Tree Singer

Chapter Two

Mayten knew she should leave the tree, but she just couldn't. She swum her legs back and forth as they dangled over the branch and gazed at her homestead. She was a tree singer, like her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, she was proud of that. She was from a family of singers. Singers helped their plants grow, thrive and take shape. Her da sang flowers and shrubs, and her older brother, Oleaster, who was eighteen, sang the harvest. He was tall and handsome with skin the color of hazelnuts, like her da. And, also like her da, he loved nothing more than the feel of dirt on his hands. Mayten adored her older brother, who treated her with kindness unlike her older sister Taiwania. "Taiwania the beautiful," Mayten called her with great sarcasm. Of course, she was beautiful, but she didn't need to flaunt it like she did.

Once, when she'd been coming down the hallway toward the kitchen, she'd overheard a neighbor say to her mother, "Mayten is beautiful but doesn't know it. Taiwania is beautiful and she'll tell you about it!" Mayten knew she wasn't beautiful, the neighbor was just being kind, but the second part of that statement was definitely true, Taiwania would tell you about it!

Usually leveling ceremonies were no big deal. The clan elders sequestered themselves for a few days to determine the calling of each apprentice and generally, the callings were in line with those of the parents. But, occasionally, there was a surprise and last year, the surprise had been for Taiwania. Her sister had been called, not to sing to living things, but to sing the stories of the clan, a very important role in the life of the community. The attention had made Taiwania even bossier and more impossible than she'd already been before.

At the beginning of the leveling ceremony each year, the clan's leader, Cassia, said in her speech, "All callings are equally important to the life of the clan." Yet Mayten couldn't help but feel that some callings were more valued than others. For example, Story Singers were rare and most of the clan's leaders had been singers of stories.

Last year, when Taiwania was called to be a singer of stories at the ceremony the whole clan cheered. Mayten could see pride in the shining eyes of her parents. She was glad for her sister, yet couldn't help but envy the way people looked at her after the ceremony, especially the boys. Suddenly Taiwania was something other than the bossy older sister that Mayten knew her to be. She was honored in the eyes of the whole clan.

"Mayten," came a small voice from the ground below which startled Mayten from her reverie, "it's noon-time and Mother says to come in."

Mayten gazed down at the round, freckled cheeks of her little brother, Wollemi. His skin was light, like a weak colored tea with darker freckles covering his nose. Her heart glowed with warmth at the face she loved. "I'm coming." She scurried down the trunk of the tree without even looking for a foothold. When she jumped to the ground, Wollemi grabbed her hand with his pudgy little one and they marched up the hill toward home. He was gentle and kind, like her da and Oleaster.

The homestead was a view she never tired of. The small house had been added onto as their family had grown, and grown, and grown. From the top of a tree it looked like great wings fanned out behind the house. It was built of logs and the inside was lovingly designed by the clan's wood crafters. Her mother chose the finest cherry wood for cabinets and beautiful oak for furniture.

Her da had sung the most stunning flowers, which budded and bloomed at different times of the year. Now a sea of yellow daffodils surrounded the house and green fields nearby, and the smell of honeysuckle filled the air. She knew that soon, tulips of every imaginable color, and some colors only her da could imagine, would carpet the landscape.

A thick forest of oak and eucalyptus bordered the house to the left. The spice of the latter blew by on the gentle breeze and Mayten inhaled deeply, she could almost taste it on her tongue. Oleaster's groves of fruit and nut trees lined up along the house to the right. Directly behind the house, Mayten could picture fifty rows of the most beautiful fruits and vegetables her brother could sing, and beyond that, to the base of the pine forest, were the flowers and shrubs her da grew for trade and the pine seedlings her mother planted to replace the forest cuttings.

"Are you scared about tomorrow?" asked Wollemi, tugging her hand.

"Why should I be? I already know my calling. I'm a tree singer."

"Well, you never know," Wollemi gazed up at her adoringly, his pink tongue pushing through the hole where a tooth had been. "Maybe you'll be a story singer like Taiwania, or a quest taker." His eyes seemed to sparkle at the thought.

She ruffled her little brother's wild brown curls. He loved her and wanted her to have the best. Even he knew the story singers were valued in the community, almost as much as the questers, those brave men and women who explored beyond the clan.

She pulled Wollemi in for a hug and lifted his chin. "My sweet boy, I'll be very happy as a tree singer. I've never wanted anything else. Plus, then I'll get to stay here forever and that means I'll never be taken from you."

At that he squeezed her hand extra hard. "Then tonight, when I sing to my stars, I'll sing for you to be a tree singer!" Mayten was close to all of her siblings, except for Taiwania, but she felt extra protective of Wollemi. Maybe it was because he was born after the death of two of her siblings, who died during an awful winter.

"Thank you, Love, now we'd better hurry before Mother sends Anatolian to chase us in."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth the front door opened and a huge dog bounded toward them. He was tan with a white chest, a black face and a curled tail. He raced towards them. Mayten laughed as the dog barreled directly toward them like a wild boar on attack, then suddenly arched around behind them and barked at their heels to hurry them to the house.

"Alright, Anatolian, we're coming, we're coming," said Mayten as she and Wollemi ran the rest of the way up the hill to home.