Tree Girl Read online

  A sudden wind blew open the shutter. When Anna rushed over to close it, one of Burl’s branches reached inside and tickled her forearm. But she just pushed it away and latched the shutter. This wasn’t the time for pranks. She had something more to say to the master—something she just had to ask.

  She looked into Eagle’s nest. The little bird was sleeping, though one foot slapped at the air. She set a crust of seaweed cake beside him. Then, returning to the hearth, she flipped the fish and added some sea cabbage and bladder weed. Soon the meal was ready, and she brought it to the table.

  For some time, they ate in silence. When Anna poured the master some duneberry ale from his flagon, he barely grunted in thanks. Finally she drew a deep breath and leaned forward.

  “Could I ask something, sir? Just one thing? And if you answer, I’ll never ask again.”

  The old man just scowled at her.

  She cleared her throat. “What was it like up there…at the willow?”

  His fist clenched.

  “Just tell me a little,” she pleaded. “Was there any sign, any at all, of my mo—”

  “No!” He pounded the table so hard, it rattled. “All I saw was ghouls out to devour me! Be ye lame in the head, Rowanna? That blasted tree—that whole forest—holds nothin’ but death. Do ye hear?” His eyes blazed. “Nothin’ but death.”

  Meekly, she nodded. And from beyond the cottage walls came the mournful call of an owl, echoing in the night air.

  Chapter 3

  EAGLE GREW STRONGER BY THE DAY. Stronger—but no bigger. He looked more like a shrunken milkweed pod with feathers than any kind of bird.

  He did grow more adventurous, though. By the time spring’s first blossoms appeared and new green needles sprouted on Old Burl, the sparrow had started to strut along the shelf, the table, or Anna’s outstretched arm. He began to whistle. And to follow Anna wherever she went, inside or out.

  But not to fly. His twisted wing hung at his side, a clump of feathers that dragged beside him. Even so, he never missed a chance to attack whatever object, dead or alive, caught his fierce little eye.

  “Bring that back now, Eagle,” demanded Anna. She was kneeling over the garden that she had, at long last, coaxed from the sandy soil—after three years of collecting seedlings, bulbs, and tubers from the forest edge. “That’s my only garlic clove! Rotting ravens, Eagle! I need it for planting.”

  The bird paid no heed. Holding the garlic in his beak, he shook it and dragged it away, just as he would a poisonous snake. He writhed on the sand, kicking ferociously, beating at his foe with his good wing. Sometimes he’d give a savage whistle, barely loud enough to be heard over the tumbling waves of the sea.

  Anna couldn’t help but smile. “It’s that warrior in you, aye. Well, all right, then. Might I have it after you’ve killed it?”

  Eagle paused in his scuffle. Without releasing his prey, he turned a yellow eye on the girl. His head bobbed, almost a nod.

  “Good,” she replied. “I’ll tend to these onion bulbs, then.”

  Her hand reached into the basket she’d woven from supple stalks of kelp. She plucked out a tiny green bulb and packed it into the soil. Then, without looking up, she reached for another one.

  This time she felt nothing but air. The basket was gone!

  She sat erect. Where could it have gone? It had just disappeared, sure as sea foam. Suddenly she spied it—resting on a rock at the edge of the forest.

  “Now, that’s odd.” She glanced over at the fir tree she knew so well. But no, even the long branches of Old Master Burl couldn’t reach that far. Strange! And she’d felt only the mildest wind.

  Puzzled, she stood up and walked over to the basket. Just for good measure, she gave Old Burl a stern glance. But the tree merely shrugged, dropping a cone on the beach.

  The basket sat alone on the rock, shaded by a young oak tree just starting to leaf out. And none of her supplies had been disturbed: She found all her seeds of carrots, red cabbage, radishes, and cauliflower, plus her root cuttings of sea kale and the rest of her onion bulbs. She cocked her head, wondering—then heard something new. It was a faint rippling sound, almost a laugh. And it came from somewhere in the thick tangle of trees beyond the oak.

  She looked into the forest, but saw nothing strange. “Hmmm. Probably just a squirrel playing tricks.”

  Shaking her head, she fetched the basket and went back to work in the garden. By midday, she’d planted everything, including the garlic that had been slaughtered by Eagle. She watched a lone crab scuttle past the garden’s edge, then stretched out on the sand, her hands behind her head. A salty breeze swept in from the sea. Eagle hopped over and sat in the shade of her leg.

  She watched the streaming clouds overhead and tried to find shapes—a scallop shell here, a frond of kelp there. But the shapes kept stretching themselves into trees. Tall and slender, wispy and full, the trees filled the sky. Just as they filled her thoughts.

  One tree in particular. Growing one place in particular. But that was a place she shouldn’t go, not even in her mind.

  She sat up. Eagle had fallen fast asleep beside her on the sand, his ragged wing serving as his blanket. Right now he didn’t look like a warrior. Not at all. If he really could fly, where would he go? And where would she go herself, if only she had wings?

  Her throat swelled. She got up and stepped over to Old Master Burl. The fir’s gnarled trunk almost seemed to bend her way in greeting. She breathed in that familiar smell, both tart and sweet.

  “I know where I’d go,” she said softly. “The High Willow.”

  The old fir shuddered with a fresh gust of wind.

  “All right, I know it’s far away. And dangerous, too. But something calls me there, Burl.”

  She dug her big toe into the fallen needles among the roots. “I can’t explain it. Mayhaps it’s just to climb the highest tree around! Or to get away from here for a while. Or…to find some sign of my real parents. My real mother.”

  She started up. Climbing Burl was never hard, one hand over the next, but this time she felt mainly needles in her face, slowing her down. And sticky sap on her hands, feet, and knees. Before long, though, she reached the top. And peered, her eyes wide—beyond the dark lair of the ghouls, beyond the clacks and groans of countless branches, at the distant ridge.

  Rotting ravens. No willow! It was completely hidden by mist.

  Anna stared, hoping to pierce the vapors with her very sight. Whatever the master would say! Even if she couldn’t see the High Willow up close, she had to see it now, from afar. Just had to.

  Yet the more she looked, the more mist gathered. Her eyes watered from so much staring. By the sea and stars, that tree just wouldn’t show itself! Finally, she climbed back down. Old Burl’s branches seemed to stroke her shoulders. But she hardly felt their touch.

  On the ground again, she glanced up at the whispering boughs. “I know, I should think of a song. Aye, something full of cheer—to sing for Eagle when he wakens.”

  She frowned. For there was no music in her head. Just the endless slapping of the sea. She turned toward her little garden—then stopped, rooted like a tree herself. Her basket was gone again!

  She whirled around, scanning the shoreline, the cottage, and the dark edge of the woods. No basket anywhere.

  Suddenly she spotted it. Right where she had rested on the beach just moments before! She squinted, for there was something even more strange. The basket was standing upside down, balanced on its handle, next to the sleeping bird. And it was shading him from the sun, like a hat held above him.

  Or, she realized, like something else: a tiny tree, sprouting from the sand.

  Chapter 4

  WEEKS PASSED. Anna’s first radishes poked out of the ground. And wrinkly leaves, softer than thistledown, sprouted from the branches by the forest edge. Aye, and how she loved to rub them on her cheek as she danced down the beach, kicking up sand!

  But none of this meant as much to Anna as her growing desi
re to see the High Willow. To touch it with her eyes, since she couldn’t with her hands.

  At least once a day, sure as the turning of the tide, she climbed Old Burl. Of course, she always waited until the master had finished his morning grumbles, eaten a slab of smoked fish, and lugged all his nets and gear to the boat—looking like a hermit crab with too big a house on his back. Then, after his rowboat had slipped into the lagoon and dropped over the horizon, she did what he’d forbidden: She climbed those branches. And looked to the far ridge.

  To the tree where she’d been found.

  Sometimes she saw what looked like an uplifted branch, poking through the mist. Or a faint hint of green. Or a shadowy shape behind the clouds.

  But she never saw the whole tree. Not once.

  Flying fish eggs, that was annoying! And something else bothered her, too. Something strange. Odd things kept happening, just as odd as her upside-down basket, or that rippling laughter from the woods. And just as hard to explain.

  First came her sandals. She’d set them out to dry in the sun after a walk in the shallows to collect a few sea urchins. Then, a moment later, the sandals were gone! They had simply vanished from the beach.

  Losing her sandals, by itself, didn’t bother her much. She usually walked barefoot anyway. It was the strangeness. The mystery of it all. And the mystery clung to her like pine sap to a beetle’s back.

  Then came the day when she spotted some rowan leaves—a whole bunch of them—growing out of a spruce tree at the forest edge! Now that was strange. So strange, she couldn’t resist stepping over the bramble bushes that bordered the woods, just to get a closer look.

  She blinked in surprise. The rowan branch had been spliced onto the spruce! Aye, by someone with clever hands. And a sense of humor, too.

  On another morn, the sea looked as calm as a wide blue eye, staring up at the clouds. Anna spun some turns on the sand, which left a swirl of prints behind. Then she noticed some other marks on the wet sand—marks she hadn’t made herself.

  On the spot where the master’s boat lay at night, she saw a rough circle. And lots of crooked lines. Could it be a face? She moved closer. Suddenly, she started to laugh. It was the face of the master himself! Aye, that it was!

  She shook her head, amazed. “By the sea and stars…who did this? Not the master, that’s certain.”

  She fell to her knees beside the drawing. And she traced the lines, made by something about the size of her own finger. Was it just chance? The trail of a crab, or some stones jostled at high tide? No—the likeness, right down to the scowl, was just too perfect.

  As she often did these days, she glanced suspiciously at Old Burl. The tree just stood there, though, and seemed to ignore her. She narrowed her eyes. If Burl hadn’t done it himself, he knew who had.

  But who could it be? And was it the same person who’d stolen her sandals?

  As if reading her thoughts, the fir tree stirred. Some branches creaked—or chuckled. Anna watched a moment longer, then turned back to the face in the sand.

  She lowered her voice and did her best imitation of the master’s gruff voice. “Thunder and blast, girl! Why be ye pourin’ that sand in me skillet? Be ye lame in the head, Rowanna?”

  The face seemed to scowl even more. Behind her, Old Burl chuckled again. As did Anna.

  Eagle jumped down from his perch on her shoulder. He landed with a splat on the sand. Then he strutted right over to the master’s chin and started to whistle angrily.

  “Watch yerself, ye gall-blasted bird!” It was hard to keep going without laughing out loud, but Anna managed somehow. “Or else I’ll feeds ye to the fish. Bet yer scrawny old tail feathers, I will!”

  At this, Eagle flew into a rage. He jumped onto the drawing’s nose and started pecking hard with his tiny beak.

  Anna smiled at the little warrior. She gathered him up, despite all the nips to her hand. “It’s all right now, my friend. You scared him so much, he won’t talk anymore.”

  Eagle paced across her palm. He didn’t seem at all convinced.

  “Here you go. A reward for your bravery.” She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out an oak leaf wrapped around a sticky slab of honeycomb. She peeled back the leaf, broke off an edge, and offered it to him. But the valiant bird wouldn’t turn away from his enemy—who could, after all, just be playing dead.

  Anna took a bite of honeycomb herself. She chewed thoughtfully. “All right, then. What if I rub him out? Then you’ll know he’s really gone.”

  Eagle chirped several times.

  She put the bird back on her shoulder and gave him his bit of honeycomb. Then she reached over to the drawing. But just as she was about to touch it—

  A sharp wind gusted. All along the forest edge, trees twisted and groaned, waving their branches. Old Master Burl’s lower branches slapped the sand. Suddenly Anna’s sunbonnet, woven from willow shoots the spring before, flew off her head.

  She leaped to catch it, but too late. The bonnet spun in the air, then sailed over the brambles and into the forest. It landed on the very tip of the spruce tree’s grafted branch.

  “Thundering thumbnails!” She bounded after it, jumping over a bramble bush. At the instant she reached the bonnet, though, a new gust snatched it and carried it to an elm tree a little farther into the forest. There it rested, on a lower branch, quivering in the wind.

  She swallowed. Then she glanced back over her shoulder at the cottage—and the safety of the shore. Eagle, clutching her shoulder, flapped his good wing anxiously. He tried to whistle, but his beak was fused together from his bite of honey, so he could only make a stifled squawk.

  “Hush now,” she told the bird. “I don’t want to go in there, either. But really, we’re still so close to the beach.”

  Anna turned back to the forest. She peered at the bonnet, sitting on the elm, dappled with sunlight. It was only fifteen or twenty steps away.

  Again she glanced at the shore. Then back to the bonnet.

  “Took me two months’ work to weave that hat,” she grumbled. Her fist clenched, squeezing the remains of the honeycomb. “And no silly old wind is going to take it from me now.”

  She sucked in her breath and stepped into the forest.

  Chapter 5

  SUDDENLY—A WHOLE NEW WORLD. Now Anna’s feet didn’t sink into sand: They bounced in a bed of fallen leaves. The briny smell of the sea faded into a zesty mix of resins, blossoms, and rich, wet soil. And the sounds of sloshing waves and screeching gulls died away, shushed by the whispers of branches.

  But Anna barely noticed. Her bonnet was now just an arm’s length away!

  She reached for it—just as a new gust of wind shook the elm. Rotting ravens! The bonnet flew right over her outstretched hands, struck a leaning hawthorn trunk, and bounced into the air again. Almost as if the trees were playing catch! Then her hat arched over the backs of a doe and her spotted fawn, who watched with unblinking brown eyes. Finally, it landed on a huge beech tree that stood even deeper in the forest.

  Before Anna could move, one of the beech tree’s lower branches lifted up and spanked the doe—right on the flank. But the deer didn’t bolt. She just tossed her head, nuzzling the branch as she would an old friend. Anna watched, amazed. Then both doe and fawn trotted off lazily into the forest.

  Strange, indeed. But she was in no mood to wonder. She wanted her hat! She dashed through a patch of sweet-smelling ferns, straight to the beech tree.

  Up she peered, into the branches. They shone silver in the morning light, with bark as smooth as wave-washed stones. And they held her bonnet! The sparrow on her shoulder squawked bravely. She dropped her honeycomb on the ground, reached for a branch, and pulled herself up.

  Higher she climbed, just as she’d done so often with Old Burl. In a few minutes, she drew close to her prize. She leaned out from the trunk, bracing herself with one hand, stretching for her bonnet with the other. She reached farther…and farther…

  Got it! Eagle gave a triumphant chirp
.

  She put on the hat, pulled it down tight on her head, and climbed back down. She jumped from the bottom branch, landing in some moss between the burly roots. With satisfaction, she tapped the bonnet’s brim.

  Anna turned to go back to the beach. But something made her pause. She gazed all around. What a place this was!

  She stood at the very edge of a glade—a hidden meadow of ferns, tall grasses, and spring bluebells. Light shafted through the boughs of the encircling trees. Bees darted from blossom to blossom, while a small butterfly floated like a yellow cloud above the grass.

  She stroked her chin. Sea and stars, this world felt so different from her own shoreline world. And also different from what she’d expected. Could bloodthirsty ghouls really live here?

  She looked at the great beech itself. The trunk was so wide! Why, it would take five or six people with outstretched arms to reach all the way around. The silvery bark seemed as shiny as the inside of a mussel shell. And then, at the base of the trunk, she spied something else. A black spot—an opening.

  She crept closer. Here was a cavern! Big enough for one person, maybe two. She nudged Eagle with the side of her head. “See there? A secret tunnel!”

  The bird peered into the darkness of the cavern, shaking his head from side to side.

  “Come. Let’s have a look.”

  Eagle whistled in protest.

  “Come on, now. Mayhaps there’s a secret room in there! With treasure and jewels and things.” She stroked his crooked wing. “No one’s going to hurt us. And besides, I’ve got you to protect me.”

  The sparrow’s tiny chest puffed out a little.

  And so she ducked into the cavern. It was quiet, very quiet. She heard the echoes of her own breathing, her own heartbeat, inside the wooden walls. In time, she could see thick, black ridges running up the inner trunk. Like vertical roots, or the veins in someone’s arm.

  She sighed and leaned against the cavern wall. The wood felt warm against her back. And it almost seemed to form itself to her shape, as if she was the water and it was the cup. She liked being held that way. Cozy, it was. Almost as cozy as a mother’s arms.