Walking the Tree (3 page)
"Okay, Teacher," someone said, and they all laughed. Good to laugh when the danger is over.
Once the room had been emptied, it seemed cooler. All they could hear now was the retching breath of Magnolia. Each breath drawn in as if a battle was being fought, each breath released reluctantly, because it meant the battle would begin again.
Pittos bathed the baby. "You will do this next time, Logan," he said. "You need to be gentle but firm." He finished the bath and dried the baby carefully, then wrapped him in a light blanket, tucking his hands with their long fingernails inside.
"Help Magnolia to sit up," he said to Logan.
"What?" he said. He looked at her. "She's tired. She needs to lie down."
Pittos shook his head sharply. "It's the baby we need to think of at this moment. Nothing else is important. He needs to feed from her. This first feed is more important than all others to follow. There will never be a more important meal. He needs to feed now. If she dies before he drinks, he will miss out on much of what he will need to make him a strong man. Listen to me."
Logan started crying. "She just needs a rest. She needs to sleep."
Logan's father went to him and squeezed his shoulders.
"Your son needs to drink. Be a hard man, now, and help us."
Pittos rocked back and forwards toe-heel, murmuring in the baby's ear. The infant soothed, but his tiny lips smacked together and his eyes rolled.
Lillah, Logan and Myrist gently helped Magnolia into a seated position. They propped her up with the cushions and pillows stuffed with sand.
Magnolia said, "Dad?" Myrist squeezed her hand. "This is when you want your own family. But we are here. We will care for you."
Pittos knelt onto the bed and one-handedly arranged Magnolia until her breasts were exposed. He put two pillows on Magnolia's lap then lay the baby down. The baby began to whimper as he sniffed milk close by.
"Lift the baby up. Put both arms under the pillows and raise him," the Birthman said. He pulled back Magnolia's shoulders then grasped one aureole between two fingers.
"Okay. Let's hope he's a natural," he said. "Lift him so his face is close to the breast."
Logan, his face still, determined, raised his son. The baby snuffled at the nipple then opened his mouth wide.
"Put him on! That's it. Hang on." Pittos made a gentle flick at the baby's lips then settled back.
"That's okay," he said.
Magnolia winced, flinched, as the baby began to suckle.
Logan bent forward. "He's hurting her. This can't be right."
"It's all right, Logan," Magnolia said. Her eyes flicked open as the baby began to suck. Her other breast dripped a thin yellowish fluid.
"Lovely stuff. Perfect. That's so good for baby," Pittos said.
The very act of breastfeeding sent a signal to Magnolia's body, and she groaned suddenly as another contraction took her.
"Twin?" Logan said, confused. "Is she having another one?"
Pittos shook his head. "It's the placenta. This is perfect, exactly how it should be." Pittos held his hand up for silence and he helped Magnolia deliver the placenta, which he handed carefully to Myrist. "She's lost a lot of blood. We'll feed her half of this, save the rest for the Treeroots." The baby fed.
Magnolia was pale.
"This can't be helping her," Lillah said. The baby pulled his head off the breast and wailed.
"Quiet!" Pittos snapped. "You are disturbing him."
"Sorry," Lillah said.
The Birthman shook his head. "He's still hungry. Other side." They shifted him to feed on the other side. Lillah could see the depleted breast like an empty sac against Magnolia's chest.
The baby sucked until his eyelids closed and he fell asleep with his mouth still full of nipple. Magnolia sat up in bed, holding her baby, her eyes darting from side to side as if catching odd movement, which frightened her.
"We're lucky. It's rarely that easy," Pittos said.
Myrist nodded. "Neither of you took to it so easily. Both too headstrong. Your mother struggled and struggled to feed you. She was headstrong too."
"Are you saying my nephew is weak-willed?" Lillah asked.
Logan nodded. "It's started already.
In my day,
things were like this
," he said. His voice was not quite up to the joke.
In my day,
things were like this
," he said. His voice was not quite up to the joke.
Pittos leaned over and popped the baby off the breast with a flick of his little finger.
"Hopefully he'll sleep now so we can deal with his mother. I've sent Tax out for spiderwebs but I thought he'd be back by now."
Logan laughed. "Tax. He's probably picking flowers for her as well. He's certain she really wanted to choose him for a husband."
"We need webs."
"I'll go," Lillah said. She ran away into the undergrowth around the Tree. She knew where the biggest spiders lived. They liked the darkest places, where Limbs grew low and roots grew high. The children didn't like these spots. Too dark and cold. They told each other the ghosts came out of the Tree here and stood watching the living. Lillah had seen this once, as a young girl. It still gave her the shivers to think about it. She had been playing with a pile of wood scraps, building a house for spiders, when she felt a soft breeze over her shoulder.
Standing there, breathing heavily, was a pale, tall man. He was naked, hairless. Lillah screamed, backed away, knocking over her spider house. "GHOST!" she screamed. He scurried back into the cave before anyone could reach her.
Lillah was always careful when collecting spiders, or wood from that place. She still told the children to beware, that ghosts could watch at any time and who knew what it was they wanted?
She rolled skeins of web around her fists. "Sorry, Madame," she said. The spider was as large as her kneecap. High in the next web a spider the size of her head, legs as fat as her fingers, watched her.
"Sorry, Madame Spider," Lillah said. "You can spin some more." While she kept her tone light, Lillah knew she would scream if the spider landed on her. She didn't mind picking them up; she was in control that way. She loved the strength and intelligence of spiders and could watch, fascinated, for hours as they span their webs.
Her favourite spider legend was an old one. It was etched into the Tree so long ago those markings were long since disappeared up the Trunk of the Tree, but which was told so often, most people knew it by heart.
There was once a teacher who, tired of the noise of children, the chatter of the other teachers, went walking amongst the roots of the Tree. She was blessed as she walked because a massive Trunk fell and anchored her to the ground.
She called out for help until her throat was too dry to speak. She wanted to cry but knew she shouldn't waste the water.
Realising no one had missed her, or not trusting them to find her, she knew she had to throw the Tree Limb off herself. She managed to break a branch off, fit it under the large Limb and lever the Limb off her leg. Ignoring the excruciating pain, she twisted her leg free.
Once she dropped her lever, she collapsed. Blood poured from the huge gash in her thigh and she felt weak and very, very tired. She closed her eyes for second, then felt, above the pain, a tickle on her leg. Opening her eyes she saw an enormous spider.
She didn't scream. Something about the purposefulness of the spider calmed her.
The spider walked back and forth across the wound many hundreds of times, sometimes being
washed off by the flow of blood. But the flow lessened as the web thickened and eventually stopped.
Lillah, her arms full of webs, ran back to the house.
Magnolia was even paler, and there was a smell of vomit in the air.
"Here," Lillah said. Pittos threw back the covers and Lillah saw for the first time just how damaged Magnolia appeared to be.
Pittos unwound the webs from Lillah's wrists and thrust them up between Magnolia's legs.
"There were twenty-two people in here," Magnolia said. "How did they all fit?" Then she closed her eyes, still holding her baby.
"The baby will be fine," Logan said. "I won't take my eyes off him." Magnolia let go of her child but stared unblinking at him.
"More webs," the Birthman said.
Lillah did three more trips, each further afield. She knew where the spiders were because she studied them, loved them.
Myrist took the placenta and carefully sliced it with his stone knife. Lillah and Logan took part of it and buried it in the roots of the Tree, while Myrist cooked the rest in tiny dice with onions.
"Don't cook all the goodness out," Pittos called.
"I think I would know that, since my own wife came to this Order with the tradition," Myrist said quietly, winking at Lillah.
He took the plate to Magnolia, resting it on her knees and feeding her piece by piece.
Logan stroked Magnolia's brow, kneeling on the bed beside her. He did not put any weight on her legs. Lillah watched him and thought him brave for not complaining. She could see blood soaking his pants where he knelt.
Lillah wanted to sit down and close her eyes. She knew her tiredness was nothing like that of Magnolia's, or Logan's, or Myrist's, or Pittos', but it was tiredness enough. She could not rest, though. She needed to return to the fathers, report back, give them the information they were waiting for. She didn't see how she could interview; in her exhaustion she would forget about her teacher face and be too honest. She dreaded the question: "Why do you want this job?" She was supposed to say, everyone said, "For the joy of watching the children blossom with knowledge, and for a chance to understand the Orders of the Tree through the eyes of an adult". Her real answer, the honest one, was that all she thought about was sex; men; that she
could not wait
to lie with a man and feel him inside her.
could not wait
to lie with a man and feel him inside her.
That was not what they wanted to hear.
She picked up her bonsai and walked towards the beach. Only moments passed before word got out she was on the move.
"Is she all right? Baby? Boy or girl? Has he fed? Birthman gone? Are they sleeping?" Nobody liked a sick person. The sickness called Spikes made the ghosts in the Tree hungry. Any sick person knew how much your bones ached, how much weaker you became. The ghosts ate the bones of the sick, kept eating until the body was all flesh. The Spikes epidemic was not something people were proud of. Although Spikes had occurred hundreds of years earlier, people still knew that it passed from person to person, transported by the sick. They knew they did not want the population halved again. They did not want people to die. So they took precautions.
Lillah didn't know exactly what those precautions were; she only knew she did not want to sicken herself.
Magnolia didn't believe in this but that didn't mean it wasn't true.
Lillah stopped and spoke to every one who had a question for her. When she reached the beach, the circle of young women was gone. She peered to the end of the seawalk but in the dim light she couldn't tell if the fathers were there or not. There was a strange kind of light, evening with a storm coming. The heat had gone but the cold not yet risen. She felt as if she was caught between two worlds and that if she misstepped, she would stay in the wrong one.
There was a crack of lightning and Lillah stood on the sand, undecided, lost. She felt she needed to do the exact right thing, impress people with her choices, but couldn't think what they wanted to see.
"Lillah?" she heard. It was Melia. "Here you are at last. I got tired of waiting for Magnolia to give out that baby. The fathers are at the Tree Hall. They were wary of the storm."
The girls walked together. "Is Magnolia okay? And you?" Melia asked as they walked.
Lillah nodded. "I feel like I've been dreaming for days," she said. "You have to go see the baby. He's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Is the testing all over? Have I missed my chance?"
Melia shook her head. "Come on."
The smells of cooking as they walked made Lillah hungry. "My mother used to say we should cook food slowly and there's no rush if you start early enough. Her food always smelled so good."
Her stomach rumbled and she wished she'd grabbed fruit or bread from Logan's kitchen. She could picture the food on the table; Magnolia always had food ready. She was a wonderful hostess.
They reached the Tree Hall. The Tree Hall was low. The tallest in the Order had to stoop to enter, but could stand inside. There were doors at either end, but you entered through one, left by the other. Most of the Order could fit inside if they stood close together. Others would lean in through the windows. Lillah always tried to arrive late when the Order gathered here, to have a spot outside leaning in. It was so close inside, pressed together, thick, airless. The walls were curved, so all voices could be heard easily. It was very warm inside and people wore little clothing.
The other girls huddled outside the Tree Hall, and greeted Lillah with squeals and questions. Erica nodded and squeezed her hand.
Thea sat hunched over her bonsai, plucking at its leaves, grooming it until only bare twigs remained. She said in a low voice, "This is my last chance! I'll be twenty-five next birthday, and if I don't go now I'll never go."
"So go! What's the problem?"
"I just can't imagine how to like a man like that. It's terrifying."
What makes one person so shy and frightened, yet others so foolhardy? Lillah thought. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to," she said. "It is not set in wood that you have to be a teacher."
"I'm scared of leaving this home. What if others don't like me?"
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