Ask The Trees

The girls go there to have their fortunes told. The boys go halfway, hoping for a kiss, or something, but they always mysteriously remember something very important that they have to turn back for.

You can't get there in a car. You can only get there on foot.

We all took off our jewellery and put it in Stacy's bag with her cigarettes and lighter, and Cherie's nail scissors. We tucked the lot behind the hedge, pulled some branches over it, left the road, and followed the track up the sloping field.

We tottered a bit, because of the pink wine and high heels, but it felt delightful in the twilight, with the edges of our perfume mingling in the air. Like a wild sisterhood. Nicole was the first to take her shoes off, and the rest of us copied her by the time we got to the stile. Cherie squealed about splinters in her feet when we climbed over. Rhonda shushed her, and so did I. It was so quiet in this spot, and it felt like a soft, precious kind of silence.

I wondered if someone might have put something in the wine, because I felt weird... but it was a good weird. Better than mushrooms.

On a whim, I took my hair down, and when I looked round, Stacy and Cherie had done the same. Nicole's hair was too short to be up, but she looked just a bohemian as the rest of us. Like a real life pixie.

It got darker and darker by the minute, but the path was kind to our feet, and after a while, the moon peeped through the thick green canopy. Our limbs shimmered under it, and my spine tingled.

It was deathly quiet now, but that was okay. It was part of the story.

There was only one track, and we followed it, smiling, until we reached the clearing. Without realising it, we were all holding hands. Cherie got too close, and I tugged on her arm to bring her back.

We waited, sober as judges by now but moondrunk and half-dreaming. Possibility sparkled just on the edge of vision. We felt it in the corners of our mouths, tasted it in the air.

I couldn't take my eyes off the ground in the middle of the clearing. It shifted and rippled, like water that didn't know how to behave.

Then the chittering started.

The balmy evening had gone chilly at last. I was prickly all over with gooseflesh.

You were supposed to Promise them something. A year of your life, or a memory, or the colour of your hair after thirty. My mind went blank. What could I offer?

An egg. Why not? I had loads of them. I wouldn't miss one.

And now, my Question. The one I'd carried here seemed useless and trivial now. I'd wanted to know if Smithy really did love me, if we'd get married some day. The answer seemed so obvious, here in front of the wise old trees.

Of course not.

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I opened my eyes with a start, and found I was lying in the leaf mould. My right arm outstretched towards the trees, which were stark black in the moonlight as if they'd been painted. The others were sitting up and brushing soil off their clothes.

Everyone was exchanging looks and knowing half-smiles. There was a current of something rippling around me, and I reached out with a glance of my own, keen to connect.

Still without speaking, unsure how long we'd lain there, we hurried away. Back to hoop earrings, bobby pins, and duty free cigarettes. Wine in plastic glasses, and shoes you can't walk in, and gum and rent and overpriced coffee. All the things that add up to the real world.

I finished with Smithy the next day. I didn't ask, but I know the others made decisions, as well, based on the Answers they'd been given.

That was the last time we were all together. We were young and soft and full of hope. All edged in silver and blue and lit up by moondust and smiles.

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Thank you for reading