When The Trees Guided Me Home - Part 5

There was a day in the early Autumn, when the wind carried the leaves to the topmost branches before, with a sigh, they’d let them go, spiralling towards the ground in a multi-coloured tornado.

*

That was the morning Ella couldn’t make it to the treeline. We had travelled halfway before her knees buckled underneath her and she crumpled to the ground with a soft moan. I gave a cry and ran over to her, tears springing to my eyes. “Go,” she said fiercely when I attempted to help her. “I’ll get home somehow. Just go into the woods and find Tree Boy. He’ll protect you.” The tears overflowed, falling down my face in torrents.“No, you can’t go home,” I sobbed, “I don’t want Mum to hurt you again, you can’t take any more! Let me go instead!”

*

Ella was crying now, her body convulsing with the sobs she tried to contain. But she grabbed my shoulders and managed to speak firmly. “You’re not going back. You’re never going back when she’s there. I made a promise to our Dad I would protect you before he left us, andI‘m never, ever going to break that promise.” I nodded, sniffling. “Hey,” she said softly, “I’ll still be here when you get back.” She embraced me then, wrapping her thin arms around my body. Her skin was ice, cracking in the places her wounds resided. And it was cold. So very cold.

*

In my thoughts, I channelled my warmth into her, trying to revive her near lifeless outer shell. At eight years old, I knew it wouldn’t work, but it made me feel better, trying to do something. As though our situation wasn’t hopeless.

*

She let me go, and staggered to her feet, breathing heavily. She gave me a small nod, and hesitantly, I walked the rest of the way to the forest.

*

I looked back many times that day, and in the grey mist of the early morning, her little white dress shone into the murk like a beacon guiding me home.

*

I didn’t play that day. Nor did Tree Boy. I merely sat on a pile of dried brown leaves, once scarlet their dull colour echoing my mood. Tree Boy wasn’t the same either.He sat within the delicate branches of a Weeping Willow for most of the day, carving little swords out of dead twigs and branches with me sat at its base, humming various tunes that entered my head.

*

When, after hours of idle chatter and silence, darkness began enveloping the forest, I couldn’t get away fast enough. I sprinted away, heart pounding, ground crunching beneath my feet, and Tree Boy watching me go with a carved sword in his hand.