Aetherius Ulmus

            There was a story that circulated about Evington when I was a child. It began quite simply but as it spread each someone would add his something and it grew. In this way it was weaved really, passed along generations, from parent to parent, son to son, neighbor to neighbor, until it hardly resembled the crude, simple story it was intended to be. It became beautiful. It became ornate. It became legend. Legends have a way of staying with you. As we grow we begin to learn that the stories of our childhood are merely that: stories. Our imagination fades and we become men and women, unable to see through the foggy lens of childhood the mythical world which at one point masked everything in its wondrous illumination. Legends though, legends live. They are the basis which many of our supposedly “grown-up” fears and ambitions are planted in. They are responsible for who we are inside. They help to sew a small stitch in the fabric of our psyche, and some legends will remain with us till the morning we needn’t rise again. This is my legend.

            There is a church two miles down the road from my aunt’s old house. The road leading to it is smooth and paved. So smooth in fact that the children of the neighborhood sometimes questioned whether this was what the ascension into heaven might be like, gliding recklessly along, pedals even and horizontal with the road, hands squeezing bicycle grips for dear life. As the children would near the church they would have to pass by the churchyard where, whatever season it was in Evington, past that white, worn fence it was always December. The especially brave children might even stop their bicycles and dismount. Black, weathered Keds treading carefully upon the very perimeter of the hallowed ground. The same kids would later delight in the shocked faces of their comrades as they told of their courageous acts. Amusing themselves and their friends with the recounts of what they hadn’t seen. But within this Churchyard they daren’t go. Not even the bravest. Not even for all the glory of childhood.

            In that small rural town, near that smooth grey road, in that old, always December cemetery, there was a tree, a tall, impressive looking elm, with wide arms and a sleepy stance. Its roots spread like the tentacles of some ancient kraken. The bestial, muscular claws simultaneously sought their freedom from the soil and gripped tightly to it. It was said that the tree was a survivor of the primeval world and that its enormous branches were once the main food supply of great lizards and other prehistoric creatures. It was said that the tree was the very tree of knowledge that bore that prophetic fruit ever so long ago. It was said that the tree was a large creature that wasn’t really a tree at all. It was said that it looked as if the roots were all that was holding the colossus on land and that one blow from a hatchet to each was all that was needed for the tree to break free from its trusses and fly off into the sky. “Sever the roots,” they used to say “and it will float away.” These were just stories of course, made up by the children and believed only by those types which choose the fantastic over reality. The most accepted version of these sorts of stories was more complex by far.

            It was said that the tree drank shallow, that seven feet beneath its looming bulk lay a water table. It was also said that when it rained, water that passed through the soil also passed through the bodies buried there, and came to rest at that table just waiting for the tree to thirst. Some of the children even thought that this should qualify the tree as a carnivore, considering one of its main dishes was a sort of “human soup”. There were tales that the tree enjoyed the taste of people so much that it would use its branches to grasp the children that strayed into the churchyard and gobble them up. His aunt however, told him a different version.

            She told him that as the runoff crept slowly through the bodies of the dead, their souls became infused with it. She told him that if he ever got to missing either of his parents, which he often did as it had only been three years since the dreadful car accident that claimed both their lives, he could stroll down by the churchyard and talk to that elm. She said their spirits were inside, (along with others of course so he mustn’t say anything unsocial) and could hear him just fine. He liked this version best and visited the tree often. He would sit by the base of the elm and talk about his day at school, how his aunt was doing and what life was like now. The other children would have been amazed at his bravery if they only knew. In fact, nobody in all of Evington knew of the boy’s midday visits, he made sure of this. If others found out that the tree didn’t eat children in the least bit, he might never have it to himself.

            Soon his aunt began to take ill. She became very sick and was bedridden for over a month. The boy was forced to stay at home and take care of her. During that time, his visits to the churchyard were limited to short excursions at night after his aunt fell asleep. After this month of cooking, cleaning, emptying, filling and secreting away when he could manage, his aunt died. When the small sum that totaled the boy’s inheritance was spent, the unsympathetic landlord drew up an eviction form, posted it on the door and that was that. The day before he was to be cast out on the street was also the day before his eighteenth birthday. He cried and swore and blamed the world. Then, as if in a flood, the stories that made up his childhood rushed back to him. He remembered the legends that were woven into the very fabric of his childhood and he knew what he should do. Sever the roots and it will float away. He must leave. He rummaged through an old toolbox and located a small hand axe. He mounted his bike for the last time and rode as though the world was turning to flame at his heals. In the distance he could see the church through tear streaked, wind bleary eyes. He mashed down on the pedals with all his might and squeezed the handlebars tightly. He would soon be there.

            He found himself, after just ten minutes, standing hesitantly in front of the churchyard. Young eyes locked on that bestial titan. He crossed the gate, stepped between, over and around the graves and finally reached the largest of the thick, twisted roots. Sever the roots and it will float away. He knelt, rolled up his sleeves, held his breath and with all the power he could muster, landed a blow on the skin of it, cutting deep to the white. Another and it was cut. He did the same thing for the five others. As each root bent and snapped the most peculiar thing happened, the tree began to lift. So little at first that it was almost indiscernible, but with each rough finger that he split it rose until only one thick root held it tethered. He jumped onto the elm and with all his might heaved the axe downward onto the fat, dark tendril. The axe head plunged through the twisted root, into the soft dirt of the churchyard and the tree began to drift upwards, raising its sleepy branches towards the sky as it did so as if it was filled with new life. It floated up and into the clouds. It floated past farmland and trickling streams. It passed wild forests and lonely mountains, and the sky embraced it.

            The soft leaves rustled in the wind as the young boy sat on a long, broad limb.  The moonlight illuminated everything, turning the old elm into a shining, silver fairytale. It twisted and turned lightly in the wind but stayed upright as if it was conscious of its human passenger. Despite the calm movements of the tree, the boy held on until his knuckles were white and his legs asleep. Up ahead he could see a large barrel of clouds that masked the heavens further on and for the first time in a great while, he smiled.

            Police from nearby counties would be baffled later that night by a great deal of calls from concerned informants reaching from all corners of the region regarding “the strangest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

           

            In a small rural town, near a smooth grey road, in an old always December courtyard lies a small cement plaque in a large darkened circle. The ground here looks as if at one time or another, the soil was sheltered from the sun under the watchful arms of a great tree. The plaque reads “This is the very spot in which long ago the largest and most impressive tree in Evington disappeared over night without a trace. It has never been recovered.” What it really should read is “Here a boy left his ordinary world behind for the greatest adventure.”

“Sleepy and still, enormous and grey, it sits for a while, asleep in the clay, soon it will rise, to venture and play, just sever the roots and it will float away.”

-Unknown