Tree of Ages 1 Read online

  “But people are in the glen all of the time,” she countered, not realizing that such a contradiction might seem rude. It was obvious that the old man expected her to be angry at his admission, but she was used to people paying her little to no mind. She would never have expected someone to help her.

  Àed continued to smile, with perhaps a bit more warmth than before. “No one bothers an old hermit,” he explained. “I saw them, and they saw me, but that was the extent of it. Talkin to ye, well this is the first time I've talked to another soul since me daughter left me.”

  Finn managed a small smile. “If it makes you feel less alone, this is the first conversation I've had in just as long. In fact, it's the first conversation of my life.”

  “Ye seem to have grasped the language quickly,” Àed commented. “It takes most of us many years to learn to speak.”

  “I've heard countless conversations,” Finn explained. “I learned from them.”

  Àed squinted at Finn like he didn't fully believe her. “Your speech just seems mighty fluid, is all I'm sayin.”

  “I don't understand what happened to me,” Finn stated a little too sharply, “and I don't know how I am able to speak to you, or why I have the lips that enable me to do so.”

  Àed blushed and nodded to himself. “I dinnae know either, but yer here now, so ye may as well make yerself comfortable and get some rest. We'll speak more in the mornin.”

  Now that Àed had pointed it out, Finn did feel a certain weariness about her. At the old man's instruction, she curled up on the lumpy straw mat. She closed her eyes, not sure what sleep would be like, and not sure if she wanted to do it at all. It took her quickly though, and she was grateful for the reprieve.

  Chapter Two

  Finn stayed with Àed for several weeks. She could have stayed in his small home forever, where she was warm and safe, but she felt like there was something she needed to do. She missed the earth, and still wasn't quite sure how to be a human. Even beyond that, something unseen pushed her forward. She somehow knew that she had a purpose, but was unsure of what that purpose might be. She'd also had memories, just brief flashes, of another life, though she hadn't told Àed about them. The scenes were only quick blurs of images, sometimes with snippets of conversation she could not make sense of.

  Unsure of what these vague memories meant, she focused on remembering what it felt like to be a tree. The more she became accustomed to movement, eating, and speaking, the more she forgot what it felt like to be without such things. In an effort to remember her former life, every day she went outside and stuck her toes in the dirt, searching for some sort of connection. She could feel the distant ringing of roots and soil and life, yet she could not reach it. She would sit in the grass for hours, until her skin itched terribly and her cheeks were red with too much sun.

  One particularly rainy day, Finn was stuck inside. Because she was human. Because she would get cold. She hated the cold. She'd felt it before, but never like she did as a human. It seeped into her bones in an insidious manner, leaving her shaking for several minutes even as she warmed herself by the fire.

  “I think I'd like to be a tree again,” she announced through chattering teeth.

  Àed, who had been mending a hole in his cloak, put down his work. “I'm afraid I cannae help ye there, lassy.”

  Finn took a deep breath, settling her resolve. “Then I must find someone who can. Perhaps there are others who share my condition. There has to be a reason for what happened to me.”

  Àed smiled, but it was sad. “I figured ye'd want to be leaving eventually,” he conceded. “Yer too young to be cooped up.”

  Finn offered the old man a small smile. “I'm glad that you understand.”

  Àed stood and stretched his back. “I've a few things to give ye first. Just wait here while I fetch them.”

  Finn put a hand to her chest, suddenly worried that Àed might think she expected further assistance. “But you've given me so much already. I can take nothing more from you.”

  Àed tugged his burlap hat firmly onto his wizened head. “I'll have none of yer arguing,” he scolded. “Ye just wait here a moment.”

  With that, he went out into the rain. Finn opened the wooden shutter on one of the windows so she could watch as Àed walked toward the back of the house, but she soon had to shut it as the rain pelted in through the opening. The old man was gone for quite some time, causing her an increasing amount of anxiety.

  Finn jumped as the door burst open, carried by the strength of the wind. Àed stood in the doorway, drenched with his hands covered in mud. He was also carrying a small, muddy chest.

  “I buried this,” he explained, holding up the chest, “years ago. Just in case anyone came snoopin around me home while I was away.”

  He placed the chest on the ground and sat down in front of it. Finn was constantly surprised at how agile he was, given his apparent age. She'd seen men as old as he in her meadow, and they wobbled around like newborn deer. He opened the chest, and peered inside with a smile. Finn scooted beside him, so that she might see as well.

  Inside, was a shiny silver dagger, at least, the pommel was shiny silver. The blade of the dagger was stuck into a dark leather sheath, attached to a braided cord of similar dark leather. The dagger had an elaborate, twining pattern on the pommel that ended in a small black stone. Àed pulled out the knife to reveal a pair of soft leather gloves, a wooden comb, and what appeared to be a coin purse residing in the chest as well.

  He handed the dagger to Finn, who took it by the hilt awkwardly. “I'd have no idea how to use such a thing,” she admitted. “I've seen their use in the skinning of deer and rabbits, but I believe in this case, seeing and doing are quite different things.”

  Àed eyed her sternly. “This ain't no skinnin knife. Ye must be able to protect yerself. The road is not always a friendly place, and a weapon helps push the odds in yer favor.”

  Reluctantly, Finn set the dagger in her lap, and Àed turned back to his muddy chest. He removed the gloves and comb from the box next, placing them in Finn's hands without a word. At Finn's raised eyebrow, he said, “Yer hands'll get cold on the road, especially with the nasty weather we've had of late, and ye should probably brush your hair on occasion, lest people mistake ye for a wild woman.”

  Finally he gave her the coin purse. It was heavy; the coins clinked inside as Finn handled it. She tried to push it back at him without a word.

  Àed shook his head. “I've no need for it lass. Everything I be needing is already bought.”

  Finn's face was once again covered in the wetness she had come to know as tears. She had not yet cried from gratitude, and found it better than crying from sadness. She gripped the coins tightly in her hand. Though she knew little of currency, she knew that coin was not given away easily.

  Àed's expression turned to one of sadness. “Please don't be cryin lass.”

  Finn tried to stay her tears, but ended up crying even harder. She wiped at her face with the leather gloves, but it was no use.

  Àed stood suddenly and set the trunk to the side. “I've a knapsack for ye,” he announced as he stood “and a bedroll-” He paused mid-speech as a worried look came across his face. After another moment he went on as if he hadn't missed a beat, “I've both for myself as well, as I've just decided that I'll be goin with ye.”

  “I cannot ask that of you!” Finn objected instantly.

  “These old bones can carry me farther than those tree trunks ye call legs,” he said firmly. “I can't very well leave ye alone on the road.”

  “I've no idea how far I'll have to go, or to where. There is no way you can come,” she argued.

  “Quit yer bickerin and get some rest,” Àed ordered as he began pawing through his cupboards in search of supplies. “Providing the weather clears up, we'll be leaving first thing in the morning.”

  Finn was at a loss for words. She did not want to go alone, but she knew Àed would only be coming along for her sake. She would have
argued further, but she had come to know the look in the old man's eyes that meant all arguments would fall on deaf ears. Her hands fell to her lap in defeat. With no other options, she obeyed the old man and curled up on the straw mat, while he continued to root through his belongings. Eventually Àed bunched up some blankets and went to sleep on the floor, just like he had every night since she'd first arrived.

  “Can't ye move any faster!” Àed called from a good forty paces ahead of Finn as they walked along the next morning.

  The old man was surprisingly swift, and he never really seemed to tire. Finn on the other hand was tired all of the time. Though she currently had human legs, she had been a stationary tree for a good hundred years. All of the movement that people were expected to endure was a bit much for her.

  Àed had paused to wait for her, and eyed her with impatience as she approached. “We need to make Garenoch before the sun sets,” he explained. “The roads are no place to be after dark.”

  Finn had to stand still for a moment in order to catch her breath. “We can sleep on our bedrolls in this . . . Garenoch?” she asked.

  She had never been to a burgh like Garenoch, yet she somehow knew what one would consist of. She had probably just pieced together information overheard from travelers over the years. Yet, being on the road was oddly familiar to her as well, if logically foreign at the same time.

  “We'll sleep at an inn tonight lass, and as often as we can. Them coins in that pouch will more than cover it, so take a care ye don't be loosin any,” Àed answered.

  “There are beds at this inn?” Finn prompted.

  Àed sighed impatiently. “Yes lass, and I know yer next question. We need the bedrolls, because there willnae always be an inn at hand.”

  Finn nodded and started walking on ahead of the old man, wanting to show him that she could walk just as well, if not better than him. Her efforts were not rewarded. Within moments, Àed had reached her side once more.

  “So I never found the chance to ask ye,” he began conversationally, “do ye remember when ye were first a tree?”

  Finn eyed him suspiciously, but answered, “It was always so. I do not remember a beginning. Just that I always was.”

  “But there had to be a beginning,” Àed prompted. “Whether ye rose up from a small seed, or perhaps . . . perhaps ye were something else, ye know, before ye were a tree?”

  Finn did not appreciate what Àed was implying. There was nothing before her previous life. If there had been, she would remember it, just as she remembered being a tree.

  “Why would you ask such a thing?” she questioned breathlessly. She was not about to admit that certain memories had seeped in. Those memories were just figments of her imagination, nothing more.

  “Ye just seem awful good at being a person,” he explained quickly, before she could get defensive. “Ye've managed to get hold of quite a bit in such a short time. Ye knew what an inn was, without ever having been to one.” At her glare, he pointed an accusing finger back at her. “Now don't ye argue with me. I know ye knew.”

  “What are you implying, old man?” Finn asked with a little more heat than she'd intended.

  Àed kept walking at ease, as if he hadn't heard her tone. “I'm implying that ye've done this before, even if ye don't remember it. I think ye were a human before ye became a tree, and a tree wasn't yer natural state to begin with.”

  “That is not possible,” Finn choked out. “I will find someone who knows what he's talking about, and I'll become a tree once more. My natural state.”

  Àed shrugged. “Suit yerself. Twas only an observation.”

  Finn's face felt hot. Despite the cold, sweat dripped down her nose. She wiped it away and put Àed's accusations out of her mind. She was a tree, and she would be a tree again.

  The sun was nearly gone by the time they reached the small burgh, Garenoch by name. Finn's feet ached, and her stomach growled. Àed had refused to stop long enough for them to pull out some of the cheese and bread they had brought. Finn didn't see what his rush was. She was the one on a mission, not him.

  She was not overly stunned as the scenery transitioned from sporadic farms with grazing animals, to homes and businesses crammed side-by-side. In fact, a sickening familiarity settled into the pit of her stomach. She shoved it aside, but the feeling continued to nag at her. There was no way she had been in any place other than her meadow.

  The streets still held a few people, despite the chilly air moving in as the sun lowered. The people went about their business, and did not pay Finn or Àed much mind. Shacks and larger homes which Àed referred to as haudins were packed closely together, making the air of the place feel claustrophobic. The houses were built upward and outward, each story protruding wider than the one below it, so that their slightly pitched roofs nearly touched. Many buildings reached three stories high, but few were larger than that, which was good, because it seemed to Finn that they might fall over if they grew anymore. The walls of most of the haudins were whitewashed, though many dreadfully needed a new coat. Àed and Finn walked on past the houses silently, searching for an inn.

  The roads were muddy from the previous day's rain, and didn't have the grass of the countryside, causing Finn's boots to quickly become caked with mud as they walked. She plodded along, feeling like her feet weighed a hundred pounds as she tried to avoid large ruts in the road that would likely pull one of her boots off entirely, given that they were too large for her.

  A group of travelers on horseback passed them, and Finn found herself wishing for a horse. She did not relay this wish to Àed, nor did she relay her wish for hot food and a warm room.

  One of the passing riders stopped a short distance ahead, and dismounted to talk to a stableman. Finn told herself that she only knew he was a stableman by the harnesses looped over his shoulder. She did not have an answer as to how she knew that the occupation of stableman existed in the first place.

  The stableman was a greasy, squirmy man with dark hair pushed back from his bony face. The corded muscles in his long arms seemed wrong on such a ferrety little man. He took several coins from the rider who had stopped to speak to him, then began to gather the reins of the party's horses as each rider dismounted.

  The rider with the coin appeared to be a small woman. Finn could not see her face past the hood of her burgundy cloak, but her shape bespoke femininity. The other riders handed off their horses one by one. Three men, and perhaps one more woman.

  “Are yer feet stuck in the mud lass!” Àed called from underneath the eave of the inn's door. “I'm starving over here!”

  Over Àed's head hung a sign in the shape of a sheep with a garish smile carved into the wood of his face. Finn had no idea what the sign meant, but guessed it somehow related to the name of the inn. The building behind the sign was much larger than the haudins they had passed, but was built in the same style with larger stories on top.

  Finn started forward with a grunt. Pushy old man. The aroma of roasting meats and fresh bannocks wafted from the inn as the riders Finn had been observing opened the door behind Àed and went inside. Àed followed them in, shaking his head at Finn's slowness as she stopped in her tracks and stood still in the mud, frozen by a strange sense of nostalgia.

  The din of voices and warm light that flowed from the inn called to her in a way that they should not have. She knew she needed food and warmth to survive, but the atmosphere of the inn offered a sense of safety and belonging. She did not belong with those people eating and drinking in the inn.

  Finn's mood brightened slightly as she imagined sitting by a nice fire with a hot meal, and a glass of wine. Wine. She had only seen humans drink it from leather bottells as they lounged beneath the shade of her limbs, yet the memory of the taste was recalled to her tongue. Feeling oddly light as she lifted her sodden feet, she started forward toward what she told herself was her first time entering an inn.

  She passed through the doors to find Àed discussing something with the innkeep, a short, baldi
ng man with a gold embroidered coat that looked out of place on his less than grand physique. Àed had not taken the coin purse back from Finn while still on the road, yet he now produced four silver coins for the innkeep. Finn could not tell exactly where the coins were coming from, a sleight of hand that likely helped ward off pickpockets. She shook her head at her knowledge of pickpockets. She would simply have to stop thinking.

  She walked forward swiftly, attempting to avoid eye-contact with the inn's patrons as they sat eating their suppers. Her shoulders relaxed as the room's warmth comforted her, but she instantly forced them to stiffen. She should not be comfortable here. Reaching Àed's side, she let out her held breath, then turned to acknowledge the innkeep with a tight smile. The small man's coat was almost blinding with its gold thread that reflected the lantern light as he shifted his weight back and forth. Though the innkeep was narrow of limb, the coat attempted to hide a rather full, round belly that reflected the light more than the concave areas of his body.

  The innkeep grinned as he took in Finn with his eyes. “Welcome to the Sheep's Delight, the finest inn in all of Garenoch, burgh of Alderman Gwrtheryn.”

  Àed glanced up at the man from under silver bushy eyebrows. “Considering it's one of two inns in Garenoch, that ain't really sayin much.”

  The man's smile did not falter, but the tone of his voice was bland as he held out a key to Àed and said, “Your room is up the stairs, third on the right. Enjoy your stay.”

  Without a word, Àed snatched the key, then turned and ascended the wide wooden stairway beside the bar, with Finn following silently after him. She left clumps of mud as she went, and cursed herself for not wiping her feet on her way in. The feeling of eyes on her back made her think that perhaps the innkeep was cursing her as well, but she turned to find not the innkeep's eyes, but the eyes of a young man seated in the common room.