The People of the Trees (Original Story) Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Addan

Addan could barely keep still. His fingers drummed against the wooden railing of the sleeping loft, and his feet shuffled against the planks, making them creak. Below, in the main room of their house, he could hear his mother stoking the morning fire inside the nearby dead tree the surrounding families used for fire.

"You need to calm down." Allan's voice came from the adjacent sleeping mat. His older brother sat up, dark hair reaching his neck; he always had long hair and refused to cut it, saying the girls liked longer hair. "Save that energy for the climb."

"But this is my first time," Addan said, unable to keep the grin off his face. "My first real climb. All the way to the Upper Branches."

"I know." Allan stretched, his shoulders popping. At fifteen, he was already broader than their eldest brother Ericcen. Addan was sure Allan was even larger than their father, but he did not say that. "That's why you need to listen to me. Be careful up there. Whether or not you are first or last, it doesn't matter." He reached over and gripped Addan's shoulder. "Just like the rest of us. Be a climber or maybe you can become a runner like Eric, but that's boring."

Addan nodded with a big smile. His parents would be watching. The whole family would be watching. Everyone would be watching.

He swung his legs over the edge of the loft and dropped straight down to the main floor below, ten feet of empty air, his bare feet slapping against the worn wood. He didn't bother with the rope ladder. Allan groaned from above.

"Good morrow, my little bird," his mother said as she walked into the large main circle room of their house. She was carrying a large wooden pot, the bottom of which was black like the night. Steam rose from it, and Addan could smell the morning porridge. "Sit. Eat. You'll need your strength."

The family gathered around the low table as they always did. Father took his place at the head; the man had a long, dark beard that reached his neck. Ericcen came down the rope ladder properly. Allan dropped down the same way Addan had, making their mother sigh.

Addan sat between his brothers, his stomach tight with excitement and nervousness. The table was set with their usual bowls, carved from wood so old and used that the grain had worn smooth, and the morning meal was already being ladled out.

"Eat well," his mother said, settling into her own place. "It's a long climb to the Branches."

Addan looked down at his bowl and felt his excitement dim slightly.

The porridge was the color of old bark, grey-brown and thick, made from sap-meal that had been boiled until it formed a gluey mass. His mother had stirred in what she could, shavings of dried fungus that added a meaty, strange taste, and a handful of the small black tree-nuts that grew in clusters on the southern branches. The nuts had been ground into rough pieces, and they gave the porridge a bitter bite that made Addan's teeth ache.

He took a spoonful. It was hot, almost too hot, and it stuck to the roof of his mouth. It felt like swallowing heavy rain, sliding down his throat in a way that made him want to cough. The sap-meal had a sweetness to it, but it was not good sweet. The fungus bits were chewy, requiring several hard bites before they broke apart, releasing a taste like dirt and rain and the deep shadows beneath the branches.

There was also bark-bread, dark and dense, so heavy in his hand it felt like holding a piece of wood. His mother sliced it thin because otherwise it was impossible to chew. Addan bit into his piece and felt it crunch between his teeth, hard and fibrous. It had been made from the inner bark of the feeding-trees, stripped and dried and pounded until it formed something that could almost be called earth bread, as the books had named it. Addan had never seen earth bread; the last piece of it had long since rotted away. 

His mother had tried to improve it by brushing it with rendered insect-fat, which gave it a slight sheen and a taste that Addan couldn't quite place. Nutty, maybe. Or like the smell of the drying racks where they hung the silk-worms.

In the center of the table, in a small wooden bowl that had been carved by his grandfather, there were three dried grubs. They'd been smoked over the fire until they were black and shriveled, each one no bigger than Addan's thumb. His father took one, Ericcen took one, and his mother pushed the bowl toward Allan.

"For the future climber," she said quietly.

Allan picked up the last grub and held it up to the light, trying to imagine that he was eating rays of sunlight. It was foolish, he knew, but he liked to think that food under sunlight always tasted better. He bit into it, and Addan heard the crunch. Allan chewed thoughtfully, and Addan watched his brother's face, trying to gauge whether it tasted good. Allan swallowed and shrugged.

"I'd kill for a bird egg," Allan said, reaching for more bark-bread. "A real one. Fresh. Still warm from the nest."

"Allan," their mother said, her voice carrying a warning.

"What? I would." Allan broke off a piece of bark-bread and dipped it in his porridge, trying to soften it. "Remember when Father brought those two eggs last spring? Remember how they tasted?"

Addan remembered. The eggs had been large and brown-speckled, taken from a nest in the highest branches where Father had climbed during the breeding season. His mother had boiled them just until the whites were set, but the yolks still ran gold, and they'd split them between all five of them. Addan's portion had been barely three bites, but each bite had tasted better than everything else. In that moment, Addan had decided that he would become the best climber, just so he could have the opportunity to eat another fresh egg.

"That was months ago," Ericcen said. "Don't think about it. Makes this worse."

Addan forced himself to take another spoonful of porridge, then another. His stomach needed to be full for the climb, even if the food made him want to stop eating. He bit into more bark-bread, letting it crunch between his teeth, following it with porridge to try to soften the pieces in his mouth. The tree-nuts scraped against his tongue, bitter and hard.

His father finally spoke, his voice low and measured. "If you win today, we'll have a chance at the Upper Branches."

Addan felt his face going hot.

Addan looked up at his father's face, the skin around his eyes creased from years of squinting against the sun at the high reaches. His father didn't smile. He never smiled. Sometimes he liked to believe that he did under his beard.

"Your brothers completed the task," his father continued, looking at Ericcen, then Allan, then finally at Addan. "Both of them. They did not win, but they completed it. They climbed. They proved themselves. Eric became a runner, and Allan became a climber," He paused. "Now it is your turn. Climb well, and perhaps you climb better than they did. Perhaps you win. And if you win…"

Addan knew what the Upper Branches meant. Everyone knew. Better houses. Bigger platforms. Access to the best fruit-trees, the richest fungus farms, the safest rope-bridges. Families in the Upper Branches ate bird eggs every week. They had meat that wasn't dried grubs or smoked beetles. Their children didn't eat bark-bread unless they wanted to.

His father stood from the table. "Finish eating. The sun is climbing. So should you."

Addan ate the rest of his food without saying much, and Allan helped him stand up, giving him a smile, before walking him to their door. Outside, the world opened up around him.

Addan stepped through the door of their house, a simple one, and onto the main platform. The morning air hit him immediately, carrying the scent of sap and green wood and the distant smell of rain. He took a deep breath and looked out.

Trees. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe, stretching away in every direction until they blurred into a forest of vertical lines, each one tall, straight, reaching up toward a sky he could barely see through the tangle of branches far above. The trees around his house were all approximately the same height, about two hundred meters from their root-platforms to their crowning branches, but beyond them, in the distance, he could see the true giants. Trees that rose three hundred meters, four hundred, five hundred, their tops lost in the permanent haze of the upper canopy. And the Royal Trees that reached a thousand meters.

His own house was built around and into a red-bark tree, the trunk as thick as three men lying end to end. The walls were made from smaller branches, cut and stripped and lashed together with rope, then sealed with hardened sap. The floor was a platform that wrapped three-quarters of the way around the trunk, supported by massive branches that jutted out from the tree at this height. Other families had built differently. To his left, he could see Jenny's house that had been completely carved into the living wood of a great grey trunk, the windows cut through the bark like eyes in a face. To his right, Bran's family had built their house on top of the thick branches, suspending it between two trees like a wooden box held up by living arms.

Everywhere, there were bridges. Rope and wood, swaying slightly in the wind, connecting house to house, platform to platform, tree to tree. Some were narrow, barely wide enough for one person to cross at a time, just a single rope to walk on with two more ropes to hold for balance. Others were wide enough for four people to walk abreast, with wooden planks laid across rope supports, handrails on both sides. Addan could see people crossing them now, moving about their morning tasks. Lady Yllanda was carrying a basket of something; he was sure it was rope clothes from the rain baskets, they were probably soaking from the rain. Jonathan, with a coil of rope over his shoulder, jumped from one tree to the other, holding what seemed like a toy made of wood. Two children running, making the bridge bounce and sway beneath them, Addan was sure they were the Lollo Twins. What an odd name!! Addan had asked once why their names were Lollo, but Allan had told him it was a big secret they had kept for a hundred years, but now, no one knew the secret anymore. Allan wondered what the secret was.

Some trees grew so close together that their branches intertwined, and people had built platforms in the spaces between, shared spaces that belonged to multiple families. Addan could see one such platform below and to the right, where five or six children were gathered from the Ryan family, probably waiting for their own turn at the Day of the Climber.

And everywhere, hanging from branches and platforms and the undersides of bridges, were the ropes. Climbing ropes, safety ropes, transport ropes, rescue ropes. Some were thick as Addan's arm, woven from the strongest fibers of the rope-vine that grew in the middle branches. Others were thin and light, used for quick descents or for the brave ones who liked to swing between trees instead of walking the bridges. The ropes were the color of old wood, grey-brown and weathered, and they moved constantly in the wind, swaying like the branches themselves.

Above, the canopy thickened into a solid mass of green and brown, blocking out most of the sky. But between the leaves and branches, Addan could see glimpses of blue, and the sun was somewhere up there, making the whole world glow with golden light.

Below…

Addan stepped to the edge of the platform and looked down.

The ground was invisible. Too far, too hidden beneath layers and layers of branches, platforms, hanging gardens, and the ever-present mist that rose from below. He could see down maybe a hundred meters before everything disappeared into shadow and haze. Somewhere down there, far beyond sight, was the earth itself. Addan wondered not for the first time what it would be like to walk on earth.

"Ready?" Allan's voice broke through his thoughts.

Addan turned. His brothers stood behind him, Allan grinning, Ericcen more serious. Allan cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders.

"The Branches of the Race are a quarter-mile up," Allan said. "We'll take the quick way."

Before Addan could ask what that meant, Allan grabbed him by the waist and lifted him like he weighed nothing. "Hold on."

"Wait-what-"

"Hold on!" Allan said again, turning so Addan's front pressed against his back. Addan wrapped his arms around his brother's neck, his legs around his waist, panic rising in his throat.

Allan ran three steps and jumped off the platform.

Addan screamed.

They fell through open air, the platform disappearing above them, nothing beneath them but empty space and the distant, invisible ground. Wind rushed past Addan's face, stealing his breath, making his eyes water. They were falling, falling, falling-

Allan's hand shot out and grabbed a rope.

They swung, the rope singing, but holding them, the world spinning around them. Addan's stomach dropped into his feet, then surged back up into his throat. He held on tighter, his knuckles white, his whole body pressed against Allan's back.

Allan whooped, the sound half-wild, and then they were swinging up, up, the arc carrying them toward another platform, another tree. At the peak of the swing, Allan let go.

They flew through the air.

Addan screamed even more. Still, he kept his eyes open, and he could see families laughing at his scream, and his brother reaching out for another rope. And for one brief moment, Addan looked down and saw the Red Lake, far below, too far, one of the places you could still see through the mist.

Addan wondered what it would be like to walk the earth. He would have asked people what it was like, but it was impossible; the last person who walked on earth died over two centuries ago.

Humanity has not walked the earth for the last three centuries.