The Seed Tree
4

Eleventh Day of Shamath in the Season of Winds:

I spent much of the last two days sitting by the garden pool, seeking the healing of water.

. . .Who see their truth only in dreams. It is well that I keep this journal; it often becomes a mirror to show me to myself. When I wrote those words I spoke of the Half-wakened trees, or so I thought.

My dreams have been chaotic. In one, all the birds were gone. I searched the grove and garden but the nests were empty. I heard a bird call far away, but when I tried to follow it, I could not find it. This dream came the night after the snow.

In another dream, there was fire in the grove. No matter how much water I carried to put out the flames, a new fire erupted in another place.

There were other dreams I do not care to describe. After each one, there came the same sound and the same vision. I saw the tops of tall trees sway and bend, and the wind's voice was a whisper and a roar. I tried to hear its message, but all I felt was anticipation. The vision overpowered each dream of fear and loss, filling me with its own presence until there existed
only swaying trees and wind. I woke feeling that the core of me was wind. It blew through the hollows of my bones; I was a vessel for wind, swept clean of distress. The wind filled me, and I was one with the trees.

Fifteenth Day of Shamath in the Season of Winds:

Well before dawn, I woke to the beating of wings and the scream of birds. When I opened my eyes, I saw the two tocarra huddled together in a corner. I got out of bed, trembling, and for a moment I wanted to hide in the corner with them. But then I saw Norann's shawl draped casually over the back of a chair, as though she had just come in, or perhaps tossed it there in preparation for going out. I always arrange it so the blackened edge is not visible.

I got up and clutched the shawl to my face, trying to feel some sense of her. But outside, throughout the grove, birds cried calling to me. And inside, the walls echoed the voice of wind. I knew there was nowhere to go but to the halal tree.

I watched my hands rearrange the shawl. I watched my feet walk toward the corner, where I tried to comfort the shivering animals. I saw the first orange glow warm the window, then rise softly to illuminate the room. I saw myself open the door and step out into feathered, scream-pierced air.

The halal tree stands at the edge of desolation. Here the wasteland begins with its vast areas of scorched ground. Nothing grows or moves from here to the horizon. The last things to move were white explosions too intense for my eyes to look at.

But the halal tree saw them all.

Norann asked to be buried under this tree. And as I began to understand, I buried other refugees under the Half-wakened who dream, and a few under the Sleepers. Each time, I felt I was planting a seed--of what I did not know.

The animals and birds I loved best are buried here with Norann. And it was in this place that I first felt the wonder and power stirring beneath the soil. The halal dropped its seeds here in the last season, and it is the only tree in the Preserve that is fully awake.