Tree Girl (5 page)

More than ever, she wanted to keep the master content. “I must, Eagle,” she’d tell the bird on her shoulder. “So everything will go on just as it is.”

When at last her chores were done—she would
join the cub and romp all afternoon. Together they climbed every tree near the cottage, waded in the shallows, stacked up huge towers of starfish, pretended they were clouds sailing high overhead, and found every last hiding place along the shore.

Once Sasharash led her to the spot where the stream gushed out of the trees and across the beach. Then, for a very long time, he sat motionless on the edge of the bank, as still as a turtle resting on a rock. Except he was no turtle, and this was no rock.

Anna got impatient. “Crab claws, Sash! What are you doing?”

The bear didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Not even to lick the river fly crawling on his nose.

Suddenly he sprang. His paw slapped the water and swatted a perch as big as Anna’s forearm out of the stream. The fish smacked the bank, spraying water and mud all over the bear. But he only roared in glee. The perfect lunch!

Anna watched him take his first great bite. The bear tore off a piece of the tail and tossed it over to her.

“Er…no thanks,” she said. “I like my fish cooked.”

The cub wrinkled his nose in disgust, then went back to his meal.

At the end of each day, their games always stopped in time for Anna to make the master’s supper. Not that Sasharash didn’t growl and stomp his paws in protest! In time, though, he always let her go. She had plenty to do—including a run around the beach, to wipe away any bear prints so the old man wouldn’t find them.

True enough, sometimes she had to work very fast before his boat landed. And true enough, she hardly had time now to climb Burl and wait just to catch a glimpse of the High Willow. But she didn’t mind.

For now she had a friend.

Not that she dared to breathe a word to the master. Or show just how happy she felt. He would never understand! And besides, with summer’s longer days, he stayed out later to fish. So while he still eyed her carefully every evening—and she wondered if he suspected something—he was too tired to say much beyond grunts and curses.

There came an afternoon when Anna and the cub rested by the glade. She chewed on a sprig of mint and leaned back against a boulder, splattered
with orange lichen. “I understand your words pretty well now, Sash. Don’t you think?”

The bear, lying on top of the boulder, didn’t answer. He was too busy scratching his backside on the stone. He wriggled and twisted like a giant, fur-covered worm.

“Don’t you?” she repeated.

The bear just wriggled some more, then reached down with one of his paws and tickled the tail feathers of the sparrow on her shoulder. Eagle shrieked and flapped his good wing.

Anna tried again. “Come now, answer me.”

Finally, the cub replied. As always, he spoke in low, swishing tones. And as always, Anna understood without knowing how.

“
Mmmm
, you’ve learned fast enough.” The bear rolled over on his chest and batted at a white moth. Then he growled, “But you should let me take you deeper into the forest! More to do there. And more to eat, too.”

Anna’s mint leaf lost its flavor. She spat it on the ground.

“Oh, Sash…You make it sound so easy.”

“It is easy.”

“No, it’s not! I’ve been longing
forever
to do
that. To go right to the other side of the forest and up the ridge. All the way to the High Willow.” She sighed. “Did I tell you the master found me there?”

The cub made a growl that was closer to a groan. “Three times already.”

“Right there among the roots,” she went on dreamily. “And someday…well, someday I’m going back. Sure as sea foam, I am!” Her chest heaved in a sigh. “It’s what I want most, Sash. More than anything.”

The bear just shrugged. “Why do you care so much where you came from? It’s just a place.”

“Oh, no! It’s much more than that. It’s
my
place—my beginning. Seeing it will help me see myself. Who I really am.”

He snorted. “You don’t know that already?”

“No.” Her eyes clouded. “I don’t.”

With his tongue, he licked the very tip of his nose. “Whatever you think about that place, it doesn’t matter. You’ll never go back there.”

Anna sat up—so sharply that the sparrow nearly tumbled off her shoulder. “What do you mean by that?”

Sash stretched out his paw to a gorseberry bush
beside the boulder. He growled in concentration, aimed carefully, then swatted one plump berry clean off its stem. The berry sailed high in the air. Meanwhile, the cub swung himself around and opened his jaws—just in time to catch the flying treat on his tongue. He swallowed and smacked his lips.

“Tell me,” said Anna with a growl of her own.

“Tell you what?”

“Rotting ravens, Sash! Why you said I’m not going!”

The cub eyed her darkly. “If you won’t let me take you any deeper in the forest, how can you ever get to the High Willow?”

She frowned. “I don’t know.” She lowered her voice, unsure who might be listening in the trees beyond the glade. Even the old beech, friendly as it seemed on the surface, might be hiding something else.

“It’s…the ghouls. I’m not ready to face them.”

“Why are you whispering?”

She just bit her lip.

Sash thumped her shoulder with his paw. “Anna, listen to me!
There are no forest ghouls.
”

She scoffed. “You’re joking.”

“Me? Joke?” The bear turned his attention to trying to curl his tongue all the way around his longest claw. Suddenly he poked himself, yelped, and shook his tongue hard for several seconds. Then he turned back to Anna. “I never joke.”

She smirked at him.

“Not about that, anyway.” He growled deeply. “No ghouls here. Just trees and whatever creatures live in them.”

“But I’ve heard stories! Lots of them.”

Sash gave a snort, more like a wild boar than a cub. “From who? Master Meanface himself?”

“Now, now.” Anna’s brow furrowed. “He can be a sour old turnip, I grant you that. But he wouldn’t lie.”

“Well then, he’s got barnacles for brains. And so do you if you listen to him.” He sat up on the boulder, his fur rippling in the sun’s rays. “Here, I’ll prove it to you.”

Shoulders tense and eyes alert, he scanned the surrounding trees. Suddenly he spotted the upright trunk of a tree killed by lightning, and grunted gladly.

Anna shook her head. Surely he wasn’t going to
climb that old thing! Its slippery smooth trunk, with no bark or branches, would be impossible. And besides, what did that have to do with the ghouls?

All at once, the bear leaped off the boulder. He wrapped his legs around the charred trunk and began to work his way upward. As he gouged the claws of his forepaws into the wood, his hind legs groped for a knot to hold his weight. Bit by bit, he edged higher.

“Thundering thumbnails, Sash! What are you doing?”

He just kept climbing. When he reached halfway, more than twice Anna’s height off the ground, he came to a stubby bit of branch. But as soon as he grasped it with his paw, the stub broke off. Sash lost his grip and slid most of the way back down, his claws scraping the trunk.

With a fierce growl, he started up again. Faster than before! By the time he passed the broken stub, chips of wood dotted his snout and clung to his ears. The muscles of his shoulders shook from the strain.

Anna watched, her heart thumping along with his. Somehow, beneath his furry coating, he
seemed not so much a bear as a person just like herself. Almost…a boy.
Whatever you’re doing, Sash—don’t fall. Please don’t fall.

Higher he climbed, and higher. Now he was nearly four times as tall as Anna. She glimpsed some berries at the top of the trunk: a wreath of llyrberries, ripe and round. Was that what this was all about?

Now the top was almost in reach. With one last heave, his paw caught the rim. The trunk must have been hollow, since he reached right down inside. At last, he hauled himself up to the top, straightened his back, and roared in triumph.

Sure enough, Sash grabbed a great pawful of berries and crammed them into his mouth. Yellow juice dribbled down his furry neck. Then he stood up on his hind legs, balanced on the rim.

“Careful now,” Anna called up to him. “You’d squash like one of those berries if you fell.”

The cub ignored her and started to jump on the rim. “Look here, all you ghouls!” he cried. “Come and get me if you can!”

Anna sucked in her breath. Anxiously, she looked into the dark mass of branches beyond the glade. “Don’t be foolish, Sash.”

The bear didn’t seem to hear. “Watch this, you stupid ghouls! My newest dance step.”

He kicked one leg outward, balancing on just one paw. Anna chewed her lip as she watched. The next instant he leaped into the air and did a full turn. His body spun around in a sand-colored blur. With a wild cry, he landed safely again on the rim.

All of a sudden, a chunk of wood beneath him broke off. Sash’s cry rose to a shriek. His claws raked the air as he toppled backward—right into the hollow trunk!

There came another cry, this one muffled, and a powerful thud that rocked the whole tree. Then silence.

A
NNA JUMPED TO HER FEET
. She raced over to the trunk where the cub had disappeared. Wind gusted through the surrounding trees, making them shudder and spray leaves and cones across the ground. A gorseberry bush rattled like a pod of seeds in a storm.

“Sash!” She beat her fists against the trunk’s lightning-charred wood. “Are you hurt?”

No answer.

“Sash! Can you hear me?”

Still no answer.

Anna turned to the dark forest beyond the glade. Were ghouls out there, just hidden from sight? Had they done this to Sash?

She wiped her brow with her forearm and turned back to the tree. Setting her ear against a knothole in the trunk, she listened. Eagle paced to and fro on her shoulder. Then, from inside the tree, she heard a muffled groan.

“Sash!” she shouted straight into the knothole. “Talk to me!”

“Some…dance step,” came the weak reply. “Guess I need…more practice.”

“Forget that, you crazy bear! Can you climb out?”

“N-no. Can’t…climb.” He groaned as he shifted himself. “These walls—too slippery.
Aaagh.
And my leg…”

She braced her feet in the tangle of roots and pushed hard against the trunk. Her shoulder flattened, and her legs shook with strain. She knew she couldn’t push over such a big tree. But mayhaps she could tilt it some—enough that he could crawl out.

With all her strength, she heaved. But the tree just wouldn’t budge.

“Ohhh,” moaned the muffled voice. “It hurts, Anna. Hurts bad.”

“What, your leg?”

“No, my belly! I’m hungrier…by the second. Can’t you at least…throw me some berries?”

She knew he was trying to make her laugh. But she could also hear the raw pain in his voice. “Forget about your belly for once!” She glared at
the knothole. “I’ll find some way to get you out, I promise.”

She licked her dry lips. But how? She couldn’t climb up the trunk herself. Besides, even if she could, what good would it do? And what about the ghouls?

Casting her eyes around the glade, she searched for something—anything—she could use. No luck! All she saw were leaves, branches, and shafts of fern. Then she spotted a thin purple vine curled around the limb of a sapling. An idea burst into her mind like a dolphin leaping into the air. Mayhaps…If she could just drop down a vine—one long enough to reach—he might be able to climb out.

Where, though, to find a vine that big? And sturdy? She slapped her forehead. The vines the master used for his nets!

From inside the trunk, her friend groaned again. Louder this time.

“I’ll be back, Sash,” she called. “Very soon.” She set down Eagle on the roots. “Stay here, now. Keep him company.”

She dashed back to the cottage, crashing through the bramble bushes that lined the shore.
Breathing hard, she scanned the remains of the old nets that lay on the beach. But they were just tangled bits of vines. She needed one as long as a rope. Aye, like the ones the master—

She stiffened.
Like the ones he gathered from the forest.
She knew, from what he’d said, that he fetched them somewhere up the stream where Sash had caught the perch. How far upstream he went, she didn’t know—just that he followed the rill into the woods.

Deep into the woods.

She sucked in her breath. Ghouls or no ghouls, she would go!

Anna started running down the shore, to the deep-rutted spot where the stream emptied into the sea. At the edge of the bank, she turned into the forest. She ran beside the stream, her feet slapping on the mud, even as sharp branches tore at her arms and legs.

The forest grew steadily darker. And denser. Trees crowded closer to the bank—aye, with roots that gouged the ground like claws. Branches dripped with spray. Moss hung everywhere, wet and thick. So thick that sometimes she had to wade into the stream itself to get by. And crab claws, it
was cold! Icy water slapped her legs and tried to knock her down. Once her foot slipped on an underwater rock and she almost fell into the dark, dripping arms of the trees.

A sound! She stopped to listen as water swirled around her feet. High and wailing it came, thinner than a spider’s thread.

The sound grew louder, nearer, rising with the wind. Then more sounds joined in—shrieks, howls, and moans. Did all that come from the wind in the trees? Or from something else?

Anna shuddered and kept walking up the stream. Her toes felt numb from cold. But step by step, she pushed deeper into the forest.

At last she reached a bend where the bank lifted into a sheer wall of rock. Tiny rills poured down the cliff and splattered into the stream. Vines—long, twisted ones—grew there by the dozens, hanging like loose green hairs. This was what she’d been looking for.

She hesitated. What if the ghouls tried to stop her? Had they ever attacked the master when he’d come here for vines? She wished now that she’d thought to bring along his axe.