Walking the Tree – Morace’s Story

Thank you for reading Kaaron Warren’s Walking the Tree. We hope you enjoyed the book.

The following novella is set on the island.

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This story is (c) Kaaron Warren 2009.
Please do not email it, or otherwise reproduce it without the author’s permission. All rights reserved.

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WALKING THE TREE: MORACE’S STORY

Laburnum OMBU Aloes

We call it Our Place.

I am ten years old.

I hope Mother lets me go to school this year. I’m bored being home with her. School may be hard, and it may be scary and tiring, but at least it will be different. I can’t think of what to do to convince her to let me. I don’t want to be too useful or kind in case she can’t bear to part with me. I don’t want to be bad because she might punish me.

I’ll have to talk to Dad. He might be on my side, see that I have to go to school and he might be able to think of what to do.

School takes five years. We leave our village and we walk around Botanica. Around the Tree, the island. We walk quickly, and we stay in other villages and we will walk back into Ombu five years from now.

The other children have no doubt they are going. They don’t have crazy people deciding for them.

Every time a school comes through here, I am jealous. I want to disguise myself and go with them. They are tired, often, but they are so confident, so full of knowledge and information, so easy with each other and with all of us. I want that. I really want that.

Rham came by to ask me to go swimming. She’s younger than me but taller. With her, it doesn’t matter. The others tease me because I’m skinny and short, but she doesn’t care.

“Mother won’t let me go.” I kicked a rock as I spoke and hurt my toe.

“She won’t know if you dry off before you get home.” Rham bounced around me. She always had good arguments.

“She knows everything, and if she finds out she won’t let me go to school,” I said.

“Come and watch then.” I let her drag me along. I could collect shells along the shore at least, to trade with the older boys for sweet berries or for small carved tools. If I save enough shells, I might get a fish spear. Then I’ll be popular on the school walk. I’ll be useful.

Once I go to school, I’ll swim so far, so hard. The teachers will let me. I will follow my mother’s rules until I am out of her sight, then no longer.

I collected two scoops of shells, piling them onto a smooth, flat piece of drift-in wood. Carrying them back home, I planned what I would say to Dad when I found him alone.

He was readying his things in a basket and I knew what that meant. I tried, anyhow.

“Dad?” I said.

“Morace, I can’t talk. Magnolia’s started to have her baby.”

Mum hates it when another woman has a baby. She doesn’t like to share Dad yet she has to. He’s Birthman and the women want him with them.

Mum’s awful when Dad’s away. Shouts at me, as if it’s my fault, until I want to hide under my bed and pretend her voice is the Tree screaming in the wind.

I walked with him to Magnolia’s house, knowing I could get a few points in while he was distracted.

“So, Dad, you know Rham is going to school this year? She’s so smart, don’t you think?”

“Yes, yes she is.”

“And it would be a shame if I wasn’t around that cleverness for five years, don’t you think?”

“You’re very clever yourself, Morace. So you don’t need to convince me about school. I know you should go. But it’s hard for your mother to let go.”

“Every other mother does it.”

He stopped walking and put down his basket. “You know your mother is not like others. I can’t talk about this now, Morace. Magnolia needs me. Come along and help. We’ll think of a way to convince your mother.”

When we got to Magnolia’s, he was greeted with great welcome. I waited for a while, but it took too long for the baby to come and I felt useless. I went to the trunk and explored the caves there. Some people are scared of ghosts inside the Tree but I know what to say if I ever met one. I’ll say, “Can you show me what’s inside?” I went back to Magnolia’s a few hours later with some coconut and fish for Dad to eat, because sometimes he forgets and he comes home so hungry he can’t swallow. When I got there the baby had arrived and there were all sorts of people crowded around. Logan, Magnolia’s husband, looked very tired but happy. Dad looked okay; I think they must have fed him.

A crabby girl shoved us out of the room. Lillah. She’s Logan’s sister. She wants to be a teacher but she seems very mean. I hope she doesn’t get picked. I hope Melia does. She is very funny and likes to talk to us.

I didn’t want to go home and see Mother because all I could think about was school and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. So I went back and sat by the Tree Trunk, at the place where stories are told, and I dreamt of people telling stories about me and my adventures. I waited for Dad there and when he walked past, tired but happy, I ran to take his hand. Mum doesn’t like him happy, but I do.

Sometimes Mum moves stiffly, as if her bones hurt. But sometimes she forgets, and moves like the rest of us.

When Dad came home she did this thing where she moves, but smiles bravely as if she is hiding her pain. I can’t stand it when she does it, trying to make us do what she wants, but Dad doesn’t seem to mind. He sat down and drew me onto his lap, held me tight and said, “You are my precious son. There is no question of how much I love you.” That started to get embarrassing. Mum yelped with pain and he put me aside. He was exhausted. He said, “I’ll rest for a short time, but I still need to get back to Magnolia. Her baby is glorious, Rhizo. What a beautiful child.”

She nodded, my mother did, but with her eyes closed.

“Are you feeling pain?”

“Just a little,” she said, but so quiet, as if she couldn’t bear to talk. So instead of resting, he looked after Mum. I don’t know if I will be so kind when I’m grown-up.

Children love my Dad. He’s big as a bush and strong. Other men get annoyed with kids, but not my Dad. He thinks we’re funny and says adults can learn a lot from children. Smart man!

He rubbed Mum’s legs and gave her a drink of warm lemon. He stroked her head and murmured to her. I hoped he was saying, “Let Morace go to school. Let him go.”

The noise rose outside. “Baby celebration!” Dad said, and he and I grasped hands and smiled at each other. The community is so happy at a baby celebration. We have a lot of fun, once the boring talking is over.

Mother squeezed her fingers to the side of her head. “I’ll come. I should come,” she said, but she stood up and let her knees wobble. “You go on. I’ll come soon,” she said, holding my arm so tight it hurt. I went, even though I knew she wanted me to stay with her. Dad wanted me to go.

Lots of people were there already, including Dickson, one of the grown-ups. He is so awful. He teases us kids. Hides in the branches to frighten us and he takes our food sometimes because he’s bigger. We were eating food and talking at the celebration and he peed on people. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t do that. The grown-ups laughed as if it was funny.

Later he picked up one of the other children, not me. If he’d picked me up I would have screamed. But Zygo loved it. Loved being spun around so fast he was nearly sick. The grown-ups said stop, but Zygo said keep going. He is young. He’s wilder than I am and makes fun of me. He’s not brave, though. When I look into the ghost cave, he screams with the rest of them.

I like the emptiness of the ghost cave. The fact no one else goes in there, looks in there. The fact it is mine alone.

Sometimes I feel this hard nut of something in my stomach. I think it’s hate. I feel like I hate Dickson, hate Zygo. Sometimes I even hate my mother. And I hate being told what to do.

I was bored, listening to the grown-up talk. I sat there, though, because they want you to and sometimes it’s easier doing what the grown-ups say.

You don’t just get to eat and play when there’s a celebration. You have to listen to stories and rules and future plans.

“The Tale teller makes a good story boring,” I said to the other children later. “Come with me and I’ll tell you the real story of the Tree and the noise inside it. If you are scared you should stay with the adults. You don’t belong with the children.” Most of them followed me up to the base of the Tree. I made them press into the thick leaves. I like it in there.

“There is a massive insect inside, a giant termite, nibbling away at the flesh of the Tree. They say if you scrape your shin on the bark, leave any skerrick of yourself behind, the insect will come for you. Once he’s had a taste of you he’ll come to gobble you up.”

They ran screaming from the Tree down to the safety of the water. They are not used to hearing bad things; in our community children are never hungry and we are treated well. We are not beaten. Our sins are punished with discussions, long, dull discussions about what should and shouldn’t be.

Every time I looked at Dad I pleaded with my eyes. “Ask her! Talk to her!” He did start talking to Mother about school, and about how my life would be if I didn’t go. He whispered other things, too. Grown-up things which made her smile.

They announced the teachers and crabby Lillah is one of them. She actually smiled and didn’t seem crabby while we celebrated. Rham said to me and Zygo, “She might be fun.” They are both going, of course, and Borag too, and three or four others. The teachers are Lillah, Melia, Thea, Erica and Agara.

I wanted to be happy for them, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t think I was going.

Lillah saw me sitting alone and walked over. “Morace, I’m sure you’ll be coming with us. Your father talks a lot about it.” My mother hates my father talking to the young women.

“It’s her that’s the problem,” I said.

“I’ll talk to her. It can’t hurt me if she hates me; I’ll probably never see her again.”

That’s the thing with the teachers. They don’t come back. They find a new village to live in and they stay there.

“Yes, please!” I said. “If I have to wait for the next school to leave, the children will be even younger. I can’t be friends with children who still need help to wipe their bottoms.”

She laughed. She is turning out to be not so bad after all. Most of them wouldn’t even know I was worried about it, so I think she might be all right.

Mother welcomed Lillah in her tight-faced way. She spoke so quietly Lillah couldn’t hear her, until finally Lillah sent me away to find a smoothstone so my mother would be able to speak normally, not try to keep me from hearing.

I hid under the window. My friend Rham saw me outside and came over and stood with me. I didn’t want her to hear any of my secrets. She is too smart. I caused an argument with her and she threw her hair back in anger and walked away. So she didn’t hear what I heard. Mother played her foolish talking, lying game and I listened outside the window, wanting to run in and push her over. The words were muffled by our window coverings. Oh, Mother and her secrets. I thought I knew them all. But here were two. Two things I didn’t know. She said “Can I trust you, Lillah?” then she said she was very sick.

I felt so bad about it. It meant that she might die and I couldn’t bear the thought of that. Plus, what about me? What if people thought I was sick with Spikes and decided to treat me? I didn’t want to die. I was too young and I had not even been to school yet. How could she do this to me?

She said she didn’t want me to know, but how would she think I wouldn’t?

And then she told the next secret. A terrible, wonderful thing.

My father is not my father. I don’t understand. Myrist is. Lillah’s father Myrist is my father also. So Lillah is my sister, my half-sister. Such a wonderful thing. And then so is Logan half my brother! And then so is that baby half my nephew, or is he quarter my nephew? He’s mine, anyway. I belong.

But my father is not my father.

After all that, she said yes. I’m going to school.

Lillah’s turning out to be really good. She took me to see Aracauri. He hasn’t got legs that work but he’s got the strongest arms you’ve ever seen.

He gave me a great hat with flaps on the side so I only had to look ahead. It was to keep the world small, he said. I like small places. I hate looking along the beach, out to sea. It’s endless. I want to know when something will stop.

The hat blocks a lot of view off and I like that. Aracauri told us a story which made me think he was like me; he said he used to wear it because he used to hate open spaces but now he didn’t. He might have been lying but he seemed to be truthful.

I can’t believe Mum is letting me go to school. I thought she’d say no, and I’d be left here with the babies and the old people. The other children see the sand and the beach as places to explore. They don’t think ahead. I do. I see sharp rocks, spiny fish, poison food. If I think about it, everything ahead is danger. I want to be like them. Fearless. Not like my mother.

I can’t believe I’m about to go. Leave home to walk around the Tree. I can’t believe she’s letting me go.

I look at my father. The one I’ve always thought of as my father. I will miss him. I feel bad leaving him behind. I’ll miss him. They say you barely recognise your parents when you get back.

I have his smoothstone. He gave it to me. I never thought I’d own this; I thought it would sit on the shelf, forever. Or until Mum and Dad died, but it would be too late for me to go anywhere, then. I’d be grown-up. An old man.

The one who really is my father? I don’t care about him. I am too scared to talk to him in case he finds me weak.

Is it bad I feel so happy to be leaving Mum behind? Even ten steps away I feel better. My nostrils are clear, and I smell salt air, the Tree. The smell of Mum’s illness has gone. I stink, though. No wonder the other children keep away from me. It was so clear away from home. I can fix that, easy. They’ll like me soon enough.

Hopefully.

Ombu ALOES Ailanthus

We call it Jasmine Place.

The further away from home, the more I only wanted to look at my feet. The water was so big away from our community and I didn’t know if around any corner, behind any rock, a huge sea monster lay in wait to swipe me out to sea with his tail. Break my legs, my back, and I lie face down and can’t breathe.

I tried to hold Lillah’s hand but she was too busy being excited. I felt like running back to the fathers and saying, “You’ve chosen the wrong one. This one is mean and doesn’t care for the children.”

I felt like saying, “Hey, sister.” But Mum had warned me I had to keep the secret, not let anyone else know. Lillah made Mum tell me in person, which was good, because then I didn’t have to pretend not to know. But Mum said never to tell anyone or I would put my life in danger.

She always thinks of the worst thing.

We feel tired. We have never walked for so many days before. We sleep out and we have to build a fire to cook our food every day.

Rham took my hand. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Smarter than all the adults put together.

“Can you believe how foolish the teachers are? We are going to have to look after them.”

We were close to the next community and the teachers were sitting in the sand rubbing the grains on their legs to make the skin smooth.

“They are crazy. We’re all going to die with them looking after us,” I told the other students. “Look at them. Don’t they realise we’re hungry? Well, at least they die smooth.”

The children laughed at that. I like it when they think I’m funny. Back home, mostly they didn’t notice me. Out here it’s different.

Going into a new village for the first time was really strange. It looked like Ombu from the edges; the houses there were the same, and they had a seawalk to take you over the water to fish and to feel the sun if the Tree’s shadow filled the island.

But they were strangers. All new faces. They knew each other but not us.

I let the people of Aloes put seaweed on my face. The things I’ll do for a laugh. It felt bad when it was on, but my cheeks felt tingly and good when they washed it off.

Many things are different. In Ombu, we wash in a pool of collected sea water, letting the water soak off the dirt. Here, washing yourself hurts. You go out into the water (Lillah had to walk beside me because I still felt worried about being deep in water) and using scratchy seaweed, you scrub and scrub.

The ones I feel really sorry for are the oil-makers. They make oil here from the jasmine flowers, and the oil-makers have to wash themselves so hard their skin bleeds. They hit themselves, too. It seems as if they like the sight of blood here. I don’t like it when things hurt me. These people actually scrub till they bleed.

This place stinks so bad of flowers we feel sick.

It was hard to enjoy the feast when they fed us, because the smell is quite strong. It was quite good food and then they made us go to bed, but none of us could sleep because of the noise the teachers made. Drinking fermented tea makes you screech, it seems. The men watched them. The teachers danced around and they looked okay but silly. The teachers and the men started to like each other. In Ombu when that happens no one notices what the children do, so it’s our chance to run around and do the things we want to do. I don’t do very much. I feel worried about the water, the sand, the rocks, the Tree.

I feel braver with Rham nearby. She is smart but not scared. She has sayings. She says, “If you think quickly, you can get out of trouble.”

Finally, we ran around and played so much were so exhausted and we fell asleep. It was nice to be in a comfortable bed and under shelter.

We awoke to more shouting; the local children. Rham went to have a look. She came running back.

“Thea’s boyfriend has Spikes and they’re going to treat him.” Spikes is the disease you get which turns your insides smooth. I hope my mother doesn’t have it, but they will say she has and say I have, too.

We dressed and ran to see. Thea stood by herself crying but none of us wanted to go near her. Some adults you do not want to be alone with. They hurt you. Thea doesn’t hurt you but she looks as if she wants to. Rham says she drowned her own sister, but who knows.

We know two children drowned when Thea was supposed to be looking after them. The adults say, “Oh, poor Thea, it must have been terrible,” but I know Thea doesn’t think it’s terrible at all.

The local kids said, “You brought Spikes with you. We didn’t have it before.” I thought they stared at me; how could they know that my mother was sick? But Lillah said, “This man was infected long before we arrived. We are the ones in danger.” The children backed away and I hoped none of their fathers would be angry with Lillah.

We couldn’t believe what they did to the man they said had Spikes. The teachers tried to cover our eyes, but hearing his screams was worse. They beat him with sticks until he bled. Borag was sick in the bushes, then she went to her bed. Rham couldn’t believe it. Zygo and I watched until the end. I don’t know why it didn’t make him sick. I know I never want to be beaten like that, though. Zygo fidgeted, jumped around. He seemed almost excited. I pretended I wasn’t sick but I hated it.

Our time to leave came and we weren’t too sorry.

Partly I wanted to go home because I didn’t know what would be next. But I couldn’t go back. This was my only chance in all my life to explore. When I get back from school I’ll be a village boy, man, old man. I’ll marry a teacher who comes through, hopefully one like Melia, and our children will go to school, and on it will go.

Aloes AILANTHUS Cedrelas

We call it Nut Fish Place.

I didn’t want to walk so far again so soon, but you have to walk with school. That’s what you do. We had two extra people with us. One was a lady who was having a baby but she had to have it in Ailanthus. Her name was Corma. Her husband was here, too. I liked him. His name was Hippocast. We all liked having him with us. He was shy, nervous of walking, but I liked hearing his deep voice. He carried us when we were tired.

We took it in turns to be tired.

We stopped at the market. I’ve never seen anything like it before. There was a man running it and he hardly had to see people at all, only when they came to the market. He had his room all to himself and he ate what he wanted to eat. He didn’t have to worry about anyone else.

The market was so good. I really liked it. It made me want to stay there and help. It made me think I wanted to be a market holder.

The teachers were happy to spend time at the market, touching things they hadn’t seen before. We ate a lot of fruit.

I could feel a cool breeze and wondered where it was coming from. The rest of the market was so hot, we didn’t even want to cross the sand to get into the water.

Thea tried to make us swim out with her but none of us will do that. We told the local children not to, either. She plays bad games in the water. Grabs your ankles and pulls you under for too long. Only lets go if someone else tells her to.

We never go swimming with Thea. Well, I never go swimming anyway. Not yet. I like to paddle. I like the feel of the water up to my ankles. I have even walked in until it reaches my thighs. But I will swim one day. Before too long.

Before we get back to Ombu.

I walked along the Trunk, the cool breeze sometimes disappearing, then it would come back. It smelled a bit like the leaves which are not cleared away in the alcoves of the Tree.

Then I found where the breeze was coming from; a dark, deep ghost cave. I stared into it. I could smell inside the Tree. No one else can smell it, only me. It smells cool, and like some kind of food cooking. Wood at night time. I like it. It freaks them out though; they’re so scared of ghosts.

I actually do not believe that ghosts will harm us. I think they are the same as us, only ghosts.

When I put my head in the cave was like my eyes were shut it was so dark. But I could feel air on my eyeballs. I would have stayed like that but the others found me and pulled me back.

“You can’t go in there!” Borag said. She looked like she was about to cry.

Zygo sneered. “He’s blood different. That’s why he looks in. He was swapped as a child. He is really a ghost.”

“Quiet, Zygo,” Melia said. “You don’t call anyone a ghost.”

Everyone is scared of the ghost caves but I like them because they are so enclosed. You can feel the walls so you know where the ending is. Inside might be a person you once knew or loved. How can that be bad?

They always stop me from stepping inside, though. As if I’ll disappear forever.

I’d like to know what’s inside. It might be better than outside.

It was peaceful and nice around the market. Lillah thought so too. But the others were bored and wanted to move on. Always moving. I wish we could stay still, just for a little while.

Borag wanted to get moving because she’d heard they were good cooks in Ailanthus and she wanted to watch them. She gets bored with the food the teachers cook. “You don’t care about us,” she told the teachers. “You only do what you want to do, not what we want to do.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Melia said. “Really?” She chased Borag along the sand and tickled her till she squealed.

Then we moved along. I guess we had to.

We reached Ailanthus fifteen mornings later. We’d camped out the night before we got there, thinking we had a long way to go, then realised how close we were. Luckily they are early risers in Ailanthus, so we were greeted kindly.

They do this good thing with fish at Ailanthus. Catch a fish and keep it in a pool of fresh water until it puffs out all the salty water.

Rham couldn’t get enough of watching that fish. She talked about it, watched it. I kept her company for a while, but got bored. Every time I came back she’d smile. It’s nice when someone is happy to see you.

She came running to find me and Borag when it happened.

“You should have seen it! I don’t know why it waited so long, or why that breath was the one, but the salt came out in a soft cloud. It was beautiful. It seems a shame to eat the fish.”

“They’re going to cook it now?” Borag said, jumping up. “I want to watch.”

These girls get so excited.

Thea screwed up her face. “I can’t stand the smell of food cooking,” she said. She walked along up the beach. She won’t cook, ever, because she says the smell makes her sick. She will be lucky to find a community who lets her get away without cooking.

I really didn’t like the fish. It was covered with nuts. What is it with nuts? How can anyone eat those things? They taste like hard bark. They stick in your throat and make you cough to vomiting. I really don’t like them.

Corma, the pregnant one, and her husband Hippocast were nervous. He told me that they felt like outsiders, that they couldn’t remember all the rules.

They do have all sorts of odd rules here. Difficult ones to remember. The people who live here seem to understand them. Like they didn’t want to show us their smoothstones even though we are told in Ombu this is how to form a friendship. These people say it is bad luck to show your stone. A lot of what they say is about bad luck or good luck. They say that’s for all the babies who come to them to be born, that babies need a lot of good luck to stay alive. If I had to worry about bad luck all the time, I would hate it. These are some of the rules:

Seeds of the Tree are always counted when they fall and can be read by the right person.

Sleep with leaves under pillow.

Don’t let flying spider webs touch you.

Close your eyes if a spider crosses your path.

Rham and I invented a game where we had to memorise all the rules and act them out in a funny way. None of the other children could play it. They couldn’t remember things well enough. Not like we could. Most of the teachers were bad at it, but Agara was the champion. I don’t think a thought ever leaves her head.

Corma and her husband were sad to see us getting ready to leave. I didn’t care about her, but I really liked him. He was a good person to walk with.

She looked so fat I didn’t know how she could walk. She complained a lot.

I told Hippocast to come and play games with us and he was happy to get away from her.

“It will be different when the baby comes,” he said. “She is just too fat and she feels uncomfortable. She is my lovely girl when she doesn’t feel that way.”

He is such a good man to be so patient. I will never be patient like that.

Rham wanted to see the baby being born but it was time for us to go.

Hippocast waved us off and I waved to him till he was no bigger than a seed.

Here’s an odd thing: I lost my hat that Aracuauri gave me, and it took me ages to realise it was gone. My head felt lighter and hotter, but for some reason I didn’t think this meant I had no hat on. When I noticed, I wanted to dig a hole in the sand and bury myself. I could see too far, too wide, I wanted my hat. I didn’t care if the school waited for me; I would walk alone.

But Lillah; dear sister. She had it in her bag and there it was. She notices everything. No one could love me as much as she does. There will never be a wife who can match her.

Ailanthus CEDRELAS Rhado

We call it Happy Place.

I am eleven years old.

I felt my legs growing much stronger on the walk to Cedrelas. They say that the school gives you strength for life. I like that. It makes each step worthwhile. Zygo kept asking, “How long, how long, how long,” until we were tired of it.

Lillah and Thea went back to Ailanthus, which I didn’t think we were supposed to do. But Corma was having her baby and people were scared she was going to die, and she wanted Lillah with her. She must have felt lonely even with Hippocrast. Sometimes women want other women around them even if there is a man there.

Thea went too. We were glad to see her go. But I didn’t want Lillah gone. What if she didn’t come back? What if a giant bird took her as she was walking?

We walked on and in a few days they caught up with us. We’d been walking slowly, and that was easy for us.

Lillah said that Corma and her baby had both died.

The teachers tried to be sad about Corma and her baby, but I could tell they didn’t really care. I didn’t care; she had been bad-tempered, that one. She didn’t help me to like her. Hippocast though; it had been good to have a man on the walk for a while. Men do not see the future, they only see exactly the moment they live in and that can be relaxing. I felt bad for him not having his baby. And he would miss Corma. But he can find another wife.

The people of Cedrelas seemed very odd at first. Too happy, or something. There was no ceremony and they said we were Spikes-bringers but they were joking. Still, I reached up and felt my shoulder blades. Some nights I felt like they were growing out of my body, out of proportion.

Lillah said my bones are supposed to grow but she couldn’t feel the bits which stick out the wrong way.

It was fun, this community. At night they like to watch funny plays. On the third night Rham and I teamed up with one of the local children and we made a small show. The adults made crude and rough jokes so we thought we’d try.

You never know with adults which way they’re going to turn. I called Rham a moss-muncher in the show and she responded by moss-munching, telling as many lies as she could make up in a row. Zygo did a good job, acting as if he believed everything; that’s what was so funny. I gave him all the laughs.

The adults didn’t like us to say that lying was funny, but they couldn’t help laughing. It must be hard being an adult and trying to do the right thing all the time.

Our teacher Agara told us she will stay here. She’s our first teacher to stay in a new community, so we are proud and happy. Nothing more boring than a wedding, though, so the other children and I stole some fruit wine to help us through all the talking there would be.

It was Zygo’s idea, and Zygo who snuck into the storehouse to bring some out.

It tasted awful, like fruit on the ground when you’re too hungry or lazy to keep searching.

After a few sips you didn’t notice the taste. Your mouth was numb and your head dizzy. It felt so horrible. Zygo kept drinking more and more then he tried to be funny. That didn’t work. You can’t suddenly become funny. Not if you don’t know how. I helped him out by asking him questions he could answer in a funny way. He’s funny when I tell him what to say.

The children here laugh a lot. You forget you don’t know someone when you laugh together.

The teachers let us play late tonight. Sometimes they forget us, if we are very quiet and leave them alone, and we can play in the moonlight until we are really tired, not until they think we are.

The children living here made us play Stickman. We had never heard of it, but they told us the Tree grew from a stick thrust in the belly of a giant, and that I should be the giant.

They danced around me as I lay there. It was not very exciting for me, but I liked looking at the stars.

One of the children, a boy smaller than me, but much, much stronger, took up a stick. It looked as sharp as a fisherman’s spear, and I didn’t like that. I tried to sit up but they held me down. I tried to yell for Lillah because it hurt.

They pulled my shoulders back too far into the ground and they covered my mouth. I felt the stick against my stomach like an ache after too much fruit.

My friends watched. Not helping. I wriggled my fingers at Rham, hoping she would tell them to stop.

The short boy lifted the stick with a great roar. At the last minute, the other children let me go and I rolled aside as he thrust the stick into the ground. It went doing from side to side.

“I wouldn’t have got you,” he said. But he would. He really would.

None of us felt well the next day. There was something wrong with the fruit wine. It made us all feel sick.

The teachers were not very well, either. Lillah and Melia laughed a lot, still. They’d made a new friend, a man called Phyto. He’s really funny and Lillah and Melia spend a lot of time with him.

Luckily we didn’t have to leave until the next day. I couldn’t have walked very far.

We have a new teacher called Gingko, taking the place of Agara. I hope she’s okay. People in Cedralas make me laugh so I hope she is the same.

Phyto and Lillah talked quietly as we were leaving. The next thing I knew, he had a bag with him and he was coming with us. “I hope you don’t mind, children,” he said. “But I’m going to walk with you for a while. There are people I need to be with in another community. We’ll be able to learn a lot from each other.”

Zygo seemed the happiest about it. I’m happy, too. Lillah seems to like Phyto. At least she talks more when he’s around.

Cedrelas RHADO Thallo

We call it Lillah’s Mum’s Place.

How many days did we walk? How long? Every day seems like the last.

Lillah finally spoke to me. I thought she forgot I was there. But then, because we were heading into the village her mother came from, she wanted me to listen to her.

She was really nervous. I felt sorry for her. I didn’t know if she liked her Mum much or what, but she would still want her Mum to like her. “Is your Mum really going to be here?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I hope she’s safe, wherever she is.”

“Why did she leave Ombu? Didn’t she love you anymore?”

Lillah looked at me and I felt bad for saying that. I didn’t want her to feel sad because of something I’d said.

“Is it because of me? Because your dad is my dad too?” I said. Lillah’s mother… I didn’t know her. I only knew the women who were friendly with my mother.

“I don’t think there was any reason. Some women just decide they want to return to their home communities.”

“I don’t think they should. I think that’s cruel.”

“Well, everyone can choose.”

“Every woman, you mean.”

She nodded. “Yes, every woman.”

“I hope she’s here,” I said, and that seemed to make her feel better. Sometimes you can say one kind thing and make another person happy.

Still she looked worried, so I played the fool.

I tripped over on purpose, rolled around in the sand, getting as covered in the grains as possible. The kids laughed but Lillah barely noticed.

So much for distracting her from being worried.

After all that, her mother wasn’t there. Melia and the other teachers stood by Lillah. I think she was shocked.

“We don’t know were she is,” the people told her. They were not kind people. Not friendly to us at all. I don’t know about Lillah’s mother, but I wouldn’t want to stay here forever.

There is one good thing about Rhado. Usually we have to be so careful when we eat, but here you get to smash plates on purpose. Zygo did it the best; he’d jump up high as he could go and throw the plate with all his strength as he landed.

Borag did this great dance around, tossing the plates as she went. We were tired and dusty after all that smashing, and the others ran to the water to swim. I thought of my mother.

My mother. Always scared of the water and what your mother is scared of, you are scared of for a long time. Then you get older and realise you don’t have to share the fear.

I tried to step into the water and swim without any of the other children noticing because I knew they would laugh at me, clumsy as a land monster in the water. Heavy as a special stone. Rham noticed first and didn’t laugh. She came and stood beside me, held my hand.

“Here, I’ll help you walk in. You’ll love it when your head goes under water. It’s really refreshing.”

I wished she wouldn’t talk. I pretended I did this all the time. That I had not been scared all my life.

The water is so huge, it goes on forever. When the sand drops from your feet, who knows how far down it goes? What lives down there with sharp claws like crabs? I do not like to eat crabs.

It was nice, though, the water. Cool. Rham splashed my chest, then Zygo did it, but he wet my hair, made me angry, and when I splashed him back he dived under the water. Grabbed my legs and pulled when I didn’t know what he was going to do.

Once you’re under you can’t breathe. I knew it but I don’t believe it. You should be able to breathe.

I’m proud I swam at last.

It seemed okay at Rhado. They were not very nice to Lillah, and she was sad because her mother wasn’t here after all, but the food was good. Thea wasn’t happy. She was cross with the other teachers for something. She came into our room and curled up on the floor. “What are you doing, Thea?” Rham asked her.

“I can’t sleep. Too many women. Too many men.”

Rham dropped a cushion on the floor for her. A cover.

In the morning we saw she was a mess.

“How is she a teacher?” Zygo said. “She’s pathetic. Look at her hands. All cut up. What did she do, try to climb the Tree?”

Thea clenched her fists and lifted her head, a look of such fury on her face we screamed and ran from her.

No one listened to us, though, because there was something terrible happened in the night. A young boy was beaten to a pulp, beaten to death.

“There’s so much blood,” Rham said.

“It’s too much for a normal person. And it’s such a weird colour, don’t you think?” Borag said.

“I reckon he’s a ghost. I reckon he was swapped at birth by the ghosts inside and they ate up the real boy.” It was always Zygo who talked about ghosts.

I stared into the ghost cave, looking for clues. I thought they’d come for me on their own.

Nothing, though. It was awful when they hung that boy’s body. From the ground he looked almost normal, although his feet were dark red and crusty with blood.

They did it to save him from becoming a ghost.

I feel like I have changed, seeing that boy dead. I will never be the same. Lillah cried a lot. I think she was sad that these were her people. They didn’t even seem to care who killed him. But I remember Thea and her damaged hands. And we knew that she had told the adults a lie. She said that the boy, who was missing a toe, wanted to cut the toes from all the other men, so they would be equal. She told the adults that and so they killed the boy. We think she helped them.

Rham told Melia what we knew about Thea. I think Melia believed her but we didn’t know what to do.

Thea helped the boy’s family. Cooked all their meals. Took care of the younger children.

Zygo said, “We should help her.” He said it in a hard voice, like an adult who means a lot more than they say.

“Yes, we should,” Rham said. We all went to make sure Thea didn’t hurt the children. She spat at us when she talked, but smiled her weak, helpless smile to the other teachers. Feeling sorry for someone doesn’t mean you have to like them.

Lillah hugged me, hard. “Those people are my people, Morace. In a way they are yours, too, although we don’t share a mother.”

“I don’t want them,” I said. “But are you sad your mother isn’t here? Where do you think she is?”

“I would have liked to see her. Maybe they would have been kinder to us if she had been here. I don’t know where she might be, Morace. Perhaps we will meet with her on our journey.”

Phyto waited for us on the other side of Rhado. He doesn’t want to go into the communities. He listened while Lillah talked and talked. I felt jealous. I wanted my sister to talk to me like that.

The other teachers seemed full of energy though Gingko used hers to try to force us to walk faster. Agara was much more interesting. I hoped she was happy in her new home.

Rhado THALLO Parana

We call it Clay People Place.

Once Lillah had finally finished taking Phyto’s attention, I got to talk to him.

“Lillah ignored me the whole time in Thallo,” I told him.

“She had other things to think about, Morace. You know that. Think about how sad she must have felt that her mother wasn’t there. And that the people she thought would be her family didn’t welcome her. Think how you would feel if it were you.”

I have never been so scared. We saw these big rocks which looked scary enough but then they started to move. Rocks come to life. They looked hungry. Who knew what they wanted to eat? We ran backwards. Rham fell over and got up so fast it was like she hadn’t fallen. Zygo pretended not to be scared but he really was.

They came closer, closer. They had arms and legs, rocks with arms and legs, waving around.

“Welcome!” they called to us. “Welcome!”

It was people covered in clay.

Why would people wear clay like that? So much clay they look like a rock?

We were tired after our long walk and ready for a rest. So tired we got over our fright very quickly.

I really hated it in Thallo. No fun. And they were weird about food. You had to eat every scrap, even the rubbish left on your plate.

Borag loved to eat. She was the best eater; would try anything, cook anything. But she left the rind of her pawpaw on her plate. Who would eat that? She tossed it into a bush.

One of the men hit her across the head. Knocked her down. She was so shocked she screamed.

“Quiet, wastrel,” this man said to her. “You throw our good food away?”

“It was pawpaw skin,” Zygo said. “Rubbish.”

He got a hit over the head, too. “Nothing is rubbish. Skins we cut finely for mixing with small fish, minced up for fish balls. You come from a place of such privilege you don’t know what it’s like to do without.”

This is by far the worst place we’ve been. We hate it here. It’s a scary and horrible place. The more we’re here, the worse it gets. There are children here who look exactly the same. EXACTLY. There is no difference and you can’t tell them apart. It’s wrong and bad. Sometimes they are in a different mood, so you see the same face with a different expression, the same child saying different words.

They keep bones. They keep the inside bones of babies and people and they hang them up as if we want to see them. It makes me want to go to bed and stay there.

All of us children were together, playing a game of drawing in the dirt, when one of the men came in.

“You will need to clean yourselves. The Parade is about to begin.”

“What’s a parade?” Zygo asked, ducking his head away to keep from being hit.

“We dress up, and we walk around showing wondrous things,” the man said. “It is a celebration of life. Of how life should be. And also how it shouldn’t be. Come on, hurry up.”

We hoped none of our teachers chose to stay here.

The people dressed in colourful leaves, with stiff vines around their necks. Lillah told us quietly, “We’re not sure what we are about to see. It might be something frightening. Whatever it is, we have to remember that this is what they believe. We may believe something different. We may learn something from them.”

I will never sleep again. I will never want a baby. Why show us this? They lined up carrying large clay pots with lids. They didn’t even warn us what was inside. They just showed up.

It smelt so bad.

Inside all the pots were babies gone wrong. Too many arms, or no legs, or empty heads or awful, awful things. They said this was punishment for marrying the wrong person. They screamed and waved these pots under our noses, forcing us to look.

All of us were crying. The children from the village, too, all of them were crying.

They were terrible, terrible people.

It was strange, but the next day the villagers seemed happier. As if they saw the worst things and nothing else would be as bad. I even liked being there a bit. At breakfast they made a huge pot of porridge full of honey. You made a wish when you took your bowl. I hope mine comes true.

I wished that I could finish school safely and make it home to Ombu without getting sick.

Thallo PARANA Torreyas

We call it Melia’s Mum Place.

It was good to see Phyto when we left Thallo. I could tell him about the terrible babies those people showed us.

We got to a part of the island where the Trunk ran all the way to the water. High and thick. Someone had carved a tunnel in the wood so we could walk through, otherwise we would have had to swim out for a ways then back again. It was scary, walking through the tunnel in the trunk. When you go through a doorway you expect to be somewhere different at the other side. I felt as if we had gone somewhere which looked exactly the same as where we’d been. I thought, what if we walk through and I’m an adult? Or we’ve gone back in time to before I was even born? But it was the same place on the other side.

We liked Parana even though there were not many children. The grown-ups loved to have us there and didn’t treat us like we were immature, which was good. We ate well and were given all we needed. They told us how brave we were and strong for walking all that way.

Lillah had been paying more attention me, but she found her old teacher here and it’s like no one else exists. Melia is the same. Maybe they think they are little girls again. That’s the way they are acting.

The teachers didn’t seem to like any of the men here so they stayed serious. Usually they relax and let us run around where we like, but this time they kept us close, maybe to give them an excuse not to talk to the locals.

That Gingko; we wished she’d stayed where she was. We wished we still had Agara. Gingko makes mean jokes about the other teachers to try to make friends with us but she hurts our feelings at the same time. The other teachers don’t seem to notice. They are very interested in themselves, that’s for sure.

Also, Melia’s Mum came from here so Melia is acting strangely. She should be happy this is where she is from. Look at where Lillah is from. This place is much better.

Maybe she’s worried about whether they like her or not. Grown-ups worry too much about those things.

In this place they let us weave our own mats for sitting. It was fun. Most places won’t let you do that, thinking that children weave bad things into a mat. Here they let us weave for ourselves. Our lazy teachers don’t want to do it. The locals think our teachers are no good. Rham heard them talking. We won’t tell Melia. She would be too upset. I think they wish us children would stay and that the teachers would go.

Because there aren’t many children, they think everything we do is very clever. Zygo is making the most of it, inventing stupid games that the adults applaud. Don’t they love him? I sit on a rock as if I were a rock myself, for all they care. The other children join him, going along with his rules, but if I join he changes the rules, bam bam, to make me look foolish.

There are things they do here which frighten me. They have a reason for it, but it still frightens me. The teachers talk about it as well. They hurt the Tree, pulling off bark and leaving it wasted. They don’t even use it. How can they treat the Tree like that and not be punished for it?

There’s another thing they do makes me really glad I don’t live here. I don’t know why they do it. They say why but it doesn’t make any sense.

They tie a red-hot ember to a cord and drop it into their throats. Burn themselves. Their throats are all scratchy and they can’t talk for days afterwards but they are pleased that they did it.

Melia makes me worry. She’s usually so funny and always listens to us, but here she is angry and strange. She seems upset but no one will tell me why. I wish I were a grown-up so she could tell me what’s wrong. It can’t be just because she’s worried what they think of her.

Usually we have some warning of Leaffall. Smaller leaves come down first, as the person-size one begins to bend. Sometimes you hear a creaking noise, as if the Tree is twisting or stretching.

Here, we heard nothing. We had no warning. Three of them, three sharp-edged leaves bigger than Phyto dropped down. Sometimes they float; these dropped in a clump.

We heard screaming and I though that Lillah had been killed. If that happened I would go into the ghost cave and wait for her to tell her it would be all right. I would climb the Tree to be with her as a ghost.

It wasn’t Lillah. It was Gingko. She was covered with the leaves. Only her arms were flung out and these we saw were almost cut off, top bit from bottom bit. That made us feel sick but none of us cared very much that she had died. We were so glad it wasn’t someone we liked.

Parana’s birthman ran to her. “Pull the leaves off,” he called. “She can’t breathe.”

Rham said, “Do you think leaffall is punishment from the Tree for the way they treat it?”

”Maybe. But why did it take Gingko? She is not from here.”

“Sometimes there is no sense.”

The birthman called for water. Lillah found spiderwebs, for the bleeding, but it was too strong. It was like the sea when you build a wall of rocks and keep it back for a while but when it breaks through it is so powerful it knocks you over.

“Gingko, Gingko,” Lillah said. She bent close to hear any words. There were none.

Gingko died.

A teacher died.

They had a burial ceremony. They tied heavy stones to her ankles and two men took her a long way out to sea.

I’m so glad it wasn’t Lillah.

The locals told us how sad they were but I’m sure they were thinking what we were thinking; at least it wasn’t someone I loved.

Parana TORREYAS Douglas

We call it Magnolia’s Place.

I am twelve years old.

Phyto ran to us as soon as we left the outskirts. He embraced us all.

“Where’s Gingko?,” he said. “What happened?”

He held Lillah and Melia. I felt bad for Gingko because none of us are sorry it was her. And there was a new teacher to take her place, Rubica. Rubica is funny and seems almost as young as us and we really like her. This makes it even worse for Gingko.

In her home community they would be very sad.

The walk was long to the next village. We talked about Leaffall, and sacrifice. We talked about what sort of place Torreyas might be, and what we might learn. We knew it was the home of the Number Taker, who counts the people of Botanica. We knew they liked numbers. Lillah was excited because Magnolia comes from here and she likes Magnolia a lot.

One night just before we arrived, Phyto and I took our food away from the others and we sat and talked about things that the teachers don’t talk about. Like the fact that once they stay in a new Order, they don’t see each other again. The fact that I am sick and we are running from treatment. He figured out that Lillah was protecting me.

“I don’t want you to tell me why, Morace. I think you need to keep that secret. But you’re very lucky. I know she cares for all the children, but she keeps a special eye on you.”

Sometimes it didn’t feel lucky.

By the time we reached the outskirts we were in good spirits.

“You should come in this time,” Lillah said to Phyto. “Learn the lessons too.”

But he didn’t want to go into this place because he didn’t want anybody to count him.

“You should come into this village. The teachers seem to think they will really like it. Even Thea,” I said.

“I never know how they’ll take me. Men are not supposed to travel, you know.”

“Most men don’t want to.”

“Some do. Some want to see what women see.”

We left him sleeping under the stars.

It turned out pretty good at Torreyas. They didn’t fuss very much about us because they were all too busy preparing for Oldnew Day. Everybody does this differently, it seems. At home, we celebrate it very simply, with a basic meal, no flavours, a day when we don’t talk much. We try to leave the day blank so that anything is possible. Here it was simple too. We washed our smooth stones. That’s really simple and it was a bit boring, too.

It doesn’t matter how you celebrate it, Oldnew Day is about what will happen in the future. Each one takes me closer to being a grown-up. I don’t want to be a grown-up and have to look after other people.

There was one kid who couldn’t walk because he didn’t drink any breast milk at all so we didn’t have much to do with him. It feels sad he won’t ever be able to go on school, but some days, when we’ve walked till our feet fall off, I would like to be him.

Thea is leaving us alone here. She wants to pretend to be a good person and she can’t do that if she has to deal with us. I think she likes it here but I don’t think she’ll stay. I don’t think she likes being happy so she’ll pick somewhere she can be unhappy. She likes the order here, the numbers, the sensible rules. She is almost likeable here. She should stay.

In the next few days we did not do very much. When a messenger came, everyone was happy to see him.

Everyone is keen for the news. He told us something which didn’t make sense, though. He said my mother was pregnant.

“She can’t be. She’s old!” I said, and some laughed but others looked sideways eyes at each other.

“She was very young when she had you, Morace. Don’t you want a little brother or sister?”

Someone smaller than me? Of course I did.

Later, though, Lillah made me swim out with her so we would be alone. She said, “I’m sorry, Morace, but your mother is not pregnant.”

I was confused.

“I wish I didn’t have to tell you,” she said, “but you won’t have a little brother or sister. This was your mother’s idea of a secret message. She didn’t think about how disappointed you would feel.”

“What does the message mean?”

“It means she is getting sicker. Perhaps even she can’t get out of bed anymore.”

I stopped swimming and sank. Lillah grabbed me. She could stand on the bottom. “I know it’s a shock. I don’t know why she told us. Why she thought we needed to know.”

I held onto Lillah, out in the deep water. I didn’t cry. Lillah made me feel angry about my mother more than anything else.

“Can I tell Phyto at least? He will keep a secret.”

“I don’t think you should. Tell him you are sad and worried about something if you like. He’s a kind man.”

“He likes you a lot, too. You should marry him.”

“He’s a friend. A friend I’ll never forget. But he’s not thinking about getting married.”

We moved on from Torreyas. The village children told us stories about the men in the next village. That they were cruel and liked to hurt children.

“They’re just tricking you to make you want to stay in Torreyas,” Melia said. “Don’t be frightened.”

Torreyas DOUGLAS Sequoia

We call it Bad Men Place.

Phyto made us so worried. He kept saying how he had to look after us when we went into Douglas. He didn’t usually say that.

As we got closer to the place where everyone said the bad men lived, I got a worse and worse feeling. There were footprints everywhere and I tried so hard not to step in them I kept tripping over, which made the other kids laugh but it really wasn’t funny. I didn’t want to step in a ghost footprint and have my soul trapped. That would be terrible. I thought Lillah should carry me, she is my sister, but she wouldn’t. She avoided the footprints without falling over. Those footprints appear and there is no one to make them. If you stand in one, even if the top of your toe touches one of these ghost prints you will take the place of the ghost. And if you do bad things you will be tied to Earth until someone steps into your footprint and takes your place. You better hope they do.

My bad feeling got worse when we saw hundreds of crabs on the shore. Borag and Zygo got excited and ran ahead, thinking of crab meat dinner. But these were not crabs to eat. Borag screamed and Zygo called out “It’s a person! They’re eating a person!”

The teachers tried to make us walk a big circle but some things you have to see.

It was awful. It was a man once, but his feet were gone, his soft bits. Nose. You could see bone in some places, white with flickers of flesh.

“Come on,” Erica said. “You don’t want to look at death too hard.”

Lillah convinced Phyto not to come into Douglas with us. “If they are violent, your being there will make things worse.”

We got a really friendly greeting from the men, though. Nothing scary or mean. And they caught a huge fish, half as big as men, which they cooked over flames until it was tender. It tasted delicious.

These men are all right. They tell scary stories. They tell some with the teachers around but tonight one told us a story when the teachers weren’t listening. The man who told us the story reminded me of a fish. He had fat lips pulled together like he wants to kiss you. Shiny, black hair, smooth and shiny on his head but hardly any hair on his body. The lines on his body were thick and looked almost like fish scales.

He told us this. “I don’t know about other parts of the Tree, but here, we have to be careful at night. Very, very careful if we don’t want the sleep demon to get us.”

“Sleep demon?” Rham said.

I’d never heard of it either.

“The sleep demon has a mouth as big as the circle of your arms. It has ten rows of teeth but they are blunt, so if he bites you he has to rip and tear to take flesh.”

“Bites us?”

“He loves the taste of human. But he can only eat humans lying awake in their beds when they should be sleeping. But if you are in your own bed and have been there all night, he will sniff over you but will not be able to eat you.”

“What if you stay awake all night, get up to go to the toilet, then go back to bed and stay awake?” Zygo asked.

“The sleep demon loves children who should be asleep. He picks them up by the hair and takes them to his cave, where he waits and waits until they are so tired they are dizzy. Then he has the greatest feast of all.”

We all had nightmares that night and none of us dared to get up.

We heard noises in the dark and for the first time I wished I were a grown man. I wished I were big enough to go outside and stand up to the men of Douglas, to stop the meanness and make them be better to other people around them. I was scared for our teachers, especially Lillah, but there was nothing we could do. We stayed in our beds but we didn’t sleep. Zygo and I talked in low voices about what it would be like to be a man. To be in control.

In the morning, early, Lillah and Melia came into our room and told us to put our things together. We were leaving.

Most of us.

“Thea has decided to stay here but we won’t witness the ceremony to join her to the village.”

I felt sick. I had been waiting and hoping for Thea to stop somewhere, but not here. The women here were not happy and they seemed to have cuts and bruises, more than in any other place we’ve been.

“You should tell her not to stay,” I said.

“It’s her choice,” Melia said. I’m glad she’s not my sister. She’s cold.

Lillah took my hand. “I’ve tried, Morace. But she really wants to stay.”

I waved at Thea but I didn’t hug her goodbye. None of us did. It seemed like a lie to be sorry she was staying when we didn’t like her.

But her face, as we walked away? I don’t ever want to see someone look as scared and as sad as that again.

She watched us as if she cared. Her face looked soft. For the first time I wasn’t scared of her. Tamarica, who has bouncy long hair, took Thea’s place. Does it sound bad to say how happy she made us feel, just to be close to her?

She was so happy to be coming with us.

We are so much stronger and older than when we started out. The distance hardly matters to me now. I walked and barely noticed something.

“Where’s your hat?”

“What hat?”

And they all laughed. I laughed, too. What hat. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that hat I had worn for so long to save me from looking into the distance.

“You shouldn’t have reminded me,” I said. “Now I’ll have to put my hand over my eyes.”

I knew Lillah would have the hat in her bag and that she wouldn’t give it to me unless I asked for it. Good. I didn’t feel I needed it anymore. I didn’t say this to Lillah, though. She would make a fuss, be happy. I’ll save that for a sad day when we need cheering up.

Douglas SEQUOIA Alga

We call it Happy Sad Lillah Place.

Phyto waited for us, as he always did. When Tamarica saw him, she stopped walking. Stopped breathing. “Who is that?” she said. “It’s a man. Who is it? He wants to stop me, doesn’t he?”

Lillah said, “No, he’s a good man. That’s Phyto. He’s walking with us to Osage. He’s like most men. Your men are not right.”

Still, it took a few days for Tamarica to relax around him.

He was very angry about the men of Douglas but the teachers stopped him from going back. “The best we can do is warn every community. Tell them, so they can be prepared,” Melia said.

Zygo and I told Phyto we’d go back with him if he wanted. We told him some of the young girls there were not happy. Although it seemed to me that they thought this was how things were, so they didn’t know any other thing.

The people here at Sequoia will not eat fish from the sea. Only fish which has been dropped by a bird. I don’t like to eat fish while we are here.

We are loving Tamarica more and more. She is so different from Thea, who sometimes put her hand around your throat. Sometimes pushed you hard and held your face in the sand.

Tamarica is like us; wanting to play and be happy.

Everyone seems happy. Lillah is very happy.

I think she has found someone special. His name is Sapin. She seems happy, not as worried as usual. I don’t like that. What will happen to me if she decides to stay? What happens if I have Spikes and the communities decide to treat me? What happens if I die?

I woke up from a nightmare and thought I smelt food cooking. It was only the ghost of the smell, though. The memory of it. The water was still and the moonlight clear in reflection. Here and there rocks stuck up like a giant’s knees.

Why are others scared of ghosts and not me? Are they smarter, or me? I was scared of the ghost footprints near Douglas, but only because I didn’t want to become one. I’m not scared of ghosts, but I don’t want to be one.

Mind you, my heart nearly stopped and I wanted my mother when the ghost walked out of the Tree. I wasn’t spying on Lillah and her boyfriend Sapin, but they were up in the Tree and I was underneath the Tree. That’s all. The ghost was tall and pale and walked slowly. Dead-but-walking. His eyes squinted shut as if the light hurt him and perhaps it did. I screamed; I couldn’t help it. Ghosts live in the dark, they love it. Is that why people hate them? All the bad things happen at night in the dark. But this was in the day. I didn’t say anything. I watched him walk toward the water and I didn’t feel like screaming anymore. He seemed peaceful and he had something to do; head for the water. Lillah says that people with something to do are happier people.

I didn’t call out. But someone noticed him and that, what happened next, was so scary, far more scary than any ghost could be.

The men, including Sapin who I think is very ugly, jumped on him and kicked him alive then dead again. One said to me, “That’s how you send ghosts away; bring them back to life then kill them again.”

Sapin tried to wrap his arms around Lillah when they were finished. He was pleased with himself. He didn’t notice how upset Lillah was, that she’d been crying. His hands, his arms, were bloody. He didn’t care.

Lillah turned away from him and he looked at me with eyebrows lifted. I thought, “She should just tell him. He did a bad thing but he doesn’t know she thinks so.”

“We don’t do that to ghosts in Ombu,” I said. “We don’t hurt anyone like that.”

He looked surprised. He reached for Lillah again, gently this time, but I stopped him.

“Wash yourself first,” I said. Why? Why am I so stupid? I thought if she doesn’t like him anymore she won’t stay. But I knew I wanted her to be happy.

In the end it was Erica who stayed. Lillah was so upset and so was Sapin. But two teachers can’t stay. That leads to deformed babies and other punishments from the Tree.

We left soon after the ceremony welcoming Erica. Lillah didn’t watch very much of it. I played tricks and games with her. Made her feel wanted.

Erica was replaced by an older girl called Musa. We will see if we like her or not.

Sequoia ALGA Pinon

We call it Place my mother died.

I knew it would happen but I didn’t know how scared I’d feel when it did. I was sad, but not as sad as everyone thought I should be. I had to remember to be sad every now and then.

She’s dead. My mother is dead. Has been dead for months, news being what it is. It didn’t even come in code as it was supposed to, because someone else found her body. My father had kept it a secret, not even sending a message to me. So all this time I’ve been thinking of her alive, she’s been dead.

Poor Dad. Well, partly poor Dad. He’ll be sad, but he’s free, now. He can be admired without her putting him down. He can be the best birthman there ever was, do his job without feeling guilty.

I’m so scared, though. They will find out she was sick and they’ll want to treat me. I don’t want to be treated. No, I don’t.

The locals ask, “What did she die of? What happened?” I told the children that she was careless, always having accidents. I didn’t mention sickness. The thing is, Dad as the birthman is the one who will say how she died. It will only be if someone else looks hard, looks for signs. If they cut her up and look inside, then they will know.

I hope they don’t do that. She would hate to be cut up.

Another messenger came, wearing another flower necklace. This doesn’t happen often. It had to be bad news, and it was.

Is it always like this? People dying all at once? We just heard that Thea is dead. I wasn’t sad about Thea, but I do feel kind of sorry for her. I don’t know if she could help the way she was, but I know she was lonely and no one liked her. It would be hard to have no one like you.

This time it was the teachers asking all the questions. How did she die? What happened?

The messenger said there had been an accident, that she had been cooking and the oven’s frame collapsed, crushing her.

“What was she cooking?” Lillah said. We all know Thea hated to cook. Hated the smell of cooking food, so either she was forced to cook or it was all a lie.

The worst thing oh my Tree Lord I can’t believe what has happened. Why didn’t I make Rham walk with me, or get her to help cook or something, why did the teachers let her dig in the sand?

It started like fun. We decided to make a cave in the sand. It was partly showing off to the other kids but we wanted to do it anyway.

We took it in turns digging. Not the locals; they watched as we worked hard.

Rham directed everybody. She’s not bossy; she just knows the right thing to do.

We climbed in and it was a good cave. “I’ll go get us something to drink,” I said. Only two at a time allowed in. I climbed out, don’t take my spot, I said, that’s my spot, my turn. I built it, it’s my spot.

I ran to get some water, but coming back…coming back the children were screaming, adults were digging.

“Rham!” I shouted. If I shouted loud enough I thought she’d come out.

They lifted her out. I have never seen anything worse than Rham coming out of the sandcave. Her face covered in it, her eyes bulging. Lillah ran to me and tried to hide my face but I pushed her away. I could not pretend. Rham, Rham…it could have been me. If I’d been in there I could have covered her with my body, kept the sand off her face.

“I should be dead,” I said, and it was loud, I said it very loudly.

Rham. Rham. I loved you.

She always said that if you think quickly you can get out of trouble. Thought didn’t help her here, did it?

Melia just told us she will stay in Alga. No surprises there. Lillah seemed angry and sad, both things together, and I don’t know what to say to her. I wish I was more grown-up. They have fresh water here, sweet and clean. This was always going to be Melia’s place.

I hate her. I hate her hate her hate her hate her. She never loved us, never loved Rham.

Alga PINON Aborvitae

We call it Things Hanging Place.

I am thirteen years old.

Sometimes the child has to be the grown-up. I was sad about Rham and frightened about my mother, but Lillah was a mess. She keeps saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” but she’s lying. I worried about her. I guess Melia staying behind didn’t help, and also Lillah must feel guilty about Thea, even though it was not her fault and she was kinder than anyone to that teacher.

Phyto talks a lot, makes us talk. We talked about Rham and her wonderful brain and all the things we did together. We talked a bit about my mother. He asked me about memories from when I was little but she wasn’t that kind of mother.

I was feeling better when we approached Pinon and saw something terrifying.

Oh, my Tree Lord, can you believe what is hanging there? Do they want us to run away? Die? It’s horrible, a hanging, rotted man which means who knows. It was horrible and I imagined myself there when they find out my mother died sick.

Tamarica said, “I suppose it’s a warning against sick people. I hope this isn’t what sort of people they are.”

We are all so upset. Phyto said he will come into Pinon with us. He is nervous about how they will act towards him.

The people of Pinon came to greet us and they were very generous, giving us smoothstones, small carved boats, dolls made of bark.

They embraced Phyto without caring why he was walking. He told them where he was headed. “That’s not as good as here!” they said. “This is the best place on the island. Don’t you know how safe and comfortable we are?”

I think of Rham all the time. I am far sadder about her than anyone else. I also miss Melia, because she always answered questions. She didn’t care how many you asked. And she was strong. Much stronger than Lillah. Full of truth. Lillah is not full of truth. She’s full of pretend.

I woke up feeling really sick, like someone had poured sludgy seaweed down my neck while I slept. I tried to curl up and go back to sleep but no, I had to wake up, breakfast, you can’t miss breakfast, you’ll offend the chief.

He thinks the dawn meal should be shared by everyone or the day will bring bad luck. Too bad if you wake up with a belly full of sea sludge.

“You’re sick?” one of the locals said. “I’ll show you where sick people go.”

I didn’t want to see it.

“There,” he said. The Tree Limb hung out over barren ground. Nothing grew there because the blood spilled was tainted, they said.

“If you’re sick, we’ll hang you from the Tree. Cure you.” He shoved his face right up close to mine so I could smell his smoky, stinky breath.

“I’m fine.”

“You are.”

I didn’t tell Lillah about feeling sick, or what I’d seen. She has enough to worry her.

We’ll celebrate Oldnew Day here. Time already.

There’s something about Oldnew Day. It’s chance and possibility. The past year becomes the past year and stays there. All things that happen are in the past, and we can begin to forget them.

They have a huge stone slab here. It’s so big our whole school could lie on it together. Not the teachers.

What happens is, we sleep outside as Old year becomes New, and what we dream will be our future.

I asked the teachers what they had dreamed when they had stayed here with their schools. Most of them had not stayed during Oldnew Day, but Lillah had. She said she’d hated it, because she couldn’t remember her dreams and the teachers shouted at her. She said she would not shout at us if we didn’t remember our dreams.

Phyto remembered that he had dreamed of a white sea bird, which flew into the sun to collect some fire and bring it back to Botanica.

The people told us that some die of their nightmares. That they sleep and do not wake. This I believe, but I will be strong with my dreams and not allow any death stuff in there.

Some of the others were scared of the stone and what the dreams will show. Not me. I wanted to know what my dream, my future, would be. I didn’t want to ignore it. I wanted to know it.

In the end I dreamed I stood at the top of the Tree and looked out at the ocean, water all around.

Others, I think, lied about their dreams, because they were full of fear, wealth and action and why would they dream all that and I dream so peacefully?

The other children’s dreams made them nervous and when a storm came they were sure they saw the Sea Monster.

It’s just big waves, I told them. They were too busy crying to listen. I looked at the huge crashing waves and they were scary. The thought of being out there, drowning, frightened me, but it was no sea monster.

Pinon ABORVITAE Aspen

We call it Rock Wall Place.

The teachers were sad to leave Pinon, but it didn’t worry me. I liked it there, and the people didn’t question or seem to know who I am. That’s good. I’m no one important.

Phyto liked being in Pinon. Now he seemed quiet and sad. Not healthy. He tried to show us children a good face, but I saw through to what he was really feeling. I felt like it myself a lot of the time. Loneliness. It makes you feel ill to see people together and you are not part of it. The longer it lasts, the worse it gets, until you are too frightened to speak for fear of people not hearing you.

A lot of people in Aborvitae can’t hear at all. You can say anything to them and they can’t hear it. They can figure out what you say but not if you turn your back to them.

This means it is quiet at here. The kids don’t say anything and they don’t mind being told what to do. That’s good.

Their rock wall is amazing.

It took them five years to make and it is four, five times taller than the tallest adult. It is strong. The base is as wide as two adults standing with arms stretched and the rocks are placed so carefully none of them wobble. Zygo loved it, climbing up and down, up and down, showing us how strong he is. Boring. Very boring. I went up once but it took me a long time and I felt like I would fall off at the top.

“Weak!” Zygo called up. “Would you like me to come up and rescue you?”

It reminded me of the time Zygo climbed the Tree and a lower branch cracked off. That time, Thea said, “Jump! I’ll catch you!” but when he jumped, she stood back with her arms folded. Let him crash to the ground. Lillah didn’t believe us when we told her but the other teachers kind of did. Not that they did anything.

I am getting used to the way they don’t talk much in Aborvitae. I like it. They use their faces to tell you things, and their hands. It is peaceful. One thing they do here is to decide what to do depending on how a bunch of sticks fall. They drop the sticks then say, “Well, they fell evenly so that means the fishing will be good today. We will go fishing.” But I could see that they read the sticks in a way which suited them. It was such a trick. I didn’t bother telling anyone. So they’re not going to let the sticks say, “Let Morace rule.” They’ll read them a different way. They already know what they want the sticks to say. At least it helps them to decide, I suppose. Be clear.

The only really bad thing about here is that they have a woman in a cage out at sea. They won’t say what she did wrong. But she looks terrible and sad and looks like she’s dying. Why would they do such a thing? She can’t have done anything that bad. It makes us cry to look at her.

All of us are upset by her. She cries and calls in a salty, dry voice. We have seen so much since we left Ombu, but this seems unfair. The teachers ask questions, which they rarely do, and they want answers. Why this woman has affected us all this way I don’t know. We have seen so much.

Maybe this we think we can change. The teachers talk talk talk. Borag says it is because they didn’t save Rham. They want to save this woman instead.

They let the woman go today. Took her out of the water. O my Tree Lord, what a terrible sight. Borag was sick in the Tree roots. We all felt bad. I couldn’t go near her. I’ve never smelt anything so bad. And I think the teachers were disappointed with the way she acted. Because they saved her but she didn’t say, “Oh, thank you for saving me. I will have a good life.” She acted as if they hadn’t done anything.

Adults like to be thanked. I’ve noticed that.

I hope my mother didn’t smell bad when she died.

Aborvitae ASPEN Gulfweed

We call it Place of Too Much.

Zygo and I ran ahead, wanting to see Phyto, tell him about the woman in the cage and her feet and what she said.

The others were still in sight but way behind when Zygo said, “Where is he?”

I remembered how Phyto had been after we left Pinon, lonely and not as happy to be with us.

“Maybe he walked on?” I said.

“He wouldn’t leave us.” Zygo shook his head and pushed me, as if it were my fault.

It was true, though. Phyto had walked on. The teachers told us. “You’ll see him when you reach Osage,” Lillah said. She seemed very happy and relaxed.

“You didn’t love him. You don’t care that he’s gone,” I said to her.

“I do care. That’s how I know he needed to walk ahead. He was really sad about not being able to see you for a while. You’ll see him when you reach Osage.”

“Why didn’t he say goodbye?”

“That would be too sad for him. He might change his mind. He might end up hating us for slowing him down.”

The sand is squeaky here. When you run it’s like you’re treading on a noisy little bird.

I want to run but I feel like there are growths in my elbows and knees. It feels like they are losing their bendiness. I haven’t told Lillah though I’m sure she knows.

I’m trying to pretend I am fine. And the other children complain of aches and pains, and Musa says, “Your skin is growing faster than your bones and the bones are stretching to fit.”

But I’m different.

Lillah gives me small pebbles to suck, to stop me feeling ill.

Zygo found where they stored their sweet cakes and while the teachers were occupied we stole them and ate as many as we could. I really felt sick after that. Didn’t want to eat for a day.

They play a tube here that they call a flute. It sounds very peaceful, makes you calm down when you hear it. Musa said we should try to learn how to play and how to carve the instrument.

Borag and I really wanted to, but Zygo and the others didn’t. They were too busy playing.

Before we started to learn, we had to wash.

My Mother didn’t like to wash. She said your skin shed itself naturally and that washing removed too many layers of skin at once. She said clean people got sick much more easily.

The flute was hard to play but I could make a few nice notes before long. I went to show Lillah and she said, “Let’s climb to that branch, and you can play for me there.” She sometimes does things like that. There was a ghost cave up high, with a salty, wet smell. Lillah hated it. The smell made her shudder.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” I said.

“How do you know?”

I didn’t. But I wanted to go inside, see what was there, and wanting to know beat being scared of something.

It was nice sitting up there with her. Of course, as soon as some man comes along she forgets me and goes off with him as if I never existed.

Aspen SARGASSUM Gulfweed

We call it the Burning Place.

When we got to Sargassum, I thought we were caught, that someone had found out I was sick and my mother died of Spikes and they were going to treat me, because there was a person watching us running in. But it was someone like Lillah, a teacher, and they knew each other from when they walked at school. She helped us. I hope I have a friend like that one day. Her name was Nyssa and I thought she was very pretty. She was so pretty I didn’t want to talk to her in case I sounded like a fool.

She took us into the community and we had a very good time. The food was nice and the people were friendly and everyone seemed to relax.

Nyssa and Lillah talked like chirping birds at each other. How did they understand each other? I have no idea.

Then she told us, “We have a very special woman here. She sees past, present and future all in one. She is very old. Some say as old as the Tree itself, but she says she is only an old woman, not an ancient one.”

We slept – Nyssa said we had to – then went to see this old woman.

The old woman… Nyssa, Lillah’s friend, had warned me about how the old woman would look. Very burnt and scarred. She didn’t look as bad as I thought she would, when I saw her. She was very kind. Her name was Maringa. She said that she knew who we were and what we were dong. She knew the future and it was scary. And she told Lillah we had to do a most wonderful thing.

Go into the Tree.

I don’t trust anyone but I want to go into the Tree. I’ve always wanted to go into the Tree.

”We can’t do that,” Lillah said. “As if we can go into the Tree.”

“You have to do it,” Maringa said. “If you want to save yourselves.”

Lillah dragged me away from her. For the rest of our visit, it was like that kind old woman did not exist. If I mentioned her, Lillah would throw me such a look I felt like sinking into the sand. The other teachers ignored her. Even Nyssa gave up talking about her.

“We’ll be fine, Morace. We’re almost at Gulfweed. You wait and see. At Gulfweed everything will be all right. They are your family. It will be all right.”

We could see, though, that people were talking about us. Word was getting out. It was slow, but it was happening. They knew about my mother, which means each messenger would tell the next communities.

I hope Gulfweed is what we think it will be.

Sargassum GULFWEED Chrondus

We call it my Mother’s Place.

Here we went into the Tree.

I am fourteen years old.

The next place we’ll visit is the place my mother was born. Lillah told me many times, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, they’ll love you, nothing to worry about, you’ll be safe there,” that I started to worry. I hadn’t worried before that. Of course they’ll love me; they’re my family. I couldn’t wait to get there and talk about Mum, tell the truth about her. How she died, and that I am sick too, but that they should look after me and not try to treat me. They are my family. They won’t treat me for the illness like other villages will. I couldn’t tell anyone else. I can tell Lillah but she mostly doesn’t want to hear it. She thinks it makes me too sad so she changes the subject, but I hate that. I don’t want to pretend my mother isn’t dead. I know that if I went home now she’ll be gone. My Dad’ll make up some story about her talking a walk into the Tree, but no, that’s not true. Why do people who aren’t children pretend so much? It’s not like the thing isn’t happening. It is happening. Pretending it isn’t doesn’t make it go away.

So I was nervous as we got close to Gulfweed. What if they hated me? Didn’t get my jokes? What if I found out they never liked Mum, like Lillah found out about her Mum? She was broken up about that. She thought her mother was perfect, but if other people saw something they didn’t like in her, then I guess she wasn’t.

They didn’t come running to meet us. That made me a bit sad. Dumb old me thought the whole Order would be there, cheering.

Only a bit of me thought that.

I feel so scared. My family don’t love me. They aren’t going to save me. I don’t want to be treated. I don’t feel sick enough. Nowhere near sick enough. If I’m going to be treated, I’d rather be at home with my dad to say goodbye to him.

I don’t want to die.

I let a few tears fall because no one was watching. They would want to be nice to me because they feel sorry for me, or think I’m a baby, or want to stop me crying, and I didn’t want that. Don’t be nice to me; save me.

It seemed to happen very quickly. For this whole journey we’ve had Gulfweed as our goal. When we get to Gulfweed I will be safe I always thought. They will save me, hide me. They will not want to treat me.

But they were quicker to condemn me than any other community would have been, I think. There are places I might have been safe if we’d stayed.

It happened over welcomefire. They asked about my mother. They called her Rheeezo, with a long drawn out centre. Our dearest daughter, they called her. I was glad to think they had loved her so much.

Tamarica told them she had died in childbirth. The Birthman nodded. But what he said didn’t match the nod.

“We know how she died. She died of Spikes. Maybe she had it in her when she left here; we don’t know. We know she died of it and we know that Morace is her son.”

“Morace is perfectly healthy,” Tamarica said. “There is nothing wrong with them.”

“There is, though. Anyone can see. You have brought sickness into this community and you will help us to treat it.”

I knew what that meant. I stood up and ran away, running up along the beach, I thought I’d run as far as I could and they would forget I existed.

No. One of their older boys, who should have been with school but was too stupid, he chased me. How fast could he run? He brought me down with a grab around my legs, and he held me down until the others came and joined him. Then they all carried me back.

I struggled as much as I could but they punched me hard when I did so I stopped it.

“There is no point in running, Morace. We will catch you. It is our responsibility. In the morning the treatment will begin.”

They left me alone then. I sat by the water’s edge. I couldn’t think of anything I was so scared. I didn’t want to die.

Lillah came over to me and put her arm around me. It’s always her, always. I’m not sick of her, but I know she looks after me because she has to. If she didn’t have to she wouldn’t care less.

“Sitting here feeling sorry for yourself won’t help,” she said.

“Won’t hurt,” I said.

“Yes, it will. Sitting here doing nothing will hurt. We need to pack up, you and I. We’re going to make a run for Chrondus. Keep ahead of them.”

“Why would the next community help if this one didn’t? They’d know about Mum too, by now.”

“But they won’t know you, at least until we’ve gone. If we move quickly we’ll reach home in no time and I can hide you, then. Your dad will help.”

“I can’t move that fast.”

“Yes, you can. Or I’ll leave you, and you can let yourself die.”

I nodded.

“I have to go and join them at the tale telling now or they will suspect. You go to bed. Once they are all asleep, we will run. Okay? We’ll run.”

“I have to say goodbye to everybody.”

“No, you can’t. We have to go without anyone knowing.” Lillah thinks she knows everything.

They want to kill me. My own people want to kill me. My mother thought I’d be safe with them but she was wrong.

I lay in my bed waiting for her to come and get me. I didn’t change into night clothes and I tried to quietly pack some things to take. The thought of running was so tiring, but there was no alternative.

But they lied. Those people lied.

They came for me.

I pretended to be asleep, thinking it was the Sleep Demon. They carried me outside and I could hear voices, I knew that they were not demons voices but the voices of my uncles. My people. I opened my eyes and saw that they were carrying me to a large slab.

I screamed so loud I guess I woke the whole place up. “Lillah!” I screamed so she could hear me even if she was back in Ombu.

“I’m here, Morace. Be brave,” she said. She was at the back of the crowd. They were holding her like she was a prisoner.

They held me down.

The headfather came forwards. Oh, he carried the sharpest shell and I screamed so loud again, so loud. All the children cried and screamed.

“Tonight we begin,” he said.

And he cut a huge slice out of my thigh.

Of course I fainted. I woke up to the most terrible pain I’ve ever felt in all my life. Lillah held cobwebs to me, and Musa gave me some liquid, something to ease the pain.

I think I slept for many hours. I had terrible dreams, waking sleeping dreams. I knew it would not be long before they came back to take more of me.

But before the sun rose, we had a visitor.

Maringa.

She had followed us all the way. She didn’t say, “I told you so.” She said, “You must enter the tree.”

She and Lillah talked for one hour or two.

I said, “I want to go, Lillah.” My thigh hurt me still but the tea had helped. It wasn’t bleeding but it felt terribly stiff. I knew I could walk but I couldn’t run.

And so we went into the Tree.

Lillah is so slow. She makes me feel bored, sometimes. I wish I could leave her behind. I want to explore, I want to look inside. There’s nothing to be frightened of. I can’t leave her, though. She hasn’t left me, all this time. I know she wanted to. So I’ll wait, be patient. Oh, I wish she’d hurry, though.

I went first into the woodcave. It was dark near the back, where the natural light couldn’t reach, but I could see a glow back there as well, something bright.

“Come on, Lillah. It’s okay.”

She climbed in. She breathed really quickly because she was scared, so I made her sit down and I held her hand till she calmed.

“How long till we go back out?” she said. “How many days?”

“We’re not going out there,” I said, pointing at the way to Gulfweed. “Maringa told us to go in. Into the Tree.”

“I can’t.”

Part of me was so frustrated with her I wanted to say, “Well, then, how about we go outside so I can be sliced up and then hung from the Tree? I know you don’t care.” But that would be cruel. She did care and I didn’t want to force her, make her come out of guilt.

“Lillah, if you want, you stay here for a few days, then go out and say I was taken by the ghosts. That will work. I’m going in, but I can go by myself.”

She thought and we talked more. I tried to explain why I wasn’t scared, about how much I wanted to know.

She said, “Let me think.”

No one has ever been braver. Even with her terrible fear, she said yes.

She came with me.

We climbed through to the second cave. Lillah breathed fast again and she made some noise when we saw what decorated the walls.

Bones. Many, many bones, from a hundred? Two hundred? people. I worried that I was wrong, that there were ghosts in here who will suck our bones clean. I said, “Maybe we should go back.”

“No. Let’s go on, Morace. Let’s find out.”

Luckily we had both settled down so we didn’t scream when a man appeared before us. He was pale, like moonlight, and hardly wore any clothes. It was warm inside the Tree, really warm.

“I am Santala,” he said. He had water, and I’ve never tasted anything so wonderful. Melia would have fallen down and kissed his feet.

“I am Lillah, and this is Morace.” She handed him back the water-container and smiled.

“I will guide you,” he said. And off we went to see the inner world of wonders.

The first thing we noticed was that they use bone for everything. They play music on a long arm bone with holes along it; soft, high notes. They make me want to cry.

You hang your shirt off a bone stuck in the wall. You walk on a bone path sometimes. I can see why they take all the bones the outsiders leave for them.

The second thing to notice is that the children are smaller than me, even the ones who are a year or two older. They have faces which look very young. The grown-ups too. No wrinkles.

They are very pale. It seems odd to see white skin like that. They have soft skin and are very strong.

Lillah spends all her time with Santala, talking, talking, talking. It leaves me free to be with the children. They’re teaching me how to play their games, how to use the loose bark to make shoes. Their favourite game is following clues, a hiding type of game. One goes ahead and, at each choice of tunnel, trunk or limb, leaves a message behind. The adults get very angry at this game because they say the messages are the only thing keeping us from being lost. They say the children confuse the messages. The children know they can find their way anyway.

The children don’t answer when I asked how old they are. They know what words I say but don’t know what they mean, I think.

“We don’t count how long we’ve been here,” one of their grown-ups said. I don’t know if they have teachers. I haven’t figured that out yet. “It doesn’t matter to us. We don’t count time like you do.”

This was something to learn, that time, the blinks, the days, the moons, is only what we say it is. Time is only decided by people.

Lillah seems to be good at changing the truth. I always knew that about her. She told Santala that Gingko was a good teacher, but I’ve never heard her say anything good about Gingko before.

I think my skin must be thinner and softer than theirs because I scrape myself every day about a hundred times. It makes them laugh and that doesn’t bother me. They’re not being mean. It’s because I’m different. I’ve laughed at different things before.

They have another game where there are squares drawn into the dirt floor, and you have to balance there, one footed, while the others drape things over your side-stretched arms, trying to topple you. They hang sharp things, hard things, and if you fall they all pummel you.

I was good at it because my feet are large. For all my clumsiness, I do have good balance.

It was fun, but in the end I was totally covered with scratches and scrapes and my skin was red with blood. A beautiful woman, who had straight pale hair, huge eyes, a kind voice, put her hand on my shoulder.

“Look at you, all cut up. Come on, Morace, we’ll soothe your wounds.”

“Are you the birthwoman?”

She shook her head. “Here, I’m known as a healer. I understand the body and can read its signs.”

I knew, I knew I should not let her touch me. She would find out I had Spikes, and soon I would be dead.

I pulled away.

“I have to find Lillah.”

“I’ll send a message to Santala. Lillah will be with him.”

“We have to wait.”

“Let me just fix your wounds.”

She led me carefully through the Tree to a large cave. She had bowls and bowls of things there; all sorts of colours and textures. She dripped something onto my cuts and it seemed to seal them.

“Aren’t you scared of catching something? How do you know I’m not sick?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re sick, Morace. None of the signs are there. We can find out. Would you like to?”

She asked as if this were nothing, as if we were talking about where to eat a meal. I nodded. I never had the idea I might not be sick.

She took a small bowl with high curved sides and bade me lay my arm flat, palm up.

At my wrist was a small wound from the game we’d played. She dripped a high-smelling liquid onto it.

“If you are ill, the blood will turn green,” she said.

We waited.

Nothing.

Nothing.

“You are not ill,” she said, again as if this was nothing.

It made me happy but fearful. How would I tell Lillah that we didn’t need to run? That we hadn’t needed to come inside the Tree? She would want to go outside that minute and I didn’t want to. I wanted to learn more.

I wanted to find Lillah straight away but it took some time. I told her what the healer said and she cried and squeezed me much too hard.

“So we can go outside now, if you want.”

“Do you want?”

I shook my head. “I want to stay for some more days. I want to learn more.”

She nodded. “So do I. But I will need years, Morace. I am going to stay here for longer than you should.”

“I will be able to find my way,” I said.

So Lillah left me. She went with Santala. But I was safe. I was well.

I wanted to stay inside the Tree and I did for a long time. I learnt about time and history and the past and many other things before I left and headed back to Ombu.

Laburnum OMBU Aloes

We call this Our Place.

The insiders told me my school would be hard to catch. I decided to go straight home to Ombu. This took a long time, but I had guides all the way, groups of children who felt so familiar it was as if they came from my home community. One girl, though, she didn’t. She was very pretty and smart. She knew what every message meant and we never got lost. Her name was Anarcadia.

As we got closer to the ghost cave of Ombu, I said to Anarcadia, “You should come out with me. Live in Ombu with me.”

“I might one day.”

“Come now.”

“I’m too young. I belong here still. Perhaps when you are older and I am I’ll join you.”

“You’ll forget me.”

“No. No, I won’t.”

It was weird to be back outside. Weird but right. I had the mark of the healer on me, proving my health. I could only hope my father, our birthman, would understand it.

He did. He was happy to see me but I made him think of Mother, which made him sad.

It was not long before the rest of my school returned. All the teachers were new, except for Ster.

They told me their adventures, and I told them mine. They said that Phyto was very happy in Osage.

And time passed.

We grow up, all of us, and begin to see how adults think, to understand them. That is sad. It was good to be a child.

Schools came through and teachers stayed, though I wanted to wait for Anarcadia, my love from inside. I left messages and gifts in our ghost cave and they always disappeared, but nothing was ever left behind.

Why didn’t I go back inside? Because I am an outsider. I need the sea, sand, sun. I can’t live without those.

Lillah came back as if time had not passed and I had not become a man. No one can believe it. She is thin and pale but she has a burning fire in her eyes. She knows things, she has learnt so much. She will find us dull and empty after all she has done.

I want to make her proud. Do some good work. They have already agreed I should help the market holder between Ombu and Laburnum, and I will make it a place all of Botanica thinks about. Anarcadia will join me, and our children will walk the Tree, and life will go around and around and around.