In the Shadow of the Trees by Elenor Gill Read Free Book Online Page A

colossal stature that it humbled all around it. I stood back and stared, hardly daring to breathe. Time-raddled bark had twisted into matted cords, winding up and out of sight. The topmost branches must have reached way beyond the canopy. I felt compelled to walk around the base, to know its dimensions, running my hands over its surface as I paced it around. Roots like hawsers impeded my way. They drilled deep into the earth and held it in a grip of iron. This had to be painted.
    A fallen trunk nearby offered a good seat and I rummaged in my bag for paper and pastels, starting to outline the demigod. The dogs soon grew bored with this and went off on some personal mission. After a while I could hear them barking away off by the lake, but I was lost in work. That’s how it has always been with me: I become caught up with a project, and everything else, including time, ceases to exist.
    The morning was gone before I put the page down, but the results were satisfying. There was something in the image about age and old knowledge. This tree embraced wisdom. It talked of things before and beyond man. Yes, this was where I was going.
    A quick spray to set the colour and I was ready to eat. The water bottle was half emptied in one go. It was surprisingly hot and humid, even though the sun’s rays were filtered. Cicadas were in full throttle and tui called to each other in secret codes like forest spies reporting on intruders. The fallen wood on which I sat had been honeycombed by termites. Other invisible life forms had tattered the lower leaves into lace. The place was seething withlife. It felt electric, like the hum of energy around a generating station, only this was not in my ears but inside my head. It was time to move on. I dropped the remains of the bread on the forest floor—an offering to the tree gods. No doubt it would be seized upon by scavengers.
    Still biting into an apple, I started walking, this time moving eastwards to follow a higher path around the lake. Soon bush gave way to patches of clear ground and then a rutted dirt track that marked the edge of the pine plantation. In there it was darker, cooler. Where broad leaves and fern fronds had filtered yellow-green rays to the bush floor, the pines closed out the sun as if it were not welcome. It was like being inside a huge building, somewhere cool and hollow, a place created for worship, but not for the gods of warmth and laughter. The pines took themselves too seriously, stretching tall and high but looking ever inward. It was as it was in the dream, only without the softening touch of moonlight. I tried to recreate more of the sensations of the dream walk by rubbing the leaves between my fingers to release their aromatic resin and crunching the dried needles under foot. On impulse I slipped my boots off to feel again the needles’ roughness. But, unlike in the dream, this hurt like hell and, quickly abandoning the experiment, I had to sit down to pick the sharp spines out of the soles of my feet.
    The path twisted upwards again and the trees broke their lines to give way to a sun-dappled clearing. There was something familiar…Yes, of course, this was where Jason had brought me the day before. Was it the day before? It seemed ages ago. Yes, there were the tracks the bike had scored in the earth. So, where were the graves?
    I nearly stubbed my toe on one. The writing was barely legible, but I could just make out the date, 1836 to 1866. The rest was crusted with dried, brown lichen. I tried picking at it with my thumbnail, then rummaged in my art bag for a scraper. After a few minutes’ work the epitaph was revealed:

    Anne Sullivan
    1836–1866
    beloved wife of Michael and mother to David

    What was it Jason had said? His grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother? Eighteen thirty-six—this must be the great-great-grandmother. The other two were together, just a few metres away. I should not be doing this, interfering with graves. This was