Beneath the Cherry-Lace Trees

There had been a lot of moving back then: moving house, moving school, moving jobs, moving families. Shirley King felt like she was constantly on the way to some other life, stuck in transition. A moth caught between a million flames.

Her father, Martin King, had walked out on Shirley and her mother earlier that year, leaving them only a few grains of wealth; Martin's new wife now the number one priority. They'd been forced to uproot from their quiet town in the middle of nowhere, and Shirley had been forced to cut the bonds with her forest of friends. She felt cast out, a wanderer.

She'd found haven in a number of other schools, but her mother made little money and Shirley constantly found herself tossed from street to street, life to life. It seemed that the moment they set up their home, the prices magically rose and they were kicked out in the rain again. They crawled the streets like nomads until they finally came to the small town of Brighthall, where the houses were tiny and inexpensive and the people were cheap.

"Isn't it nice?" her mother said with a strained voice as they arrived in their new hovel -- a small bungalow, half built into a grassy hill -- with a strange looking roof and a friable chimney. "Don't look sad. You'll get used to it, honey. You're good like that."

"I'm not," she said, pulling knots out of her hair and holding her tears in. "I want to go back to where we used to live!"

Her mother exploded in a fit of rage -- an emotion she seldom showed before Martin left. "Because I don't make enough money, right? You should know this, you're smart. Your father had all the money and all the brains. I'm not used to this, Shirley. We just have to deal with it." Her nose flared and her cheeks blossomed.

Shirley cried as she ran from the lounge and into her bedroom. Her mother didn't follow her. In a new house in a strange land, she had never felt more alone.

There was a single window in her bedroom, looking out at the long dusty path that led up to the house -- the path she was to take every morning when starting a new school for the fifth time that year. A fifth life. It was like reincarnation that kept getting worse and worse. She sat on the windowsill, drew her feet up against the wall and looked out at the lonely dust path. Her tears dried on her cheeks. She found her phone and opened the photo gallery.

She'd never changed phones and had accumulated thousands of photos. She scrolled through them with a shaking thumb, breathing heavily to hold her tears in. She filtered the date to the previous year and found pictures of a different Shirley -- a happy Shirley -- dressed as a princess next to a happy mother and father. Last year they had been a happy family.

I miss being a child, she thought, I miss it so much. She flicked through photos of her and her old boyfriend and sighed. Life used to be so easy. Her father had always told her that being a teenager was the best part of life, and for a time she had believed it. Now she didn't. Now it was just a lie. A stain.

She made her way to her bed and fell asleep. That night, dreams came to her like shooting stars.

When she woke those stars hit her like comets. Her mother was stood over her, holding a cup of steamy black coffee, smiling a wide, artificial smile. A fake smile.

"Morning, honey. Are you hungry? There are eggs on the table if you want them."

Shirley took the coffee into her hands and blew on it. Her mother didn't move. Shirley looked up, puzzled. "Do you want something?"

Her mother laughed. "You should smile more, honey. Frowning doesn't suit you; it's not all bad, you know. We're alive, aren't we?" She sat down on Shirley's bed."But there is something I want to talk about."

"What? We're not moving again, are we?"

"About school. I think you should drop out."

Shirley almost spat her coffee out. "What? Why would I do that? I was doing good at my last school!"

"I know, but you don't need school to be smart, honey. You need to get a job -- I want you to get a job -- you're sixteen now, you should be working."

"I should be studying."

"That takes up too much time. I haven't got the money to afford your education, honey. I'm afraid there isn't any debate about it, you're going to have to get a job."

"I don't want a job!" Shirley shouted.

Her mother's face stiffened. "You are getting a job. You have to start pulling your weight, Shirley. I won't let you be a teenage dirtbag."

"You wouldn't be happy with me no matter what I did."

"That's not true! I'm very proud of you, honey, but you need to wake up and smell the coffee. This is the real world now, and we can't afford school anymore."

"How broke are we?"

"Shirley, don't use the word 'broke.'" She said it with distaste. "We're just going through hard times at the moment." Her mother rose from the bed and made towards the door, turned and said, "And don't try and find any relationships while you are here. Men are leeches." Her mother left the room. Shirley drained the rest of her coffee and somehow, fell asleep.

Waking later, the afternoon sun was a coin in the sky, shooting rays through the one window. Shirley was too restless to stay in bed any longer. Dressed, she made her way into the kitchen and found a note from her mother, saying that she had gone out and would be back later. The eggs her mother had made were stone cold but Shirley ate them anyway. She checked her phone again and thumbed through the photographic memories.

Everything seemed easier in the photos. She was always smiling then. She hadn't a care in the world. Nothing had prepared her for adult life. Nobody ever warned her it would be like this.

Birds chorused in their afternoon hymn, luring Shirley outside. She left the house and, meandering to the end of the dusty path, caught the bus to the nearest town.

It was a small town -- a hamlet; bleak whitewashed houses with crimson red bricked roofs, giving the buildings the appearance of mushrooms. One of these buildings was a small bakery, pumping steam out of its red chimney and savoury aromas out of its front door. Shirley followed the scent into the shop.

The girl behind the counter, dressed in a green apron emblazoned with the bakery's logo, who could not have been more than twenty, smiled at her. "What can I do you for?" she asked in a husky Northern accent.

"I don't want anything, thanks. Are there any jobs here?"

The girl dropped her smile. "No, can't you read? There is a sign on the window that says we don't want any more work. We get people like you in here every day. Now, if you're not going to buy something, get out."

Humiliated, Shirley turned around and made her way out of the shop. A young toddler stood behind her in the line, and the girl at the counter now smiled at him and laughed with him and let him pick his own cookie. Shirley wished she was still a toddler.

She got back on the bus and headed home. As she looked out the window at the flip-book of country life, she thought about time and how every day she was getting older, losing more of her innocence. Time was bending her out of shape. People were colder to her now, harsher. When she was a young girl, everyone had been warm to her; when she was a child she always saw the sun, now all she saw were grey skies.

The door was open when Shirley returned. She checked her watch. It was too early for her mother to be home now. A wail whistled through the house. Her mother. Shirley ran toward the sound.

She was lying on the kitchen floor, in a puddle of plum wine and shattered green bottle. Some of the glass had cut her, and she was bleeding from her left hand.

"Mum!" Shirley helped her to sit up.

A gargling sound came from the woman's throat as if she were choking and then broke down in tears. "When is my husband coming home?" she shrilled. "When is he coming back to me?" She tried to push herself up, but slipped on the wine, hitting the cold tiles again. "Martin, when are you coming back to me?"

Shirley plastered her mother's hand. Lifting the drunk woman up onto her unsteady feet, they went into her bedroom, Shirley settled her mother on the bed.

"Did you find...work?" her mother asked in alcoholic bubbles of speech.

Feeling ashamed, Shirley shook her head. Closing the door, she headed back to the kitchen to sweep up the debris.

The day was dying. Scarlet spilt over the sky like blood; the horizon looked like a slit throat; the drowning sun like an Adam's apple. The tide of night was beginning to flow and ebb like a black ocean.

She went to bed early that night, but couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned as firework-thoughts fizzed through her mind. She was still wide awake when there was a knock at the window.

The most Bizarre being was standing outside. It was tall with bristled white hairs covering its skeletal body. Bending down, a basketball-sized head entered the window frame, ruby eyes looking like two red moons. Small furry lips mouthed the words, "Open the window."

As if in a trance, she got out of bed and approached the strange and peculiar creature. She would never understand why she had done it. Perhaps she had thought she was dreaming; perhaps she had wanted something to happen in her life. Regardless, she opened the window.

"Hello, little girl," the thing said in a warm, inviting voice. It spoke as if this were the most normal occasion in the world, as though they had known each other for eternity.

"H-h-hello? What are you?"

The thing sniggered. "So rude. I am Faron, a forager from a special land. What are you?"

"S-s-Shirley." She stammered on her name but did not feel humiliated. The thing didn't intimidate her.

"It's a lovely night, isn't it, Shirley? Look at the deep red of the sky. I know a place where the trees are just as red as that. And where the moon is always red."

"Where?"

"The Land of Eternal Innocence. Everything is red there: the grass, the flowers, the trees, even the air. The air is, how do you say, a light strawberry red. Us foragers are white to stand out. It's easy to get lost in innocence, isn't it? But you never regret it."

"A-are you like an angel?"

Faron smiled. "In a sense. I'm a bit too hairy to be an angel and I have these huge four-fingered hands." He held up a white-haired hand the size of Shirley's face. "And I don't have wings, but you may call me an angel if you want. I could call you an angel if I really wanted to. You look more angelic than I, Shirley."

She smiled. "Where is the Land of Eternal Innocence?"

"I can only tell you if you answer one question, my dear. Is that okay?"

She nodded.

"Do you wish you were younger? Do you want to go back to a time when everything was easier? When you didn't have to worry about time and age and work and grades. A time when life was innocent and all the flowers were roses?"

Everything about this felt like a prank, and yet Faron's eyes danced with an alluring honesty. She felt compelled to answer. "I want to go back to when I was young and had both my parents, and when I didn't have to get a job or do work. Is that what the Land of Eternal Innocence is? A place of fun?"

Faron nodded and his red eyes flared like two suns. "Hence the name, my dear." His voice was as warm as melted caramel.

"Take me there!"

"You'd have to leave your current life behind. You'll have to invite the past back into your life."

"Take me there!" she repeated. There was a slither of smile on her face.

"Come outside with me then. That's it, through the window. You're very tall, you know." He helped her out the window and set her on the hard earth. She looked down at her feet. "I'm not wearing any shoes or any proper clothes, just a nightdress." she said.

Faron looked down at his own feet -- large, white haired and splayed with three toes. "Neither am I. The ground is hard anyway. Come on, take my hand. Let's talk as we walk." He pushed his huge hairy fingers around her small clammy hand and took her in his stride.

"Where is this place?" she asked as they walked down the dusty path.

"It's a secret place. Only us foragers know of it. Once you are there, you can't leave. Does that sound bad? Oh well, trust me, when you get there it's not worth leaving."

"But how did you find me?"

"Well, when you want something bad enough, things can happen. Us foragers seek out everyone who wishes they were a child again. I've been watching you for some time, actually. I was there yesterday in the bakery. You were treated cruelly."

"You were there?"

"You couldn't see me, nobody could, but I was there. Being a teenager isn't all its jacked up to be, is it?"

"It's not. It's horrible. My father told me that it is meant to be the best time of your life, but I don't believe that at all."

Faron shook his small round head. "Never trust those people. People like that hate where they are in life, suicidal. If you want to relive the teenage years, you've got to be insane."

Shirley wasn't sure when it had happened or how, but they were now in a tall pine forest, crunching over bracken and sticks. Owls hooted nervously around them.

"Almost there," Faron said. "Tell me more about why you dislike being a teenager."

"I just don't like the stress and the pain of it all. My mom and I are always moving; how am I supposed to build the foundation of my life on such a shaky surface?"

"I understand what you mean. Well, I've spoke to a lot of teenagers like you when I took them all to the Land, and they all say the same thing. These adults telling their kids it's the best time of their life are crazy. I think we should lock all those parents up. They're liabilities."

Shirley didn't reply. She was too fascinated with the change around her. Once again, without her awareness, the world had transformed. The trees around were now red willows, crimson leaves obscuring pink trunks. The leaves looked like red rivers, long and thin. The grass had bloomed into a vibrant scarlet, ripe with idyllic roses.

"This is....this is crazy," Shirley awed. "What is this?"

"This is the Land of Eternal Innocence, dear Shirley. Pluck a rose at your feet. Doesn't it smell of innocence?"

She plucked a rose and held it to her nose. It smelt of innocence, of youth. Of happier days.

"I'll take you to the center, where we keep all the people who want to be forever young." She kept the rose in her hand and he took her beneath the tumbling cherry willows and into the centre of the red land.

The blood red land.

Beneath the tallest cherry lace trees were a number of small children -- most not older than five -- standing in a small enclosure fenced off with white picket. The long sinuous leaves had been stretched from the trees and inserted on the children's heads. The leaves pulsed as they sucked something out of the child's skull.

Sucked the innocence, of course.

She turned back to Faron but the creature was no longer smiling. There were other foragers behind him, tall and white, heads were like dandelion flowers. Their red eyes were sinister.

"Get in the pen, Shirley," Faron commanded. His voice was no longer warm. "You asked for this. You welcomed this into your life; you invited this." He grabbed her forcefully in his large four-fingered hand and placed her inside the pen with the other children.

Another Forager uncoiled a strand of red from the trees as though it were rope and bought it over. Shirley tried to back away but strong hands seized her from behind and the rope was attached to her head. At first she felt as though something were kissing her skull...and then pain. She felt pain.

She tried to pull the thing off of her head but it didn't budge. The leech was too tight. She looked around at the Land of Eternal Innocence but she didn't see the dreams of her youth, she saw the nightmares of her past. The Foragers no longer looked friendly, they looked like skeletons. The trees no longer looked like willows, the tree-heads were veins. The long laces were flowing with blood.

Veins.

"Every second you are attached to the trees of life, you are losing your years," Faron said as he separated himself from the sea of white creatures. "You will become younger every day until you are but a foetus and even then you will weaken until you reach the pre-birth stage -- where you will simply cease exist."

"Why?" Shirley screamed.

"To keep the Land of Eternal Innocence alive, of course. To keep us alive. The Foragers feed from this forest." He took a venous tube from a tree and sucked on the end of it, using it like a straw. When he pulled his mouth away his lips were red.

"You wanted this, Shirley. We only take those who truly want to relive the past. Enjoy your youth while it lasts."

The Foragers splintered, disappearing behind the red trees, heading back out into the bloody night to reclaim any other lost souls. Shirley wondered if she would still be here to see them return.

She turned to the young girl next to her, with frizzy hair and freckles. Her blue eyes were dancing with excitement, but she wasn't smiling.

"How long have you been here?" Shirley asked.

The little girl turned her head with a crack. "I'm used to be thirty years old."

Shirley screamed and jumped away from the girl. The words were not scary, but the voice was. The child actually sounded as though she were thirty years old. As if inside she was still the same, only exteriorly changed.

A brown-eyed and blonde haired boy held Shirley's hand. The wind blew around them and the trees whirled in a blizzard of blood. "Look at me," the boy said.

Shirley looked. She recognised the voice.

She recognised the eyes.

"Oh god...oh god!" she yelled but her voice was lost in the wind.

The young boy nodded pensively. "I messed up, Shirley. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have walked out on you and your mother."

"Why-why are you here?"

"My new wife left me. I wanted to get away from the pain, to go back to the easier times. I'm sorry to see you here, Shirley. I loved you. I never should have walked out on you or your mother."

He gripped her hand tighter.

"It'll all be over soon," her father whispered.

She closed her eyes and forgot about the pain in her skull. She let the delusions of the cherry-lace trees consume her. In her mind, she was reliving the happier days. The days when she never felt like an outcast.

THE END

Bio: In Mr. Tatam's spare time, when he's not writing, he enjoys reading online magazines like Aphelion and contacting the authors in each issue to express his views on the stories showcased. His last Aphelion appearance was Gumballs in our August, 2015 issue which was voted into our "Best of 2015" issue.

E-mail: James Tatam

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.