I could see fear and anger in Rachel’s face as she stepped in front of me, her body tensed as she brought her hand up. Something flashed there—a scalpel, golden in the glowing air and still smudged with my blood from the doctor’s surgery. I gently put my hand on her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze.
“Rachel, it’s okay. Everything is okay.”
She turned slightly, giving me a frowning side-glance as she kept her eyes on the man she’d once known as Phil and then as Justin. “How is this okay? We need to get you out. To a hospital.” She cut her eyes back to Justin and punctuated her words with a stab at the air. “And now this fucker is hiding out to ambush us in this fucking place.” She turned more towards the other man. “And to be clear, you aren’t the first motherfucker we’ve had to kill today. If you try anything, I have no problem with leaving you here to rot…or become fertilizer or whatever.” Rachel glanced around the heart room. “Fucking tree. It must have some influence over you still. Made you think you knew the way out when you were really being led back here.”
I let out a sigh as I gave her shoulder another squeeze. “No, sweetie. When I was out of it, before you removed the cutting, I talked to it more. To the Tree too, I guess. I don’t understand everything, but I figured out enough to know what needs to be done. I…I brought us here on purpose. I wasn’t sure I could find the way, but I’m glad I did.”
Rachel pulled back as she stared at me, her eyes blazing. “You’re glad? You’re fucking glad? I don’t know what the tree did to you, but we don’t have time for this bullshit. We’re leaving. Getting you help.” She shot a dark look at Justin, who was just quietly watching as it all played out. “And God help anybody that tries to get in our way.” She reached out and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go and…”
When I grabbed her hand, she broke off and met my eyes. Really looked at me. I think she could see then that I wasn’t confused or controlled. I was beat up yeah, and despite the tree’s efforts, my guts still felt like they were on fire, but I was also clearer and more me than I…well, maybe than I’d ever been. Despite everything that had happened, and everything that I was afraid might be about to happen, I couldn’t help but feel a strange excitement and happy pride in that moment.
Ever since I was little, I’ve felt like a little bug in a river. Holding onto whatever leaf or stick passed by, trying to get a grasp, get my bearings. Never being sure where I was headed or why—instead, the only sure thing was that I wasn’t in control of any of it. When I was younger, it wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t so fuzzy-headed back then, and my mama and daddy were my leaf and stick. They guided me as best they could and tried to prepare me for the world. And they did a good job. By the time they were gone, I was living on my own and working at the music store, first as a clerk, then on up. I had my apartment and my job—they were my leaf and my stick, and while I was lonely at times, it was enough.
But that wasn’t all I had. In the back of my head and my heart I had this feeling that I was slipping away. Whatever my problem, whether it was in my brain or not, it went beyond just being a little slow or having a bad memory for certain words. It was like I was standing in weak acid and couldn’t get out. I just had to wait as it ate me up bit by bit.
That feeling scared me a lot. I’d always gotten flustered when I couldn’t think right. Had to force myself to calm down and think slow. Remember that just because I wasn’t as quick as some people, it didn’t mean I wasn’t as good as them. But this…this was something different. It was slowly getting worse, and as it did, I felt my life getting smaller. Felt me getting smaller.
The few friends I had, I pushed away. I went to work and home, home and work, and most of my free time was spent reading. Trying to pack in all the things I wanted to learn but was too nervous to try to take classes for. Trying to stuff more into my head so that slow acid couldn’t eat it all. Couldn’t take all of me.
But it was a losing battle, and not just because of the hungry fog that hid words and made it hard to think some times. I was hiding away from the world. Not taking risks—afraid of living as much as I was of losing my life. Now I could remember a poem I read years ago, though if you’d asked me yesterday, I don’t think I’d have known what you were talking about.
It was about a man who regretted how he’d lived his life—how small and unfulfilled he felt. I remember he said he’d measured his life out in coffee spoons, and the first thing that had struck me, as I sat reading it on my break at the music store, was that he was describing me.
So when I saw that ad for a new job, I took a chance. A chance to make more money, sure, but also a chance to do something that mattered. To force myself out into a new corner of the world, a new leaf or stick outside what was comfortable or safe. A chance to push back on that terrible gravity, always trying to crush me down to one tiny point of near nothingness.
And then I found her.
That changed everything, though I didn’t realize it at first. It was more than having a new job or a crush on the mysterious woman on the monitor. It was about caring about something more than I worried about what I was risking or what was slowly slipping away. Loving it more than I feared it or my own flaws. And through that care, through that love, finding my way back through the fog to who I really am.
“Rachel, the tree has to have someone. You know it, and I do too. For years, it was Justin. Then it was you. Now? Now I think it’s my turn. I want you…”
Tears were already in her eyes. “No. Fucking no. You are not sacrificing yourself to this…thing. Not for me or for anything. I’ll do my time here, and when I’m able to be out, I’ll be with you, if that’s what you want. And you can come see me maybe.” She wiped her face. “Fuck, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about it, hoping it would go away, which is stupid, but I was just so fucking happy and…” Rachel shook her head. “But no. You’re not taking my place. You’re going to get medical attention, and be healthy and happy, whether its with me or not, and…” She trailed off as I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around her.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I…I love you more than anything. You make me so happy, and doing this? Getting you free of it while helping the tree? I’m proud to be able to do it.” She glanced up, her face confused and angry and I nodded. “I know. You think I’m being controlled by the tree. I’m not. Promise. But I understand it more now. It’s important. Very important. And it needs help.”
I nodded toward the tunnel we’d come from. “That cave place? The rotting version of the tree there? It’s getting attacked in more places than just that.” I glanced past her to Justin. “And since the heart room got burned, it’s not as able to fend all that off.” I smiled at her. “At least until now.” Reaching into her jacket, I slid out the cutting. “This…this fresh cutting has survived because of me and that other version of you. It’s grown stronger—strong enough to heal the damage that’s been done.” I took a step back from her. “The tree will still need a person, but it will be better. Maybe I won’t have to stay in here as often. And even if I do, at least I’ll know you’re safer, that everything is safer. I’m telling you, the tree is that important.”
She stepped back to me, grabbing my shirt. “Fuck everything. And fuck the tree. I want you. And I want you out of all this bullshit, not deeper in it.” She tried to snatch the cutting from me, and I pulled it away. “Just fucking give it to me. If it will help, let me do it.”
I shook my head. “No. This is my choice. You’ve already sacrificed too much, in this world and the other, for all of this. I’m not going to…”
“My father gave me a book of poems once.”
I turned to look at Justin, confused. I didn’t trust him—I couldn’t, not after all he’d done. But I did trust the tree at least partways, and if he was there, I had a feeling there was a good reason for it. Still…
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Justin gave Rachel a quick smile and nodded. “Fair enough. I know what that sounded like. I know I have a lot to answer for and explain, and speaking what appears to be nonsense isn’t helping matters.” The smile fell away as he looked at me and then at the root pedestal in the middle of the room. “But I don’t necessarily have a lot of answers or explanations. Whoever this man is, he seems to understand the tree better than I ever have.”
He shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I had some half-formed idea of trying to help you when the other man…well, I suppose it’s the other one…” Justin raised an eyebrow and glanced between us.
I nodded. “My name’s Thomas. And yeah, the other guy, the other version of me, is dead.”
Justin glanced for confirmation from Rachel. Glaring at him, she gave a brief nod as well.
“Okay, well, I assumed that from the body in the basement, and your conversation here comported with that assumption as well, but it’s always polite to ask and make sure what is what and who is who. But anyway, I’m rambling. Sorry. My point was, when I saw you being taken into the house, I had the sense you were in trouble. I debated trying to help. But then this one comes, and I decided he was likely help enough. So I waited outside for awhile. When no one came out, I finally came in to see what was going on.”
“I didn’t find you, obviously, but I did find that the tunnel opened for me again. I went in, initially with the idea of…I’m not sure what, if I’m honest. Helping you? Apologizing? I’m don’t know. But I wasn’t sure where you had gone, and after a bit of looking I headed here instead.” He let out a sigh. “The tree…it still won’t talk to me. Or maybe it can’t, not the way it has to him.” Justin gestured to me. “But sitting here, I have had time to think. Or more time, I suppose. I’ve been thinking a lot these last months.”
“Listening to you two…it makes me see things more clearly. See myself more clearly. And it reminded me of my father giving me a book of poetry once.”
It wasn’t like my father to give gifts, much less books. He always wanted me to be more like my brother, more like him. I’ve never known what prompted him to give me that book, but it always meant a great deal to me, even when I was imprisoned two years later without it.
It was a selection of poems by William Blake—Songs of Innocence and Experience, among others. I loved that book—read it over and over until I knew most of it by heart. One of my favorites, and the one I’ve been reminded of today, is—funnily enough—about a tree. A poison tree. It goes:
I was angry with my friend, I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe, I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears, night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles, and with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night, till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine, and he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole, when the night had veiled the pole,
In the morning, glad, I see, my foe outstretched beneath the tree.
I…I’ve spent so long hating. Hating the tree, hating my family, hating you. Hating everything for all the wrongs I’ve endured. I’ve done…terrible, terrible things out of some misguided sense of entitlement. Some warped, cancerous idea that just because I’d had evil inflicted upon me, I’d somehow earned the right to do my own evil in return. To lie, to despise, to even kill.
For some time, much of my hatred has been turned toward myself. As meaningless as it is, I am sorry for what I did to you, Rachel. I’m sorry for most of what I’ve done. I’m not a good man. I’ve tried to be at times, lied to myself that I was, or if not, that my failings weren’t my fault. The world had inflicted such cruelties on me that I had everyone to blame but myself.
But seeing the two of you—I don’t know all of what you’ve been through and I don’t presume to know what you think or feel, but your willingness to love each other, to sacrifice for each other, to give up everything for that love and to protect…well, whatever this damned tree may be…it makes me even more ashamed of myself than I already was. Not just because of all I’ve done, but because of what I’ve taken for granted.
Because this damned tree…this magical, miracle that spans untold worlds, perhaps even binds them together, has always been there for me. It was my joy when I discovered it. My escape when I was imprisoned. My constant companion in all the years that followed.
And yes, it took from me as well. It took my time and liberty, but I think now only in those measures that it required to sustain itself in its struggles and maintain its role in Creation. In exchange, it gave me long life and health, as well as countless worlds to explore when it could manage without me. I repaid it by trying to burn out its heart.
And yet, even now, it lets me back in. My one true and constant friend, showing me a path toward, if not redemption, at least some kind of peace and understanding. I’ve spent so long resenting what has been taken from me, lived so long not grasping something that the tree, and I think you two, understand very well.
“It’s not about what you’re given or what you take. Not about what you want or think you need. Some person or thing you want to control. It isn’t even about what you want to love you. It’s about what you give. What you love.”
Justin blinked at me in surprise as I spoke. “Yes. That’s it. That’s it exactly.” A look of what might have been sadness or shame passed across his face as he glanced between me and Rachel, and his gaze lowered as he turned toward the pedestal. “I don’t know if the Tree is good, or if such terms can even be applied to whatever it truly is. Such a line of thought may be akin to calling gravity evil or ascribing jealously to a passing rain cloud.” He shrugged as he let out a small sigh. “But I’ve always known it is very special. Very necessary. I spent a long time lying to myself about that last part, but it really is important, isn’t it?” His eyes went to Rachel now.
She nodded. “Yeah…yeah, I think it is.” She looked up at me as she slipped her hand back into mine.
I gave it a squeeze. “Yeah. It is. When I could hear the thing inside me, I was hearing the Tree I think. Hearing how afraid it is. It wants to live, to get well and survive. But more than that, I think it’s scared of what will happen if it’s gone. It’s weird…it wasn’t talking to me in words exactly, but it didn’t matter. I could still understand some, and toward the end, it told me more. And I believe it. It’s part of why I’m willing to stay with it.” I glanced up at Justin. “But unless I’m wrong, I think Justin may be asking to take the job back.”
In the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel frown as she shook her head. “No. Maybe he’s had a change of heart, or maybe he’s full of shit. But this fucker walled me up. He murdered his own family. If this tree thing is so important, it can’t be left with him.” Tears sprang back into her eyes. “I’ll stay if someone has to. We’ll figure it out. But he can’t be trusted.”
Turning to her, I touched her face with the hand not holding the cutting, using my thumb to wipe away the tears from her cheek. She was so good and so strong. And I knew the fear and anger she was feeling was because of all she’d been through. That, and being afraid of losing me. I was afraid too.
But even though I couldn’t hear the Tree any more, I still thought I could feel music in my chest. A melody that connected me to Rachel and both of us to everything else. Despite my pain and my worry, my doubts and my ignorance, in that place, in that moment, it all seemed very clear and simple and beautiful.
Like the lines of a painting I saw once long ago.
“You don’t have to trust him. Trust me.”
Rachel studied my face for a moment and then nodded. I kissed her briefly and then turned to Justin. “Am I right? Do you want to fix what you did? Are you willing to stay?”
Justin’s face lit up as he smiled. “I…I do.”
I held out the cutting to him. “Then do it. But do it right. This is your chance. Be smart enough to see it.” I shook my head slightly as I held his gaze. “I don’t want to have to hurt anybody else, but I will.”
He swallowed as his smile faltered a moment. “I understand. Thank you…both of you…” He paused and looked around the room. “All of you, for giving me another chance.” Eyes shining, he took the cutting in both hands. Gently unwrapping it, he let out a small sigh as he touched the twisted bark before looking up at us with wide eyes. “It really is part of it. I can feel it. I can tell.” He was crying freely now. “I can almost hear it again. I…I’ve missed that so much.”
Turning, he stepped to the pedestal and carefully sat the cutting in the middle. The roots from the table immediately began winding together with the bark of the cutting, pulling it in until, after just a few moments, it was gone. Immediately I could see the color of the heart room deepening, and in places that were black from past flames, new green growth was already pushing through.
Rachel hugged my side. “It worked, didn’t it?”
I nodded as I looked around. “Yeah, it worked.” My eyes went to hers. “Do you feel different?”
She pondered a moment and then nodded. “I think so, yeah. I can tell something has changed. It’s hard to describe the feeling, but I don’t feel bound to it anymore.” She glanced at Justin. “How about you?”
He smiled. “Yes. It’s back with me. For good, this time.” Justin’s gaze went to me and back to her. “You’re both connected to the Tree. You always will be, with everything you’ve seen and done. But you’re no longer bound to it.”
She nodded. “Good.” Turning to me, she raised an eyebrow. “We done here? Because you still need a hospital.”
I grinned. “Yeah.”
We made it back, and I spent the next three days in the hospital, though the doctors finally admitted it was more due to the nature of my injuries than my actual condition. I was strangely free of infection, and whoever had done the emergency surgery had clearly known what they were doing. When Rachel rolled me out to the car on the fourth day, it felt like I was finally coming out into the sun after a lifetime trapped in darkness or…well, fog.
My new clarity was part of it, but just part. I was also less worried. Less afraid. The world was infinitely stranger and more dangerous than I’d known just a few years ago, but it was also so much more wonderful and beautiful than I’d ever thought it could be. I knew we’d still face obstacles and dangers in the future—not just things like Solomon, but the more normal stuff that comes with living too. But that was okay.
I stood up from the wheelchair and smiled at Rachel before sweeping her up in a big hug.
We’d face what came and beat it. Do our best to help others when we could. And whatever happened, whatever world we were in, so long as we’re together…
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Credits
