Touch Wood
Sandee Bree Breathnach
“Is Newt home?” he asks, bouncing on his heels with incessant giddiness.
Mrs Quill crosses her arms. “There’s no one here called Newt.”
Not far behind her, at the bottom of the stairs, Newt slips on scuffed shoes and wraps an old scarf around her neck. She hops forward, squeezes past her mother’s leg and through the door. The children sprint giggling into the concrete streets.
“Hurry up,” Cricket grins. “We’re going tree hunting.”
“There’s no point,” Ash sighs, adjusting the cumbersome metal mask digging into his nose. “There’s no trees out here anymore.”
Up ahead, Briar trudges over beds of bone and mildew. They turn to dust under her boots. “Granny Agnes says she saw one here when she was little.”
“Yeah, like a hundred years ago!”
“If a tree survived back then, it could survive now.” Her voice sounds tinny through the filters of her mask. When she breathes in, it makes a raspy, sucking sound, just like Granny Agnes’ ventilator.
Hatchet in hand, she swings it into a thick mushroom stalk. It springs into a wobbling fit, sending clouds of yellow spores into the air.
Ash steps back. “Leave the shrooms alone. You’re spreading the spores.”
Briar stands firm and slams the hatchet into the base of the stalk, pressing her boot on top to wedge it in further and uproot the mushroom entirely. The ground below is parched dry, broken up by thin veiny roots. She tuts and moves on.
“What do you need a tree for anyway?” Ash strides after her, careful not to step through the puff of spores as they settle on the ground.
Of course, he already knows the answer. It is a legend that has been passed down for as long as anyone can remember. The first thing they hear when their soft brains can make sense of simple words. The first thing they read when they develop the motor skills to swipe through the dull matte pages on a tablet.
Touching wood brings luck. Others claim it’s knocking on wood. Some even say it grants wishes. One thing all the stories agree on is that trees are magical. Ash believed it too, until very recently. Now he isn’t entirely convinced that trees ever existed to begin with.
“You heard dad,” Briar replies. “She hasn’t got much time left.”
Ash presses his lips tight and turns to gaze across the sickly river. It oozes with glossy bubbles of oil, rusty old batteries bobbing up and down like fish bait. They would be hard pressed to find any fish in there. At least, any fish that aren’t infected by some fungal parasite and half rotted through.
He clears his throat. “Aren’t you too old to believe in fairy tales?”
“Aren’t you too young to talk back to me?” Briar bites back.
Ash promptly seals his mouth shut. Really, he should be used to it by now. Briar has always clung to Granny Agnes’s stories for longer than any reasonable child should. Just two weeks ago she found a dead salamander washed up by the lake and tried to convince everyone, perhaps even herself, that it was a baby dragon. But her flights of fancy never reached this extent. She’d never travelled this far from home for a fantasy.
“When we find the tree,” Briar continues, weighing the hatchet in her hands, “we just have to touch the trunk and make a wish. Then Granny Agnes will get better.”
One misstep and the bricks give way. Newt tumbles down into the shallow ravine.
When she opens her eyes, a yellow sapling greets her, protruding out from a sparse mound of soil. She isn’t entirely sure what it is until Cricket scrambles down and shrieks “We did it! We found one!”
At first, she isn’t so sure. It’s much smaller than she expected. Nothing like the ones described in her favourite storybook. The colour is all wrong.
There isn’t a single spore in sight, so she lowers the scarf wrapped over her nose to sniff at the air. Tiny leaves shiver against the slight breath that leaves her lungs. It tastes fresh. So much fresher than the air in town.
It’s only when she reaches out to touch the smooth white-grey wood that she realises. It really is a tree.
Cricket holds out his shovel and thrusts it towards her. “Hurry up, Newt-face. Dig it up.”
Newt blinks, slowly taking the shovel. “Why?”
“Don’t you know how rare wood is?”
“Obviously!” Her face reddens. “I’m not stupid.”
“Then work it out, genius. If we take it home, we can make a wish every single day! Or we could sell it. We could even charge people money to come see it.”
“You mean we’ll be rich?”
Cricket nods, and Newt’s eyes sparkle green.
“What happened?”
“What does it look like?” she hisses. “Bloody shroom tripped me.”
A tangle of pale white fungus wriggles along the edge, tendrils withdrawing like snails shrinking into their shells. Spores waft inches above the ground, where her foot had been just seconds ago. Ash covers his mouth and holds his breath before he remembers he’s already wearing a mask. Still, he inches away before carefully lowering himself into the ravine.
The thick leather gloves protect his hands from the rough, rocky walls. A small protrusion of earth crumbles under his fist, and he desperately clutches at the wall to slow his fall. Skidding to his knees, he stands and dusts himself off, relatively unscathed.
“We should go back,” he says when he catches his breath, helping Briar to her feet. Getting back is now the issue – Briar is taller than him. Heavier too, though he can’t say that out loud. He’s willing to carry her for as long as possible, but she is already hobbling away, using the hatchet as a crutch.
“We’ve come all this way,” she calls back. “It’s not even noon yet. There’s still plenty of time to look before sundown.”
“You know the spore clouds will be even denser the further we go out. And the mushrooms…” The thought of the crawling fungus makes him shudder. “Who knows how much bigger they’ll be.”
“It isn’t due to rain for days. This is the ideal time to search.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“And the wind speed is low, so they won’t spread too quickly.”
“That could change at any minute!”
“We’ll keep an eye on the spores. I won’t bring us too far out.”
“We’re already too far out. Briar, let’s just go home.”
“I’m not going home without finding a tree.”
“What if there are no trees?” Ash clenches his jaw. “Have you even thought of that? What if we get eaten alive by shrooms or the spores get past our masks? We could die out here! Or – or we get back home and she’s already…”
He thinks Briar might cut him off before he gets that far, but the hot lump in his throat stops him first. He promptly bites his lip to still the trembling.
Briar clenches her fists around the hatchet and sucks in a sharp, raspy breath. Narrow eyes glare at him through her visor. “Fine! Go home if you want! It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe, or if you just don’t care enough. I’ll find it on my own.”
The hatchet clanks along the shrapnel-lined ravine, crooked under her straggling gait. She stifles a pained grunt and pushes onwards while Ash watches on. The sun wavers overheard, untouched by fog or cloud.
One hour, he decides. One more hour and then he’ll turn back, even if he has to drag Briar by the leg. He can’t just leave her there. They can’t afford for anyone else to get sick. A deep breath shudders through his mask, the straps rubbing his ears raw. He takes a moment to adjust it before he follows.
Numbness washes over Newt’s face, her features stretched and squashed as though she holds a fresh corpse in her hands.
“What did you do?” Cricket gawks. “You’ve killed it!”
“It wasn’t me. It just—”
“You’re going to be in so much trouble!”
“But I didn’t—”
Cricket doesn’t listen. He tosses his shovel aside and runs for home. Newt tries to follow, but she can’t keep up with the sapling still in her arms. Won’t let go of it. Its body drags her down, gait swaying until she stumbles to her knees. Tears blur her vision.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, digging her fingers into the dirt until they are red and throbbing. “I didn’t mean to. I’ll fix it. I can plant it again. Don’t worry. I’ll plant it.”
But there is no soil beneath the crust. Not a drop of water.
A single acorn falls into her lap. The sapling crumbles to dust.
Across the plain, a tree stands almost three times taller than him. It’s hunched over ever so slightly, neck crooked, but thick and sturdy. Spindly roots sprawl across the puddle encircling it, sipping delicately on algae-crested water. The setting sun filters through golden-green leaves, blessing the tree with a warm, ethereal glow.
“What do we do now?” Ash whispers, as though speaking too loud might startle the tree and send it scampering off on wooden spider legs. He’d always heard trees stayed in one place, but who was to know for sure?
“We touch it and make a wish.”
With the hatchet at her side, Briar hobbles to the base of the tree and kneels down. Water laps at leather boots, timid ripples splitting through the algae as she places her hands on the tree’s belly. To her surprise, there are no parasites wriggling through the water. No mushrooms embedded at the base of the tree. Not even a single spore in the air.
Following her lead, Ash takes off his gloves and presses his palms to the rivulets of tree bark. It grates against his skin, but he presses harder and slowly rubs his hand over its surface. For some reason, he expected to feel a heartbeat beneath the wood. Nothing resonates through his hands except his own pulse and the soft burn of friction, but he’s almost certain he can sense life blooming somewhere deep within.
Nothing feels any different after they make their wish.
Only so much time can be whittled away, squeezing their eyes shut tighter, wishing harder, counting down the minutes and seconds and hoping for something in the air to change. There is no way to know if Granny Agnes has been magically healed until they arrive home, so Briar lingers a few minutes longer. Just for good measure.
“Alright. Time to go,” she says. Leaning heavily on the hatchet, she pulls herself to her feet and stares up at the tree. Ash has already left the water when he hears Briar mumbling to herself.
“What?”
“Maybe,” she says, mulling over the words carefully, “maybe we should take a little bit with us.”
“A bit of what?”
“The tree…” She trails off.
A startled scoff escapes his lips. “You want us to take a tree back home with us? Am I supposed to carry the both of you on my back?”
“I’m serious,” she insists, hopping over to Ash and passing the hatchet to him. “Here. Use this.”
“You want me to chop it down?” His eyes grow wide. “We can’t do that! It might be the only tree left in the world.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Briar huffs. “We’re not chopping it down. Just… lop off one of its branches. That should be enough.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
“I can’t with my ankle. Come on, please. It will grow back. ’cos I just thought—” She hesitates, swallowing the sticky lump in her throat. “What if one wish isn’t enough? If we didn’t do it properly then Granny Agnes could get sick again. Or dad. Or any of us.”
His heart sinks in his chest. If that did happen then they couldn’t rely on the tree being here again. Ash wasn’t even sure they could make a journey like this again. And if someone else got to the tree before them, well, they could do a lot worse to it.
“It’s for the family,” Briar reiterates, though her voice is strained.
Trees are benevolent. That’s what the story said. They live to heal. To help nature thrive. The one standing before them doesn’t have a heartbeat. Ash knows that. Somehow the idea still makes his stomach churn, but Briar is right. She’s right about a lot of things. Right about finding the tree. Probably right about the wish.
The air weighs deep in his lungs as he takes the hatchet. He braces himself and swings down on the lowest branch in sight. It snaps like bone, splintering at the edges and crashing to the ground.
At first, he feels relieved.
Then the tree turns grey. Golden-green leaves wilt and rain down around them.
A single acorn falls between his feet.
“Agnes!” Mrs Quill gasps. Newt winces. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”
Newt sniffles and coughs into her tattered scarf. She can’t talk through chapped lips and short breaths. Yellow spores stain her sweater, embedded in the soft plucks of cotton.
But it doesn’t matter. She’s home now. Finally home. Hours of searching for a patch of rich soil in the wastelands, big enough to bury the acorn. That’s all that matters now. That it can grow and thrive, untouched by human hands.
She only hopes that it’s enough.
On the outskirts of town, she takes stock of her utility belt. Respi-patches, torch, night goggles, holo-map. Then she sits and watches the sun roll over the horizon, casting a soft glow over the old road that disappears into a mass of writhing mushrooms.
A harrowing sound wheezes behind her. Wickie leaps to her feet, heart racing at the sight of a lanky figure in a hideous rubber mask. A distorted laugh crackles through the filters, and behind the tinted visor she sees Hop’s smiling eyes.
“What are you wearing that for?” Wickie hisses. “I have plenty of respi-patches.”
Hop snorts. “My dad doesn’t trust those things.”
Wickie shrugs. “Suit yourself.” She pulls a patch from her belt and presses it over her mouth and nose, sucking in sharply to activate the skin seal.
“So–” Hop taps the side of her mask “–are you going to tell me what we’re doing here?”
Wickie leans in, her voice an airy whisper. “Before he died, my Granda Ash told me about a tree just north of the forest. If it’s survived this long, then maybe…”
“Trees aren’t real Wickie, you know that!” Hop scoffs, but Wickie simply grins.
“Want to bet on it?”
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