The Tree Reader
The Tree Readers started their work on the day the last of the leaves fell from the trees in the garden. The new apprentices was still dressed in normal civilian clothes, wide-eyed and excited to get to the trees. The older ones already knew that this gift they had received would not only take over the rest of your life, but also place a stigma upon you. Soon the apprentices would be feared for what they would be able to do. And for the knowledge they would have.
Elijah brought up the back of the line of apprentices. He was nearing his middle thirties and had been a Tree Reader since the age of twelve. Hailed as one of the best Readers in the last centuries, he had filled more than one book every year the Reading Season started. He wore a red cloak made from light material as sign of his high rank; having given up the dull brown of the apprentices at only fifteen. Over his right shoulder was his satchel containing a notebook, pen and ink for his field notes. He walked up to the tree he had been given on his fifteenth birthday and waited for an apprentice to be appointed to him. As soon as Willow reached him, she placed a small fold-up table next to the tree and knelt next to it, just as Elijah was doing. Then she took out her own notebook and pen and waited for her lesson to begin. Elijah felt his shoulders stiffen. The first lesson was always a shock to the apprentices.
“Willow,” Elijah started and forced a smile, “are you ready for this lesson?”
“I am.”
“You know that you cannot go back to the life you had before today if you pass the test today?”
“I do.”
He nodded. She seemed wise for her years and he hoped she would pass the test. They had so few new Readers these days. But she also seemed too soft for the harsh world she would enter today. But wasn’t he also only a boy when he read his first tree? He cleared his throat.
“We will start with a simple exercise. You will think of the first day of summer last year. Do you remember it?”
“Yes, Sir, I remember we had a big storm that day and that cousin Elsa was born that day.”
“Good. Now, think of that big storm when you place your hand on the tree.” Elijah closed his eyes for a moment and laid his hand on the tree. The bark was rough beneath his palm and he could still feel the wetness of the dew. Then he smelt and felt the rain beating down. He saw the lightning and heard the thunder. He opened his eyes and watched Willow.
She also closed her eyes briefly, like she saw her master do, and laid her hand on the tree. Her eyes flew open and she pulled her hand away.
“It – it was as if I was in the storm!” She gazed and the tree with wonder. “Is it always like this?”
Elijah nodded. “You will feel as if you are there, as if you are living through it. But you must make notes – as much as you can. You will have one subject to work on every day. You must only focus on that subject.”
“And the tree will remember it?”
“Not always remember it. Sometimes the tree will have learned the information from the earth.”
“How far can you go back?”
“As far as you want to. Whatever you want to know, you will relive to tell about as the earth itself remembers it happening.”
Willow put her hand to the tree again before Elijah could stop her. She drew her hand back with a cry and started trembling.
“What did you think about?” He scolded.
“The war grandfather spoke about. There was... fear... blood... I heard the cries of the dying.”
Elijah took her hand in his. “Do you still wish to be a Tree Reader? To write of everything that has ever happened – the good and the bad?”
She was quiet for a long while. “This is a special talent not everyone has, right?” she said and kept her eyes on the mossy tree.
Elijah nodded. He remembered well the first time he found that he could touch a tree and relive certain things. When he realised that not everyone can do it and when he was chosen as apprentice. The first time that he lived through a revolt that had happened two centuries ago. He had felt ill for days afterwards.
“There is no going back after today – you will not be allowed near the trees without your training.” He took a deep breath, wondering if she wasn’t too young to choose the course of her life.
She stretched out her hand tentatively again. This time, she smiled. “I will do it. I will be a Tree Reader.”
Elijah felt his eyes burning, but whether that was from pride or sadness, he did not know.
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