When Willows Weep

As with all old stories this one begins in a land far away, lost now to time. It was a land full of wide plains and deep, dark forests; of stark, high mountains, and fathomless rivers that flowed down hills and through valleys. It is in the depths of one of those dark forests, called the Evervale, where this story takes place.

Now, this forest was not as we know forests today. Today our trees are small or tall, most are narrow as so many places have been clear-cut and are only growing back after ten or twenty years. Such a thought would have been anathema to anyone who lived near the forest of Evervale; for this forest, unlike our own, lived. It's many tall, broad, green-leafed trees were sentient.

Of these trees there were many kinds; oak and ash, fir and birch. All of them seemed to hold to their own conclaves and grew together in sun or in shade, depending upon their kind. There was, however, one other kind of tree, of whose kind there was only one. A willow.

The willow grew alone in a small glade at the bank of the river. Hedged in on three sides by the ancient oak trees and on the fourth by the bank of the river as it flowed lazily downstream, Willow (it is simplest to call her this, being the only one of her kind) spent her days and nights listening to the talk of the other trees. The oaks, due to their large stature and wide trunks had voices of deep bass that echoed along the river, carried by the water and amplified upon the rocks. This was how she knew that she was often an object of derision and pity. "Look at her!" she heard once. "She hangs over the water and cries tears into it daily." "What a sad little thing she is, never to have another to speak with, no saplings to grow and protect. Not that any woodcutters would dare come into our forest." It was often this last comment that she wondered about. Willow was a young tree with no knowledge of how she came to be there by the banks of the river. If she was the only one of her kind, how had she gotten there? And what was a "woodcutter?" Whatever it was, going by the sound of the word she would rather not find out. So, she continued to stand by the river; day-in-and-day-out, weeping and wondering as the days slid from one to the next.

Days, months, years pass, and rumors spread through the trees of humans beginning to walk through the woods. Willow has long since ceased to weep and has grown into her stature; a tall, broad tree with sweeping branches that stretch towards the river and dance in the wind. The words of the oaks no longer bother her and her wondering of her beginnings has waned. This new talk of humans interested her though. In all of her life she had never seen one. It was curious to her that the oaks, usually so staid and calm, became agitated and anxious whenever talk of humans arose. What she didn't know, is that she would have the chance to find out.

It was early in the morning, just before the light of the sun begins to filter over the horizon and through the leafy greens of the trees, when Willow realized something was wrong. There was a thick, heavy feel to the air, drafts of hot wind pulling through the trees, swirling low around their trunks. The animals in the woods, from the birds of the air, to the deer, down to the smallest of field mice scurried past her roots and milled up against the rivers banks, where the water swirled deep and dark, swollen with the waters of the spring thaw. "What is happening?" Willow wondered, pulling herself from the restful ease of the night and dark. Becoming more aware she heard the oaks creak and groan in alarm. "The trees! The trees!" they cried. "The humans have caused a fire in the trees!" As Willow heard these cries, she heard other sounds, unfamiliar and strange, sharp and guttural carried on the hot wind. She did not know what they were until suddenly several strange creatures, with large staring dark eyes, wings with no feathers and curious twigs at the end of them, moving quickly but lumberingly on two legs came into view; appearing out of the unusually thick, hot, morning mist, like apparitions out of an awful dream.

The animals that milled around her roots and the river's banks became more alarmed then they had been before, some even leaping into the dark waters as these beings appeared in the glade. "These must be humans!" Willow thought, and she called to the oaks. "What has happened? Why are these humans here in our glade?" The oaks, however, were too busy in their alarm and wailing to hear her and her question went unanswered. "I suppose I shall find out," she thought as she turned back to watch these odd creatures that had appeared. Listening intently to the sounds being made, she began to understand what was being said. "The fire is coming this way! Why did George light that damn brush right by the woods!? He knows the trees don't abide fire. Now the whole forest might go up in flames and the trees will never let us take any wood again!" There was anger and fear in their words and between hearing this and the loud cracks and groans from the oaks as they grew more agitated, Willow also began to feel afraid. "What is fire?" she wondered.

As she continued to watch, she wished she could move from where she was rooted. Once, long before her memory began, her kind had been able to pull up their roots and move from place-to-place as the need arose, but that knowledge was no longer and she and the others were as fixed into the earth as a mountain of stone. The air grew ever heavier and hotter and the movements and sounds in the little clearing became faster and louder and more frantic. Willow began to hear strange cracking sounds; sounds that were not those of the trees themselves when they spoke or moved. Suddenly, with a roar, bright, scorching light leapt against the oaks on the Eastern edge of the glade and their screams rent the air. "No!" cried Willow in horror. Only now did she understand that 'fire' meant death and destruction to her kind. Those giant oaks with their booming voices and centuries old knowledge were dying, and she could do nought. The humans had ended their attempts to block the fire and ran for the river. Panicked beasts leapt over the banks, crazed with fear. Willow struggled to force her roots to loosen, to let go their hold of the earth and stone, but to no avail. All she could do was watch in horror and sorrow as her world ended and her own end came toward her.

(End of Part 1)