The Family Tree (19 page)

“T
oday, lunch, we got a date,” Phil said to Dora.

He had scarcely spoken to Dora the last couple of days, and this announcement bewildered her. “You and I have a date?”

“You and me and this friend of mine. I told him what you said. He wants to meet you.”

“What friend?”

“My professor friend. He’s a biologist.”

“I told you—”

“This’s got nothing to do with you, Dora. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with man-woman stuff. This is just about the trees, that’s all.” He frowned, a little shamefaced. “I got to thinking about what you said, about the trees being…intelligent, like.”

“Well, they are.”

Phil made a face. “That’s what he wants to talk about. What you saw. Where it started. This whole business. I think you’re crazy, I think he’s crazy, but like I told you, he’s a good friend, he was a neighbor of mine. His
wife died, he sold the house, moved over to the university, but we stay in touch. Way I figure it, stuff doesn’t get solved by people not telling other people stuff, even if other people think they belong in a loony bin.”

She didn’t try to sort this out. She got the drift.

The city center was still tree-free. Buses still ran to and from, though fewer and fewer cars were able to get out of the suburbs. Highways were clear. Railways were clear. Airport runways were clear. People could still travel, they could still make dates for lunch. If they chose to live in residential areas, including the suburbs, however, they would have to make a twice a day trek by rail, foot, bicycle, or horseback. The few stubbornly angry men who were still trying to clear their land with chain saws were still being killed. Autopsies established that the trees were the possessors of lethal stinging cells, nematocysts, previously thought to belong only to creatures such as sea anemones and jellyfish.

Phil and Dora went to a downtown restaurant which was doing a good business, considering everything. There Dora was introduced to Abilene McCord.

“Phil’s told me about you,” he said, offering his hand. He was a slender man with a narrow, foxish face, pointed nose and chin, curly mouth, and long-lashed watchful eyes. His teeth were likewise narrow, and very white, though his skin and hair were foxish also, reddish and tawny, freckled and curly haired.

“You’re a biologist,” she said flatly.

“Um,” he said, staring at her.

“Could we, like, sit down,” suggested Phil.

“Oh, sure,” said Abilene, still staring.

“Did I hear right? Your name’s Abilene?” asked Dora, feeling a little nervous. The way the guy was looking at her, maybe she had a spot on her nose or something.

“My mother’s idea,” he said, finally looking elsewhere. “It’s where she and Dad went on honeymoon, for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom. I’ve just been glad they didn’t go to Niagara Falls. You can call
me Abby, if you like. A lot of people do.”

He grinned at her, and Dora gulped. It was a very foxish grin. Knowing, in a wild kind of way.

They sat. They ordered. Dora drank half a glass of iced tea all at once, trying to put out a sudden warmth in the pit of her stomach. Abby watched her curiously. When she set her glass down, he asked:

“Tell me about the weed where you used to live.”

So she told him, baldly, in few words, making it sound like nothing. He nodded, as though satisfied.

“It was more…eerie than that,” she confessed.

“It had to be, yes,” he said, moving his napkin out of the way of the waiter, who had showed up with their lunches. “The fact you don’t try to make it sound dramatic is impressive, however. If you were inventing or imagining—which is what my friend Phil here thinks—you’d probably make a better story out of it.”

“I don’t tell things very well,” she said, glaring at Phil.

“The hell,” said Phil. “She writes great reports.”

“You told it very well.” Abby smiled. “So then, you moved. And the weed moved with you.”

“Part of it. Or another one,” she confessed.

“Why do you think that is?”

“Maybe it likes to be talked to,” she hazarded. “At least, that’s all I’ve ever done for it.”

“No little sips of fertilizer? No polishing its leaves? No playing music to it?”

“I never thought of that,” she said, astonished. “The way it looks, so healthy, I never thought about it needing fertilizer. And with all the birds singing to it, why would it need music?”

“She says it gave her an apple,” said Phil, in a skeptical tone.

“Did it?” Abby asked.

“Yeah,” she confessed. “And some cherries.”

“Your weed?”

“No.” She stopped, confused. “No, two different trees. One outside my house and one where I left my
bicycle. Oh, and they’ll take care of your bicycle for you, too, if you ask them to. And if you ask for some seedlings, it’ll give you a little one. A sapling or whatever. My friend Loulee wanted one because it eats garbage.”

And that was another story. And the garden was another one yet. “Yesterday, these two trees grew me a hammock,” she said. “Two nice strong vines, one down each side, and this lacy little mat of shoots across the middle. You can lie on it, just like a hammock. There’s a leaf pillow, and it swings by itself.”

Abby put down his fork, chewing and swallowing a mouthful of lasagna before he spoke. “Did you hear about the new flora that’s growing around the Mediterranean?”

“Something on TV. The flocks are doing real well on it.”

“They are. Or were. It seems the plant is a first-rate fertility control agent. There have been no pregnancies among the sheep and goats since they started eating the stuff.”

Phil said belligerently, “Now that’s rotten. Those poor people probably need their animals.”

“No,” said Abby. “They need far fewer of them. It was the unrestricted breeding of sheep and goats that deforested the entire area. As may be happening here, as well.” He turned to Dora once more. “Phil said you mentioned the missing herds of cows. I suppose you’ve figured out if it could eat garbage, it could eat a herd of cows.”

She stopped chewing, eyes unfocused. “I never thought of that.”

“But then, if it killed the cows and ate them, why didn’t it eat the people it killed?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head slowly. “They were left right there, where other people could see them.”

“Do you think it could be because people learn by example, but cows presumably do not?”

Phil grunted, shaking his head. “You’re both nuts.”

Dora nodded, however. “It could be that. But then, you got to remember Jared’s all right. I mean, it hasn’t come after him or anything.”

Abby grinned at her. “Then the plant could be said to be defensive but not vengeful. Can we take a look at his place?”

Dora forbid herself from returning his grin. What was this? She felt like…well, like she’d swallowed something buoyant. Something that wanted to soar! Unwillingly, she said, “I’m not sure it is his place anymore. Someone might have bought it by now.”

Abby lined up his silverware thoughtfully, watching her from the corners of his eyes. “Not many people buying property these days. Things are too uncertain.”

She shrugged, giving up. “I don’t have a key with me, but you’re welcome to look at the outside.”

When they finished lunch, Phil went back on duty, saying he’d cover for her until two, when she could meet him outside the deli where they usually had lunch. Dora went with Abby in his little convertible, the warm air lashing her hair into tangles. They drove to the avenue, then down the swervy side street, stopping at last in front of Jared’s place.

“What kind of tree is that?” Abby asked, pointing upward at the looming bulk of the Tree.

Dora confessed she didn’t know what kind of tree it was.

They got out and walked through what had been a yard and was now a little forest, between two green mounds that had been houses, to the foot of the huge tree. In Dora’s eyes, it seemed to have grown another twenty or thirty feet since she’d seen it last, and it had been huge then. “The roots go all the way across the next lot. Last time I was in the garage, I saw the roots were breaking up the floor.”

“The roots of a tree this size could reach that far, though I don’t know what kind of tree it is either,” he said with a puzzled smile. “Which is rather interesting.
Trees being my specialty, I ought to recognize it.” He pulled down a branch and looked at the leaves. He started to pick one.

“No,” said Dora. “Don’t take it. Ask it.”

He stared at her a long, inscrutable moment, then turned back to the tree.

“May I have a few leaves, please?”

A tremble of foliage, a sound, as of wind through the boughs, and then a plop. The sprig lay on the ground next to his feet, an emerald spray drooping gracefully from a green stem.

He said in a very soft voice, “I live in a townhouse near the university. I’ve looked at the trees, but I haven’t had any close contact with them. I didn’t believe you.” He drew a deep breath and fixed her with his eyes. “I honest to God didn’t.”

He picked up the sprig, and they went back to the car. He opened the trunk and stored the sprig in a specimen case before rejoining Dora. “I still don’t recognize it,” he said. “Leaves rather like an oak, but oak leaves aren’t arranged like that.”

“I always thought of it as an oak,” said Dora. “It’s been there forever. The nearest house is where the Dionnes lived. Before the fire.”

Which led to her telling him all about the Dionnes, and her attempt to locate them.

“When Harry Dionne calls you back, will you call me?” he asked, giving her his card. “Please.”

“You think they know something?”

“Not necessarily. One thing leads to another, though. You know that.” He smiled at her and something inside her took fire once more. “You have beautiful eyes. In fact, you’re an exceptionally lovely woman,” he said with a laugh. “Especially for a cop.”

She flushed, not knowing what to say to that, hoping he wouldn’t say anything else like it, then hoping he would.

He didn’t say anything at all, just dropped her off where she was to meet Phil, lifting his hand in farewell.
His card was in her pocket. She could feel it there, like a little sun, making a heat all its own.

“Nice guy, huh?” asked Phil.

“Very nice,” she said primly, keeping her face straight.

“Think he believed all that stuff?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, Phil. I think after the tree handed him the leaves he wanted, he probably did.”

Phil clenched his jaw and refused to ask. Dora, barely able to suppress laughter, pretended she hadn’t noticed.

B
lanche went in search of the countess. She found her mistress on the west terrace having a midafternoon snack from the greenhouses, peaches so ripe that Elianne’s hands and face were smeared with juice. The countess looked up from her enjoyment, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

“The guards have intercepted a party of travelers on the high road, Your Grace.”

The countess started to lick the juice from her hands as a younger Elianne would have done, then, seeing Blanche’s unwavering gaze, wiped them delicately on a napkin instead. “I imagine the guards intercept travelers several times an hour,” she remarked loftily. “And what is that to me?”

“It’s the assortment of the group,” said Blanche in her harsh voice. “Pheled, ponji, scuinan, onchiki….”

“Pheled? And onchiki?”

“Yes. A family of them. Plus guards and handlers and some very impressive umminhi. Expensive animals. Royal livery, or I miss my guess.”

“Ah.” Blanche seldom missed her guess. She was well informed on most matters, and when information was lacking, her intuition could be relied upon.

The secretary cocked her head. “Perhaps you’d like to enquire?”

“By all means, Blanche. Let us enquire. Let us invite them to tea.”

“It looks like you’ve had tea.” Blanche stared pointedly at the countess’s still sticky hands.

“Not really. Just a little fruit.”

“You’ll be letting out your seams, next.”

The countess snorted. “Kindly remember who is the countess here. Tell Dzilobommo to prepare confections and tea, something relaxing and mind expanding. Something to make the visitors talkative. I’ll be along in a moment.”

Blanche went away without a word. The countess rose, dipped her still sticky hands into the fountain, washed her face thoroughly, dried hands and face on a napkin, then smoothed her gown down over her ample hips. Dieting might make her unattractive to cannibals, which is no doubt what Blanche had in mind, but it would be boring, nonetheless. After allowing sufficient time to elapse to indicate that she was untroubled by anything Blanche had said or implied, she strolled toward the public chambers, intercepting a bevy of serving people laden with teapots and covered plates. Through
the open door of the small audience room, she could hear the babble of onchiki speech. How very strange. Onchiki almost never came to Zallyfro.

“Her Grace, the Countess Elianne of Estafan!” intoned a servitor, thumping his baton against a hollow floor tile as she entered. Every room had such drumlike hollow tiles, built in for annunciatory occasions.

She drew herself regally erect and cast a smiling glance across the company assembled. One pheled, a sizeable fellow. A scuinic VIP, and a ponjic one. Plus a trio of onchiki. Evidently the handlers and guards were being fed outside in the courtyard.

“Good day,” she murmured in Estafani.

“Our eyes are delighted to look upon your effulgence,” murmured the ponjic VIP in flawless Estafani, with a bow so low that he all but brushed the floor with his auburn hair. This one was a play actor.

“Our senses are thrilled by your presence,” said the scuina in a clumsy accent, bowing not so deeply. This one took himself more seriously than the other. When he straightened up, however, his dark eyes caught hers, and she felt herself flushing. He was a handsome devil. Lean, with a look of mystical intensity.

“Prince Sahir of Tavor,” he said, as taken with her appearance as she was with his.

She nodded, indicating interest.

“Prince Izakar of Palmia,” said the previous speaker, bowing even lower than before.

“Lucy Low, of the Shore Counties,” said the littlest onchik, in trade language, with a bow so low that the others were left speechless. “With her brothers, Mince and Burrow.”

The countess burst out laughing, and after a moment’s discomfiture, so did Sahir and Izzy, as they settled around the tea table in a mood of general good nature. Sahir kept his eyes on the countess. Izzy kept his eyes on Sahir. As scuinic females went, the countess was a fine-looking specimen. If one liked that sort of thing, she was very much the sort of thing one would like.

The room was much ornamented with carved plaster; tall open windows striped the walls with views of the orange and lemon trees in the garden. The scent of roses wafted in, along with the subtle music of fountains, all conveying a sense of tranquility.

“Are you three all your family?” the countess asked Lucy Low in trade language.

“Sleekele and Diver and Grandmama and my two sisters are outside in the courtyard,” said Lucy Low. “They didn’t want to come in, and Nassif stayed with them, to keep them company.”

“Nassif is my companion,” said Sahir, to no one in particular.

“Are your family shy?” the countess asked the onchiki.

“We don’t hold with buildings much,” said Mince, around a mouthful of smoked salmon sandwich. “Makes us uncomfortable like. Specially places that stand so high from the ground.”

“Is that true?” the countess asked Burrow, who merely nodded, mouth open.

“Little houses are all right,” offered Lucy Low. “Little houses and little rooms. With not so much space all around. Big empty rooms with echoes in, well, those are a bit frightening.”

The countess looked at the walls, which were some distance away, and up at the ceiling, which was lofty. No doubt the onchiki’s feelings had to do with predators. It was sensible to fear things with teeth coming out of the night. One would want one’s back to a wall and limited space for the enemy to maneuver in. If the countess’s own people had built this palace, it might have been less lofty, but it had been built long ago, no one knew by whom, though it had been much elaborated since that time. She nodded, understanding.

“Thank you for coming,” she told them. “I hope you are not too overawed to enjoy your tea.”

They said the place wasn’t all that awesome, which they proved by consuming a good deal of whatever was
on the table. Dzilobommo had provided several sorts of tea, to suit various tastes. Soaz grew pleasantly drowsy, the onchiki became even more cheerful, while the rest of them conversed comfortably about their journey. Izzy and Sahir even unbuttoned themselves sufficiently to tell the countess about the Great Enigma and the sultan’s lost fortune. She, in turn, mentioned the Dire Duke and the quandary he had placed her in.

Said Lucy Low, “These folk say there is help to be had at St. Weel, and perhaps you should seek help there, too. Oh, I would like to go to St. Weel. I would like to see the world.”

“Well, then,” said the countess, surprising herself, “why don’t you?”

The little onchik shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “We have nothing to pay our way, lady. It is only the shore counties that will take our fortunes, and the little sea towns so far as Sworp. But these people will go beyond Sworp, and perhaps inland from the sea.”

“What fortunes do you have?” asked the countess.

“Grandmama is keeping most of them, but I have two,” she said, fishing them out of her pocket. “They were given to my long-back Grandmama Erntrude Biwot by the lady Amalia Gershon.”

“Gershon!” exclaimed Izzy. “That was my mother’s name. She was from Sworp!”

“Well, well,” said the countess. “And have you opened these fortunes, child?”

“No, ma’am. Since they were given personal like, Grandmama thought maybe I’d profit from them, but then, maybe not, as who can tell.”

“I think she should open them now,” said Blanche from her position behind the countess’s left shoulder. “I feel a tingle coming on.” She gave a premonitory shudder as she fixed her eyes upon the onchik.

“What a good idea,” Elianne remarked. “And if they lose value by being opened prematurely, I will compensate you, child. You and your brothers.”

Looking around rather doubtfully at the company,
Lucy Low put the fortunes upon the tea table, cut the gold seals and slowly unfolded them. They were written upon fine vellum that remained unyellowed by time and were folded in the likeness of strange animals. When the first one was smoothed, she took it up and spelled it out, letter by letter. “It’s not writ in Sworpian, ma’am. Nor Uk-Luk, neither.”

“May I?” asked Izzy, taking the sheet from her. “Actually, it is in Sworpian, but it’s an archaic form. ‘I, Amalia Gershon, guided by fate and the Sorceresses, of whom I am one in all but name, send this message to my future grandson, whomever he may be, whenever he may appear. If Doom approacheth, get ye to St. Weel.’

“By all the bans of Bandercran,” said Izzy, almost reverently. “How can this be?”

“You’re the magician,” said Soaz, roused from his drowsy state. “You figure it out.”

“And the other fortune?” asked Elianne, in a hushed voice.

Lucy Low handed him the second fortune, and he read, “‘I, Amalia Gershon, guided by Fate and the Sorceresses of Sworp, send this message into a future time. Ye rulers and leaders of peoples, beware. Turn not to arms but get ye to St. Weel, for there I have seen the Door stand open.”

“Not worth nothing, now,” said Mince, staring regretfully at the fortunes. “She opened ’em, and they’re not worth nothing.”

“Not so,” said the countess. “Simply because your sister is not the one directed by the fortune does not mean she cannot profit from it. She has done precisely what she should; she has brought them here and made them available to the people they were intended for. Both a grandson and a ruler were present at the opening, just as the seeress knew we would be. We have been warned, as was intended, and I will pay Lucy Low well for telling us of this geas, and—”

“Telling you of what?” cried Lucy Low.

“This geas, child. This warning, this weird….”

“Well, and then maybe it was geas my fortune was about, and I would indeed rather travel the weird world than tend your geese, ma’am.”

“What geese?” the countess demanded, taken aback.

It was Mince who explained about the geese, and the chimneys and the alehouse and all the rest of it.

“Do you have your fortune with you, Lucy Low?” the countess asked.

She brought it from her pocket and unfolded it upon the tea table, spelling it out letter by letter. The word could have been either
geese
or
geas
, as they all could see. The little onchik explained again how it had all happened, and how it was indeed her sharp eyes which had read it out, so that all was true.

“Blanche,” said the countess when this account was done. “See to it, please. Appropriate jobs in the palace for Lucy’s mama and grandmama and father. We have rooms to clean and chimneys to mend, enough to keep them busy, I should think. The sisters…well, if it is to be an ale house, at least let it be a reputable one. Perhaps the Eel and Anchor, or the Glamorous Clam. See to that as well.”

“What about me?” asked Mince irrepressibly.

“I will ask my uncle, the admiral,” said the countess. “He will find shipboard jobs for you and your brother, if that is what you desire.”

“Rather not,” said Burrow, suddenly articulate. “Rather go see the world. But it’s said them as ignores fate, fate don’t ignore. An’ we got fortunes say fishing boats.”

“Do you have them with you?” asked Blanche.

Burrow dug it from a pocket, much the worse for wadding.

Blanche smoothed it upon the back of the chair where the countess sat. “It says you will find a future on a fishing boat, but it does not say when. What about your brother?”

Mince came up with his fortune as well, in somewhat better shape, for he had kept it folded in his wallet.

“‘He who stays with his brother strengthens himself,’” Blanche read. “So, if your brother travels the world, you may keep your fortune by going with him, both deferring your piscatorial preoccupations until later in your lives.”

Mince nodded. “Guess I’d got to, don I?”

“How wonderful,” cried the countess. “What fun! We shall make a sizeable party, shall we not?”

“We…” murmured Sahir.

“Surely.” She smiled sweetly upon him.

“What have you in mind, madam?” asked Soaz, still drowsy.

“I am going with you, gentle sirs. With the Dire Duke breathing down my neck, I would be a fool not to take this chance to escape him while at the same time seeking a solution to the problem he affords.”

“Oh, my lady….” cried Blanche in considerable agitation.

“Don’t get all ruffled, dear Blanche. I couldn’t do without you, now could I? You must come along as well.”

This invitation merely increased the secretary’s agitation, putting her in such a state that she went fluttering out of the room to engage in a fit of anxiety in the corridor outside.

Looking after her, Sahir said, “The journey may be difficult.”

The countess nodded. “Don’t worry about Blanche. Though she greets each new experience with trepidation, she is rocklike in her perceptions. I spoke only the truth in saying I could not manage without her.”