The Tree of Blacks (English version)

Confessions in Waltz Time

Stars vibrated in the inky black sky like fluttering fireflies. The thin nail of a shy moon, unable to show itself in all its fullness, embraced a lone star, brighter than the others. The entire celestial vault shone with a remote and suggestive beauty, but Alya couldn't admire it. The view of the night sky was concealed from her behind a thick blanket of intertwining branches, which had become familiar to her.

Alya was - or, rather, she was dreaming of being - inside the uncultivated garden that surrounded the house of her dream friend, Merope.

Alya walked uncertainly, occasionally stumbling through the scattered weeds. Although she was aware that she was inside a dream, every sensation, smell and noise seemed extremely real to her: the scent of moss, the crunching of dry leaves shattering like fragile crystals under her feet, the dense silence that enveloped her, the subtle rustle of Merope's robe as she walked resolutely a few metres ahead.

Alya cast furtive glances in all directions around her. She was a little afraid of the deep darkness around her. It was the first time Merope had led her outside her small, cramped home. Everything looked grim and dangerous. Even though Alya's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, the dark outlines of the trees with their twisted trunks seemed to take on the appearance of disturbing monstrous figures. Alya had to appeal to all her common sense not to fall into the traps that the night held for her. They are only trees. They are only trees, she was repeating to herself like a mantra.

Merope, who walked in front of her like a guide, didn't look intimidated at all. After all, it was her garden. The two young girls had slipped out of the house and had already walked a few metres, leaving the gloomy house behind them. Merope seemed determined to get as close as possible to the gate. When she finally stopped, Alya looked behind her: the old wooden door was still clearly visible, although shrouded in the darkness of the night. One could still see the corpse of the dead snake hanging from a rusty nail. Alya was horrified every time she saw it.

"Is it really necessary to always keep that junk there, hanging by the door?" Alya asked with sophisticated disgust, worthy of a noblewoman. Her words sounded like a breathy whisper in the ancient language of Parseltongue. She and Merope always spoke Parseltongue when they met.

"My brother Morfin put it there. And my father demands that it is immediately clear to which family this property belongs. It is a warning to unwanted visitors." replied Merope simply, looking at Alya with her squinting eyes, which looked in two opposite directions. Her cheekbones had become more prominent and pronounced since the last time Alya had seen her, a sign of excessive thinness. The patched and tattered robe that fell broadly down her body was unable to hide Merope's bony figure. The older the girl grew, the greater the sense of resigned defeat that accompanied her. If a stranger had happened to be there at that moment, he could easily have mistaken Merope for a ghost.

"By the way, aren't you afraid that your father and brother might find out that you left the house in the middle of the night?" asked Alya worriedly.

"Don't worry about them. They're both outside right now. A punitive expedition. A Muggle dared to call my father an 'old nutter' -- he didn't take it well." explained Merope with a distressed air. "They'll definitely be back very late," she added prominently.

Alya shuddered at the thought of what Merope's two despicable relatives might have done to the poor Muggle.

"On the plus side, we can enjoy the whole house and the whole garden. Finally, we can do whatever we want!" exclaimed the slender Merope enthusiastically. She spread her arms wide as if she wanted to embrace every inch of her miserable, abandoned yard. A picture came to Alya's mind of a puny bird preparing to fly for the first time. She was filled with a sad sense of compassion. Was this what the existence of her mysterious dream friend was like? Rare and longed-for glimpses of freedom, carved out in the lonely moments when her brother and father went to the village to unleash all their evil on innocent Muggles?