The Willow's Roots

Only Twyndal the Odd could hear the old willow when it spoke. The tree stood atop a steep hill in the forest, around which was situated the unassuming village of Pinebow. The willow’s roots were a gnarled and sprawling mass, and Twyndal figured that beneath the earth they extended much further, twisting downhill through rock and soil until they clawed at the underside of his own humble cottage. He figured this was how the tree spoke to him. Hidden murmurs in the dirt.

One night, the voice came as it always had, not heard so much as felt. A tremor in the floorboards as he was putting out the lanterns. A pattering on the soles of his feet. And then it was in him - gripping his bones, where the vibrations formed words of sinister command. And Twyndal listened, trembling, as the old willow asked him for a gift.

This was not the first time. Over the years, he had tried more than once to ignore the tree’s grim request. He would shake it off in the morning like a bad dream, and go about his gardening and fishing and woodworking. For a few days, life in the sleepy village would carry on. And then, without fail, disaster would befall Pinebow. A fire at the lumber mill. A flood at the river docks. Once, a plague that spread through town with wicked haste, marking its victims with dark lines of rotting skin that twisted down their limbs. Lines that looked like roots.

The horrors would continue until sooner or later, Twyndal gave in. Against his own spirit, he would set out at night with dagger and rope, to find a gift for the willow tree. Usually a traveler. Someone passing through, whose absence wouldn’t cause much concern. And when the gift was delivered, peace returned to the village. The crops would grow, the floods would vanish, the plague would cease.

But this time, Twyndal was old. When the tree’s voice finally left his body, his legs felt thin and hollow, and he collapsed with a grimace into his armchair. He watched the last few embers in the furnace; red stars of warmth that dimmed slowly into the black. The willow’s words still echoed through his frame. He knew what he had to do.

Twyndal stood at the base of the tree. Its branches drooped calmly. Two crows eyed him from their perch, shrouded by yellowing October leaves. Twyndal lifted a vial to his lips and drank. The poison was bitter.

In the depths of the heaping roots, there was a gap just large enough for a person to squeeze through. Twyndal lowered himself in, pawing his way around the wood. Inside the hole, the soil was cool to the touch, and the dried leaves made a bed that was soft and inviting. Twyndal laid on his back. Above him, through the gap in the roots, he could see the trunk reaching upward, the branches and the leaves, and the spots of blue sky above.

For a moment, all was still. Then, almost imperceptibly, the roots moved. It was as if they were releasing a tension; relaxing, like the muscles of a tired mind under a loving caress. And with a groaning of branches and a rustling of leaves that sent the crows into flight, the old willow let out a thick, environmental sigh.

No ill fate came to Pinebow that day. The loggers sawed fresh cedar, filling the air with a crisp autumn scent. Children splashed in the shallows of the river. Old Aunt Morlah sang happily from her porch swing.

Gradually, news went round that the front door to Twyndal’s cottage was found wide open, and that inside there was no Twyndal but only leaves and twigs on the wind-swept floor. Folk gossiped for a few days, but no one mourned Twyndal’s disappearance, much less went looking for him. Twyndal the Odd had rarely spoken to anyone, and when he had, it was on late nights at the tavern behind a few pints of ale, where he would speak of a longing to be free. Free from a duty he could not escape and sins he would not confess.