The Power of the Crystalline Trees Read online

  But he couldn’t leave before knowing that Boosha was safe. Tossed aside in the village clearing, she was lying completely still. Not tearing his eyes off her, Lan didn’t notice that The Gatherers had begun searching behind the houses. Suddenly one of them shouted. All eyes turned toward the loud voice, including Lan. The Gatherer standing behind his house had found the trail Lan had left through the broken corn stalks. An angry group of The Gatherers began racing across the field, straight toward the edge of the forest.

  Lan’s heart went into overdrive, knowing he had just a few minutes before they discovered him. Lan stared at Boosha, needing to know she was safe before he could leave. Wiping the sweat and tears from his eyes, Lan saw Boosha’s hand move. He realized she was waving to him to go. His breath exhaled sharply. She was tougher than she looked. She’d be all right.

  Released from his frozen stance, Lan fell out of the tree with a thud. It wasn’t graceful, but it was certainly the quickest way down. He grabbed his rucksack and began to run deeper into the forest. He tried to keep quiet, but as he gasped with exertion and fear, sobs erupted from deep within him. His legs pumped harder and harder as he occasionally turned frantically to look behind him. Gradually the bright light at the edge of the forest grew smaller as he ran deeper into the muted interior. The sounds of his pursuers faded away but he still continued to run headlong into the forest.

  Overcome by the terror and shock of the past couple of hours, Lan didn’t notice the tangle of roots. His foot caught and he crashed to the ground, the wind knocked out of him. For a moment, he lay there, completely disoriented. All of his known reference points for his life were gone. His confusion wasn’t so much The Gatherers chasing him as the strange information Boosha had dumped on him in the last few seconds with her. It made no sense. No sense at all.

  Lying on the bumpy roots that stretched out from the base of the tree, Lan tried to catch up to what had just happened. He fought to recover his breath as well as his sense of the world. One thing was clear—he couldn’t run one more step and needed to find a place to hide. Three roots that crisscrossed each other made a small enclosure. Lan wedged himself underneath the roots with his back toward the tree and his view toward the forest. From here he’d could hide from anyone crazy enough to follow him into the forest. Besides providing good cover, the roots felt like arms hugging him, which he definitely needed right now.

  Although his body had stopped moving, Lan’s mind raced as he replayed the past couple of hours for clues that might help him cope with his current predicament. Gradually his hot and sweaty face cooled down and he smelled the aromatic wood of the roots and pungent mustiness of dirt. A sudden memory popped into Lan’s mind of the last time Boosha had brought him to the forest. She was looking for a certain kind of herb that helped people with bunions. Lan wasn’t the least bit interested in helping her. He had been busy tracking a butterfly as it floated through the undergrowth. Its bright luminescent greens and blues seemed to attract a ray of sunshine that had escaped the leafy canopy overhead and reached all the way to the muted browns of the undergrowth. Lan was hoping he could somehow talk the butterfly into landing on his hand. Boosha called those his foolish notions.

  Now in his miniature root cave, Lan fought to remember what she had been telling him as he watched the butterfly dip its tongue into the nectar of a flower. He was so close he saw the tongue, more like a straw, curl back up in a spiral. Boosha was saying something about how important it was to take care of your feet, in case you had to walk or run for a long period of time. Was she trying to warn him about this time? he wondered.

  At the memory of his beloved Boosha, sobs once again spilled out of his throat. Tears streaked down his cheeks and puddled in his ears. Would he ever see her again? Up until today, The Gatherers had just been shadowy figures like the stories of the boogey men under a kid’s bed. They didn’t seem real, but who wanted to find out for sure?

  Lan racked his brain for memories. Had Boosha ever said something about The Gatherers coming back for him? He remembered the village celebrating the end of a long work week by sharing stories and songs around a communal fire. As the younger children began to fall asleep, the elders talked in hushed tones about darker things in the world.

  Mostly the stories were rumors about The Gatherers coming to some village or town near them and how they took certain children and then destroyed the villages as they left. It was a strong message to others not to get in their way, nor to be foolish enough to follow them.

  Lan’s village consisted of just a handful of huts housing a few families. They lived simply with the land and the seasons. The villagers knew there was nothing of interest to anyone in their village, and they felt safe in that sense of anonymity. “Don’t stand out and you won’t attract trouble,” was an unspoken motto in the village. Maybe that’s why their town didn’t even have a name.

  The Gatherers always wanted the children with the piercing blue eyes. It was rumored those children could see in the dark like cats. The children of Lan’s village, though, only had brown eyes so they and their parents felt safe from the raiders. Lan himself had what he called boring brown eyes.

  There was always a moment in the storytelling when the villagers remembered the one time The Gatherers had come for someone other than children and they would stop talking and look uneasily at Lan. He thought they were looking at him because they took his parents. But now, crammed into his hiding spot, he wondered if they stared at him for another reason. Did they know The Gatherers would come back for him one day?

  Lan suddenly felt trapped by the roots instead of held safely. He struggled to escape from his little cave, then gave up and sank back into the roots’ embrace. Had everyone known these things but him? If Boosha knew, why hadn’t she told him anything, or at least warned him? He remembered her saying something maybe a month ago about planning to go somewhere together. Then Boosha had fallen ill and for more than three weeks she’d been in bed with fevers and a cough that wouldn’t go away.

  That was a scary time for Lan. During those weeks, he’d had to forage for food and then prepare it, hoping not only that it would be appealing to Boosha but also nourishing. He tried to remember exactly how Boosha had made the different soups and broths for him. Their food was simple fare made from grains, mushrooms, and greens, but always savory. He would use the same ingredients but somehow the result didn’t taste as good as hers. Half the time he was afraid he’d make something that would kill her instead of nourish her. Every now and then a neighbor would bring a dish over to them, for which he was grateful. Even though Boosha wasn’t eating much, at least he knew she was getting a nourishing meal once in a while.

  As sick as she was, Boosha had still known The Gatherers were coming. How was that possible? Lan wondered. When had she prepared his rucksack and where did she get those strange things she’d given him? He knew every inch of their small home and he’d never seen any of those items, nor the bag.

  Lan squirmed under the roots to avoid the one poking him in the back while his thoughts struggled away from the task Boosha had given him. He felt despair to the depth of his being. If he’d missed so much of what was going on around him, how was he going to do what Boosha asked him to do? He had no idea how to take care of himself in the woods, how long it would take to get wherever he was supposed to go, or even what he was supposed to do when he got there. Handing someone a crystal cube named Empowerment seemed fairly straight-forward, if he knew who to give it to. But what about those three keys he was supposed to deliver? He didn’t have any keys.

  Lan heard a low moan and realized it came from deep in his chest. He was beyond caring if he was heard or discovered. Getting captured seemed a better alternative than facing this present moment alone. His mind raced over the task Boosha had given him to do. First, he was going to have to cross the great Forest of Dandaka alone. The same forest t
hat swallowed people up forever. If he managed to do that, he was going to have to deliver random objects to people he didn’t know for reasons he wasn’t told, in a gaudy blue cloak. Every fiber of his being shrieked against the thought. He shrunk as small as he could under the roots, not caring if he was poked in the back or not. He began whispering, “I can’t do it, don’t ask me. I can’t do it, don’t ask me. I can’t do it, don’t ask me.”

  The dim daylight slowly faded in the forest and became the blessing of darkness. Overwhelmed and exhausted with the events that had just turned his life upside down, Lan fell into a dreamless sleep. Mercifully, he stopped thinking and feeling.

  Chapter Two

  Lost

  Whack! Something hit him on the head. Whack! It happened again. Startled from his deep sleep, Lan tried to sit up. He immediately cracked his head on the roots. For a moment he couldn’t figure out where he was. Why wasn’t he in his comfortable bed back home? Hearing chattering above him, Lan looked up and saw a squirrel dropping nuts.

  “Hey!” Lan yelled at the squirrel, and it scampered off to another branch. Evidently he’d been lying in the squirrel’s treasure trove judging by the raucous chattering erupting from the branch overhead.

  Yesterday’s events came flooding back and Lan slowly climbed out from among the roots. His body hurt. His mind felt dull and his mouth had a foul taste. Boosha called his morning moods “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” Lan grunted. This was more like getting up on the wrong side of the roots.

  He was parched, his eyes gritty and his throat raw. For a moment all his new challenges receded as the need for water outweighed all other concerns. He began searching for Water Plants.

  Boosha had taught him how Water Plants grew around the bases of the mammoth trees and helped each other. The trees fed the Water Plants sugars through their roots, and the plants released collected water into the roots of the trees. It was a simple mechanism that solved a way to get rain past the leafy canopy of the big trees.

  As the night air cooled, water droplets formed on the leaves. Folding into themselves at night, the leaves prevented the water from escaping. When the air began to warm during the day, the leaves opened and the collected water trickled out. Lan loved watching when they began to open their leaves. For a brief moment, it sounded like the tinkling of a wind chime as they released their tiny water bundles. Before he knew the real story about Water Plants, Boosha had told him it was the fairies shaking out their wings after the night dew. Knowing the truth hadn’t taken away the magic of these plants.

  Two trees away from his root bed, Lan spotted a dozen or so bright emerald Water Plants with their leaves still closed. He bent down and placed his lips close to the end of the leaf and then drank the tiny teaspoon of water. Although it barely made it to the back of his throat, it was incredibly refreshing. If anyone ever asked him what the color green tasted like, he’d tell them to drink this water.

  Lan worked his way around the base of the tree through all of the plants. Slowly he began to replenish the water in his body. It took him almost 20 minutes before he felt satiated. He used the water from the last several leaves to wet the tail of his shirt and then wiped his face. Lan was sure he had tear streaks down his cheeks which he wasn’t feeling too proud of today.

  As he straightened up from the plants his stomach rumbled, telling him he’d need to look for food soon. His overriding desire to just finish the task Boosha gave him made him push the hunger to the back of his mind. He opened the rucksack and pulled out the Map Compass. It showed the same two points as before and the sweep of the needle through the Forest of Dandaka. It also had a new point on it which Lan figured must indicate his current location.

  Lan took out the crystal cube and turned it over in his hand, wondering what was so important about it that he had to carry it such a long way. For a moment he stared into its center, fascinated with the swirl of iridescent light, then shook himself out of the beginning of a dreamy phase. He couldn’t afford to lose track of time or his location by zoning out. Lan put the crystal back under the soft, flashy cloak, which he tried to ignore. If it turned cold at night, he might use it as a pillow or a blanket, but only if no one was watching.

  His misery and fear for Boosha, and the memory of the raid by The Gatherers yesterday rose up into his throat and made his jaw ache with longing for her and their life. The sadness made him lash out in anger. With every fiber of his being he didn’t want to do this task he’d been given. He started stomping on the Water Plants, yelling, “I can't do it! Don't ask me!”

  Stopping to catch his breath, he suddenly realized what he had done to his favorite plants. He was relieved to see he hadn’t actually broken any stems. A few were already popping back up. What was wrong with him? Where was his honor? Boosha wanted him to go to this village called Asira because she couldn’t do it. He got that. And he’d do anything for her, especially if it would help her get well. His heart softened. He wouldn’t go back to Boosha until he’d delivered the crystal. He envisioned the villagers clapping and cheering him as he strode back triumphantly into Boosha’s waiting arms.

  A smile on his face with the vision of “All hail the returning hero,” Lan decided to think outside of the…cube. His mind flashing with the colors of the crystal, Lan muttered under his breath, “I mean, really, how long could it take anyway?”

  For starters, why did he have to follow the curved path of the Map Compass? That was just going to add extra miles he didn’t need. What if he just walked in a straight line to the point that indicated Asira? He was pretty good at orienting himself to the sun and he had the Map Compass as a backup. He’d worry about what to do when he got to the village later. For now, he had the beginning of a plan and a way to proceed that suited him just fine. Anytime he could accomplish something a different way, smarter than the original idea, he’d find himself smirking. When Boosha saw that look, she’d say, “Uh oh, here comes trouble.” But she often applauded him for his creative thinking.

  Lan began to tune in to his surroundings. Although it was dimmer under the trees then out in the fields, he could still see parts of the blue sky. He studied his shadow. It fell to his left, so he knew that was west. South was behind him and he wanted to head northeast. He changed his angle just a bit and started walking through the trees. He’d look for food as he went, eating what he could find without stopping to build a fire. In the far back of his mind, he wondered if he could build a fire without the help of Boosha or his friend John. He’d never done it by himself. He pushed the thought away. He’d worry about that when it was time to build one.

  Lan felt like whistling with his new sense of confidence, but knew better than to make a lot of noise. He put his tantrum behind him hoping no one had heard him and, more importantly, that all the plants would recover.

  Lan had never been in this part of the forest. Boosha usually stayed pretty close to the edge when she went foraging for plants. She told him to never enter the forest if he wasn’t invited. Lan wasn’t sure what that meant. How would he know if he’d been invited or not? He snorted now at the thought of it. It was just another dumb idea that older people had that they never explained and that didn’t make sense.

  Lan inhaled deeply and his head filled with the delightful scent of a sassafras tree. He loved that tree. It smelled and tasted deliciously sweet in one of Boosha’s teas. All the trapped misery in his chest fell away. He would not only take this journey and help Boosha, but all his other friends would think he was brilliant when he succeeded!

  Up ahead ran a small, quiet brook. Lan unhooked the copper cup from his belt and looked for a quiet pool to dip it in. Bending over, he grimaced when he caught sight of his reflection. His straight, brown hair was sticking up in several places, with a few leaves stuck in here and there. Self-consciously he raked hi
s fingers through his hair, glad no one had seen him like that. His eyes, which he’d always described as boring brown, were red and swollen. He couldn’t do anything about that or the smattering of freckles across his nose and the rounded, smooth cheeks lingering from his childhood. He’d heard two girls giggling once about his cute baby looks, but that just made him dislike his looks even more. At the moment, he was glad no one else was in the Forest of Dandaka.

  Lan dipped his cup into the water, breaking up his image. Drinking deeply, he flipped the last few drops from the cup into the air. They caught the sunlight before falling to the bright green moss under his feet. Stepping lightly on the rocks to avoid slipping, Lan crossed the small stream. A sudden movement of air just over his head startled him and he looked up to see a small hawk land on a branch in front of him. It stared at him intently. How odd that it was hunting in the forest and not out in the field. The hawk’s sharp, glittering eyes focused on him and gave him an unsettled feeling for a moment. Then Lan caught sight of a blackberry bush with some berries still on it below the hawk’s perch. Not caring about his table manners, Lan rushed over and grabbed and stuffed as many as he could in his mouth. He knew they wouldn’t fill him up completely, but the berries might give his stomach something to do other than rumble loudly. He’d keep a sharp watch for more food as he continued.

  Lying on the ground in front of him he discovered a perfectly straight stick an inch thick and just about as long as his arm. With a little bit of carving, it would be ideal for digging roots or making fire pits. He picked it up and tucked it in his belt. When he stopped for the night, he’d prepare the point as John, the carpenter, had shown him. He went back to silent whistling as he strode off again. This was going to be easy!