Tree Singer

urgency slithered through Mayten’s sluggish brain. She jumped off the log and grabbed Tray’s arm as he reached for the frog.
Snap! The frog vanished.
Tray stepped back, almost tromping on Mayten’s foot. He wiggled his fingers and jerked his chin at the large lizard who blended right into the bark of the tree. “Did you see that?”
Cather moved to Tray’s side, taking his hand and studying it.
“I moved in time,” Tray said. “If Mayten hadn’t . . .” He gave her a curious look. “Did you actually see the lizard? Or—”
“I didn’t,” Mayten said abruptly. “It’s just that you almost grabbed a poisonous frog. The pretty ones often are. Though, that one evidently wasn’t poisonous . . . or maybe that lizard has developed an immunity.”
They decided their break was over and Tray led them up the trail. Mayten lost track of time as she trudged along. A fine mist rolled in, soaking her hair and clothing. The dampness added to the darkness enveloping her.
She was sick of walking, sick of the clouds and not being able to see the sky, sick of venison.
Sick of the endless questions that swirled in her brain: Why did Adven hate singers? Had she really caused Hunter’s death? Would he still be alive if she’d stayed home?
Gradually, she became aware of other images interweaving with her own, images of trees dying—not just a few trees, acres of trees. A sense of pain, death, and despair washed through her. Each step became a battle to keep moving, her mind blanketed in fog and mist.
There was something she was supposed to be doing, but she couldn’t remember what.
Mayten had no idea how much time passed before Tray stopped again, this time for lunch. The images in her mind, the sense of death and despair, the knowing she should be doing something—
She was losing her mind, she decided. She slid to the ground, using a pine—as big around as two men standing back to back—for a backrest, and closed her eyes. Anatolian nosed her hand, then headed into the bushes to find his own lunch.
:Help us!:
Startled, Mayten scanned their group but Cather and Tray looked fine chatting and flirting. Was someone lost close by? Someone who needed help?
The image of Hunter lying so still on the ground, buried in blankets, slid into her mind. But the voice she’d heard hadn’t been Adven or Hunter’s . . .
Tray and Cather were sitting on a rock sharing their food. They hadn’t seen Adven for three days now. So who . . . ?
Mayten grabbed her head, feeling like she’d been struck in the head by another pinecone. Trees and ground spun around her as she realized what she’d been feeling wasn’t about Adven or Hunter. The sadness and despair she’d been experiencing were not her emotions at all.
It came from the trees.
Their combined pain was so intense she drew it from the ground itself.
“I need some time to listen to the trees,” Mayten said, not really caring if anyone heard. “They are really distressed. I need to pay attention, to listen.”
Tray handed Cather another piece of venison and nodded. “We should reach the castle before dinner so we have time.”
Mayten bit back a frown. Her spending time with the trees gave him more time alone with Cather.
She scrambled to her feet and wandered through the pines and firs, trying to decide where to put her attention. Wild oaks were sprinkled in with the pine—scarlet oaks, white oaks, and bur oaks were easily recognized.
Then she spotted the perfect place—the base of a live oak.
Huge branches spread their arms wide from the ancient tree, reminding her of her favorite auntie back home. She approached slowly, feeling like she was greeting an old friend. Her fingers brushed the rough trunk, gently savoring the musty smell. She jumped up and grabbed the lowest branch, pulling herself higher into the welcoming branches.
It had been ten days since she’d climbed a tree and she reveled in the feel of bark beneath her hands, the stretch and pull of her muscles. Anatolian whuffed as she climbed, evidently finished with his lunch. He curled up at the base of the tree, keeping his head up, as if on guard duty.
She found a comfortable spot to sit on a branch so thick it could have been a bench. She settled back against the trunk and began to relax. Her breathing slowed and her mind cleared. She listened to the buzz of insects, the cry of crows. The darkness that she’d been living with lifted as she breathed in and out, in and out.
Why didn’t you seek the trees earlier? a voice whispered in her mind. You’ll never be a proper tree singer unless you listen to the trees.
I’m listening to them now, she told the voice. So hush.
She listened for the tree’s life story first. Each tree had a story of its own, connected to the others through collective consciousness yet individual to itself. This tree, almost three hundred years old, had a male essence and had seen and heard many things over the years.
:Little sister.: The oak’s ‘voice’ soothed her mind, driving the lingering fog away.
Mayten let a soft breath slide from her lips. :Uncle, what is unsettling your peace?:
Pictures tumbled through her mind, images as disturbing as they were confusing. The face of a man from a time long ago, perhaps two hundred years according to the oak. The man had pale skin, black, curly hair, and a thin black mustache. Tall and thin, the man had a haughty look about his eyes.
Why was the oak showing her this man? What did he have to do with what was happening?
Another wave of images crowded out the first. An image that indicated an imbalance in the seasons, and something that seemed like an emptiness . . . or perhaps death . . . of living things.
She tried to grab hold of the images, make some sense of what she was seeing, but had no idea how one related to the other.
What could a man who lived hundreds of years ago have to do with