The Summer Tree Page 22

  “It’ll probably rain,” she said. The wipers slapped their steady tattoo on the windshield. It was really coming down.

  “The bandstand’s covered,” he replied airily, “and the first ten rows. Besides, if it rains, you don’t have to fight the Blue Jays. Can’t lose, kid.”

  “Well, you’re pretty high tonight.”

  “I am, indeed,” he heard the person he had been say, “pretty high tonight. I am very high.”

  He passed a labouring Chevy.

  “Oh, shit,” Rachel said.

  Please, a lost, small voice within the Godwood pleaded. His. Oh, please. But he was inside it now, had taken himself there, all the way. There was no pity on the Summer Tree. How could there be? So open, he was, the rain could fall through him.

  “Oh, shit,” she said.

  “What?” he heard himself say, startled. Saw it start right then, right there. The moment. Wipers at the top of their sweep. Lakeshore East. Just past a blue Chevrolet.

  She was silent. Glancing, he could see her hands clasped tightly together. Her head was down. What was this?

  “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Evidently.” Oh, God, his defences.

  She looked over at that. Dark eyes. Like no one else. “I promised,” she said. “I promised I’d talk to you tonight.”

  Promised? He tried, watched himself try. “Rachel, what is it?”

  Eyes front again. Her hands.

  “You were away for a month, Paul.”

  “I was away for a month, yes. You know why.” He’d gone four weeks before her recital. Had convinced them both it made sense—the time was too huge for her, it meant too much. She was playing eight hours a day; he wanted to let her focus. He flew to Calgary with Kev and drove his brother’s car through the Rockies and then south down the California coast. Had phoned her twice a week.

  “You know why,” he heard himself say again. It had begun.

  “Well, I did some thinking.”

  “One should always do some thinking.”

  “Paul, don’t be like—”

  “What do you want from me?” he snapped. “What is this, Rach?”

  So, so, so. “Mark asked me to marry him.”

  Mark? Mark Rogers was her accompanist. Last-year piano student, good-looking, mild, a little effeminate. It didn’t fit. He couldn’t make it fit.

  “All right,” he said. “That happens. It happens when you’ve got a common goal for a while. Theatre romance. He fell in love. Rachel, you’re easy to fall in love with. But why are you telling me this way?”

  “Because I’m going to say yes.”

  No warning at all. Point-blank. Nothing had ever prepared him for this kick. Summer night, but God, he was so cold. So cold, suddenly.

  “Just like that?” Reflex.

  “No! Not just like that. Don’t be so cold, Paul.”

  He heard himself make a sound. A gasp, a laugh: halfway. He was actually shivering. Don’t be so cold, Paul.

  “That’s just the sort of thing,” she said, twisting her hands together. “You’re always so controlled, thinking, figuring out. Like figuring out I needed to be alone a month, or why Mark fell in love with me. So much logic: Mark’s not so strong. He needs me. I can see the ways he needs me. He cries, Paul.”

  Cries? Nothing held together anymore. What did crying have to do with it?

  “I didn’t know you liked a Niobe number.” It was important to stop shivering.

  “I don’t. Please don’t be nasty, I can’t handle it…. Paul, it’s that you never truly let go, you never made me feel I was indispensable. I guess I’m not. But Mark … puts his head on my chest sometimes, after.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Rachel, don’t!”

  “It’s true!” It was raining harder. Trouble breathing now.

  “So he plays harp, too? Versatile, I must say.” God, such a kick; he was so cold.

  She was crying. “I didn’t want it to be …”

  She didn’t want it to be like this. How had she wanted it to be? Oh, lady, lady, lady.

  “It’s okay,” he found himself saying, incredibly. Where had that come from? Trouble breathing still. Rain on the roof, on the windshield. “It’ll be all right.”

  “No,” Rachel said, weeping still, rain drumming. “Sometimes it can’t be all right.”

  Smart, smart girl. Once he would have reached to touch her. Once? Ten minutes ago. Only that, before the cold.

  Love, love, the deepest discontinuity.

  Or not quite the deepest.

  Because this, precisely, was when the Mazda in front blew a tire. The road was wet. It skidded sideways and hit the Ford in the next lane, then rebounded and three-sixtied as the Ford caromed off the guard rail.

  There was no room to brake. He was going to plough them both. Except there was a foot, twelve inches’ clearance if he went by on the left. He knew there’d been a foot, had seen the movie in slow motion in his head so many times. Twelve inches. Not impossible; very bad in rain, but.

  He went for it, sliced the whirling Mazda, banged the rail, spun, and rolled across the road and into the sliding Ford.

  He was belted; she wasn’t.

  That was all there was to it, except for the truth.

  The truth was that there had indeed been twelve inches, perhaps ten, as likely, fourteen. Enough. Enough if he had gone for it as soon as he saw the hole. But he hadn’t, had he? By the time he’d moved, there were three inches clear, four, not enough at night, in rain, at forty miles an hour. Not nearly.

  Question: how did one measure time there, at the end? Answer: by how much room there was. Over and over he’d watched the film in his mind; over and over he’d seen them roll. Off the rail, into the Ford. Over.

  Because he hadn’t moved fast enough.

  And why—Do pay attention, Mr. Schafer—why hadn’t he moved fast enough?

  Well, class, modern techniques now allow us to examine the thought patterns of that driver in the scintilla—lovely word, that—of time between the seeing and the moving. Between the desire and the spasm, as Mr. Eliot so happily put it once.

  And where, on close examination, was the desire?

  Not that we can be sure, class, this is most hazardous terrain (it was raining, after all), but careful scrutiny of the data does seem to elicit a curious lacuna in the driver’s responses.

  He moved, oh, yes indeed, he did. And in fairness—do let’s be fair—faster than most drivers would have done. But was it—and there’s the rub—was it as fast as he could move?

  Is it possible, just a hypothesis now, but is it possible that he delayed that scintilla of time—only that, no more; but still—because he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to move? The desire and the spasm. Mr. Schafer, your thoughts? Was there perhaps a slight, shall we say, lag in the desire?

  Dead on. St. Michael’s Emergency Ward.

  The deepest discontinuity.

  “It should have been me,” he’d said to Kevin. You had to pay the price, one way or another. You certainly weren’t allowed to weep. Too much hypocrisy, that would be. Part of the price, then: no tears, no release. What had crying to do with it? he had asked her. Or no, he had thought that. Niobe, he had said. A Niobe number. Witty, witty, defences up so fast. Seatbelt buckled. So cold, though, he’d been, so very cold. Crying, it seemed, had a lot to do with it, after all.

  But there was more. One played the tape. Over and over, like the inner film, like the rolling car: over and over, the tape of her recital. And one listened, always, in the second movement, for the lie. His, she had said. That part because she loved him. So it had to be a lie. One should be able to hear that, despite Walter Langside and everyone else. Surely one could hear the lie?

  Not so. Her love for him in that sound, that perfect sound. Incandescent. And this was beyond him; how it could be done. And so each time there came a point where he couldn’t listen anymore and not cry. And he wasn’t permitted to cry, so.

  So she had left him and he h
ad killed her, and you weren’t allowed to weep when you have done that. You pay the price, so.

  So he had come to Fionavar.

  To the Summer Tree.

  Class dismissed. Time to die.

  This time it was the silence. Complete and utter stillness in the wood. The thunder had stopped. He was cinder, husk: what is left, at the end.

  At the end one came back because, it seemed, this much was granted: that one would go in one’s own self, from this place, knowing. It was an unexpected dispensation. Drained, a shell, he could still feel gratitude for dignity allowed.

  It was unnaturally silent in the darkness. Even the pulsing of the Tree itself had stopped. There was no wind, no sound. The fireflies had gone. Nothing moved. It was as if the earth itself had stopped moving.

  Then it came. He saw that, inexplicably, a mist was rising from the floor of the forest. But no, not inexplicably: a mist was rising because it was meant to rise. What could be explained in this place?

  With difficulty he turned his head, first one way, then the other. There were two birds on the branches, ravens, both of them. I know these, he thought, no longer capable of surprise. They are named Thought and Memory. I learned this long ago.

  It was true. They were named so in all the worlds, and this was their nesting place. They were the God’s.

  Even the birds were still, though, each bright yellow eye steady, motionless. Waiting, as the trees were waiting. Only the mist was moving; it was higher now. There was no sound. The whole of the Godwood seemed to have gathered itself, as if time were somehow opening, making a place—and only then, finally, did Paul realize that it was not the God they were waiting for, it was something else, not truly part of the ritual, something outside … and he remembered an image then (thought, memory) of something far back, another life it seemed, another person almost who had had a dream … no, a vision, a searching, yes, that was it … of mist, yes, and a wood, and waiting, yes, waiting for the moon to rise, when something, something …

  But the moon could not rise. It was the dark of moon, new moon night. The last crescent had saved the dog the night before. Had saved him for this. They were waiting, the Godwood, the whole night was waiting, coiled like a spring, but there could be no moonrise that night.

  And then there was.

  Above the eastern trees of the glade of the Summer Tree, there came the rising of the Light. And on the night of the new moon there shone down on Fionavar the light of a full moon. As the trees of the forest began to murmur and sway in the sudden wind, Paul saw that the moon was red, like fire or blood, and power shaped that moment to its name: Dana, the Mother, come to intercede.

  Goddess of all the living in all the worlds; mother, sister, daughter, bride of the God. And Paul saw then, in a blaze of insight, that it didn’t matter which, all were true: that at this level of power, this absoluteness of degree, hierarchies ceased to signify. Only the might did, the awe, the presence made manifest. Red moon in the sky on new moon night, so that the glade of the Godwood could shine and the Summer Tree be wrapped below in mist, above in light.

  Paul looked up, beyond surprise, beyond disbelief; the sacrifice, the shell. Rain to be. And in that moment it seemed to him as if he heard a voice, in the sky, in the wood, in the running of his own moon-coloured blood, and the voice spoke so that all the trees vibrated like living wands to the sound:

  It was not so, will not have been so.

  And when the reverberations ceased, Paul was on the highway again, Rachel with him in the rain. And once more he saw the Mazda blow and skid into the Ford. He saw the spinning, impossible obstruction.

  He saw twelve inches’ clearance on the left.

  But Dana was with him now, the Goddess, taking him there to truth. And in a crescendo, a heart-searing blaze of final dispensation, he saw that he had missed the gap, and only just, oh, only just, not because of any hesitation shaped by lack of desire, by death or murder wish, but because, in the end, he was human. Oh, lady, he was. Only, only human, and he missed because of hurt, grief, shock, and rain. Because of these, which could be forgiven.

  And were, he understood. Truly, truly were.

  Deny not your own mortality. The voice was within him like a wind, one of her voices, only one, he knew, and in the sound was love, he was loved. You failed because humans fail. It is a gift as much as anything else.

  And then, deep within him like the low sound of a harp, which no longer hurt, this last: Go easy, and in peace. It is well.

  His throat ached. His heart was a bound, constrained thing too large for him, for what was left of his body. Dimly, through the risen mist, he saw a figure at the edge of the glade: in the form of a man, but bearing the proud antlers of a stag, and through the mist he saw the figure bow to him and then disappear.

  Time was.

  The pain was gone. His being was shaped of light, he knew his eyes were shining. He had not killed her, then: it was all right. It was loss, but loss was allowed, it was demanded. So much light, there seemed to be, even in that moment when the mist rose to his feet.

  And at last it came, at last, sweet, sweet release of mourning. He thought of Kevin’s song then, remembered it with love: There will come a tomorrow when you weep for me.

  Tomorrow. And so. So. It seemed that this was tomorrow, and here at the end, at the last, he was weeping for Rachel Kincaid who had died.

  So Paul cried on the Summer Tree.

  And there came then a roll of thunder like the tread of doom, of worlds cracking asunder, and the God was there in the glade, he had come. And he spoke again, in his place, in the one unchanging voice that was his, and forged by the power of that thundering, the mist began to flow together then, faster and faster, to the one place, to the Summer Tree.

  Upwards it boiled, the mist of the Godwood, up through the sacrifice, the great trunk of the Tree, hurled into the night sky by the God like a spear.

  And in the heavens above Brennin, as the thunder crashed and rolled, suddenly there were clouds piling higher and higher upon each other, spreading from the Mörnirwood to cover all the land.

  Paul felt it going. Through him. His. His and the God’s. Whose he was. He felt the tears on his face. He felt himself claimed, going, mist boiling through him, ravens rising to fly, the God in the Tree, in him, the moon above the clouds riding in and out, never lost, Rachel, the Summer Tree, the wood, the world, and oh, the God, the God. And then one last thing more before the dark.

  Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain.

  In Paras Derval that night the people went down into the streets. In villages all over Brennin they did so, and farmers bore their children out of doors, only half awake, that they might see the miraculous moon that was the answer of the Mother to the fire of Maugrim, and that they might feel upon their faces and remember, though it might seem to them a dream, the return of rain, which was the blessing of the God upon the Children of Mörnir.

  In the street, with Loren and Matt, with Kim and the exiled Prince, Kevin Laine wept in his turn, for he knew what this must mean, and Paul was the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had.

  “He did it,” whispered Loren Silvercloak, in a voice choked and roughened with awe. Kevin saw, with some surprise, that the mage, too, was crying. “Oh, bright,” Loren said. “Oh, most brave.”

  Oh, Paul.

  But there was more. “Look,” Matt Sören said. And turning to where the Dwarf was pointing, Kevin saw that when the red moon that should never have been shone through the scudding clouds, the stone in the ring Kim wore leaped into responding light. It burned on Kim’s finger like a carried fire, the colour of the moon.

  “What is this?” Aileron asked.

  Kim, instinctively raising her hand high so that light could speak to light, realized that she both knew and didn’t know. The Baelrath was wild, untamed; so was that moon.

  “The stone is being charged,” she said quietly. “That is the war moon overhead. This is the Warstone.” The others were silent, hearing her.
And suddenly her own voice intoning, her role, seemed so heavy; Kim reached back, almost desperately, for some trace of the lightness that had once defined her.

  “I think,” she tried, hoping that Kevin, at least, would catch it, would play along, help her, please, to remember what she was, “I think we’d better have a new flag made.”

  Kevin, wrestling with things of his own, missed it completely. All he heard was Kim saying “we” to this new Prince of Brennin.

  Looking at her, he thought he was seeing a stranger.

  In the courtyard behind the sanctuary, Jaelle, the High Priestess, lifted her face to the sky and gave praise. And with the teachings of Gwen Ystrat in her heart, she looked at the moon, understanding far better than anyone else west of Lake Leinan what it meant. She gave careful thought for a time, then called six of her women to her, and led them secretly out of Paras Derval, westward in the rain.

  In Cathal, too, they had seen the Mountain’s fire in the morning, and trembled to hear the laughter on the wind. Now the red moon shone above Larai Rigal as well. Power on power. A gauntlet hurled into the sky, and answered in the sky. This, Shalhassan could understand. He summoned a Council in the dead of night and ordered an embassy to leave for Cynan and then Brennin immediately. No, not in the morning, he snapped in response to a rash question. Immediately. One did not sleep when war began, or one slept forever when it ended.

  A good phrase, he thought, dismissing them. He made a mental note to dictate it to Raziel when time allowed. Then he went to bed.

  Over Eridu the red moon rose, and the Plain, and down upon Daniloth it cast its light. And the lios alfar, alone of all the guardian peoples, had lore stretching back sufficiently far to say with certainty that no such moon had ever shone before.

  It was a reply to Rakoth, their elders agreed, gathered before Ra-Tenniel on the mound at Atronel, to the one the younger gods had named Sathain, the Hooded One, long, long ago. It was an intercession as well, the wisest of them added, though for what they could not say.