The Great Goddess Tree Tale

XXII - The story about the Tree

"Hey there! Watch out, boy! Please drive this wagon more slowly! "

These were the words that Mat had repeated for dozens of times over a period of a week when he had asked the servant's son to take him and fetch him to his work.

"I'm all injured... Please, slow down!"

At the hospital, he had received all the treatments for the wounds, two days after the last turbulent encounter with Goddess Summer. He had told Johann Marcein the story of the boar, and even though he did not want to believe it, he had heard the doctor talk about his adventures on the plain.
After a few weeks, the injuries were already healed, and Mat was already going to work alone:
"By the gods! These battle marks take time to heal! I do not know if I want the company of that tigress for a while. Who knows, I do not want her anymore! "

Mat had come to work that day and soon after lunch had heard some unusual comments in the hallways. A patient who had been treated by his colleague claimed to have seen a ghost in the Grove near the road. The unusual subject took the conversation from the nurses, with Johann Marcein even knowing the case.

"Mr. Marcein, what is this whole story?"

"A patient who has passed by the hospital now believes he has seen a ghost in the Grove near the road. He said it was a haunting, like a great Tree, "and Mat hesitated at first.

"A great Tree... He saw... But here? How can...? "

"Here? Yes... He said he found the haunting as he passed the Forest Trail, but we've already treated him right. He must have suffered from sunstroke that led to such a hallucination. This strong heat can generate this. He was given a natural tranquilizer and rest, which should solve this."

"It must be a case of sunstroke... But where is the patient? Has he been released yet?"

"Yes, he has already been released. Why? Any special recommendations?"

"No, no, I believe the tranquilizer has the necessary effect. I just wanted to talk to him... I really wanted to hear this wonderful story. I was curious about his illness."

"Check with the nurses who released him, they must know of his whereabouts."

Soon after the end of his shift, Mat went to the tavern that was near the Hospital, in search of the patient with such hallucinations.

"Good afternoon. I work at the hospital and I'm after a man who was there today with certain hallucinations. I was told he's attending the facility, I'm a hospital doctor, and I'd like to see him."

"Good afternoon, doctor. Yeah, I know who it is. He's here. Give me a minute I'll call him."
The tavern's owner had brought a skinny fisherman with a resurgent look, almost the age of Mat, to meet him.
"Good afternoon! My name is Mat Salans, I'm a hospital doctor. You were there today; it was my colleague who attended you. Well, I'm here to better understand your case. Looks like you had certain hallucinations... Did you see strange things? Is it?"
"Good afternoon, doctor. It was no hallucination I saw I saw a great and beautiful tree! I spent some time admiring that great plant. It was no hallucination, no! I saw the tree and then it disappeared!"

"Has it disappeared? But how? What you saw?"

"Yes, Doctor! She disappeared. I was passing by the Woods Trail, which is near the road, you know? When suddenly I saw a huge tree, almost sixty feet high. I know that trail and I've never seen that tree there. Well, it was big and beautiful, with silver and colored leaves... I was amazed by the novelty, I went closer to see what it really was, and when I approached more, I think I saw a fruit. It looked like a huge apple! A thing from another world."

"Yes! Yes! Continue."

"Then I saw that huge apple and went to try to get it, and when I got closer to the tree, it was that fright!"

"What you saw? Did you see anyone? "

"No! A flock of birds that was nearby that suddenly came out in a stampede. I looked back and they came toward me, reaching my sight. There were many of them, and by the time they left, and I turned my eyes to the tree and it was gone!"

"Has it disappeared? Did it just disappear? What else did you see?"

"It disappeared! That huge tree has evaporated! How is this possible? I was bewildered by it and then ran away. I went to the hospital and they gave me a sedative. But thinking better now, what I saw was not a hallucination! It was not! It was real!"

"It was no hallucination what you saw, man of the Sea! It was no hallucination. It was the Spirit of the Isle you saw! The Great Tree! "

It was the old fisherman who stood on the counter, listening to the report, who sang these words. Mat and the other spectators turned to the old man:

"It was the Wandering Spirit that you saw my son... She has wandered this Isle for several years, indeed for several centuries ..."

While the old man told the legend of the Great Tree, the devourer of men and beasts, the listeners were gathering, and at the end, almost the whole tavern stopped to listen to the tale.

"So, my friend of the sea, you were lucky! Had you eaten the fruit, you would be caught and devoured by the Tree. It has magical arms! Yes! Its branches are enchanted, and it devours men and animals! Its hunger is enormous and only a few survive to tell tales. However, stories are true, and this living thing exists in this Isle since the beginning."

Mat was petrified by the tale of the Tree. The old man described exactly his Tree, not approaching the existence of the goddesses, but warning on the real danger. It was not a bonfire tale anymore, as the fisherman had seen the fact. Mat was also an eyewitness of that supernatural phenomenon, the accomplice of all that beautiful and ecstatic fantasy, which now was to become more of an obscure dream. While the old man spoke and the whispering multiplied, Mat was trying to hide his recent love marks, real proofs of the fact's truth. After a while, when the topic had already become open to the public, Mat thanked the talk with the fisherman and left after greeting him.

Back to the road, he tried not to look aside. If he found the Tree in that situation, he would maybe fall into panic, then followed fast through the road in direction to the Inn. His world of fantastic and divine love was being discovered, then needing to get away from it, temporarily or not, his walks and paths deviated far away from the Divine Amazons, from the Tree, from the ecstatic and obscure enchantments.