One of my earliest memories is of sitting by the tree. I can feel Ennish’s shoulder against mine, and we are looking up the trunk at the roof where the moving dark reflects the lick of flames in the chimney. In the high, airy space between the roots of the upside-down tree, the rafters, and the thatch, some enormous creature stirs its flanks, tilts, and disappears.
“Our fathers’ fathers searched the coast for the tree,” grey-bearded Kelak is saying. “They towed it home, and buried its head so its roots hold up the roof of the Great House of Hornish.”
Ennish and I lean against each other and stare up the trunk at the roots knuckling into the darkness, at the rafters growing out of them like spokes of a wheel.
“The tree is our backbone. Its roots and the rafters are our ribs, and deep beneath the floor the tree’s head stands on the back of the god at the centre of the world.”
Kelak points down, and the faces of all the children of Hornish darken. He points up, and our faces lift into the light.
“That pattern of roots is the map of the journey the gods make across the world.”
I wriggle against Ennish. Gazing at the spaces between roof, roots, and rafters, we watch the gods swim on their vast journey.
“Without the whale, the tree would fall.” Kelak chants in his high old voice, and I watch Ennish’s lips move as we join in: “Without the tree, the Great House would fall: without the Selene to sing them home, the gods would lose their way: without the gods, the world would fall past the moon and into space.”