Tree Girl (6 page)

Cautiously, she waded over to the base of the
cliff. Then she reached for one of the longest vines, wrapped it around her wrist—and tugged. It held fast, like an oyster to its rock.

“Come on, now!” she commanded. “I need you. Sash needs you!”

She dug her feet into the stony stream bottom, leaned back, and tugged again. All at once the vine pulled loose. She fell back in the stream with a splash.

Water gushed from her leggings as she stood. She gathered up the vine, coiled it into loops, and turned to go. Just then a new wind, fiercer than before, swept through the forest. Branches creaked and groaned, and trees swayed all around. A hefty branch broke off and crashed in the water right beside her.

Suddenly she glimpsed a shape—not quite a face. As twisted as a knot of roots. Watching her from behind an oak!

Anna gasped. The face peered at her with ghoulish, night-dark eyes. Then what looked like a ragged, toothy mouth started to open…

She ran, faster than she’d ever run before, back down the stream, to the beach, and finally to the glade. When at last she reached the trunk, she staggered
over, panting hoarsely. Eagle chirped a loud welcome. She dropped the vine and put her mouth to the knothole.

“I’m back, Sash.”

A low moan came from inside the trunk.

She almost told him what she’d seen—then stopped herself. That could wait.

Anna grabbed the vine and tied a stone to one end. Planting her feet, she started to hurl it up to the rim. Suddenly, she froze. The vine wasn’t big enough! Long as it was, it wouldn’t reach all the way down the trunk to Sash.

She spun to face the lichen-covered boulder where they had sat only moments before. That just might do it!

Hastily she scaled the boulder. She tied the free end of the vine around her waist. Then she hefted the weighted end in her hand, judging her aim. At last she threw the vine at the top of the trunk. It missed—glancing off the side with a spray of wood chips.

She gathered up the vine and threw again. This time, the stone at the end struck the rim and knocked off some yellow berries. But the vine’s
weight pulled it back down. With a slap, it hit the ground.

“Rotting ravens!” She stamped her foot on the boulder. Taking the vine once more, she drew a deep breath, reared back—and threw. She watched as it flew upward, hit the rim, and like a slithering snake, plunged down the hole. She’d done it!

“Grab hold!” she shouted. “And climb!”

Nothing happened.

She shook the bottom of the vine. “Grab it!”

Seconds passed. And more seconds.

All at once the vine jerked. Then went taut. Then jerked again, and again. He was climbing!

Anna grabbed hold and pulled down with her own weight.
Don’t break, vine—please don’t break.

Finally, she spotted a slight movement at the rim. Sash! Something emerged from the hollow trunk and grabbed the edge. But to Anna’s shock, it wasn’t his paw. Or anyone’s paw.

It was a hand.

A
N INSTANT LATER
, the hand that had grasped the rim of the trunk melted back into a bear paw. Right before her eyes! Anna, watching from the boulder, blinked in surprise. She looked overhead at the shimmering rays that sliced through the branches, then back at the paw.

Again she blinked.
Must have been just a trick of light.

After the paw, a shaggy bear emerged from the hollow trunk. Sash was covered with spiderwebs, dust, and wood chips. And when he pulled out his left rear paw, it looked twisted and swollen. But he was alive! Anna laughed out loud when he thrust his snout into the yellow llyrberries at the rim of the trunk and took a huge bite.

The cub swallowed the berries at once. Streams of juice rolled down the sides of his mouth. He waved at Anna, then rested on the rim, breathing hard.

Finally, he wriggled backward and wrapped his hind legs around the top of the trunk. Then, despite his swollen paw, he slid back down the outside of the tree. His claws squealed as they scraped against the wood. With a thump, he landed on the ground.

Anna jumped off the boulder and stepped over to his side. He brushed some bark off his furry chest and gazed up at her, green eyes aglow.

“Thanks, Anna.”

“Oh,” she replied casually, “I’d do that for any old bear. Even one crazy enough to dare the ghouls.”

He laughed, the same rippling laugh she had heard so many times before. But this time it sounded a bit different—lighter, somehow, and the voice a little higher. His laughter lifted into the surrounding trees, whose branches rustled and creaked along with him.

“How’s this feeling?” She gently pulled a spiderweb off the hurt limb.

The cub straightened his leg and let the paw sink into a thick tuft of moss. “Just needs some rest, that’s all.”

“Which won’t be easy for you.”

Eagle hopped closer on a root and chirped in agreement.

The young bear pushed his nose at Anna. “No, but I can take care of myself. Always have.” He cocked his head. “Until…just now.”

He reached his forepaw toward her face. Lightly he touched her cheek, so lightly that he seemed to have no claws at all. “You’re the crazy one, you know,” he said, his voice sounding higher again. “But that’s the way I like…a friend.”

Puddles formed in Anna’s eyes. For a moment, in her clouded vision, he looked less like a bear than a sandy-haired boy. A boy who had called her
friend.

She reached up to touch the paw on her cheek. What she felt, though, was not a paw—but a hand. A hand with fingers like her own.

She shrieked and pulled away. Furiously, she blinked, trying to clear her vision. Nothing changed. The bear cub before her was now, indeed, a boy.

He wore little over his walnut brown skin: loose leggings made of woven strips of bark, and a band of scarlet leaves around one wrist. His bare chest
and arms bore dozens of scrapes, bruises, and scars. Gone was all the fur, though his sandy hair looked just as unruly. Only his wild, magical eyes, as green as the forest itself, hadn’t changed.

The boy watched her, a mysterious gleam in those eyes. “So what do you see?”

“A boy! You’re a boy!” She shook her head in disbelief. “How…?”

“I’m still Sash,” he said calmly.

Anna couldn’t stop shaking her head. “But who
are
you, really?”

With his good wing, Eagle tapped the boy’s knee, as if demanding an answer.

Sash’s gaze never wavered. “Guess.”

“Just tell me!”

“No, guess.” He grinned with all the mischief of a cub—but the face of a boy.

She drew a deep breath. “Well…you’re
not
a bear.”

He nodded. “Right so far.” He picked up a llyrberry that had dropped into the grass, flicked it into the air, and caught it on his tongue. “Though I like the way they eat.”

“And eat and eat.”

“Right again.” He folded his arms on his chest. “Come on, now. I thought you had a brain! Can’t you do any better?”

She growled at him, sounding like a bear herself. “Well, I just don’t know. You’re not a bear, and you’re not a regular boy. Aye, that’s certain! What
are
you, then?”

He just kept grinning.

Anna’s brow furrowed. “Oh, come on. Give me a hint, at least.”

Sash pursed his lips. “All right, all right. I guess you could say I’m, well…closer to Old Burl.”

“Old Burl?” She stared at him, now thoroughly confused. “He’s back at the beach! And we’re out here, by the glade. You’re no closer than I am, and you know it.”

“Not like that, Anna.” His eyes sparkled.

“Closer
in spirit.
”

She gasped. And her mouth opened as wide as an oyster. “You don’t mean…you’re not saying…”

He leaned nearer. “What?”

She blew a long, slow breath. “You’re not really…”

“I am! A tree spirit.”

She just stood there, dumbfounded.

“What my people call a
drumalo.
” He bent his injured leg, winced, then put it back down on the moss. “And what some might call a tree ghoul.”

Anna felt suddenly wobbly. She sat down, her back against the trunk of the hollow tree. And gazed at him with round eyes. “But…,” she said at last, “tree ghouls are horrid, and ugly.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I saw one, Sash. Deep in the forest. It had the scariest face.”

Sash reached his hands up to his face and pulled at the sides of his mouth. He crossed his eyes and wagged his tongue. And he started making strange noises—a mix of snarls, snorts, and hiccups.

“Like that?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Be serious. The ghouls are deadly!”

“How many times do I have to tell you? There are no ghouls. Just drumalos, like me.”

She gazed at him, her hazel eyes full of doubt.

Sash laid his hand on her knee. “You can be pretty thick, you know. I’ve met moles who are smarter.”

“Say now, that’s not fair! I learned your language, didn’t I? Fast as…well, fast as a seal can sail on the waves.”

“
Ha!
You mean fast as an owl can sail on the wind.”

She nodded, her face suddenly serious. “If what you say is true…”

“Anna, believe me. It’s true.”

She studied him for a long moment. “Now I know why your words sound so much like branches swishing.”

He peered back at her. “And there’s more for you to know. Aye, much more.”

“Wait now! What I really want to know is why you’re
not
scary. Like you’re supposed to be.”

He smirked. “I’m scary to my mother sometimes.”

“No, no. I’m not joking! Aren’t tree spirits really…well,
ghouls
?”

Sash straightened his back against the trunk. “Only if that’s what you’re expecting.”

“You mean…”

“Aye! Don’t you see, Anna? That’s a drumalo’s special skill. We look like whatever you most expect, or want, to see. A bear cub—or a boy.”

“Or a ghoul!” She pursed her lips, trying to take all this in. “You can really do that?”

“Right.”

A fresh wind swept through the forest, tossing branches all around. Leaves and twigs and petals swirled through the honey-sweet air. For a while they just listened to the swish of boughs and the rustle of grass.

Sash reached over and took her hand. “It’s for our own protection. This way, to a bear cub—or someone watching bear cubs—that’s what I look like. And if you’re expecting an ugly old ghoul, well, that’s what you’ll find.”

Her heart raced just at the thought of the hideous face she’d seen in the forest. “This is all so hard to believe.”

“Of course, we only take those shapes,” he went on, “when we’re uprooting.”

“Uprooting?”

“Traveling around, outside our home trees.” He flexed his leg on the bed of moss. “Me, I was born in a grove of hawthorns. At the far end of the forest, near that old willow you’ve talked about.”

Anna started. Her eyes glowed like newborn stars. “The High Willow? You’ve been there?”

“Grew up dancing around her roots! Aye, and swinging from her branches.” He chuckled to himself. “Riding out storms there, too. Big, howling
ones! Enough to blow me and my whole family to the ocean and back.”

She smiled. “And you have lots of family, I’ll wager. Five or six hawthorn brothers and sisters?”

“Five or six!” he bellowed. “Why, I’ve got thousands! When you’re a drumalo, the whole
forest
is your family.”

Anna drew a deep breath. Being a tree spirit sounded so very different from what she’d expected. From what she’d been taught. Amazing! Mayhaps the master was just mistaken? But was that really possible?

She slid closer on the gnarled roots. “Sash, you have to tell me the truth about something.”

“Me? I always tell the truth, you know that.”

“Really, now.” She bowed her head toward his so their noses almost touched. “Do tree ghouls—spirits, I mean—ever harm people? Or kill them?”

He scrunched up his nose, as if she’d asked him to bite himself. “Is that what old Crabface told you?”

“Aye. But it’s not true, is it?”

He made his mock scary face again, complete with snorts and hiccups. “What do you think, Anna?”

“I’d say it’s not what drumalos do.”

“And you’d be right.”

She slapped her own thigh. “So they couldn’t have killed her!”

“Who?”

“My mother!” Her voice rose, even as the surrounding branches chattered and swished. “The tree ghouls didn’t kill her! Oh, Sash, I’ve got to find out what really happened to her. Got to! She could still be alive, you know.” She swallowed. “And even if she’s not…then at least I’ll know.”

She squeezed his arm. “Take me there, would you? To the High Willow? Right to the place I was found! Please, Sash? Please?”

Somberly, he shook his head. “Sorry. I just can’t.”

Anna just looked at him. A bumblebee hummed right past her cheek, but she didn’t notice. “Can’t?”

He shook his head again.

Tears welled in her eyes, though she tried to blink them back.

“Until my ankle heals, that is!” He laughed, his voice rippling like a swollen stream. “When I’m better, I’ll come for you. And take you there.”

She hooted with delight and hugged him.

Suddenly Eagle started to whistle. Anna looked up at the slanting rays of sunlight, woven through the branches like gleaming threads of gold. Late afternoon already!

“Oh!” she cried. “The master—he’ll be back soon.” She lifted the sparrow onto her shoulder. “I’ve got to go. But will you be all right?”

“Sure,” he replied, with a broad sweep of his arm. “I’ve got plenty of family to look after me.”

D
AYS WENT BY
, days that felt like weeks to Anna. The air hummed with insects and rustling leaves, and sunlight warmed the sand late into the evening. Summer had truly begun.

These were the days Anna usually loved most. But now she barely noticed. For her mind was filled, like the shallows at high tide, with questions about Sash. When would he come for her? And would he still want to take her to the willow?

As she stepped along the water’s edge one late afternoon, the cool waves licked her feet. Wet sand slid between her toes. And she wondered about her coming journey with Sash. Would it really be as safe as he thought? What if all tree spirits weren’t as kind and playful as he was? Mayhaps some of them really
were
ghouls.