Old men and trees

The kiss of snow woke him more violently than any sound ever could. The absence of light should have warned him of snowfall’s coming and, had he been able to see, he'd know better than to let himself fall asleep so exposed, so unprepared for the bitter cold that was now painfully icing its way through his veins.

Still dazed, he felt his way around him, casting off some of the soft blanket from his sleeves and knees. At least the hood of his cloak had protected his neck, ears, and the useless part of his face he used to rely on for vision.

The oil lantern latch opened with the usual squeak; funny how he kept postponing fixing the hinges, but the oil inside the thin glass walls would not be any good for that. The smell of the burning wick quickly overpowered the nothingness. Handy little thing; weave and twist the thin bark, light it, and wait for the ash to form. Way faster than the messy fireplace soot that stuck everywhere and left you wondering if you've drawn your face markings correctly or if some unwanted line had been formed out of the wretched hot powder whenever it would get on another finger by accident. And how would he know then? But he was very content with this little contraption he had come up with. To an outsider, this poorly made jar, half-full of dirt, a container of muddy water and random pieces of what once must have been grass would fetch less than a bottomless shoe, so he could be sure that no one would go out of their way to steal it from him. Fools.

It wasn't long before he licked his little finger and his thumb. That was the tricky part; one wrong move and the ash would crumble into the water and then it would all be in vain and he'd have to start all over again. Carefully, he put the tiny flame out. The ash already felt frozen on his skin. Frozen and dead like the oak that had fathered the bark he was now using. He formed the two identical marks and then another one, longer, on his lips and beard.

He drew a long breath and spoke.

"I see you."

The snow came to a sudden halt. A gust of wind that wasn't there before picked up as massive, twisting branches stressed violently away from the body of the tree, opening out like a fan, before closing in like cage walls, circling the old man and his extinguished lantern, stopping inches from his face and his possession.

"Liar."

The voice was deep, echoing through the trunk he had been leaning on. The word brought on a smell of rotten wood, strong enough to flood his nostrils and his throat. He coughed to cast the stench away.

He had sensed it hours ago. A miasmatic presence, deafening in the silence it created around it. No birds, no animals. No wind climbing the branches it had carefully positioned in what could only be described as a sorry attempt to hide its existence. He hadn't expected to fall asleep, but the road has been arduous, the rocks ever more slippery due to the humidity and the threat of snow, forcing him down again and again as he limped his way to the glade. His hand went to the worn string around his neck, woven around a round pendant, barely holding together the two wooden pieces that once formed an intricate pattern, now almost invisible under the wear of his nostalgic touch.

The tree sighed. Its branches pulsated in the rhythm of its breathing, dropping dried leaves around-and on-the old man now shuddering at its roots.

"Cheap toys made of stolen flesh. Tell me, how long did you have to wait for my child to die? How long did you have to nurture and protect it until you were able to scrape its skin and milk its blood?"

The old man recalled the day the oak tree in his yard had finally shown the first signs of decay; first a couple dried leaves and fallen branches, then a few spots of powdery mildew here and there; the joy he felt when he scraped away some bark and felt the rotting tissue underneath; how he had patiently waited until the leaning tree fell, completely dead, before he carefully removed a thin layer and fashioned it into short wicks. He recalled every failed effort to light them up correctly, every vain journey that had exhausted his tired body, trying to locate the father-tree that now protested the death of its offspring. Like it cared. The seedling had been part of their deal and its end had been by no means expedited, regardless of how often he had seriously considered setting it on fire himself after hacking it to pieces with a rusty axe. But waited he had, and the ash that he had just marked his face and beard with, protecting himself from the rage of the cursed oak, was worth it. And so was the sap, now floating in frozen chunks in his lantern.

"Two hundred and seventy-eight years."

"Ah. Grave-fed saplings do live longer." He could hear the grin in its voice. It was pleased with its humorous remark. It knew it had hit home.

He clenched his fists. Another memory surged back, galloping in painful waves, clenching his heart, tighter and tighter, until he felt blood in his palms. The deal. Forgive me. He had been arrogant, so faithful in his powers, so unmoved in his pursuit to master the arcane. So determined to achieve the most selfish goal that had ever existed that he only realised what he had traded in when death claimed his first-born son. And then the second. All of them, one after the other, while he just stood there, useless and unable to reverse what he had done, until he was left all alone. One-by-one, he had buried them under the damned tree, keeping it alive for longer, strengthening it till its bloody roots could no longer support its cursed weight and finally released it to the earth, waited waited waited, he had waited four lifetimes, one for each son, while the wretched hunger consumed their bones, extending its lifespan by claiming what would have been theirs. But it was no more, and he had enjoyed the warmth of the fire that had licked its rotten core and the sound its branches made as they cracked, as he was erasing it from existence. The ashes he had mixed with burial soil, water from the hoarfrost he had been collecting off the oak leaves. The mixture was now freezing solid inside the cup, surrounded by more burial soil, protected by the glass enclosure of the lantern, the sap from the same tree serving as oil to fuel the bark wick.

"Why so sad?" The tree released a deep, echoing sound that shook the earth underneath; a maniacal, demonic laughter. "You never ever knew their faces!"

The old man felt his blood boil, he grinded his teeth together so hard he could feel them bite into his skin. His hands shook in a familiar rage, he grabbed a curved knife hanging from his belt, he drew it, nothing mattered anymore, but then-

"Father?" A voice he knew all too well surfaced in his mind, reverberating, silencing the tree's macabre merriment. Faces he could only imagine beckoned, expectant, smiling.

Slowly he caught his breath. He reached for the lantern, careful not to spill the soil inside the glass, and dipped the edge of the knife into the oil, then further down into the water, and finally coated it in the soil surrounding the container. He smiled a weak smile. The tree recoiled, its branches moving away from him at an impossible speed, its roots frantically digging the soil desperate to disappear back into the forest; its struggle only lasted a second.

"Ashes to ashes." With a sudden, twisting motion, he turned to his left and plunged the knife deep into the tree's dried core.

Its deafening shriek knocked the air out of him. He held the lantern close and began crawling away as fast as he could until the cry stopped and he heard the thundering sound of the ancient tree hitting the earth. Bits of fluffy snow jumped to him. He felt a gash on his cheek from a flying splinter, but he didn't care. The demon was no more. His feet dragged him to it and he fumbled until he felt it dead under his bony fingers. It was already turning to dust.

The seductive pull of prospective knowledge gnawed viciously at him, the new magic he could create a bursting possibility at his fingertips. He held the lantern on his chest, the painful memories of past mistakes a curse of lethe he would never undo.

Old men are like trees. Rooted deep in soil and in time, ever forced by nature to branch out to the unknown, scarred and weathered and stubborn. Curious. Resilient. Flawed.

He sighed in resignation, emptied out the contents of the lantern on the dead wood, and filled it again with the freshly formed powder.

"Hm. You never know."