Through the Crab-Apple Tree

Next to the leaning cross of an old dog’s grave, a gathering of young children began to form. Just three siblings – two boys and a girl. It was deep in the woods, riddled with creatures shaped from the shadows. They had abandoned farmyard chores and left to venture amongst the cobwebs and musky air – crawling through broken walls in the barn, their clothing freckled with the peeling paint. Past the grain bins and into the thick brush they went, skipping side-by-side until the trails became too narrow and eventually disappeared.
            The birch trees eyed the children, standing over them in their infinite wisdom. They knew what the children would find – watched the auburn fox take it from the barn. It was an orange cat, its fur a contrast against the white trunks and falling, deadened leaves. The fox had looked up to the trees as she set the cat down, she knew the wind would carry the news to the children. She gave a slight bow and ran as fast as her legs would allow.
            Poplars are watchers too, but with less interest. Instead, they sway in melancholy as their leaves of orange, red and brown detach and float away. They grow tired of the decay and obsess over youth. They feel the energy from it, the potential. And when the children passed moments before, their branches beckoned them. But the children paid no mind and stood hunched in a circle over the cat – the yellow grass tickling their silhouettes.
            The eldest child – with ears that protruded from the side of his head – picked up and cradled the dead cat’s limp rot. The other children stood on either side of him, absentmindedly stroking what was left of its fur and watched the tufts come off their fingers and drift to the ground. They all tried to pretend the spine wasn’t sliding from the parasite-eaten hole in its back – they had to bring dignity to this fallen creature, after all.
            Nobody moved, not daring to startle the forest’s gentle ache. Even the darkness of the forest was in mourning.
            The second eldest looked to the other children with her abnormally grey eyes and decided they should consult Mr. Tree – an enormous poplar that had become something like a friend. He was different from the other poplars, having no time for the dramatics of the others. The eldest protested, shaking his large head, his dark curls swishing furiously across his forehead. He suggested they take it to their grandparents to bury – it was their farm cat after all. A champion of the yard, having fathered many kittens and always bloodied at the mouth from all the mice. The older two looked to the younger one, his soft hazel eyes silently pleading for them not to fight.
            “Mr. Tree would know. Grownups never see,” the youngest said. The eldest huffed but made no further objections. They turned back the way they came.
            The only way to enter Mr. Tree’s realm was to jump through the entry point – a thick gap in-between a pair of branches on a specific crab-apple tree. It was marked by pink reflector tape at the furthest corner to the left of the farmhouse. The eldest clung to the cat as he leaped through the branches. The youngest tripped and the other two shushed him as his body hit the ground. His hair – always springing up in every direction – was matted with dust. He wiped at the constant stream of snot coming from his nose, frowning at them as he stood.
            Mr. Tree stood alone, a single poplar amongst a sea of crab-apple trees. He had a large knot a few feet above the children’s heads, a jutting branch as a nose and two slits above it for eyes. Numerous half-discs of polypore stuck to his sides and lichen blanketed his lower half. He blinked twice as the children approached, not surprised, but rather sleepy.
            “Leave the animal at my trunk, there are plans for it yet,” he said.
            “Why do things die?” The second eldest asked, her tiny eyebrows in a pinch.
            “The same reason you grow old,” Mr. Tree’s voice rumbled for two of the children – the eldest, however, heard only a muffled whisper.
            He squinted at the other children, watching them process what he could not hear. He watched the second eldest pop out the tip of her tongue, the youngest looking to her. The eldest began to feel foolish, kicking at the ants scurrying around Mr. Tree instead.
            The second eldest nodded, though puzzled. She wasn’t going to ask Mr. Tree to explain. She felt there was something to prove and stood as tall as she was able – her chin-length hair tickling her cheeks.  
            “You know the moon stirs the evening, the seasons change, things are born and die and are reclaimed by the earth. Unchangeable, inevitable.”
            The youngest placed his hand against Mr. Tree’s rough bark and looked up at him with his chubby, freckled face and large eyes. Mr. Tree smiled and sighed before his face folded back into its knot. The children called to him but there was no answer.
This put an awful strain on the children’s play, but none would admit it. There was no sign of Mr. Tree’s awakening as the days grew icy and wind and frost tore off the last of this season’s leaves. They tried to reach him time and time again but concluded the doorway to the crab-apple tree no longer worked. Without an entrance, they had no way to reach him.

By the next spring, the eldest of the siblings had grown up. He no longer taunted the moonlight with the rest of the children and thought they were fools for participating in such nonsense. The girl child assumed he had forgotten about the cat and the afternoon with Mr. Tree. Had decided that without the entrance, the eldest had lost his sense. He holed himself in a room all day, adulthood poisoning his mind.
            The youngest had grown bored of Mr. Tree too, though he found other games to play. The hummingbirds took a liking to him, and they often twirled around his fingers as he ran. She still went back though. Would stare at the remnants of the cat, now bone and blackened stains where dried muscle still clung. She would sit next to the span of his trunk and chase ants along his roots with a stick. There seemed to be a lot of them, each carrying large heads with pinchers to match. She wondered whether Mr. Tree made good company for creatures this small, if they knew what he was.
            The next day, she convinced the youngest to come with her and leave orange tiger lilies and a piece of bread for Mr. Tree – he always thought the flowers were most lovely. The bread was for the ants. However, and what a sight to behold, there was a flat, ringed table with an enormous hollow center where Mr. Tree should’ve been. The cat’s bones were missing.
            Out of the children’s periphery, the eldest carried a guilt-ridden chainsaw to grandpa’s shop where rat poison steeped the air.
Distraught, the children ran into the farmhouse, crying for their grandparents.
“What has happened to Mr. Tree?” Cried the girl.
Her grandfather scooped the girl up and put her on his knee.
            “Now child, we couldn’t keep those ants so close to the house.”
            “But grandpa, you killed him!” The youngest cried, the girl nodded with vigor. The eldest hid around the corner, listening in and ignoring the weight descending on his heart.
            “That tree has been dying for years,” their grandfather began gently, “only a little longer and it would have fallen on its own.”

***

Nevada Alde is a fifth-year BFA Writing student at the University of Victoria, an editorial intern for The Malahat Review, and the Treasurer and Organizer for the UVic Photography Excursion Club. Her work focuses mainly on creative nonfiction and fiction with the occasional dash of poetry. She admires literary fiction but loves to experiment with different styles and genres so long as they allow her the freedom of descriptive language and sensory details. Her work will appear in Chariot Press’ inaugural issue and Two Sisters Publishing 2022 Anthology.