The Errant Tree

The Birch Grove

Dylan asked the only question she could articulate, the first card she drew from the deck of possible responses.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Gregg Murray," the man said.

Dylan stared, letting the gears turn, trying to determine whether or not that name meant anything to her, and while she cogitated, her eyes took in the visual presentation of this enigmatic man. He had, at least for some time, allowed his body to age naturally, eschewing the customary juvination therapies that remove crow's feet, laugh lines, and age spots. His hair, once bright orange, had largely faded to grey, and he had the round chin of someone with a little heft under their belt. With the white robe, he had the overall look of a mendicant friar who'd been poorly color-corrected.

In the end, the name Gregg Murray meant nothing to her, so she played the other question in her hand.

"What's that outfit?" she asked.

"This," Gregg said, gesturing reverently at his own garments, "is a measure of your success. It is called a witness habit. Throughout the course of impending events, there will be plenty of opportunity for this garment to become sullied with grime, sweat, or blood, but it is up to you to prevent that from happening. The cleaner it remains, the better you have performed."

"What?"

"Do you need me to repeat that part?"

"No, I--I just don't..." Frustration being one of Dylan's touchstones, its arrival snapped her out of her daze. She pointed a finger back up the path from whence she'd come. "I don't know what the fuck is going on, Gregg, but some guy up there just tried to forcefully eject me from the premises."

"Some guy up where?"

"Up top, in the garden with the bear statue. Was that like, part of the audition? Because if so--"

"No," Gregg said, his smile giving way to a concerned frown. "No, it wasn't. What did he look like?"

"Squat, bulky, skivvies, apoplectic."

"I'm sorry, Dylan, I truly am," Gregg said, meaning it. "That was some unfriendly competition. I didn't anticipate that he would do that. It was not sportsmanlike... although it's not surprising, I suppose, given the types a job like this attracts."

"Not surprising?" Dylan threw up her hands. "Alright, man, help me out, here. It's been a very long day for me, and honestly, I came here with no foreknowledge of whatever..." she gestured all around and then at Gregg, "...this is. So please, start from the beginning."

"The beginning?" Gregg mused, his grin returning. "Well, that goes back very far indeed. Let me begin instead with the ending. Five decades ago, the Aagaard Cult collapsed, and those former members who survived that collapse were arrested and brought back to Earth. I was one of them. As a result, I can never set foot on Luna again."

"What?" Dylan exclaimed.

"Yes, I know," Gregg said. "It's a great injustice, but that pleasure has been denied to me. But I have found the next best thing, and that's where you come in. Did you know that, in the past, it was a habit of some wealthy landowners to maintain ornamental hermits on their properties, poor folk paid simply to live upon the land and enjoy it in a way their busy employers could not?"

"I suppose I have..."

"Well, that's it; that's the job you're about to audition for. I seek nothing more than to return vicariously to that place where I so briefly lived my best life, and to pay someone very well for the privilege of being my vessel."

"So... you want me to move to Selenia? Or the Norwegian colony, whatever it's called...?"

"No. Isn't it obvious? I'd want you to live in the Lunar Anomaly."

Now, there is no need for me to explain to you the meaning of that term, but what did it mean to Dylan? Everyone on Earth knew of the Great Lunar Transformation, its clearly visible oceans and continents being a constant presence in the night sky. But the Lunar Anomaly was a less well understood phenomenon, being either represented by shallow click-bait or esoteric scholarship. In Dylan's mind, it held no more significance than a war zone, in that it held morbidly fascinating phenomena but was too dangerous or too prohibitive to visit, and too distant to be relevant.

"The island? With the mutant rabbits on it?"

"Mutant rabbits! Is that what they say? Clever, I suppose, to combat the wondrous by labeling it mundane. Yes, the island. But we have talked long enough... too long, in fact; our grace period is nearly up."

"What do you mean?"

"In a moment, you will hear--" Gregg began, but was cut off by the pervasive sound of a horn, long, shrill, and clear.

"That's it," he continued. "My apologies, Dylan, but you'll need to find a weapon, or a hiding place, because we are now being hunted."

"Hunted? By what?"

"Did you notice the statue atop the pedestal that houses the elevator that brought you here? A great bear with a skin of stony plates? That is the spirit animal or fylgja of Hallbjorn Aagaard, and in this chamber lives a semi-organic facsimile of that creature. Your job is either to kill it or survive until the next horn blast."

"What?"

"Time is running out, Dylan. You must act now. This is your test. Show me what you're made of."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course!"

From somewhere behind Dylan, something bellowed, the shape of it large and powerful, and a wave of adrenaline hit her.

"Why? Why are you doing this?" She cried, heart pounding.

"Dylan! Of all people, I'd have expected you to understand!"

"But I don't!" she said, and rushed up to him and grabbed his robe in her hands, speaking over his admonishment to keep the robe unsullied. "I told you, I don't know what's going on!"

"Yes you do," Gregg replied calmly. "This is what you do every week of your life. You put yourself in danger, facing off against some contrived situation or mechanical construction. Why do you do it, Dylan? What does it prove? Now take a deep breath and begin the test. Keep me safe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Good. Now look around. What do you see?"

Dylan did as Gregg asked, and she looked about, eyes struggling to adjust to a sudden brightness, until they at last focused upon a nearby stump in which the head of a long-handled axe had been buried.

"Good," Gregg said. "You've spotted it. Take it up; that will be something."

Dylan dashed to the axe and wrenched it from the stump. She hefted it in both hands, feeling its weight, which was surprisingly light for the size of its long, bearded head.

"Now what?" she asked.

Gregg shrugged. "That's up to you," he said.

And then movement caught Dylan's attention, and she turned her head and saw it--or its shape, at least, for a strip of flora ran between them: a great, hulking shape clambering over a rise. Its adamantine muzzle lifted to sniff the air, just as Dylan's hand lifted to her mouth to stifle a scream.

Gregg spread his arms, returning her question. What now?

She ran, and Gregg followed.

She pushed through bracken and stumbled over a small stream, twisting her ankle. Gregg stepped over it calmly and looked down at her. She got up again and limped forward, conscious always of the monster behind them, daring not to look over her shoulder. Had the room they were in gone on forever, she would have limped forward until she dropped of exhaustion, but it did not; rather, in this direction, it ended in an abrupt hillside skirted with scree. Some of those rocks were larger than Dylan, and she found--more by momentum than by discernment--a crack between two of them, into which she slid, finding herself in an enclosed gap. Gregg slid in behind her; there was room enough for two, though it was snug.