The Family Tree (17 page)

Izzy nodded, resting his chin on his upbent knees. “The onchiki say they’d never seen such trees before they bumped into a thousand of them. However, they had never moved west before, either. None of us have traveled here, so it could be the trees have been here for some time.”

“Whatever,” Sahir muttered. “It still might be wizardry.”

“Wizardry,” said Soaz. “Or weaponry.”

“Weaponry!” Sahir grunted, his eyes wide. “What do you mean, weaponry?”

Soaz got to his feet, stretched, turned around and sat back down again. “The Farsaki Empire, as we all know, is determined to rule the world. Suppose they invented these trees. Suppose they are sowing them all across the world. Suppose at a given signal, the trees will arise and march against the inhabitants!”

I gasped, and Izzy looked at me, frowning. Whenever he looked at me, he got a very peculiar expression on his face, as though he wanted to say something but could not. He brought himself to himself with a snap of his teeth and looked away, saying:

“It’s as likely they were raised as a defense against Farsakian domination as it is they are part of the con
quest.” Izzy cleared his throat several times, as it seemed to have something stuck about halfway down. “They could make defensive walls against invaders.”

“I don’t think they’re Farsaki,” I said. “They don’t feel Farsaki. The Farsaki are supposed to be dire and dreadful. They kill persons without even blinking. But the trees didn’t even hurt the onchiki much, just whapped them, and that was after an onchik took an ax to them.”

“How did you know that?” cried Izzy. “You don’t speak Uk-Luk.”

“No,” I said in bewilderment. “You’re quite right. I don’t speak Uk-Luk, but I heard them saying it, nonetheless. The little one was telling you all about it. I wanted to put her on my lap and pet her, she’s so sweet and quick and clever, and scarce bigger than a child.”

“Lucy Low,” said Izzy. “That’s her name. Her father is Diver, her mother is Sleekele, her brothers are Burrow and Mince, her sisters are Ring and Bright. The old one they call Grandmama.”

I nodded. “Well, I guess I understand them the same way I do the armakfatidi. You sort of hold your mind a certain way, and the words drop into it. Plunk. Like that.”

“Nothing has ever dropped into my mind from the armakfatidi,” growled Soaz. “Nor would I wish for such an intrusion. Does this talent allow you to speak to these people?”

I tried to make Uk-Luk words, but nothing came into my mouth of any purpose. “No. That is, I don’t think so.”

Izzy was looking at me with that expression again. “Perhaps Nassif’s talent is magical,” he said. “One of those wild talents I’ve read of, a survival from former times. In previous cycles, people were said to have had psychokinesis and clairvoyance and what all, though no one had ever explained them or been able to test them rigorously. In this era, such talents might have developed more recognizably and more reliably, since there was
little technology to interfere. There is, after all, the Society of Seers in Sworp, a magical group that is officially recognized…” His voice waned as he saw us all looking at him in astonishment.

“What former times?” asked Soaz.

“What previous cycles?” asked Sahir.

“Nothing,” he said in a quavering voice. “A fantasy of mine, that’s all. Something I…amuse myself with.”

We three were not about to let him off. We glared at him.

“What?” he snarled.

“We have been thinking about your being wizardly,” said Sahir. “We are wondering if perhaps it is not time for you to tell us what brings you on this journey.”

“Oh, that,” said Izzy with obvious relief. “Of course, if you like. The midwife who delivered me, who was originally a Seeress from Sworp, prophesied that I must solve the Great Enigma by the time I’ve reached my majority, or I’ll die with all posterity. Which could mean either my children or everyone’s. Since the prophecy originated with a Sworpian Seeress, and we’ll be going through Sworp on our way to the Hospice of St. Weel—where I hope the wizards may enlighten me about the Great Enigma—I thought I’d enquire on our way through. At any rate, it’s better than sitting at home, wondering what I should be doing and waiting for everything to go pop centuries earlier than threatened.”

“How exciting!” I cried, smiling at him warmly.

“Fool’s errand,” growled Soaz.

“And is that the only reason?” asked Sahir, his eyes slitted.

“So far as I am concerned, it is quite enough. And you?”

“Our family has misplaced a…talisman. We need to find it to assure continuation of…everything. Or so an old gray seeress told my father in the desert east of Isfoin.”

“I’m told my midwife ended up in the desert east of Isfoin,” mused Izzy. “I should not be surprised to find
we are both on the same errand, sent by the same vision.”

“In your prophecy, do you think it’s your life or the whole world that gets destroyed?” Sahir asked curiously.

“The words could mean either,” said Izzy.

“A Great Enigma,” I said, tasting the words. “It sounds very mysterious. Not very romantic, though. Not like rescuing a princess or finding the secret of immortal life or anything like that.” I shook my head wonderingly. “It would be more exciting if we knew what it was.”

“Much more exciting,” said Izzy, seeming disheartened at this analysis. He turned to stare out the window. “Quite frankly, I think this trip is quite exciting enough.”

I watched him. When he stood that way, looking slightly troubled, I thought him quite enchantingly handsome. His hair was as dark as his eyes, and as brightly gleaming. His fingers were long and graceful. His teeth shone between his lips, like stars. I sighed, a very small sigh. So long as I was supposed to be a boy, there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, we were both far too young….

“What ails you, Izakar?” asked Sahir.

“Nothing,” he murmured with a sigh. “Nothing at all.”

Soaz peered through slitted eyes, first at him, then at me, with a sly grin, his tongue in the corner of his mouth. I knew what he was thinking, and I turned quite pink. Soaz merely purred to himself as he dozed off.

We were all weary enough to sleep well, all healthy enough to benefit greatly from the rest. The troop that started out in the morning was an improvement on the rag-taggle that had straggled into Blander the night before. Izzy felt so much better that he uncased his larbel, set it upon his knees and began to strum a marching tune, despite Flinch’s ears flicking at the music as though to drive away flies.

From atop the pack on one of the horses, Lucy Low began to warble a descant, and from another pack, Mince joined in with a slide whistle, which he had been carrying in a case hung from his belt. The umminhi, as was their habit when they heard music, made a harmonic bumbling in their throats, and I was just thinking how nice drums would be when I heard them thumping along. Diver was atop the baggage,
tumty-tumming
on a cooking pot.

“Your family is quite musical, madam,” Izzy said to Grandmama, who was riding nearest him.

“Long winters, son,” she replied. “Long winters and deep snow. That’s what makes music sprout, ever’body gathered around the peat fire and all the doors tight shut.”

“You don’t fish in the winter, then?”

“Oh, we do, we do. Some fish are only catchable winter times, but when we’ve done it, we don’t stay out in the cold. We get inside, where we can tend to our hides, be sure we’re not frostbit.”

We went tunefully along a considerable way, Izzy setting the melodies, and the others following. When he tired, he waved the larbel in thanks, then put it back in its case. Mince and Diver went on a few moments more, drum and whistle, a jiggety air, then they, too, put the instruments away.

“So far, we’ve seen no more of
them
trees,” remarked Izzy to no one in particular. “Perhaps the whole thing was a tempest in a teapot.”

We topped a slight rise as he spoke, and our mounts came to a rearing halt at the sight of the forest that blocked the wide road below.

T
he evening following Dora’s discovery of a forest in her yard, she watched CNN, wondering if they had learned about trees growing where they shouldn’t. Nothing appeared on national news. At ten, however, on the local news were pictures of a grove in an alley, a woodsy stretch at a cross street, a small forest in a park, grown up all at once, when no one was looking. A gray-haired, motherly botanist talked learnedly about the rapid growth records set by mushrooms and bamboo and some other plants, then speculated on mutation or the accidental escape of seeds treated with radiation. “We aren’t that far,” she said, “from the location of early atom bomb tests. These plants may have been reproducing for the last fifty years, but seeds hadn’t blown into a populated area until now.”

Dora shook her head as she turned off the TV. Even though it sounded logical, she didn’t believe it. She pulled up her covers, resolved not to think about it, resolving to sleep, no matter what. She unplugged the
phone but still roused at unfamiliar sounds, shifting restlessly, getting up at about seven, totally unrested. Nerves, she told herself. It had to be nerves.

There was no point fretting over it. She rose, took her usual shower, dressed in light trousers, shirt and the patchwork vest Kathleen had sent her as a late birthday gift. The curtains were drawn and she left them that way, a kind of superstitious awe; if she didn’t see it, maybe it didn’t exist. She indulged in a dab of lip gloss and a spritz of cologne, poured what was left of her morning coffee into a spill-proof sipper for drinking on the way to work, found a clean shirt to put in her locker for emergencies, and headed down the stairs.

During the night, the forest in the alley had grown taller. Some of the boughs overhung her apartment upstairs. A rain of petals fell around her, a scent of cinnamon and pinks, an old-fashioned smell, like a kitchen on Saturday morning when she and Grandma had baked for Sunday, making gingerbread and pineapple upside-down cake to be served with big blobs of whipped cream. As she went through the gate, a bough drooped before her, blocking her way and bearing an apple at its tip.

Without even thinking about it, she said, “Thank you very much, tree,” and picked the apple.

The bough went back up, out of her way.

She walked down the drive, now only a swerving footpath between two stretches of woods. The big house was invisible behind the leaves. Her car was parked where she had left it, but though the street had been two lanes wide plus parking lanes last night, now it was only one lane wide with trees everywhere else, including around her car and the few other cars that had been left on the street. She couldn’t move the car from the space it was in. There were trees pressed solidly all the way around it.

Around her the leaves became still, waiting.

“I have a bicycle,” she said.

The leaves rustled.

Biting into the apple, she went back to the garage, opened the big door, and burrowed through packing cases to the place she’d hung her bike. Lord, she hadn’t ridden it in years. The tires were probably rotten.

She found the pump hanging nearby, brought both out into the air and inflated the tires. They held. Putting the pump back inside and the apple between her teeth, she shut the garage door and mounted the bike, wobbling desperately for the first few feet. By the time she maneuvered between several trees to reach the street, however, she thought she had the hang of it, though she needed both hands. She thought of spitting out the apple, then decided against it. If she had grown the apple, she wouldn’t want it wasted. Instead, she dropped it into the basket.

At the wider avenues, there were more lanes of traffic, but very few cars. Most, she figured, had been trapped in their garages or on the street. Here and there walkers trudged or cyclists pedaled along, some looking confused, others angry, some muttering, some silent. A bus was just pulling into the stop when she arrived at the boulevard she usually drove along each day.

Moved by pure hunch, Dora wheeled her bike to the nearest tree. “This is mine. I’m Dora Henry. Will you take care of it for me, please, until I get back this evening?”

The leaves trembled, then turned to look at her as branches lowered protectively over the handlebars.

Did she believe this? Of course not. She was dreaming. Besides, it was an old bike. If it was there when she got back, fine. If not, she could walk home. Or, since it was a dream, she could fly. She retrieved her apple from the basket and ran for the almost empty bus without a backward glance. The driver glanced at her as he pulled away. “Didn’t trap you, huh?”

“Are a lot of people trapped?”

He jerked his head at the passengers behind her. “Some of them said they was. One guy had to climb out a window. That old lady back there had to fight her
way through branches and got all bruised. You don’t look beat up.”

“If you’re nice to them, they’re nice to you,” she said. “One of them gave me this apple.”

“I be damned,” he remarked. “Is that the truth?”

Taking a crunchy bite, she dropped into a seat behind him. “The streets downtown, are they still there?”

“Far’s I know. They was there when I drove out. Even out here, the big streets, the main ones, the trees haven’t bothered much. Only the narrow ones, you know, residential areas and that. Must be a lot of people trapped. Most mornings, I’m full and people standing.”

They drove down an asphalt lane through forest. The growth was not entirely uniform. Many streetlights were hidden, along with street signs, but only at intersections which were already closed to cross traffic by trees. On the larger cross streets, signs and lights were visible. Most of the lower buildings were obscured behind leafy barricades, and it was hard to determine their own location until they came to the hill that sloped down into the city and saw the urban center beneath them, largely unchanged. Even the side streets appeared to be open. They bumped unimpeded across railroad tracks, passed drive-in banks and parking lots, all blacktop and yellow lines with no growth in them at all. The wood behind them was a dreamscape, something they must have imagined.

The bus slowed, swerved, made a turn into a main thoroughfare. Half a dozen blocks farther on, Dora got off. The precinct was six blocks away. She was early. No hassle. She’d finished the apple, all but the core. That she dropped in a trash basket at the corner.

She had walked two blocks when Phil picked her up in his car. “How’d you get out?” she asked, before remembering that Phil lived close, out near the university, in a townhouse. “No trees at your place?”

“Trees everywhere,” he snarled. His face was red, and he was obviously very angry. “My God, Dora, we’ve been invaded! Morning news says they’re show
ing up in Philadelphia, too. And Boston and Cleveland and Charleston.”

“New York?”

“No. Not yet. At least, not Manhattan. According to the guy on TV this morning, they can’t get across the bridges. At least, that’s his theory. Queens’s got trees though, and Staten Island, and all over New Jersey…” He gritted his teeth, making a grinding noise.

The parking lot behind the precinct house was two-thirds empty, but a tangle of bicycles filled the spaces nearest the door.

“I started out on my bike this morning,” said Dora. “Then I caught the bus.”

“What’d you do with your bike?”

“Asked a tree to take care of it for me.” She giggled.

He looked at her as though she’d gone insane, brows drawn together. “Dora! This is bad enough without you talking crazy.”

“Well, crazy things have been happening, Phil. Jared tried to kill a weed, and he got punished for it. And we’ve got two, maybe three cases of people fooling with Mother Nature who got stabbed, and there’s those bushes up in the mountains, pulling heavy metals out of mine tailings. And some herds of cows have disappeared or died. I mean, don’t you think that’s all part of one thing?”

“What one thing?” he demanded harshly.

She shrugged, suddenly wary. Phil wasn’t just making conversation; he was really furious.

“I don’t know,” she said placatingly. “Maybe nothing.”

His mouth worked angrily. “If it was some kind of…conspiracy, you ought to be upset! But you’re sounding like it’s all right with you!”

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, I was in at the beginning, so to speak. The weed that poisoned Jared grew up the front of the house. It was the first one, as far as I know. I kind of got to know it.”

He got out, face red, words spewing, “You’re losing
it, Dora. You’ve gone over the line.” He stalked away from her, back rigid.

“Come on, Phil.” She averted her eyes from his shuddering form. The expression in his eyes had been fear, no matter what his mouth said. Phil didn’t often get huffy with her. Usually he put up with her pretty well, but this thing seemed to have gotten to him. She forbore saying anything more. No point upsetting him more than he already was.

The day went on being weird. Hysterical people phoned about vines invading their bathrooms, trees sprouting through their sidewalks. Every available person worked the phones, making reassuring noises. “Yes, ma’am, it’s happening everywhere…. No, ma’am, they don’t seem to be dangerous…. Yes, sir, we’ll let the public know just as soon as we do.”

An hour or two later, after getting reports from the street and the hospitals, they were saying, “Not dangerous unless you try to cut them down, ma’am. Don’t try to cut them down.” Halfway through the morning, the captain came out into the room, looked around with a frustrated expression on his face, then beckoned to Dora.

“There’s some kind of briefing at the statehouse. I’m sending you as liaison.”

“Why me?”

“Because you get along with people, Dora! Most people, anyhow. Because I haven’t got anybody else.”

“I’m only a sergeant….”

“You’re a person with eyes and ears! You can observe, can’t you? You can listen!”

She said yessir, took a car and went. The statehouse was downtown, the streets were passable; she got there to find the same confusion and conjecture she’d left behind. The briefing was equally confused. Some high muckety-muck botanists were supposed to be flying in from some high-powered university—different people mentioned three different ones—and a team of chemists was expected.

Into the silence that followed this remark, Dora blurted, “Chemists? Why chemists?”

“Experts in working with defoliants, weed killer,” said the chairman impatiently.

“That would be a mistake,” Dora remarked. “A very bad mistake. My husband tried weed killer on one of them. He ended up in the hospital. We’ve had reports of multiple injuries this morning. They fight back, you know.”

Twenty pairs of eyes fastened on her. Twenty jaws went lax.

“Surely you’re joking,” said a pale, plump man in his sixties with an M.D. name tag. “Surely…”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “My husband tried to kill one of these new plants, and he would have died if we hadn’t got him to emergency care fast. And he wasn’t the only case. We’ve had calls all morning about similar things happening.”

“Get her out of here,” the man snarled.

Dora felt her face reddening. “Before you go on gratuitously asserting your authority Dr….” She craned, getting a look at his name tag. “Dr. Jonas, wouldn’t it be smart to check out what I’m telling you? All it’ll take is a call to any hospital.”

There were snarls and grumbles, someone recessed the meeting for twenty minutes, someone else went off somewhere to speak on the phone, returned, whispered. Meantime Dora sat, staring at the doctor and his henchmen, bureaucrats to the teeth. They had no idea what was going on. They had even less idea than Dora herself. They were scared, as Phil was, and when people were scared, all they wanted to do was kill something.

In the end, nothing happened. The doctor had a whispered conference with the man who’d been on the phone and then grudgingly agreed to inform the chemists and scientists and who all about the local cases of poisoning. It was almost five, and Dora had some questions she wanted to ask her former mother-in-law, so she drove over to the boardinghouse. From the corner, Dora peered
toward Jared’s place down the side street, which had also been narrowed to one lane. Curiosity got the best of her. She turned the car down that way, slowly swerving from side to side as the single lane curved one way and the other. The forest didn’t like straight lines. The street was now a sinuous trail, like a snake track.

If it hadn’t been for the Tree, she’d have gone right past Jared’s place, for nothing showed of the house at all. Even the
For Sale
sign was overgrown. The driveway had vanished, the stoop was a green mound, the house a tangle of vines, the windows mere slits between heavy branches of liana. The Tree, two houses down, still towered above everything else, but it no longer seemed a strange presence. Now it was only part of the general jungle.

She drove around the block and returned to the boardinghouse, where she parked in the one empty space and got out, closing the door loudly enough that Mrs. Gerber could hear her. From where she stood, she could see the parking lot of the mall where she and Polly had had dinner. The lacy weeds around the bottoms of the light posts had grown into stout vines by now. Each light post had a growth reaching high around it, and each one looked suspiciously like Jared’s weed.

“Dora.” Jared’s mother stood in the doorway, behind the screen. “Come in.” She held the screen ajar, then led Dora down the immaculate hallway to her own private sitting room. The room looked as though it had been cleaned only moments before, everything shining, ruler straight, no clutter, no little ornaments or plants or doilies. Momma Gerber sat stiffly down on a straightbacked chair, gesturing to Dora to take the upholstered one. Through a closed door Dora could hear the clatter of pans and cutlery. Supper was being prepared for the boarders.

“Jared’s firm is having a meeting tonight,” Mrs. Gerber said. “He won’t be home until later.”

Dora had forgotten all about Jared. “I came to see you, not Jared.”

The older woman sighed. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Dora, especially since Jared says he thinks he can change your mind. He says he would have done it sooner, only you cleaned the house too thoroughly. Now, what does he mean by that? It’s nice you came to see me, through all this mess. Isn’t this awful? What’s the world coming to?”