Tree Speaker

Sally Startup

Tree Speaker

Bees’ Nest Books

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

Smashwords edition published 2011 by Bees’ Nest Books

Copyright 2008 Sally Startup

The right of Sally Startup to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Smashwords edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share the book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TREE SPEAKER

ONE

There should not have been a deadly spike fish in the river in winter. Willow stood watching her best friend, Hest, who paddled barefoot in the water. Hest was searching for a firestone he thought he had seen from the bank. Willow’s other best friend, Emmie, had begged him to fetch it. Emmie did not have a firestone of her own and she badly wanted one.

I wouldn’t want to be an animal talker, Hest said, just before he trod on the spike fish.

Willow saw his whole body stiffen, suddenly. As he staggered to the bank, she also saw the tell-tale flash of the iridescent blue spike as the fish swam away.

Emmie saw it, too, and screamed.

Willow shouted to her, Get help! Run to the village and get Yenna, or Old Jesty, or anyone!

Emmie stared at Hest for the length of several breaths. Then she turned and sprinted away over the boggy grass, her blue skirts flapping. Her pale blonde hair whipped out behind her.

Hest calmly settled himself at the base of a knarled hawthorn tree, with his back against the trunk. Willow tried to imagine what a tree speaker would do next.

Willow’s mother, Rinnet, and her grandmother, Yenna, were both tree speakers with long experience of healing injuries of all kinds. Everyone assumed that Willow would tree speak, too, but she had not yet learned how. She thought of Yenna’s dry, stern voice, and Rinnet’s sharp one, and wondered what they would suggest.

Oh bum! said Hest. He leaned forward to try and look at his foot, but then drew back sharply in pain.

Don’t move, Willow advised him, and don’t swear – it uses too much strength. Let me do the swearing.

He smiled, tensely. Go on, then, he said through gritted teeth.

Willow tried her best. Bulls’ testicles to you! Oh, what did you have to say that for, about not wanting to be an animal talker? An animal talker would have known there was a spike fish in the water. What are we going to do?

Hest whispered, hopefully, Handleaf?

It’s winter! she reminded him, there isn’t any.

Handleaf was the only known antidote to spike fish venom. If it was applied to the wound straight away, it could stop the venom spreading. Otherwise, the sufferer was in for a long and painful illness, which was occasionally fatal.

Willow knelt beside Hest. His dark eyes had lost their characteristic sparkle. She thought, If only I was a tree speaker already. If I could talk to plants, I could call to the handleaf and find some. There could be a leaf that hasn’t died down yet.

Something made her want to turn around. She felt suddenly drawn to a grass tussock further along the bank. Getting up quietly, she walked closer to the little clump of rough grass and saw the grey shapes of dead handleaves. With a burst of hope, Willow leapt forward to bury her fingers amongst them.

Even as she saw that there was no trace at all of any green leaves, she felt something pulsing up from the ground to her hands. The roots of the handleaf plant were offering themselves to her.

There was no time to wonder at the fact that she was having her first experience of tree speaking. Willow pulled her knife from its sheath in her leather belt and dug frantically into the soil, cutting off a piece of handleaf root.

The root smelled rich and bitter. She rinsed it in the river and cut it into thin slices, lengthways. Then she laid the slices on Hest’s swollen foot.

As she worked, Willow continued to sense the plant talking to her. At its insistence, she put a small piece of the root in her mouth and chewed it to a pulp. Lifting the slices on Hest’s foot, she then squeezed and pressed the pulp into the wound. Hest swore again at this, because it hurt him, but he had already begun to look less frightened.

Finally, Willow settled next to him on the damp grass.

Why couldn’t you have tried to get the firestone from the bank with a stick? she asked him, irritably. That water’s icy cold, anyway.

He shrugged, and she was pleased to see him smile, weakly. I like water. My feet were feeling gritty.

Well that one’s a lot worse than gritty now, she could not help pointing out.

It was not long before Emmie returned from the village, bringing Yenna, Old Jesty, and Nettle, Hest’s father. Nettle never talked much, being a stone listener, but he ran to his son, looked him over, and nodded to Willow.

Emmie clutched folds of her skirt in both hands and wrung them in anguish, as she sobbed, Are we in time? Will he die?

Probably not, said Yenna. Willow noticed her grandmother give Nettle a reassuring smile.

Old Jesty was an animal talker. He began to walk up and down the river bank, looking into the water. Several times, he muttered to himself, wondering out loud why a spike fish should be about at this time of year. Eventually, he announced that there had only been the one, and that it had gone now. He also said its venom had probably been weak because it was the wrong season.

After Yenna had examined Hest, she looked across at Willow.

Ah, I see, Yenna murmured. Then she called to Old Jesty, My granddaughter’s found a new cure for spike fish venom. I don’t expect anyone’s ever had to treat it in winter before, but it seems handleaf root works just the same as the leaves.

Old Jesty peered sharply at Willow with his small, bright eyes. How did you learn that then? he asked, knowingly.

I … I heard it, Willow stammered, shyly. The handleaf told me.

Old Jesty laughed, and called out loudly, Listen to that! Another tree speaker to follow her mother and grandmother!

Willow could feel herself blushing.

Yenna spoke briskly. Let’s get this boy home now. Willow, you must start as you mean to go on. Remember to thank that plant properly before you leave here.

Nettle lifted up his son and carried him against his huge, solid chest. Willow studied Hest’s face, but he did not wince in pain as she expected. Then Nettle began to stride away towards the village, closely followed by Old Jesty and Yenna.

Emmie began to go after them. Then Willow saw her friend step onto a large, flat stone, to avoid sinking into the soft ground. Emmie was still twisting folds of her skirt between her hands.

Willow hurried back to the handleaf plant and crouched down beside it, pulling her own skirt under her legs to keep out the cold. Listening with her ears, she could hear the wind in the trees, the river water flowing, rooks in the fields and a cow bellowing. Hearing a plant was more like a feeling, she decided.

She tucked the disturbed earth back around the remaining handleaf roots and mentally thanked them. Not in words, but by trying to send them feelings. She hoped that taking some of the root had not hurt the leaves that would come in the spring. The plant seemed to reply that it would recover easily enough.

Lingering with the handleaf plant, enjoying some peace after all the excitement, Willow began to sense layers in what she was hearing. Behind the direct contact with Willow herself, was something else that was larger and not only coming from the handleaf.

Finally, Willow looked up to find that Emmie had returned and was watching her curiously.

What’s it like? asked Emmie.

Like understanding something you don’t have the words for, Willow answered.

Emmie furrowed her brow as she tried to make sense of that. Then she shook her head. It’s not for me, she said. Shrugging her shoulders, she added, No firestones for me, either. I shouldn’t have made him go into the freezing water like that, to find one. It’s just… I’m so tired of using Nesta’s all the time. I just wanted my own.

Willow thought of Emmie’s crowded household, all living in a two-roomed cottage. Nesta was Emmie’s mother. She and Emmie shared a cottage with Emmie’s father and her two brothers. There was only the one hearth fire and one oil lantern between five of them, so they surely only needed the one firestone to light them.

Willow and Emmie had both seen fourteen summers, but Emmie had been born at the start of winter, and Willow the following spring, so that Emmie was older. Willow knew her friend dreamed of the time she could have a cottage of her own.

We’ll find you a firestone, I promise, she said.

They walked together up the grassy bank, and along the rough path that led into the village. Nettle’s cottage was more of a lean-to, on the side of the large wooden building known as ‘Nettle’s barn’.

Nettle’s cottage had only one room. The front door was ajar, and Willow and Emmie squeezed in behind Old Jesty. They peered over Jesty’s stooped shoulders to see Hest. He was comfortably settled in a chair padded with blankets, by the fire. His foot was raised up on a stool so that Yenna could bandage it properly.

Yenna said, Pull the door to. There’s a draft. Emmie, he’ll be quite all right, and you can come and talk to him tomorrow. Willow, I’ll just finish this and we’ll be off home, or we’ll be walking up in the dark, and the moon might not be so bright tonight, it’s getting cloudy out.

Oh no! Emmie cried. We were going to have one last full-moon drumming before the snow. Please don’t let the snow come early!

I might not be able to make it, Hest said, mournfully.

Old Jesty laughed at him. I think you might boy. Thanks to our new tree speaker. You don’t drum with your foot. Then Jesty turned to look at Emmie. Now, will you walk me home, young’un? he asked.

Later, Willow and Yenna left the village and climbed the steep path home through the woods, to the Healers’ Cottages.

Willow finally had the courage to ask, So, can I be an apprentice now, to you and Rinnet?

Yenna’s first response was to say, Humph, which was just what Willow had expected.

Yenna strode on for a while. She was tall and strong, although she carried a walking stick to lean on occasionally. She carried her healer’s pack of dried plants and remedies on her straight back. Wisps of her silver hair strayed out from under her woollen headscarf and caught the light of the setting sun.

As Willow hurried to catch up with her, Yenna said, Tell me what you heard from handleaf.

Willow explained how the plant had seemed to pull her attention, and she had felt that it wanted her to take the root.

And? asked Yenna, Was there more?

There were other things, Willow said, but it’s hard to explain. There were feelings I thought were from other plants as well. Horrible things I didn’t want to know.

She looked at Yenna in confusion, not knowing how to make her understand. But her grandmother nodded, and said, sadly, It’s the harvest of the Forest. We all feel it, all the time. So do the other talents. The animal talkers and the stone listeners.

Willow shivered, imagining the great dark trees of the Forest, and the fearsome animals said to live amongst them. Then she said, thoughtfully, And there was another thing. Bigger than handleaf and me, but smaller than that awful thing, the harvest. It was like a call for help.

Oh? said Yenna, turning sharply to look right into her eyes.

Well that’s enough tree speaking for one day, anyway, the old woman added, seeming to return her attention to the path ahead. Your mother will have her own opinion on it, I dare say.

Willow knew that Yenna meant her apprenticeship, as well as the strange feeling from the plants.

TWO

The next morning, Willow was dressed and pulling on her socks and boots as soon as the first dawn light shone through the cottage window.

Rinnet had already snuffed out the flame of the oil lantern. Now she was feeding the drowsy fire in the hearth with twigs, to get it blazing again.

Willow! she called, as Willow picked up the water bucket and opened the door to go out. Don’t be too disappointed if you can’t hear every time at first. It takes practice.

Willow pretended to ignore her mother, and hurried out into the frosty cold. She pulled the collar of her cloak up around her ears rather than putting up her hood.

Behind her, the door creaked and Rinnet’s voice shouted, Wear your hood!

Willow’s first job, every morning, was to go down to the stream for a bucket of water. The two Healers’ Cottages were on the sunny side of the hill that rose behind the village of Warner. Yenna’s cottage was below Rinnet’s, and closer to the stream. Yenna only needed to take a few steps from her door to fetch water. Willow and Rinnet had to clamber down a stony path, through the coppiced trees they relied on for firewood.

Willow had filled the water bucket every day since she was seven summers old. Every day, she took care not to fall into the stream, by clinging on, with one arm, to the helpful branches of an old willow tree.

The tree’s roots were firmly embedded in the stream bank. She thought of it as her name-tree, and her personal friend. If any plant was going to talk to her that day, then surely it ought to be her name-tree.

She trod eagerly amongst the frosted blades of grass and wilted dandelion shoots that rooted between the stones of the path, mentally greeting all of them. Coming to the willow tree and climbing the grassy mound of earth that covered its topmost roots, she reached to touch its trunk.

The air was still dull and hazy in the early morning light. The moving water of the stream wrinkled darkly, and gurgled as it flowed past.

Willow paused, concentrating on the huge roots that she knew were living solidly beneath her feet. Then she moved her attention to the tough, rough trunk that was almost imperceptibly warm against her hands. Finally, she looked up into the crown of leafless twigs and branches. Coloured in delicate shades of green and brown, the stems lightly whipped about in the breeze. Willow could sense the life of the tree, and feel its comforting support, but it did not speak to her.

Refusing to allow her disappointment to surface, not wanting to feel embarrassed and ashamed in the presence of her name-tree, Willow flung one arm around a low branch. Then she leaned out with the other to dip the bucket into the stream. Pulling against the branch in order to lift the full bucket back, Willow suddenly felt a little jolt through the soles of her feet, right through her boots. After setting the bucket down, she stood, thoughtfully, with both hands on the branch.

The old tree felt very different to the handleaf. The tree was also resting in its roots, since it was winter. But Willow thought it recognised her. There was a comforting feeling that came from it, that she had always known was there. Now the