Weeping Willow (Prologue)

The scent of nettles and sun block danced in the wind as a young teenage girl made her way through the fiery colors of the wood in the autumn of 1914. The wind was chilly and harsh but she kept walking in a moderate pace, clutching her black coat around her and letting her sky blue eyes delight in seeing the warmth of the leaves around her. She smiled to herself as she continued her journey, going deeper into the woods. She wandered off far from the path and started downhill.

She stopped. 

The sight sent a chill down her spine. She saw the grass luster fade away as it stretched to meet the small bank of a narrow brook. Trees from the other side hid the sunlight, making the water look black, deep and…you could almost say dead. The wind had stopped moving but the frigid air remained as if time was frozen and all the colors turned black, white and gray.

She should’ve run away but her eye caught sight of an unusual looking tree. She brushed a strand of her platinum blonde hair from her face as she looked at the massive and old-looking weeping willow. Her light blue eyes dilated first in surprise, then narrowed in curiosity. With her gentle breath staining the air, she made her way to the tree. She crept to the side and drew a few vines back, feeling the small layer of dust in each leaf, to enter the tree’s domain.

It was dark but she could make out the shape of the tree: a sagging but majestically detailed trunk that was around fifteen meters high and three meters in diameter, the ever-extending branches above that held the countless vines and leaves that looked like curtains. Dim light was radiated from the cloudy sky and dispersed when it tried to sneak into the tree’s bosom. It was like an abandoned tree palace for the nymphs of the brook. She stood in awe at the beauty of the tree, then slowly noticed something on one of the high branches. She squinted.

It was a rectangular shadow… It was… A painting? She spotted another rectangular shadow. Another? And another! She counted…twenty paintings hanging on the branches of the tree.

“Where did these paintings come from?” she whispered to herself.

“A painter, obviously,” a man’s voice answered in the dark. She jumped in surprise and turned upwards and to the direction of the voice.

All she saw was a dark silhouette of a man in an old looking suit standing on one of the thickest branches of the tree. She stepped back in caution and was about to run, but the man’s deep and soothing voice stopped her.

“Do not fear,” he said. “I will not harm you.”—he leaped from his branch and landed three feet from her—“I just need someone to listen to my story.”

The girl just stood there, shuddering from the stranger’s daunting demeanor and all the possible danger she could be in. She blinked at him as he approached her. She saw his features from the dim light: long raven black hair tied back in a low pony tail, a sharp and square jaw, his nose hinted some European heritage and his complexion was pale. His eyes were the most intriguing of them all; they were a deep violet, almost glowing despite the ill-lit area.

He took another step in front of her and she returned the gesture with a step back. His eyes stayed dead as he looked at the young girl.

“What is your name?” His softer voice hinted a kind soul underneath a murderer’s mask. The girl hesitated. “I hold no weapon, dear.”—here he opened his arms and emptied his pockets—“I just want someone to hear my story; someone to write it.”

The girl’s blue eyes studied him carefully. She saw the sadness.

“What’s in it for me?” she said.

“A story holds countless lessons if we look in the right places,” he replied. “Don’t you want to know the story of the paintings you see here?” he looked at her in the eye. “Or at least relieve a man of his loneliness?”

“You will tell me a story?” she asked again in caution. He nodded.

“Just a story?” He nodded once more.

“And you want me to write it?”

“Yes.”

“But I am no writer.”

“Oh, I can assure you that one way or another, you will find yourself writing about this day, I swear it,” he said. “I just want to tell the story of my life, the way I know it, to at least one soul in this world.”

She hesitated again.

“A story could never hurt you,”—He said sorrowfully at her as he looked down—“a-at least, not as much as it hurt the witness.” He glanced up at her with his pitiful violet eyes. “Please miss.”

She looked at him again in his old clothes and his pleading eyes. He looked like all he did was to swallow the misery of the world and not complain. The crestfallen soul that was blindly looking for salvation was his aura.

“It’s Blithe,” she said in a small voice. “My name is Blithe.”

The stranger gave her the smallest of smiles. “Blithe. It’s a lovely name.”

He approached her again and led her to a small stump. “It’s a long story and I’m not so good a story teller, but I will do my best,” he said. “Take a seat.”

She sat on the stump and faced the tree with her back to the brook. In the distance, the sun was setting and darkness started creeping around them.

The man lit a match, illuminating all his pale and handsome features. He turned away from the girl and lit one vine of leaves that was close to the tree. It quickly caught fire and travelled up high and at the end, it gave light to a small candle. The flame travelled still, to the higher branches and lit another candle, and it turned left, then right then zipped and zapped in a line, lighting all the other candles that awaited the flame.

By the time the fire had gone out and the sky was dark, the single vine that the man lit was reduced to ash while the candles shone the perfect eerie yellow light on the twenty paintings that hung on the branches.