Walking the Tree

by Kaaron Warren

  The ancestry was spoken. Lillah waited nervously, hoping that she and Sapin shared no grandparents. It was Tamarica, this time: her grandmother had stopped here, and therefore she could not sleep with any of the men.

  Sandy-haired Sapin watched Lillah as she showed the women how to cook semolina with cardamom. She always carried the spice with her.

  "Sapin! You should watch this. You're never going to find a wife so you will have to cook for yourself." The women laughed, which Lillah thought cruel. She glanced at Sapin, concerned he would cry, but he raised his eyebrows at her and gestured with his head to the door.

  The women were arguing about who could do what, so Lillah wiped her hands and left with Sapin.

  Lillah and Sapin stopped by the david-saplings. "I told you," he said. "You see? There is my face and there is yours." Manroots rested on the dirt in a thick carpet and she wondered at the ghosts.

  There was a whispering sound. Lillah hated it. "It's the ghosts inside," she said. "Whispering about us. Wanting our bones." She shuddered.

  He said, "Sometimes I whisper back. Tell them things I don't want people to know."

  "I've heard other people do this. Telling the Tree secrets."

  His cave was set deep in the sand, and she couldn't breathe, even looking at it.

  "I can't go in there. I hate small spaces. I don't like the sand. I can't stand the thought of ghosts."

  "Immerse yourself in the smell of it. Damp sand has a smell all its own. Rich with salt and minerals, it will heal you just by smelling it."

  "I'm sorry. I can't go in there."

  "Imagine it is huge and that you can feel fresh breeze on your face. If you feel a breeze it isn't too small." Above her fear, Lillah was curious to know what his cave looked like. Melia never cared about the walls, the pictures. "I'm too busy for that," but to Lillah it was part of the seduction. To see the images the men found sexual gave her an understanding of them. Already she felt like an expert. She had seen a cry for help and she had seen things that made her back out of the cave and choose somebody else.

  She stepped into Sapin's cave. He let her go first, which meant she took in the full impact of the drawings and scratchings. She held her breath to see it; it was so beautiful. Every space filled with art. Drawings that showed the past, and the thoughts of all things.

  It seemed to her that all human life was explained there, but she could not say how. Children piled onto each other in a great game, careful drawings of arms and legs, including the muscles. This was a man of great intelligence.

  Sapin had gouged small alcoves into the walls of his cavern.

  "Are these the stories of Sequoia?"

  "They are."

  "Do you record the old women who walk through? Ones who might have a talent like cooking?"

  He laughed. "Old women are not such an interesting story, Lillah! Although you, you will be a fascinating old woman. Mostly I like birds," he said. He showed her one picture of an enormous Tree smothered with birds. "I like to imagine the noise they'd make. The birdsong. We don't hear enough here. Our birds are so huge and terrifying it's hard to remember some are lovely."

  Lillah thought of the profusion of wildlife on the sunny side, and it occurred to her how lucky women were, that they could find a new place to live. Men were stuck with what they were born with.

  "Birdsong is beautiful," she agreed. "Any music is." He shook his head. "Not the music of the angry sea." He touched another etching. "This one is from an ancient image the children found." It looked like an elongated house, with a bird's wings on either side.

  "How did they find such an old thing?"

  "They like to climb up as far as they are able. They like to see more than we can see, standing on the ground."

  Lillah shuddered. "You're very talented."

  "I am. I practise a lot. The plates were mine. Did you notice them?"

  Lillah nodded. "I did. I barely concentrated on the food for looking at the story around the plate's rim."

  "Sorry to be so distracting," he said. "But you are very distracting yourself."

  "Not compared to the others. Erica is considered the most beautiful. Melia is the smartest. Thea was the most interesting. Tamarica is very lively."

  "None of that is true," he whispered.

  "Why don't you cover the doorway?" Lillah said. She hated her eagerness but sensed a tentativeness in him that would make things difficult if she didn't act.

  He pulled his decorative door across. His hair looked much darker now and his eyes.

  "Can you see me?" she said.

  "Only just." He stepped forward until their bodies touched, stomach to stomach. He was taller by a handspread.

  He stood so close and felt so firm against her Lillah could barely take a breath. He bent his head and Lillah thought, Not the forehead. If he kisses my forehead he is doing this out of duty, not terrible desire. He kissed the side of her neck, a gentle butterfly kiss she could not be sure had occurred. She expected another, the same, but this time he opened his mouth and sucked her there in a great lunging bite. Her body broke out in bumps. He kissed her mouth next and this time she could respond, drawing his tongue into her mouth and pressing him. He growled from deep in his chest. He gently pushed her backwards to the floor. There were pillows and a softness she took to be leaves. She lay back and he bent over her, kissing her neck again in his wonderful sucking biting way. He kissed one collarbone and ran his thumb over the other, then rested it in the dent between the bones. She reached her hands up to his hair and grabbed handfuls. She ran her fingers down to his neck and shoulders.

  He unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it off her.

  He was beautiful to fall asleep with. In a way this was a better test of compatibility. How a man slept beside her. How he felt.

  She awoke to a delicate stroking of her stomach. His fingers measuring her hip width. He had a softness about his face, a dreaminess she recognised. A man thinking of his offspring.

  She thought, I have no desire for it. No need for a baby. She stood up. "I'm hungry. I wonder if people are up and about and if food is coming."

  She found Erica standing next to one of the sand structures, looking at the etchings. So many careful, brilliant hours of construction: depictions of the seawalk, the Tree, the long houses and the small, perfect in their detail.

  "This is beautiful. I wonder how long they will last?" Erica said. She had spent the night with Sapin's brother, who was funny and light-hearted. She looked happier than Lillah had ever seen her.

  Her lover waved his hands in the air. "Until the wind blows them. The water can't reach them. We know where our tide-line is." He kissed Erica, spun her around, then ran to the shore and returned with a perfect shell. "I'm going to see if breakfast is ready," he said, tossing the shell to Erica.

  "I like it here," Erica said.

  "So do I." Lillah wondered if she would miss her chance. She liked Sapin and would think about staying here; would Erica take her place? This was the first place Erica had been happy.

  Lillah and Sapin climbed the lower limbs and sat together, talking about the sea, the Tree and knowledge. She could see Morace not too far away, building a small house from sticks and vines. He was involved, self-absorbed. Helping him was a young girl Lillah knew he was entranced by, with clear dark eyes and a lively laugh. She wondered if there was any way they could both stay here, be happy. The Order seemed less bothered by illness than others, and perhaps Morace would be safe here.

  There was movement below, something odd; a flash of white and below them, a ghost stepped out.

  "Morace!" Lillah whispered. "He's in the path of a ghost!"

  Sapin tried to stop her jumping off the branch but merely threw her off balance so that when she landed it was awkwardly, with her ankle twisted.

  The ghost walked. It did not seem interested in Morace, but Lillah ran anyway, lifted him up and carried him behind a clump of Tree undergrowth.

  Morace finally saw the ghost and froze. It wa
lked stiffly, unseeing. Sapin climbed down more carefully and stepped sideways before running so fast Lillah thought he'd disappeared.

  "Is it a ghost? Or is it dead-but-walking?" Morace said. He stood up to get a better look. "The men are coming."

  Lillah peered over the top of the shrub and saw Sapin with five others, carrying knives, rocks, sharp shells.

  The dead-but-walking man stepped one foot after another, walking to the water.

  The men raised arms and felled him. He didn't fight, but he did lift his arms to protect himself. Lillah thought, Why would a dead man do that?

  The six men beat him with fists and sticks, kicked him, stoned him. Lillah ran over to them, not wanting to see but wanting to stop the violence. They seemed so much at ease with it. What do they practise on? Lillah wondered.

  She pulled at Sapin. "Stop that! What are you doing?"

  Sapin turned to her. His eyes were bright, his face splattered with blood. His hands covered with blood. He reached out and stroked her cheek, and she felt the blood there; he'd drawn a line on her. The tenderness of the gesture made her feel sick.

  He turned back to the dead-but-walking and landed a blow that cracked the man's nose.

  "We do not welcome dead-but-walking here. We don't let you walk on our sand, we don't let you put your eyes on our children, we don't let you breathe the air we breathe. We don't want you in our water, we don't want to smell your rotting flesh."

  Sapin said this as he kicked, as they all kicked. The man no longer moved. His eyelids didn't flutter.

  "But he just wanted to get to the water. You could let him walk to the water."

  "Don't you understand, Lillah? Every person he looks at will rot from the inside. I've seen it. They cut my father open and inside was a mess of maggots, eating away at his rot. You have never smelt anything like it, Lillah. You would never eat again if you smelt such a thing."

  They started to drag the body away. "I'll be back in a day or two," Sapin said. "We need to take this filth to a place in the sand where his burial will not affect any community."

  "We'll bury him deep so that he can't leap back to life," one of the local children said. They all followed the lines in the sand left by the body; Lillah, the teachers and their children stayed behind.

  Borag said, "I can't believe what they did to that man. Do they know who he was? He might have needed help. He might have had knowledge to share. They just destroyed him."

  "He was dead-but-walking, Borag. He was worthless. He would have brought disease." Erica shook her head as if this were obvious.

  "You are one to talk," Borag muttered. "You should learn to be more forgiving."

  Lillah sat down by the Tree. The children covered up the blood spots with sand and leaves, and they all were silent, thinking of the violent death they had witnessed.

  Erica sat by Lillah. "I had been thinking I would like to stay here," she said.

  "I had been thinking the same."

  They looked at each other. "Do you feel different now?" Erica asked.

  "I'm not sure. I'm not sure I want Sapin to touch me again. Not now I've seen what he is willing to do."

  "My lover was not part of that violence."

  "Where was he?"

  "He was preparing the meal."

  They were quiet.

  "He is the first man I thought I could love. This is the first place I have thought about staying in. I am not like you, Lillah. I am not likable. You are liked wherever we go. Mostly people do not even notice I am there. Here, they notice."

  "And after what we just saw?"

  "My man was not a part of it."

  So it was decided. Erica would stay.

  The community selected a girl named Musa to take Erica's place.

  "We haven't had the chance to assess Musa. I don't even know her. I haven't spoken to her," Melia said. She knew what she'd been through to be chosen.

  Erica said, "We trust each Order to provide their best. These people would not be any different."

  Lillah felt so disappointed with Erica she didn't want to say goodbye. She wasn't sure she'd wanted to stay, but she hated the idea that Erica was staying instead. Two teachers stopping in one Order was not accepted. Morace sat with her.

  "You like it here, don't you?"

  "I like Sapin. He is the closest I have come to thinking I could spend more than three days with a man."

  "You could stay. Mother wouldn't know. I'll be all right. We can tell Erica she can't stay, that you chose first."

  "Morace, I can't do that to you. You are my brother, my half-brother. I have promised your mother, and you, and myself, to care for you to the best of my ability. I will do that. I knew what I was taking on. And anyway, it is Erica who is staying. Not me. And after that attack, that killing, I feel differently towards him. I would not be able to be with him without remembering it."

  Sapin was not there to say goodbye.

  Erica said, "Perhaps you felt love one way, after all. It does not always come back the way you want it to. He may not have wanted you, anyway."

  Lillah pushed her, hard, knocking her to the ground. "You have a happy life, here. Steal my place and enjoy it."

  Morace dropped his hat and didn't notice; Lillah picked it up, knowing she did not want to come back to the Order to collect it.

  In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Damp sand, dear man, pebble piles and piles of bones.

  Here, the Tree grows vegetables. The leaves are soft, the Bark as hard as I've seen.

  Sequoia — ALGA — Pinon

  There was a long walk to the next Order, close to a hundred days. They took it slowly, in no hurry. It was good to be alone, just the school. Lillah told Phyto about Sapin, how close she'd come to staying.

  "It's not just about the man, though," Phyto said. "Most teachers choose a place for many reasons. Something they can give, something they can take. You need to feel useful."

  "I could have made it work. But Erica made sure she took the place."

  The sand was hot to the foot and dry.

  Musa proved difficult to get to know. Prickly, agitated, she was a far cry from the sensible Erica, who, while annoying Lillah sometimes with her need to stick to the rules, had made them feel comfort in her presence.

  Melia and Musa clashed early and hard. Musa had a sharp sense of humour and a cruel wit, and Melia did not like being laughed at.

  Musa spoke a lot about her own achievements, but she was lazy in her walking, falling back, feet dragging. She was not unkind, but neither was she kind, nor was she gifted with brains to know when to be quiet.

  When Rham, lagging behind to look at shell variations, was tangled by the rubbery, smelly seaweed on the shore, it was Tamarica who went back.

  "Either keep up with the group or look after the laggers," Tamarica told Musa. "Otherwise the others will think you are not a good teacher."

  Tamarica tried her best to keep the peace, because she was still so happy to be with the school, would always be happy, that she didn't want dissent. But Musa ignored her, flicked her away. She thought that Tamarica, being from Douglas, was not her worth.

  "We are not concerned with where people came from. That is the whole point of the school. To realise that there is no good or bad place, there are simply different ways to live."

  Musa rolled her eyes when Rubica said this. "Nonsense, rubbish boring nonsense no one believes. We think our own place is better than all else. Admit it. If you don't admit it you are lying to yourselves."

  To draw Musa in, Tamarica asked her, "So what do you know about the Order we are headed for? We've heard little about them."

  "I know they're figuring out a way to get drinkwater from saltwater. They can do it, but in small amounts. Though I have heard that they are not passionate. They are so concerned with their science, they forget the physicality."

  "Really?" Melia said. "That will be odd for you. Your Order was passionate. My man was wilder than I imagined. You know? And he asked me to tell the story of
the bad men again. More than once. I think he rather liked the idea of them, their cruelty. Their violence."

  "Then Erica is welcome to that place," Lillah said quietly.

  Melia put her arm around Lillah. "I'm sorry. You liked him a lot, didn't you?"

  "I don't know that he felt the same way. I wasn't myself. Thea has thrown me, the business with Thea. It upset me a lot more than you were upset, that's for sure."

  Morace came up and held her hand. "Are you feeling sad, Lillah? Did you want to stay there?"