The May Tree

Corina Dunn

 

            The air was cold and damp, the house’s very stones brittle with frost. There was a shriek, and a thud, and then the sound of a dropped poker clattering on the ground. But for the thin wail of a small baby, the night was once again silent.

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WELL WATER

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            “Changeling child.” It was no longer an insult, but a grim, if familiar acknowledgement. Indeed, the words were quiet and bitter, like a small charm to ward off an old evil. She drew water from the well, and the other children stood a few paces away, muttering. Her shoulders heaved. She was a sickly child, and one of her arms did not work properly. The bucket scraped against the side of the well. Its quiet but persistent grate made the only sound in the small clearing – she dearly wished that either some loud noise would break the almost-quiet, or else the bucket would cease its whispering: it was half measures that irked her. Noise was comfortable: the clatter of her mother’s kitchen on a cool autumn night, or the chattering peeps of finches, music just for her, before anyone else woke. But silence was an old friend. It wrapped around her, so thick you could feel it like humidity. Mothers quieted when they saw her, children hushed. Sometimes, she wondered if even the wind calmed when she came near. It was half-stillness that set her teeth on edge. Quiet breezes through leafless trees at night. Or the sound of whispering. This, too, followed her.

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            It was late spring, at the well, almost summer really. Fruit hung off the trees – so large you it would fill your hand, but still too hard to eat. Everything felt heavy with anticipation for the harvest. Creatures scampered with fresh urgency, but nothing had happened in town for weeks. So, it was out of boredom, really, that another child from the group spoke: “Changeling. Begone or we’ll bring hot coals.” The small girl at the well toiled on, as if she had heard nothing. “Begone or we’ll set you on fire!” said another child, louder this time. She’d, by this time finished drawing water, so she started the long journey down the hill. She held the bucket in the crook of her withered arm, supporting the bottom with the other. Someone threw a stone, but only one, so it was hardly worth noting.

 

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THE HAWTHORN TREE

 

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            “Mother,” she had asked, once, as she sat near the hearth stone, spinning. “Am I really? A changeling child, I mean. One of the good people.” Her mother was quiet for a long time. She was knitting, and the little girl wasn’t sure she’d heard. “Mother. Am I a changeling?” she said a little louder. After a second her mother finally looked up, pausing her work just long enough to study the child by the fireplace. She looked back down. “I don’t know.” She said slowly. “You shouldn’t speak of such things. I have raised you as my own child, for which you should be glad.” The little girl fumbled the drop spindle in her small clumsy hands. She watched the folds of her mother’s skirt.

           

            Outside, the hawthorn tree beat its thin branches against the walls. She could imagine its little white flowers falling like snow or wool on the ground, even though she knew they were almost all fallen. It was her favorite tree. The branches spread like lace, and its trunk was thick and solid, like a promise. Neither her father, nor her two strong brothers, nor anyone else dared chop it down, although it leaned perilously over their little home, for it was a fairy tree. Here was where she often waited, in the evening, to see if she could hear the fairy flutes and fiddles from the woods. Its bark was wrinkled and cracked, so it almost matched her arm. One night, she’d waited for hours, until she saw small lights in the far-off trees. She’d walked towards them – slowly, because she knew they’d wait for her. When she was almost there, she could hear Elvin music wafting softly through the breeze, and could see the lights as distant lanterns, held on long poles by a wandering troop of fair folk. She felt calm and joyful, like the steady glow of an old hearth. She turned, to take one last look at the little house under the fairy hawthorn. Her mother was framed in the yellow light of the doorway, and if she’d been closer, she would have seen her smiling fondly at the little shape at the edge of the woods. She heard the chatter of her siblings almost as sweetly as the fairy waltzes. She smiled, almost tempted to return. But when she turned back towards the woods, the trees were dark and there was no sound but the song of the wind.

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FLUTE AND FIDDLE

 

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            Not long later, the little girl took ill. She had a rattling cough, and a fever such that there was no curing her. “It’s better this way.” She heard, through her groggy delirium. She was itchy, and a blackness was creeping around the even redness of her eyelids. “They are taking her back.” Said a woman’s voice. Days passed, and child waned smaller every hour. The leaves had mostly fallen off the old hawthorn, its red berries as glossy and smooth as the tiny drops of sweat on her forehead. Spots danced before her eyes, and she was reminded of the fairy lights she’d seen once before, years ago. Her mother sat by her all the time, occasionally singing a quiet phrase, or pushing the little girl’s hair back from her forehead. The silence pressed ever closer around the room, until it was late at night and even the wind had calmed.

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            When the little girl rose, it was November Eve. The smell of roasting nuts and apples saturated the air, unseasonably warm. What leaves were left were gold and red and clung to the trees so gingerly that they might be blown down by a gust from a thrush’s wing. A cold rain had fallen the day before. Inside, it all was warm and merry. The shutters were closed tight against the wind and the fairy folk, and she could see her family talking in the other room. Light closed around them like a bubble of joy and humanity. Her mother waited beside her bed, watching them. Thus it was that no one saw as the little girl slipped past and out into the night, where the old hawthorn tree was waiting for her. She plucked a few twigs, heavy with crimson berries, and wove them through her hair. The night was bright as she walked down the hill, towards the flute and fiddle music she heard more and more clearly, and the fairy lanterns. She walked deliberately, because she knew where she was going, and because she was not afraid.