleeping or imagining, as everything was far too real.
Mary continued the conversation “You, tree, I and he all are our own universes, you know, like spiritually. We don’t really think our own universe as anything more than imagination or the brain — all that stuff,” she said, waving a hand in the air as if it would magically conjure up the words she was missing.
Angelina was amused to notice that the complex nature of reality or the irrationality of her present circumstances was attempting to be explained to her by a hippy that thought she knew it, but didn’t know how to explain it. “I think I just want to go home,” she said, despair on her face.
They looked at each other puzzled, unsure what to say.
“If you didn’t die before you came here, I don’t see why not,” Tyoo-Rut said, putting his mug down on a side table with fluted legs that were connected by flowery wickerwork. As he got up Angelina noticed Mary drop her head with sadness.
Tyoo-Rut walked over to her and she buried her head into his bare chest. “Mary Dear, come, there is no need to cry. We are just getting to know Angelina and she has had a long day. She will come back to visit us, won’t you daughter?” he said, looking over at Angelina expectantly.
Angelina felt bad for seeming to have offended Mary so easily. “I want to go back to what’s normal, okay? I’m a little freaked out about all this.”
“Well, you are welcome here anytime, okay?”
“Okay. Whatever.”
“Promise you’ll come back and see us again,” Mary said earnestly between her tears, as she clung to Tyoo-Rut’s chest.
“Okay, I promise I’ll come back,” Angelina said, unsure if she meant it.
Mary smiled and wiped her cheeks. “Once you get used to it, you’ll really love it here. It’s so far out. And time goes on forever so, you know, you aren’t getting any older,” she added with a cute shoulder shrug.
“Before you go I want to give you a gift,” Tyoo-Rut said, stepping over to a large oak cabinet, which on its doors were carved high reliefs depicting an anchored Spanish galleon with Native American’s climbing aboard. Angelina, feeling more certain and seeing how she thought she was going to go home, was now fascinated by the carvings that surrounded her on the walls and the furniture. The incredible quality made the tiniest detail visible. Reliefs seemed to pop out from the walls like they were made with three dimensions. She stepped over to one wall and looked hard at it. It was Downtown Hollywood, as she knew it today! She could see the Capitol Records building, the Roosevelt Hotel, the Highland shopping center and the Hollywood sign on the mountain behind it all. She noticed that the more she stared at the wall, the more alive in three dimensions it became. It was like the wall was coming out to meet her and she felt like she could step into it. She reached out an arm to touch it and everything came back into perspective.
“He’s pretty damned talented, isn’t he?” Mary said, smiling at Angelina’s curiosity. “Tyoo-Rut was a hunter and a carver in his village, back when the first white man came back some, like, I don’t know, many hundreds of year ago.”
“Fifteen fourty-two, white man first come to Los Angeles,” Tyoo-Rut said as he walked over to where they were standing. “That is a story for another time. Here, I want you to have this. I made it for you.”
He handed her a wood carving of a Great Horned Owl, approximately four inches tall. The detail was incredibly fine. It didn’t look like a tourist gift shop carving. It looked like the real thing. Exactly like the one Angelina had seen the other day!
“This is the same owl that tried to steal my IPod!” Angelina blurted out.
“Virginia? Steal from you? Well, she is a mischievous one isn’t she,” he answered.
Angelina was reminded of something. “Are you the one that carved that heart out of oak?” she blurted out
He seemed very curious. “You have seen my oak heart? You know where it is?”
“Yes, well at least an oak heart.”
“Is it about this thick?” he asked, putting his thumb and forefinger approximately an inch apart. “And about this tall?” He stretching his thumb and forefinger six inches apart.
“Yes! And it has little carvings of various symbols — I have no idea what they all are — around the sides.”
“Those are words written in my native language. So where is it? I had assumed someone had stolen it. I’ve been looking for it for years and there are only so many people that could have taken it.”
Angelina felt like he was accusing her or her family of taking it. “Well, my mom and dad say they found it left under the tree when they got engaged, almost eighteen years ago. It has been hanging above their bed ever since.”
He nodded wisely. “Found under the tree, eh?” he said to himself with a smile. “Okay, you can keep it as another gift from me. Come — you wanted to go home and we promised we would take you home if you promised to come back and so we shall keep our end of the agreement.”
Angelina didn’t remember the part about their promise to her in exchange for her promise to them and the part about it being a deal — sounding so official and all. They opened the door and stepped outside.
Angelina was amazed at the oversized boughs, branches and foliage, spread out before her in a maze of steps and walkways. Smooth acorns larger than herself were clustered behind green leaves that could act as king size beds. The house she had left was like a tree house something Frank Lloyd Wright would have dreamt up. It was beautifully designed and cared for with what must have been decades of work creating the exterior carvings, like a marriage between gothic architecture and totem poles.
As they progressed back towards the trunk they came across a long trail of ants as large as her shoes. They were in a fast moving line, each one following the other’s movements precisely. Angelina looked down the line and saw it went on endlessly, far along the bough and up into the tree.
As they arrived at the trunk, Tyoo-Rut put a hand on her shoulder. “You were followed up here to the tree,” he said calmly. “You will want to be more careful next time to be sure you don’t cause concern or alarm for others.”<
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She was startled. “How do you know?”
“I am a hunter and a tracker. I was watching your trail as you came here. A tall and strong man followed you to the tree a few minutes after you joined us. When he couldn’t find you, he cursed to himself and left.”
“Why would someone be following me?” Angelina asked nervously.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
She remembered her mother telling her about the detectives looking for her and realized this is probably what it was about.
Angelina held onto the bough above her and stepped closer to the trunk. As it had happened before, the space shifted around her and she was back into the world she was accustomed to. She climbed down from the tree and set off down the trail, following the path she had trekked many times before.
Once home, Angelina decided she wasn’t going to mention the strange events that occurred while she was in the tree for fear her mother would think she had gone completely crazy. Angelina was feeling like it was okay to believe in her experiences and decided it was best not to share them with others for fear of their reaction to her.
The whole thing seemed magical to her and she fully expected to return to the tree and investigate it some more. She realized that there was something that drew her towards it, like it was familiar to her from some distant past. And it was as if she had her own secret portal to a world that before she could see only in movies and read about in fiction books — a world that felt more real and safer than the actual world she knew.
