The tree woman nodded to me, making shadows shift over my flesh. “I am proud of you, that you come to understand that the dying is a part of the living. For too long you clung to the notion that each life was significant and too important to perish for the whole. But now you see it, don’t you?”
“I do. And it comforts me.” And it did. At least it comforted the part of me that sat on the forest floor at the feet of the great tree, his back to its rough bark. That part of me saw no woman, but felt her and heard her speaking to me.
Yet the part of me that stood in the shadowy space between dreams and waking was horrified at my behavior. I consorted with the enemy. There was no other way to look at it. My worst fears were confirmed when I heard her say, “It is good that you have come to the understanding. It will make it easier for you.”
“Did you ever have doubts, when the magic first claimed you?” I asked her.
I felt her wistful sigh in the gentle rustling of the leaves above me. “Of course I did. I had plans for my life, and dreams. Then came a time of drought. I thought we would all die. I made a spirit journey, just as you did. A choice was offered to me just as it was offered to you. I chose the magic and the magic chose me. The magic used me, and my people survived.”
Unbreathing in the shadow, I heard my traitor self ask her, “The magic will use me also?”
“Yes. It will use you as you use it. It will give to you, and in the process, it will take from you. You may mourn what is taken. But the loss will make you stronger and truer to your task.”
My dream self made a gesture with his hands. It could have expressed either release or offering. I sensed it signified acceptance. I felt impotent fury that this other self would passively accede to such a fate. And in my fury, I was somehow separate from him, and could observe him. He filled me with contempt. He leaned back, naked and smiling in the gentle balm of the sun. His skin was evenly browned, as if he had never known a scrap of clothing. He had dirt under his fingernails, and his bare feet and ankles were permanently grimed. He was a man turned into a beast of the forest. Yet he was pleased with himself, content in whatever life this was he lived. I hated him, hated myself and my weakness with a terrifying passion. Then, as he shifted, I felt a thrill of fear strengthen me. I had thought that dream self my twin, but now I saw he was not. What I had taken for a head as shorn of hair as my own was actually a bald pate. At the crown of his skull, sprouting like a rooster’s tail, was a sheaf of hair. I knew with sudden certainty that his crop of hair would exactly match the missing piece of scalp on my scarred head. This was the stolen self that Epiny had spoken about with Spink.
The tree had continued to speak to my dream self. “It is good that you are prepared, for soon I will reach out to you with the magic. I have considered long whether it was wise for me to take action on my own. Usually, when the magic takes a vessel, the magic soon acts through the vessel, and the events that will make all right for the People are set into motion. But you say you have done nothing; that the magic has not acted through you. Of this you are certain?”
I watched my dream self. He sat silent a moment and then shrugged eloquently. He did not know. I sensed that he had reached for me, perhaps trying to know my thoughts and what this self did in the real world, yet he could no more truly comprehend who and what I was than I could understand him. Perhaps Epiny’s summoning had broken my dreams and made me aware of him. His topknot of hair, I now saw, was braided at the base and tarred with something that made it stand up from his scalp. A bit of green vine wrapped it like a schoolgirl’s ribbon. It looked silly to me, as foolish as one of Epiny’s hats.
The tree sighed, a heavy rustling of wind through her branches. “Then act I shall, though I am full of misgiving at taking this upon myself. Old as I am, wise as I have become through the many seasons, I still do not see as the magic sees. The magic sees to the end of all permutations. The magic knows which falling grain of sand will escalate into a landslide. I see more clearly than any living member of the People. But even so, I tremble at what I will do.”
Indeed, a curious shiver did run through the tree, a quivering of the leaves that seemed independent of any stir of air. My dream self folded his hands and bowed his head in submission. “Do as you must, Tree Woman. I will be ready.”
“I will do as I must, never fear! The dance is no longer sufficient. We trusted to it, but it is failing. Our trees fall and with every tree that dies, wisdom is lost. Power is lost. The forest is what binds our worlds together. As the intruders cut the forest, they are like mice nibbling at a rope. The bridge between the worlds grows weaker. The magic feels itself weakening, and knows it must work quickly. I feel it as I feel the sap of spring that rushes through me. I know we must make a bridge of our own. So there is no time for you to thrash and blunder your way. There is no time to let you make your own mistakes. Tomorrow, you must pass the test.”