Walking the Tree by Kaaron Warren

they are eating cake. I don't want to miss out."
      "I'm not coming. I don't want to see those people."
      Lillah wondered what he was up to. She followed him to the Trunk of the Tree, and heard him whispering into its Bark, "This is the teller Dickson. Today I had sex with both Lillah and Melia, because they wished me to seed them before they left. This was my duty for the day."
      Lillah waited until he was gone, then whispered over his tell, "No, he didn't."
      As the moment for departure approached, Lillah felt as if she was awakening, that she was in that moment just before, that moment when defences are down and a different, internal reality takes over. This is the time Lillah felt frightened. Sometimes she tried to fight it, other times she gave in to the randomness of it. There was a sense of green, and a sense of big. This bigness filled her brain to the very edges. The bigness took all the space, till there was room for nothing but bigness. And the bigness was green. This green filling was frightening because she had no control over it. It wasn't like the times they drank too much sap wine; those times the body was uncontrollable, but the brain didn't care. This bigness filled her and she just had to let it be.
      The whole Order came out to the water. Excitement filled the air with noise: eating, collecting messages for people, last-minute conversations about important things. The pot thrower lined up pot after pot, although he was not completely happy with the clay.
      "Too dry. It misses something."
      Lillah gave her childhood doll, Treesa, to one of the little girls too young for school, who hugged it to her chest. No point leaving it, no point taking it. She would make a new doll for any child she had; this doll should stay here.
      Myrist cleared his throat three times but didn't speak.
      "What is it, Myrist? If you have something to say, now is the time. Any messages you send after me will be lost in translation, you know that."
      "I know I shouldn't worry. I want you to be careful, though. Be observant. Watch everyone and everything carefully. Don't let a racing pulse lead you to make a wrong choice. Look at the surroundings. Notice everything. Some Orders appear to be friendly but beneath there lies anger and fear."
      "I'll be able to tell," Lillah said.
      "Some Orders will try to terrify you into making the choice they want you to make. Some places will show you the consequences of a wrong choice."
      Lillah's brother chimed in, "Nasty little babies, twisted and in pain. Dead babies." He kissed his own baby on the head.
      A shout went up, signifying a catch of crab. Logan held out his baby for someone to take. "They'll be an age yet, bringing it in. They don't need you," Lillah said. "Sit with me and talk for longer. What about what we've been talking about, our message?"
      Logan smiled. "Do you think it will work?"
      "It's worth a try."
      "All right. When you've been gone two years, I'll send you a message. You send it back to me as you hear it. And we'll see!"
      "We'll see how clever our messengers are. How much information is changed by the sending. They won't believe us, but it's worth a try, don't you think?"
     
    In an informal ceremony around talkfire, but an important one, all the women whose birth Orders were elsewhere around the Tree came one by one with gifts for the teachers to deliver. Lillah found it hard to remember. It was Agara who had the good memory; she took the poem to heart.
      There were painted leaves for Parana, coloured sand for Arborvitae and shells for Sargassum.
      Thea sat apart, plucking out her hair, peeling her dry skin. She held her bonsai on her lap. Agara's father approached her and said, "You understand we must only send the best? It is our responsibility, to keep us strong."
      "I'm not strong," said Thea. She rose above them, then, towering high and clenching her fist.
      Melia's father tapped his temple. "Not in