Lillah knew she was reaching the top when the wood was old, so old it wasn't safe. Above her the canopy began and she couldn't climb in there. It was so dense, so thick. They had told her this; she hadn't believed them. Her way was smaller; sometimes she felt she was walking through hollow branches. Other times she sense she was close to the outside; she could feel a breeze, a light, clean breeze.
She looked for a sign of the Rememberers. Something left by the men and women who had formed the Orders, who had landed and made this a place for them.
She had seen remnants, these last few months. Bones. Crumbled remains of Bark, thick Bark. Metal rusted into a heap. Cups that looked like they were made of water but were hard. She saw bird nests so enormous four children could sleep in them. She saw a hugeness so vast it filled her with a sense of blankness.
She saw emptiness and the past, scrawls and scraps. A shrine to the great botanist who set the place up. The books. Santala had told her that in these books were written the names of their communities, and their own names as well.
She found boxes, many small boxes, some still filled with seeds. She had been told that the botanists brought thousands of seeds with them, giving Botanica its rich diversity.
She found no Rememberers.
It was big in the canopy, so vast. She felt it filling her, the bigness, as it had elsewhere. A momentary understanding of the hugeness of it all.
She tried to climb higher, but for the first time felt unsafe. She stepped inside a hollow branch, using the roof of it to rest her hands for support, but she had not taken more than fifteen steps when she heard a creaking noise.
She stopped. It was not the settling sound she had grown used to. It was a harsher, rending noise. She took a step forward, but felt the branch tilt slightly. She stopped. It tilted more, making her lose her footing. A cracking noise forced her to action at last, and she stepped backwards, knowing that she was not far from the trunk. Seven steps, eight, the branch tilted so far forwards she was thrown to her knees and had to crawl, pushing herself backwards until her toes reached the more solid wood of the central trunk.
She wriggled through. The branch she had been walking through cracked almost all the way through and she knew that if she'd been inside it, she would have plummeted with it through the branches below.
She rested, then she began to climb down.
Lillah knew which way her Order lay because she could read the notations, but she would need help to find the ghost cave that led out. She spoke to rare people along the way; they all knew how to send her to the next junction. She missed speaking to people. She liked to talk, to learn, and to tell tales. She had enjoyed the silence as she climbed the Tree, but she would not need that silence again.
After many months she entered the ghost cave of Laburnum, just one Order from Ombu. They made perfume there; Lillah found the smell cloying. She wanted to walk home, feel the sand, get used to being outside again. She didn't want to emerge in Ombu. Too sudden. She did not want to be seen emerging from the Tree like a ghost. Santala had told her to sleep in the inner cavern before emerging into the ghost cave and outside.
"Your eyes will settle while you're asleep, and your eyelids will filter the light. It will seem very bright to you for a while, but you'll soon be used to it."
They had given her a cloth to shade her eyes because the bright sunlight could blind her. She draped this over her head and touched the wall of the cave. Light filtered in and Lillah thought she could smell it.
She stepped out of the Tree for the first time in five years.
The light was too painful, and the noise out there bothered her. She stepped back into the ghost cave, stopped near the entrance and closed her eyes. She slept to allow her eyes, and her ears, to adjust.
She awoke and stepped out again. The light was beautiful this time. Things seen in such detail, such perfect detail.
She stood close to the trunk and watched the Order of Laburnum. In this place the roots came out of the ground, reaching up and bending over with the huge, head-like flowers. Once these turned brown, they were removed and turned into perfume.
She watched as they threw wine at the Tree, hollering, their tongues making their voices vibrate. It was a sacrifice, though nothing like that she'd seen elsewhere around the Tree.
They sat in the Tree roots and the Tale-teller told of the burning Tree, the same story Lillah had heard so many times, so many variations. She knew now that story was a telling of Spikes, that they were warnings against disease and foretelling of the end of Botanica.
All Orders had these tales.
She smelt the sap flowing and saw them rubbing it into their hair, their eyes white in their heads.
In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: They tell the tales we tell all over the Tree.
Here, the Tree grows as it always did. The sap flows.
She looked at the young men and wondered if she should take the chance on one of them, take up the life she had avoided so far. She felt as if her whole life was about drastic choices. Each choice taking her up a certain path, with no forks along the way. Unlike her journey within the Tree, which was all about choices. She looked at them and thought how easily she tired of men.
Lillah waited until night, until all was quiet, then she stepped away from the trunk. She carried very little. Her wooden necklace was in her bag. Some clothing she never wanted to see again. Stones. Small mementoes she had picked up along the way.
She walked.
She loved the feeling of air on her skin, the smell of moisture in the air. She had missed this, inside, where every day was the same.
Lillah passed the market. She had forgotten the seaweed stench of this area. It was worse, though. Thicker. Deeper. The seaweed was sludgy beneath her feet and she considered climbing into the Tree, walking through the labyrinthine tunnels and roots to get home.
It would take too long, though, and she was very anxious now to get home.
She walked.
As she rounded the rock, knowing she was almost home, her step faltered. She wondered if they would know her, or if they thought her long dead and a ghost.
She could see people working by the water and in the roots, but she didn't recognise them. Her eyes were used to close distances and she couldn't see the faces, the details. She felt suddenly desperate to see those faces and she ran, loving the strength in her legs built from climbing and walking.
She saw a young woman bent over a bench, cutting fish carefully.
It was one the children, grown. Borag.
"Borag! Borag!"
Borag put down her net and looked up, shielding her eyes. She pointed.
Lillah walked closer. "Borag! It's me! It's Lillah!"
"Teacher! Teacher! Lillah!" Borag screamed. She ran to Lillah and they embraced. She was taller than Lillah and had a deep voice, full of laughter.
"Still the cook, Borag?"
"I am! I plan to be the best cook who ever travelled the Tree."
"You will be." Lillah thought briefly of her mother, also a travelling cook, a grudging sharer. She wondered if her father would like to know the truth of his wife's death, or if she should say nothing.
"You look so skinny and pale, Lillah! Where have you been?"
Suddenly exhausted, Lillah embraced Borag again. "Let's gather the others and we can share the stories together. Where is everyone?"
Borag waved her hands. "All over. Let's walk over to your father and they will gather. Look, there's Zygo! Zygo! It's Lillah returned!"
Zygo, handsome and tall, was fishing. He carefully laid his net beyond the tide line and walked to Lillah. She was struck by his maturity, by the powerful way he held himself. He took her hands. "We thought you'd died. Morace said you disappeared in the Tree."
"Morace? He made it home?" Lillah was nervous about seeing Morace. They had been through so much together; he owed her so much, yet she didn't want to be paid back. She worried that it would affect their relationship.
"Yes, ye
s, he caught up with us. He is well, Lillah. Very well. I am very happy to see you alive."
"And you, Zygo. And you. You must be looking for a wife soon."
He turned away. "Not you too!"
Borag said, "Everyone asks him. He says he is not sure he wants a wife but no one will listen to him."
Lillah heard a shout and turned to see Morace running towards her. He stopped short as he reached her, and they looked at each other for a long time. She drew him to her, and they held each other, speechless.
"You're so handsome, Morace. Look at you. Strong! You look so well."
"I am well. I will always be well. I feel so much responsibility to make my life worthwhile. You saved it; I must make it worthy."
"You just need to live it, Morace. Though I would appreciate some help once I get older!"
The others began to talk at once. They seemed like children again, these young adults.
"How did it feel to come home?" Lillah said. "When you came upon Ombu. What did it feel like?"
"As we rounded the rocks, we knew we were almost home. We were on our side of the island. We told each other, 'We're nearly home.' Morace cried, didn't you, Morace?" Borag said.
"We all cried, you know. It had been five years without our families. And I knew my mother would not be there to greet me."
Zygo interrupted, saying, "But Lillah, tell us about you. You survived the ghosts. How did you? We thought the ghosts had taken you. Erica sent news that one of their men had been taken. That man Sapin. A dead-but-walking came out and took him. We said he deserved it. Don't you remember how they killed that dead-but-walking? I have never forgotten. You are lucky you didn't stay with him, Lillah. He was not a good man. He was worse than the men of Douglas."
"He was a good man. That was their way, Zygo. Didn't you learn that on the walk? That each place has their way, and their way doesn't make them bad?" Lillah turned away. Sapin dead? The deadbut-walking had never been aggressive before. Her thoughts of Sapin were ruined, now. She wondered what the real story was. If perhaps one of the other men had killed Sapin and blamed it on the dead-but-walking. She could not imagine the evolved insiders killing.
"He is worse than the ghosts on the inside."
"There are no ghosts in there. There are people like us."
There was silence. They looked at each other, wondering how she could say such a thing. She saw that she would need to tell a lot of tales for the truth to be known.
"And speaking of family," she said, suddenly breathless. "MY family! I must see them, now now now!" The children laughed at her.
She felt such joy, deep joy at the thought of seeing Logan, her dear, dear brother, her greatest friend. Unbetrayed.
She said, "My brother. I must see my brother, and Magnolia, and the baby."
Laughter at that.
"Time didn't stand still while you were gone," Morace said. "There is no longer a baby!"
Logan and his family were fishing off the seawalk. Lillah walked out to meet them and as she did it was like eight years dropped away. She remembered walking this wood, the splinters, the way the air changed as you walked to sea. She had seen so much since then, done so much.
"Logan," she said. Her voice carried away seagull-wise; a cawing, loud shouting over the top of her soft missing voice.
"Logan," louder, more excited, and he heard this time. Measured, he handed the rod to a small child. The boy she had seen born would be at school. Eight years old. This one was only five or six.
"Lillah." They embraced. Both knew this was a rare moment. So few siblings shared this.
"Lillah." It was Magnolia, so happy, her face the same with a few lines, so like her brother.
Logan said, "We thought you were one of those old women, as you approached. The walking women."
"No, I'm not that old, thank you! Is that all you can say to me?"
He punched her lightly on the arm. "Still a fussy little sister, I see. That hasn't changed."
She embraced him again, and this time they held each other until tears came.
"Come on," Magnolia said. "Let's go to your father. And you must be hungry. Let's eat something."
The little girl at her feet tugged her skirt. "I'm hungry." She picked her up.
"This is your niece, Aralia. Her brother is off at school, isn't he, Aralia?"
Aralia hid behind her mother's legs. "She will be over being shy soon and you will not be able to get rid of her!" Magnolia said.
"She's beautiful," Lillah said.
Magnolia put her hand on Lillah's belly. "No child there?"
"I am without child. I'll be an outcast here."
Magnolia shook her head. "You'll live with us. We have a big house now, and room for plenty.
"What about Morace? Where does he live? I didn't ask him."
"He's with your father."
"Not his own father?"
"The Birthman became bitter and difficult after his wife died. He wants nothing to do with Morace and could not see the miracle of his return."
"And our father doesn't mind?"
"Why should he mind? Morace is a pleasant and amusing young man. At the same time, he is training to be the next Birthman, so Rhizo's husband must have contact with him. Come on, let's go see your father."
"He'll be so happy, Lillah," Logan said. As they walked, he said quietly, "Did you get my message?"
"I did. You wanted to know how it felt to stay the same. By which you meant, I know you have changed. And of course you were right. We are all changed by even the smallest experience. We cannot stay the same no matter how hard we try. Did you get my message?"
"I got yours, too. You made me very proud."
Her father stood quietly, building a sturdy chair.
"Father!" she called. He looked only a year or two older, not an old man at all.
"Lillah! Oh, Lillah!" He carefully put down his tools – he would never drop them – and held out his arms.
To be held by her father was the most comforting, safest feeling she had ever had.
As they ate, Lillah said, "I know what happened to my mother."
She waited. Her father looked at the high branches of the Tree, as if seeking comfort. "What can you tell me?"
"She didn't stop at Rhado. They were unpleasant there. Unwelcoming. She walked on." She touched her ear. "Walked on. Until she reached Alga. Do you remember walking through there as a child?"
He shook his head.
"They are good people." She touched her ear again. "Here, she was happy. For a short while. And in her happiness, she died. Of that I am certain."
Myrist nodded again, staring unblinking at the Tree. "I am glad to hear that she was happy. That someone could make her happy."
"She was happy with us, Father. But she needed more. Some of us do. We need more than the small life we are given."
Morace joined them, standing happily, quietly, nearby.
"And your brother Legum. He is legendary. He is known as the man who travelled away on a raft and was never seen again. Some say he is living on Spirit Island. Some say he found some new place and has started a family there. One community said he came back."
"To them?"
Lillah looked away. "They say he came back, his bones picked clean by the birds."
"How like him," Myrist said, though he did not say how.
After the meal, Lillah wandered around the home she never thought she would see again. She saw the wooden doll she had carved while walking with the school. Up high, pride of place. Looking at it, she felt as if a stranger had carved it.
Myrist said, "You and Morace should go to see Pittos. He is lonely."
"He only sees me to pass on instruction. He doesn't talk to me like he used to," Morace said.
"What about when you came home? Wasn't he happy to see you?" Lillah asked.
"He was, at first. But somehow he has become more and more angry."
They went together to Pittos.
"Lillah. I heard you were back. Than
k you for keeping Morace safe."
"It took some doing. I am pleased to have done it, though. Are you happy to have him?" When he didn't respond, Lillah put her hand on the man's shoulder. "Do you miss Rhizo? Are you lost without her?"
"She was not a good woman. Yet she was mine."
"You are whole without her. And Morace misses you."
Walking the Tree Page 35
