Fiction
Fantasy
Phillip wrapped his arms around the tree’s twisting branch and gritted his teeth as the tree tried to throw him off. His body felt like a leaf held to the branch by the barest roots of its stem.
“You are strong, Phillip.” The tree’s creaking voice interrupted his concentration and the branch Phillip was holding slipped along his sweaty arms. Bits of bark cut into his skin, leaving their marks and riddling him with splinters before he tightened his hold on the tree. “Yes...strong indeed,” the tree said.
Between heavy breaths Phillip managed to glance back at the oak tree’s trunk. “Thanks,” he managed. “You’re not too weak yourself.” The bark parted midway up the trunk into an easy smile and the branch ceased throwing him to and fro. Slowly the branch began lowering him to the cool grass that surrounded the tree’s base. When his feet touched ground Phillip loosened his cramped arms and released the branch. “Now what?” he asked.
“Now you tell me what sort of fair maiden has you under her spell.” The branches of the tree stretched to their natural positions some ten feet above Phillip’s head and the tree’s trunk creaked as it angled slightly toward him.
Wiping the sweat from his brow with his shredded shirtsleeve, Phillip waited as a gentle breeze washed coolly over his body. It felt refreshing, but what he really wanted was water.
“Well, Phillip?” the tree said.
“You want me to tell you about my Love?”
A protracted creaking sound seemed to verify Phillip’s assessment.
While golden rays of sunlight filtered down through the tree’s voluminous branches Phillip stood still and regarded the tree with his tanned brow furrowed. It seemed an odd request for a tree: ‘Tell me what sort of fair maiden has you under her spell.’ But, then, this was the oldest tree in Angar Forest. Or, at least, it appeared to be. Its trunk was broader and its bark harder than any other. And no one whom Phillip had spoken to had any idea when the tree had come to be. Perhaps age played a factor in this tree’s interest, though Phillip would have preferred to simply wrestle the thing until it agreed to provide the lumber for his home.
Joel, Nathan, and Edward—friends of his—had all wrestled smaller trees so that they could build themselves houses to which they could bring their brides. But all three of them had returned with lumber unfit for building and the fathers of the would-be brides had withheld their daughters’ hands until the young men could provide more suitable dwellings.
But the trees around the woodland community were too young and none of the three young men had been able to wrestle the largest tree in the forest. Or, rather, none of them had been a match for it. They’d returned bruised both in body and in pride.
Phillip thought back to the day he’d asked Angeline’s father for her hand in marriage. “If you desire her hand in marriage,” the taller man had said, “then go into the forest. The time has come for you to test yourself against the trees of Angar. Provide a house, sure and strong, built from the timber of an Angar tree, and I will give you my daughter to wife.”
His heart warmed as he recalled the smell of Angeline’s hair as he whispered his intentions in her ear. Her blue-green eyes had shone with the splendor of emeralds as he ran his fingers through her shoulder-length auburn hair and down the smooth curve of her neck.
“I will wait for you, my Love,” she’d said, kissing him on the cheek. “I will wait fifty years if necessary.” Her breath passed over his ear. “But I’d prefer you not keep me waiting that long!”
Kissing her on the cheek and pulling her to himself, Phillip had left her and headed into Angar Forest. Love deep and passionate burned within his heart so that he cared for nothing else. Not for his own safety, not for his own life. There was only him and his Love.
“She is...beautiful,” Phillip began with a sigh.
The tree rumbled thoughtfully. “What of her character?” it asked.
“She has the heart of a servant, yet she carries herself with the dignity of a princess.” Phillip looked down at his bloodied hand. “And when she holds my hand the rest of the world fades as if into another universe.”
Time flew by as Phillip praised Angeline. The tree did not say another word, nor did it creak again...though three hours passed while Phillip continued with the same line of thought that might have bored any sane man. But the tree was not a man and when the afternoon shadows lengthened it still listened.
At last Phillip let out a long sigh. “Forgive me,” he said. “The time has flown by whilst I filled your mind with my heart.”
The tree creaked, twisted its branches and leaned back. “Time is of no interest to one as ancient as I,” it said, its leaves shivering. “But...your heart is.”
Suddenly its branches bent to the ground and stretched around Phillip’s legs. And though he struggled with all his might, Phillip could not free himself.
With undeniable strength the tree hauled him to within six feet of its trunk and held him there. “Do not struggle, Phillip.” Two branches knifed through the air. Their leaves shrank into their stems until they looked like twin daggers aimed at his heart.
“What? Let go of me!” Desperately Phillip fought, biting the tree’s imprisoning branches with his teeth. But it did no good. Another branch encircled his neck from behind, holding it fast...and the twin branches stabbed into his chest. Hot tears burned in his eyes and then overflowed, running down his cheeks. As darkness swallowed him he thought he saw Angeline running toward him, screaming desperately. But darkness veiled her from sight like a cruel fog cutting him off from mortality. A mortality that he would, gladly, have lived with her.
A tremor in the earth shook the woodland community. Angeline watched, dumbfounded as a couple dozen chimneys in the row of cabins nearest her father’s cracked from their bases to their tops. Bricks and mortar rained into the dirt streets connecting them.
She looked about for the cause of this disaster, at first seeing nothing. But the ground quaked again and she heard the sound of something thudding into the ground behind her. She turned to discover the cause.
Angar Forest, its many living trees rising like a protective hedge round about the community, now parted to make a very broad path. Rising from the midst of the forest, a colossal tree dwarfed all its counterparts as it sped toward her on its roots. In its branches she caught sight of her Love and with a pained scream she rushed forward.
“Angeline, no!” She could hear her father calling for her to stop, but she gave no thought to it. Somehow she had to reach Phillip.
The tree took notice of her. Its branches swiped the ground behind her, driving back her father and a couple other men. Then it entwined its branches around her torso, squeezing with the strength of iron as its roots propelled it back into the forest.
In the tree’s wake Angar Forest closed off the path to any would-be-followers, the minor trees bending and weaving a natural barrier.
Angeline swooned in the tree’s grasp.
Cool mist moistened his face. Phillip opened his eyes and found himself lying in direct morning sunlight. He sat up, running his hand over the soft green grass thickly decorating the meadow. A waterfall roared on its way to a clear pool of blue water a couple hundred feet from his position and a pair of pure white swans traced a graceful course over the water’s surface. Various butterflies of multiple colors startled from the wildflowers growing in small patches in the meadow.
A twig snapped behind him. Jumping up and turning at the same time he held up his arms ready for battle. But instead of some foe he found Angeline lying on the ground, half-raising herself with one elbow and returning his gaze with her sparkling eyes.
“Phillip? I thought you were...”
He raised her to her feet, gently holding her hands and then drawing her into his embrace. “Angeline.” He spoke so softly that at first he thought she might not hear him. She relaxed in his arms and wrapped her arms around his body, resting her head on his chest.
As he ran his fingers through her hair and breathed a sigh of relief, a tree at the edge of the meadow caught his eye. It dwarfed the others in the thick forest surrounding the area and its bark cracked a gentle smile.
The tree creaked and its roots pulled out of the rich, brown soil. It moved toward him, towered over him. Angeline gasped and pulled out of his embrace to stand beside him. She clasped her hands to her mouth.
A branch snaked from the tree, cradling a bulbous, red thing in its crook: a human heart.
“A heart in love is a powerful thing, Phillip.” The tree creaked as it held out its dagger branches, pointing them at Angeline. “Is this the woman whom you would have as your helpmate?”
Stunned to see what appeared to be his heart held by the tree and even more so to realize that his chest on the left side felt empty, Phillip did not at first reply. He squeezed Angeline’s hand and breathed deeply to see if he was really and truly alive. “What have you done to me?” he demanded.
“Only that which I deemed necessary,” the tree replied.
“Necessary? How can you call this necessary? Am I alive? Or am I dead?”
“Oh you are not dead, Phillip.” The tree’s upper branches shivered in the sunlight. “You are simply crippled until I give you back your heart.”
“You have no right—” Phillip began.
The tree interrupted him. “No right? Ah, but there you are wrong, young man. I have every right to do this.” It bent its trunk toward him. The bark shifted to a frown. “I did not pick a wrestling match with you, Phillip. You chose to wrestle me.”
“This is not wrestling.”
“Isn’t it, though?” the tree asked. “We are in a contest. I have simply raised the stakes against you. And if you conquer me then you shall have all the wood you need to build a home for your bride...and not just any home, but one worthy of a great lord.
“This wrestling match could end in my death...but I have allowed it. Perhaps this has escaped your notice?”
Phillip clenched his fist. “I have to wrestle you for my heart?”
“No.”
The tree’s branch squeezed Phillip’s heart and he felt as if his left breast split as the pain seared down his spine. He clutched his hollow chest and collapsed to the ground in agony.
“You have to wrestle me for your life,” the tree said. “And if you by some miracle are able to overpower me then you shall have taken my life.”
“Please.” Angeline stepped toward the tree. “Please give it back. I—I won’t lose him.”
“So,” the tree said, “you believe you are ready to be his helpmate. You will stand beside him through whatever life casts in his path? You will be loyal and honorable and lift his spirits when the going is rough?”
“That is my duty and my commitment; he is my Love.” Angeline bit her lower lip and blood trickled from it.
“Well, my dear.” The tree squeezed Phillip’s heart again, forcing him to dig his knees into the ground in order to alleviate the pain. “The going is about to get very rough.”
As he gasped for breath and clutched helplessly at his hollow left breast, Phillip fought to speak. Before a single protest could leave his lips, Angeline ripped her skirt to bare her smooth right leg and dashed into the midst of the tree’s swiping branches. Several branches caught her face, gashing her skin. Blood pulsed from the cuts and dribbled off of her chin, but her eyes fixed on Phillip’s heart. Leaping over a tree root that sought to trip her, she grabbed hold of the branch holding Phillip’s heart.
This momentary distraction allowed Phillip to catch several deep, refreshing breaths. Rising to his feet and running forward, he slipped under the tree’s branches and approached its trunk.
“Very well,” he said, ripping off his shirt and sobering his face. “Let’s wrestle.”
Phillip grappled with the tree’s trunk. It proved too broad for him to hold and he fell back to the ground. But he detected a smile forming in the tree’s bark. He stood and dug his fingers into the tree’s ‘mouth’ until a high-pitched creak rewarded his efforts.
Angeline screamed as the tree successfully grabbed her. Its branches coiled around her body like slippery snakes. Her eyes widened and her chest heaved to no avail. Soon the tree dropped her onto the ground...unmoving, still as death.
With a creaking of its thick branches, the tree squeezed Phillip’s heart one more time. And as he screamed in agony over his own pain and over the sight of his gentle lover’s limp body, Phillip heard the tree speak.
“Designed for man, woman was,” it said. “Without her, man has only half a life...and his heart is hardened.”
Phillip longed to scream at the villainous tree. He longed to rip its limbs from its trunk with his bare hands. What could have caused it to extinguish a life as pure, as innocent, as selfless, and as brave as Angeline’s? She had not deserved this. She deserved to live a full life and a long one, full of children and joy.
“If—I—could,” he spat at the tree in spite of its cruel grasp on his heart. “If I could be free then would I kill you, Tree. But now I am left with nothing. My life is over. Kill me now or I will do so myself.”
Suddenly the tree’s bark cracked into a smile broad enough for three men to stand in and it chuckled in a voice so deep, so old, that the ground trembled beneath Phillip’s feet. It pricked Angeline’s arm with a branch and her chest heaved a breath. “Now that, Phillip, is the sort of love I am willing to die for!”
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Copyright 2009, Scott Appleton. All rights reserved. Scott Appleton is a freelance writer out of Connecticut. He is the author of the fantasy novel SWORDS OF THE SIX. He has had multiple short fiction pieces published, and has published over a dozen news articles. You can learn more on his website http://www.theswordofthedragon.com
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