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In the shadow of the Tree
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SNOW ON THE WINDSCREEN flashed with the bright glow of lightning inside the storm. Again and now, thunder rolled over the cab, echoing. A bolt of lightning struck close to the car, a weird green glow behind it all, the combination of flashes and sound so overwhelming that Vertu eased the cab to a halt.
Thunder died away, yet the wind-driven snow remained too thick to see through as the car shook. The passengers said nothing for several minutes, listening to Toragin’s coos and the cat’s undernoises when they could be heard over the storm’s constant rumble.
Vertu, fearing for alertness, recalled the coffee and, with it, the food.
"I cannot see to drive at this moment. I can share some food, if you can take coffee – "
Toragin had water for her and the cat. She declined coffee but accepted a half-handwich; the others were pleased to get something – the recumbent driver in the back being allowed to partially sit up to sip at one of the cups passed to the rear seat.
Amid thanks and sips it took a moment for Vertu to realize that the cab’s wind-inspired trembling had nearly stopped; indeed, the snow was no longer falling slantwise. Her cab’s lights gained range, though how much was hard to gauge in the soft-edged whiteness.
"Might be over!" Yulie said, startling everyone else in the near silence.
Vertu let the windscreen clean itself; now only tiny flakes fell, the density and demeanor of the storm fallen to flurry that quickly.
"Guess the lightning blew it out," suggested the other cab driver. "Must've been one last huff of wind!"
Anna spoke then, sounding as certain as a priestess:
"We are in the Old One's shadow. It knows where we are and has sucked the storm into itself!"
Despite the outside temperature, now well below frost point, Vertu lowered her window briefly, allowing a few fine crystals of flurry to drift in on a lazy clean-smelling breeze. Peering forward, up the road, she felt that she knew exactly where the Tree was.
"Ten minutes it’d be from here in dry weather," Yulie volunteered, "might be eight if you was hurrying. Guessing two or three time that now, driving careful. Do that – drive careful, 'cause it’s a heckuva walk in the snow. Even if the wind’s gone."
Another brilliant crystal of snow flitted into the window before Vertu sealed it.
"Three," said Toragin. "Three kittens so far. They will want a warm place to sleep tonight."
The rest of the drive was not uneventful – there was the arrival of the fourth kitten to begin with, and then there was the moment when the cab’s entire structure began to glow, starting with a light misty haze and then with a vivid blueish glow that slowly phased to green.
"Salmo’s Fire!" Yulie said excitedly. "Salmo’s Fire happens when them electrons gets all into a plasma and settles tight around something that can trade electrons around it. I’ve seen it on quiet nights hanging on 'quipment tips and stuff. My brother had it ball up at the end of his rifle one night when we was out ..."
Yulie let the sentence die then, like the memory might be best if left unstirred, but everyone in the cab could feel the glow dancing across their skins. Chelada's fourth kitten was born then, enveloped along with her mother in the pulsing green. Vertu felt her hair standing away from her head, and saw motion in the "fire" itself, as if the kittens were, one by one, petted and soothed by the action of the plasma, the final kitten getting an extra helping.
"I don’t do much dreaming but I could think I was dreaming this whole thing!" Again Yulie caught the mood of the cab, but the glow was real, reflecting back into the vehicle from the surrounding snow for several eerie minutes until it faded infinitesimally to normal.
Vertu’s glance flitted from interior to exterior, the night’s darkness gaining depth as clouds rapidly dissipated; now only the instrument lights lit the interior.
The darkness outside wasn’t complete since the cab's lights played over the snow covered road and the snow covered vegetation. Vertu glanced up, sensing –
Yes! There, where that glow was – that was where the Tree waited!
Toragin laughed. Vertu caught sight of the nursery as the new mother dabbed at the kittens, adjusting herself for their comfort. Toragin’s face was bright in the instrument lights. She gasped as the pinnacle of green was briefly visible between the line of vegetation that flanked the road before it hit another curve.
"There, that’s the Tree!"
"Old One!" said Anna, then something in that other language to Rascal, and perhaps to Mary, while Yulie muttered.
"'splains those pods right good. Darn thing’s got eyes can see all the way to town and more, don’t it?"
After a pause he went on –
"Prolly another three minutes, now, to my place. Me an' Mary, Anna an' Rascal'll just get out and walk in – no sense you going all the way in to the house, Miss Vertu, then havin' to come back out again. Been enough o'that recently. This fella here'll be better with the neighbors, and Miss Toragin and her family's got their invitation, and Miss Vertu'll do the smart thing, and let the neighbor take care of her tonight."
"Yes," said Vertu, thinking that the chances were very good, indeed, that Clan Korval's comms worked. She ought to call Cheever, and Jemmie. . .
"Here we're comin' up on it," Yulie said. "Just ease to a stop under that twisted tree there. Right, now –"
He stopped talking.
Vertu looked out the window, at the so-called driveway.
"That drift's taller than Anna," Mary commented. "I guess we could toss her and Rascal over it."
"Don't know how wide is it," Yulie said, sounding momentarily glum. "Not to say that leaves you an' me walking through up to our waists."
"We can do it."
"Well, sure, we can do it," said Yulie, rallying. "But do we gotta do it, that's the question."
There was a moment's silence.
"Well, no. We ain't gotta do it. We'll just all of us go on up the hill, if Miss Vertu'll still have us, and ask the neighbor do they have room."
He sniffed.
"Huh. Not sure where that come from. Like somebody whispered – welcome – inside my ear."
"An invitation," Toragin said surprisingly, "from the Tree. I have heard such whisperings myself."
"Guess that'll do until something official turns up," said Yulie.
Toragin gave a rueful laugh.
"Perhaps it will, at that," she said.