Tree singer, p.5
Tree Singer, page 5
Tray walked behind the men. She knew from his skipping stride he was practically leaping with happiness.
She and Cather brought up the rear, Anatolian by their side.
Song followed them down the road, fading as the distance grew. “Know that you are not forgotten. We await your safe return.”
Mayten swallowed hard, trying not to let the panic rising in her throat embarrass her in front of the whole clan. Cather squeezed her hand and Anatolian walked so close he brushed against her leg.
“’Till the time we’re reunited, carried here upon our song. We trust you to the good Creator . . .” The voices took on an ethereal quality as the group approached the trees and stepped into the chill of the forest. She finished the song in her mind as the sound faded. “. . . who’ll keep you safe from every wrong.”
The path narrowed and they settled into single file with Adven in the lead, followed by Hunter, Tray, Cather, and Mayten, Anatolian at her side. The song echoed in her mind. Would the Creator keep them safe from every wrong?
A shiver ran down her spine. She hoped so, but at this very moment, it was difficult to trust in something she couldn’t see. She let her hand rest on Anatolian’s head, taking comfort in his warm presence.
Chapter Eight
That first day was rather boring. All they did was walk, walk, walk. The forest grew darker, trees pressing close about them. She wasn’t familiar with these trees, though she’d read about a few of the different types. The gnarly bark and twisted limbs drew her eye as did the delicate ferns and mosses of different varieties that seemed to grow on everything. The air was filled with rich, loamy smells.
Occasionally, she glimpsed white butterflies flitting through the shadows or slugs yellow as spring daffodils and larger than Da’s fingers creeping on a log or across the trail.
Mayten quizzed herself on the names of the plants she knew as well as the abundance of forest life. Anatolian was in dog heaven, ranging off trail to chase a squirrel and rejoining Mayten further along, tail thumping happily.
They nibbled on food as they walked, not stopping for a midday meal. They likely would not have stopped at all if Cather hadn’t whispered to Tray that she needed to relieve herself. It took some doing, but Tray finally convinced Adven to grant them a brief rest.
Mayten sat on a fallen tree, resting her tired feet. The boots were soft but she wasn’t used to wearing them. Birds, squirrels, and insects made a constant hum. The familiar scent of damp earth and rotting vegetation filled her with a deep reassurance, granting her a moment of calm.
She closed her eyes, focusing on the trees.
“Hello Uncle.” She reached out to a nearby pine.
Adven grunted and headed off, putting an end to her attempted communication.
“I’m sorry, Uncle. I have to go.”
Cather and Mayten jogged to catch up with the others. She glared at the back of Adven’s head. Would it hurt to let them rest for a time?
But Adven didn’t appear to know what the word meant.
When it became apparent they wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon, Mayten decided to mentally review the last three years of her training. The king was depending on her, after all. Depending on all of them.
She’d started training when she was twelve years old. That year had been largely spent among the trees. Her body had grown tall and lanky, making her feel clumsy and awkward on the ground. She loved spending time with her trees, feeling at one among the branches and leaves as she had for as long as she remembered.
That first year she’d followed her mother on her duties, spending equal time in the fields with her da and later with Oleaster. She’d had to learn to sit still for the first time, either near a tree or in one. She had to “let go” of her childish fidgeting and learn the feel, the smell, and even the taste of each tree.
At night Mother would quiz her on the names, medicinal properties, and particularities of each tree as they sat by the fire in the winter or on the porch during warm summer evenings.
She’d grown even taller, passing Taiwania in height during her thirteenth year. Mother encouraged her to go out alone and spend time talking to the trees. Mayten poured out her joys and sorrows to her tree friends, reveling in this new experience. She shared her concerns about her changing body with its bumps and bleeding and the ups and downs of her friendships with Tray and Cather. She railed about the fights she’d gotten into with Taiwania.
The old Auntie tree near their homestead had rivaled Cather as her closest confidante that year, receiving a majority of her time.
Mayten sighed at the memory, then shifted the straps on her shoulders, adjusting the handmade pads, and tried not to think about her aching feet. Instead, she focused on the trees, reaching out and reveling in the feel of new growth.
There was a sweet smell in the air, a smell that had to come from the sugar pines she’d only heard about before. She studied the trees towering high overhead, squinting at the higher branches. Here and there were a few huge cones, long and graceful, cones the trees were famous for. She could barely make out the clusters of new cones hanging at the ends of the branches.
By the end of summer, those babies would be as large as the others, ready to be harvested by frantic squirrels preparing for winter’s coming.
The day wore on and Mayten’s leg muscles began to ache as much as her feet. Her shoulders burned from the weight of the backpack. She glanced at Cather walking slightly ahead of her. Her friend wasn’t used to so much physical exertion but somehow kept moving without complaint.
They began to climb in elevation, her pack seeming heavier with each step. Mayten tried to focus again on the trees. She loved spring when the trees came out of their winter quiet and started to sing about light, and birth, and joy. Familiar comfort washed over her at the feel of moving sap . . .
Mayten gasped as a sense of wrongness swept over her. The same sensation that had tickled at the back of her throat when she’d last visited the auntie tree. She peered around, struggling to find what was causing the sensation.
What was wrong with the trees?
The sensation faded, leaving her frustrated. She wasn’t prepared for this, she grumbled to herself. How many times had she told Mother she wasn’t prepared?
After what felt like an eternity, the terrain changed again. They’d been climbing steadily up a narrow trail cut through pine trees so thick Mayten could barely see between the trunks. Finally, they crested a hill and descended into a canyon, the trees spaced apart as though the forest had decided it needed to breathe. Her spirits lifted as the rich, comforting, homey smell again surrounded her.
Although she could see only a bit of sky, she felt less pressed in. It was cooler here and her muscles relaxed as she descended.
Her heart skipped a beat as she found herself surrounded by beautiful old redwoods with their soft, furry bark. Redwoods were among her favorite trees. She lost herself looking up at the enormous monarchs with tops so high they seemed to vanish.
The group halted so quickly she almost tripped over Tray. They stood at the edge of a small clearing with a fire pit in the center. The sky had grown dark with dusk, the air chilly and still.
“We sleep here,” said Adven, the first time she’d heard him speak since they’d left the village. His voice had a gravelly quality, like some of the men who smoked too much of the imported tobacco leaves. “Gather wood.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cather whispered to Mayten, who swallowed a giggle. At least Cather’s sense of humor was back.
Mayten winced as she slid the backpack off her shoulders and lowered it to the ground. Cather let out a small groan as she followed suit. Together they moved into the woods, filling their arms with small branches and old bark that they found lying on the ground.
Birds and squirrels scrambled and scratched overhead as the forest creatures settled for the night. The sounds quieted as the girls hunted for wood, their footsteps hushed by a thick pad of old pine needles—duff, Mayten reminded herself. Anatolian snuffled in the bushes nearby. The peace of the old-growth trees calmed her nerves and exhaustion swept over her as she breathed deeply of air that smelled of mulch and living things.
“How are your feet?” Mayten asked, keeping her voice low.
“Sore. I thought they’d fall off that last hour.” Cather sighed.
“Mine too. I was worried about you. But . . . you’re doing this for Tray, right? Even though the bonehead has no idea—”
Cather turned to her, her eyes shining in the growing darkness. Was she about to cry?
“I’m so sorry, Mayten. I knew you’d be devastated if I left, but I just couldn’t leave Tray. I just . . . couldn’t.”
Mayten shifted her wood to one arm and touched Cather’s shoulder with her free hand. “I know. I knew you would go if they called him . . . if you could find a way.”
Cather looked at her feet for a long time, looking like she wanted to say more but didn’t know how.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Mayten finally asked.
Cather glanced up. “It’s . . . it’s just that, well, they had to send you. You’re the best tree singer, next to your mother. But there are lots of healers they could have sent.”
What on earth did Cather mean?
“What are you saying?”
“When I heard about the trip,” she spoke quickly as if to get the words out before she changed her mind, “I asked to go—begged really.”
Realization tickled along Mayten’s spine. “What do you mean ‘when you heard about the trip?’ We all heard about it at the same time, at the Leveling Ceremony.”
Cather’s gaze dropped again. It wasn’t in her friend to lie. Mayten pictured the night before the ceremony when she’d gone to visit and how Cather had dropped her gaze while they’d visited.
“Just when did you hear about the trip, Cather?” Mayten’s voice was tight with anger. Her best friend had known this was going to happen and she hadn’t said a word.
Cather glanced up, peering from under her bangs. Her words came out in a flood. “My mother told me about a week before the Leveling. She’d tended a clan elder who mentioned it. Mother knew that Tray would be called to go and she knew I’d want the option to go with him, which I did. So—I spoke with the clan leader and asked Solis to send me with him.”
Mayten felt . . . she wasn’t certain just what she felt.
Cather rushed on. “It was the scariest moment of my life, facing that woman alone . . . and then she wouldn’t give me an answer. She said I had to wait until the ceremony. I’m so sorry, Mayten . . . I didn’t know for sure . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Mayten felt like something heavy had dropped on her and she couldn’t get air into her lungs. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, but Solis made me promise not to discuss it with anyone. She was furious that I knew about the trip at all and said that if I told anyone, there was no way I’d be going anywhere!”
Mayten tried to clear her mind, to think. If Cather had approached Solis, then was the clan leader’s speech—“these children grew up together and are a team”—a lie? Had Mayten been added at the last minute in an attempt to make this quest sound carefully planned?
Could she be home right now if Cather hadn’t begged to go?
Then what?
Would her mother be on this quest, leaving her home with the babies?
Mayten turned, anger, sadness, confusion and fatigue clouding her thoughts. “At least your mother was kind enough to let you decide if you wanted to go.”
She stomped off to the firepit, dropping her armload of wood with a loud crash!
“Watch it, Singer!” Adven jumped as the wood tumbled near his boot. He called her “Singer” as if the word tasted bad in his mouth.
Mayten backed away from the strange man who obviously didn’t want her there. Why didn’t he just send her home?
Ignoring Adven’s glare, she stalked to the opposite side of the clearing to gather more wood, someplace she could be alone with her thoughts.
Chapter Nine
The woodsman bagged a turkey large enough to feed them all and roasted it over the fire as they prepared their beds. Mayten ate with an appetite she hadn’t known she had, the juicy, hot meat savory on her tongue. She carefully wiped her hands and mouth with a spare cloth when she finished, leaning against a fallen log and listening to the forest around her.
Anatolian finished his meal and plopped down beside her, laying his head in her lap. She absently stroked his soft head, glad for the lack of conversation.
Cather sat about three feet away. She yanked off her boots and applied ointments and bandages to her swollen feet. It always seemed strange that healers couldn’t heal themselves using energy the same way they used it to heal others, instead having to resort to ordinary healing techniques.
Mayten almost got up to help her friend but the ring of Cather’s betrayal left a bitter taste in her mouth. She focused instead on picking burrs from Anatolian’s ears.
First her mother, then Cather—two people she had always trusted. Even her da had known. The deceit hit her like physical blows.
Tray sat close by, whittling away at a piece of wood with a small knife, humming tunelessly. His shaggy dark hair fell into his eyes and every few minutes he tossed his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes.
Adven shared long swigs from a waterskin with Hunter. The woodsman sat on his haunches, poking at the fire. She was certain what they drank bore no resemblance to water, though. She studied the pair while working loose the dog’s burrs. Hunter looked younger than Adven, more the age of Mayten’s twin sisters.
“Hunter,” said Adven, his voice raised more than necessary for them all to hear, “have you no stories to relieve the monotony of this babysitting I must do?”
Mayten glared at their so-called leader, who insolently met her gaze. Only one eye was visible beneath his hat. She drew in a breath to tell him she’d be glad to return home but Hunter jumped to his feet, waving his arms in the air. His green eyes sparkled.
“The only thing I love more than hearing a good story,” the woodsman said in an accent Mayten had never heard before, “is telling one of my own.”
Then he laughed so hard he doubled over. She felt herself smiling despite her dark mood.
Firelight danced across his face as he spoke. His rust-red hair looked like tongues of flame licking up around his knitted cap. His lilting voice took on a rhythm Mayten found mesmerizing.
“Exactly eight years ago I was in these very woods, further up the great mountain. The questers were resting while I scouted for game. I’m not bragging when I say I’m the best woodsman—and hunter—in our clan. I never come back empty-handed. But there’d been a drought that year and game was hard to come by.”
She’d only been seven at the time of the drought but the plants and trees had all felt the sting of thirst. Some of the clan blamed the drought for the sickness that took her siblings that winter.
“Finally, I heard something in the bush.” His voice grew quiet as he crouched low and mimicked drawing a bow.
“By then I was getting desperate and perhaps a tad incautious.” He drawled the word ‘tad’ and she got the sense he’d been more than a little careless.
“I tiptoed slowly toward the bush, bow ready. Then I caught the most horrible smell.” He wrinkled his nose. “A smell I knew too well and should have noticed sooner. My gut clenched and I turned to run, but a great bear rose from the bush, looming over me.”
The woodsman stood on his toes, arms in the air, fingers curved like claws. “He was three feet taller than I and twice as wide.”
A shiver ran down Mayten’s spine as he continued.
“The bear ROARED.”
Mayten’s heart jumped.
“Two rows of knife-sharp teeth dripped in that roaring mouth, teeth just waiting to rip me to shreds. His hot breath burned the skin of my face. Before I could run, I was knocked sideways by a blow so strong I could no longer breathe. The last thing I remember was flying through the air. I woke at the base of a tree.”
The woodsman leaned closer to the fire and dropped his voice to a low whisper. “They say that when you’re about to die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not what happened to me. As I was flying through the air, before I hit the tree, my last thought went something like this, ‘Well at least when he eats me, he’ll get a mouth full of shat when he gets t’ my pants!’”
Hunter slapped his thigh and doubled over, laughing hysterically. He fell onto the ground and gripped his sides. Mayten couldn’t help herself; she began to laugh as well, picturing the woodsman with dirty pants and the disgusted bear.
Why was it so hard to resist laughing when someone joked about themselves? Her da was famous for that.
Cather and Tray joined in, both laughing so hard tears streamed down their cheeks. Even Adven managed a lopsided grin.
When the woodsman caught his breath, Cather asked, “But how did you get away?”
Mayten winced. Her friend was naive to believe the ridiculous story. “No one would survive a bear like that, Cather. Besides, there aren’t great bears in these woods, only the smaller black ones that scare away with loud noises.”
“Oh, lassie,” the woodsman cooed, shaking his head. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
He rose to one knee and turned his left side to the fire, lifting his shirt. Light from the flames shifted, causing the four white lines running up his side to dance like waves on sand.
Mayten’s heart stopped. She’d seen scars like that on trees, but never with the spaces between the claws so far apart. That must have been a huge bear!
Anatolian raised his head, looking at her with concern.
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “It’s just a story.”
Still, she couldn’t resist peering at the dark trees surrounding their camp. Had something moved just beyond Adven’s head?
