My eyes opened up to an endless bright blue sky dotted by serene clouds drifting overhead. Tall grass rising up all around me framed my vision. And of course the Oak tree filled most of what I could see, but it was way bigger than I remembered.
A cool breeze blew across me smelling like a warm summer day full of happiness and endless adventure, like bike rides, water balloons, swim trunks, and overpriced frozen dairy treats from the ice cream truck.
Climbing to my feet, I found myself alone on a floating island in the sky, but my Mom’s house vanished. And so did all the other homes, and the entire city. I looked out past the edge of the island and saw a sea of clouds beneath and as far as the eye could see in any direction.
Where the heck was I?
The floating island I was on was a bigger landmass than Mom’s entire court. Ancient gray stone masonry surrounded me as if we were in some kind of sacred grove made by eldritch medieval peoples. The stonework looked like it belonged to a castle, with pillars rising up supporting beautiful archways. Celtic knotwork adorned the massive stone blocks that made up the walls which squared off around the Oak tree. Large oval standing stones circled the tree like silent sentinels but were dwarfed by the tree itself. Somehow it was the same tree in my mom’s front yard, but at the same time there was no denying how large it was.
The branches were thicker, almost like the tree had seen an extra one thousand years of growth. The trunk stretched bigger around than the square footage of my mom’s whole house. I craned my neck to see the treetop. It’s branches tickled thick ivory clouds far above.
I circled the tree wary of Donn, but could not sense his vile presence. I thought maybe I was somewhere in Tir na nOg. After a minute of circling the tree, I found an actual doorway grown into the very bark of the tree. The doorway was framed by vines growing all around it. With a gentle touch I pushed open the door. Inside I found wooden steps, again grown naturally and not carved. The stairs turned in a circle moving downward towards the roots around the center core of the tree. I couldn’t see around the corner, although a faint emerald light glowed, illuminating the pathway down. I descended the stairs with no fear. Raw power flooded me. I was immersed in it, yet it didn’t empower me per se, I was simply aware of the energies.
At the bottom of the steps I happened upon an indoor brook. Flowing water ran down the sides of the bark walls along with drooping vines, sunlight poured in from overhead through a natural window to land on lily pads which floated atop the pool.
Hovering above the water was a childlike figure that immediately stole all my attention. The child was humanoid, but without a nose. The familiar features she did have, like a mouth and eyes, were otherworldly. I realized that she didn’t have hair, but instead layers of oak leaves, and her skin was soft bark.
She sang a tune that resonated in my bones. There were no words to the song, simply a beautiful melody that reverberated within the wood of the tree and gave an unearthly echo, as if the voice sprang from everywhere and not from the child’s mouth. As the child sang her soft melody, I felt the notes weaving through the tree, through the water, through me.
It was a song of life, of growth, a song of Order, an embodiment of fresh air, vibrant colors, cool breezes, laughter, and sunshine.
The child addressed me as if seeing me for the first time, but not surprised at all to find me within her abode. “Hello Guardian.”
“Hi,” I didn’t know how to address the tree child. “How did I get here?”
“You circled the tree seven times counterclockwise. Widdershins.”
“Oh,” I said, still confused.
“I’m the spirit of the Oak tree, and you’re the son of Geralt O’Farrell.”
“Yes,” I nodded, “my name is Sean.”
“The name fits you perfectly. It completes you too. A nice summary of everything I know about you.”
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I furrow my eyebrows considering how this tree child could know me at all, considering this was our first meeting. But then I understood.
“You’re the one who bestows me power.”
The child nodded giggling. She tiptoed across the water towards me, emerald light reflecting off of the pool beneath. “Of course I bestow power to my guardian. I always knew you would be my guardian. Ever since you were a small human child. Every time your hands touched my bark as you climbed me, I could feel it in your skin, and in your heart. I knew that one day when you grew up, you would become my warrior.”
Waves of nostalgia rushed into me as she referred to herself as the tree in my front yard. It was strange talking to a being that identified itself as an inanimate object that had stood silently in my front yard for basically my whole childhood.
As my brain attached all the beautiful memories I had of the tree to her, a deeper appreciation for her grew and realized that I already knew her in some unspoken intimate way.
Her face darkened, her eyebrows furrowing as leaves on her forehead drew together. “The dark lord of the dead is aptly named. He comes to uproot me. You cannot let that happen, Sean.”
“What will happen to you?”
I knew what would happen to the tree physically. But I had no idea what happened to a tree spirit.
“I’ll show you,” she said. Her eyebrows rose so I could gaze into those deep green eyes. For a moment nothing but sorrow lived there. She reached out with her soft bark fingers touching my temples.
Emerald light filled my vision until I was seeing another location entirely. Unlike the beautiful island the oak tree resided on floating amongst a sea of clouds, I was now on a dark hillside amidst an ancient structure left destroyed and in ruins eons ago.
The tree child held my hand and led me over crumbled stone and under neglected archways.
I knew where I was, but I didn’t want to admit it. I’d been here before twice. But this place had always just been that, a place. And significant for me because I had fought the Banshee there, and the Morrigan had brought me there and showed me a vision of my sister’s murderer, the kelpie. But I wanted this place to stay that way. I didn’t want to know the truth of it, but I almost knew instinctively what she was going to show me.
She led me to the center of the ruins, a place I had never actually been before. The standing stones that should have formed a protective circle had been smashed to pieces long ago, and if not for the other oak tree I would not know what it was supposed to look like.
In the center of the smashed standing stones lay the blackened corpse, the husk of a trunk that was formerly another oak tree. I didn’t even need her to say it. Maybe it was because she held my hand, or maybe it was simply the magic of the place, but I knew that this tree in front of me had been a sister to the spirit now holding my hand.
She guided my hand to touch the scorched bark.
The echo of a shriek rang in my head. A cry filled with pain, despair, and fear overwhelmed me. Pain wracked my body as terrible claws tore through my bark hacking into my core. My leaves withered and died as my branches were broken off and cast into an abominable fire.
I reeled back falling to the ground as the vision of the last moments of this tree consumed my being, as I experienced its death myself, as if I was the tree.
The sorrow she felt for the fallen tree, and for her sister became my sorrow. I understood the magnitude of what Donn did, even if I could not put it into words.
I ran the back of my hand across my nose wishing I had a tissue. “I know what it’s like to lose his sister too.”
“This is what will happen to the other trees Sean if you don’t fight Donn. I am without the ability to attack him myself, but I can lend you my power, my life.”
A strong wind blew away our surroundings and the vision whisked away. I found myself with the tree child back inside the underground oasis on my knees in front of the still spring of water. But I sensed something different, something dark approaching.
The tree child stared into my eyes and nodded. “He’s here, Sean.”
Unspoken in her eyes she pleaded, begging to not share the fate her sister had suffered at the hands of Donn. I gritted my teeth. I’d already lost a sister. I sure as heck wasn’t gonna let the oak tree share the same fate.
A roar ripped down the staircase reaching my ears. I heard an explosion and a tearing sound as claws ripped at bark.
The tree child cried out and collapsed at my feet.
I cradled her in my arms and she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Stop him, Sean.”
“But how? My friends are back on Earth. They won’t know how to get here.”
“Climb the tree. Scale my branches.”
“And?”
“You’ll know,” she whispered.
Gently I placed her back in the pool where I knew she would be safe and spun on my heel ascending the steps to meet the lord of the dead and find what lay in the tree above.