The afternoon light streamed through the branches above me, becoming brighter as I approached the sky. I’d climbed to the twelfth bough, far above the legal limit, and crossed into the Outer Reaches hand over hand, sweat flowing, adrenaline pumping, feeling every hair on my arms, legs, and scalp extend into the air as if to catch the breeze and float me between the trees like an orb weaver. But unlike those eight-legged creatures, I had no proteinaceous silk to catch me if I fell. No rope, no net, nothing but the roots far, far beneath the Great Ones, the giant Douglas firs that we lived among. Boughs and branches and twigs could compound my fractures, breaking fingers, arms, and thigh bones. They’d impale me, gut my torso, and break my head. Precisely this threat of danger, the adrenaline rush of tempting a painful death, pushed me onward.
Life had ended too soon for many others: frail kids sickened and died; elders withered; some of our parents even fed the Great Ones. Those were the unlucky others. Not me. I was smart and agile. I knew how far I could push myself, and I rarely did anything stupid. The few times I’d gotten hurt, I healed quickly.
I sat leaning against an outer trunk, dangling my legs from the too-thin, weak branch, my heart in my throat as the wood creaked, bending beneath my weight. I repositioned my gangly self—I do physically resemble a spider in many respects—and hung from my legs, reaching out with my arms to feel for a stronger limb. I swung back and forth, gathering speed, then whooped and released, dropping down to a lower limb. The adrenaline buzzed through my brain, and I was breathless and happy.
I was the first one to arrive at our hangout spot, so I found an area where the needles grew thickly and concealed myself. To know the truth about anyone else, you must eavesdrop. Imagine all the secrets a spider hears from the dark corners between the branches.
I’m not saying everyone is a liar, but most people don’t tell the truth. Some, like my poor excuse for a father, lie to save their sorry selves, but most people conceal things from you because they think you’re too young, or they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Maybe they themselves don’t know the whole truth. Early on, I learned that the only one you can trust is yourself.
Wingnut wasn’t coming to the Outer Reaches. He’d told us earlier that morning, but none of us ever expected him to join us. We always invited him, but he never came. Sorbus teased him about not coming along. He accused Wingnut of staying behind to flirt with the women of Bough Six. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought Sorbus was jealous. Wingnut was tall, handsome, strong, and had charisma for days. He often entertained young women in his shanty on Bough Seven. I knew more about Wingnut’s sexual encounters than I cared to—Salix made certain of that.
According to Salix, all of the Bough Six women were crazy for Wingnut. And as quickly as the name of Wingnut’s current lover changed, so too did the person that Salix and her friends shunned.
On the branch beneath me, I heard a loud grunt followed by laughter and some jocular cursing, and I knew that Mangrove and Sorbus had arrived. I repositioned myself and peered through the limbs over their heads. They were jostling each other roughly. Of course, like idiots, they weren’t wearing climbing ropes. I wasn’t wearing climbing ropes either, but I wasn’t wrestling anyone on top of a twelfth bough, and frankly I was a much better climber than either of them.
Mangrove and Sorbus had been best friends since childhood, but they couldn’t have been more different. Mangrove was wiry and quick. His curly light brown hair framed his sand-colored face like a pruned shrub, spirals of hair tightening as it grew. The springiness of his hair matched the tautness of his body. I wondered whether his limbs relaxed when he slept; I couldn’t imagine what that looked like in him. He was constantly in motion, his brown eyes darting side to side beneath his thick brows, missing nothing. He leaned his back against a tree trunk, bounced a leg nervously, and picked fir needles from his curly hair.
Sorbus was short, dark, and stump-like. He lay face up on the branch, balanced on his spine, and stretched his muscular ebony arms and legs off each side. Black hair covered his arms like a pelt. Although in his teens like the rest of us, Sorbus already had a beard thicker than most men twice his age. His long black curls had locked together as his hair grew, and he wore the thick tangles pulled into a sloppy ponytail. The long, thick mass of hair pillowed his head on the branch.
“Hey, losers! Give me a hand up. This limb I’m standing on is groaning like it’s about to break!” yelled a female voice below them.
“That’s cuz you eat too much, fat ass.” Sorbus rolled to his stomach and reached his massive arms down to haul up Salix. Slightly smaller and much less hairy than her brother, Salix was also short, dark, and solid. That was where their similarities ended.
“No more than you, tubby.” She fluffed her halo of dark curls. Her eyes flickered toward Mangrove, who studiously ignored her. “Where’s your sweetheart? Your squeeze?” She gasped, threw her head back, and uttered several suggestive, high-pitched sighs. “Your heart’s true desire?”
“Shut up, Salix.”
“Stood you up, did she?” Salix plopped down on the limb beside Sorbus and picked at a hangnail. “It’s that rancid odor of desperation you give off. Keeps the girls away.”
“Sorbus, can you do something about this? She is your sister, after all.”
“Just because we shared a womb doesn’t mean I have any control over her.”
“Born two seconds before you. Means I’m the boss, possum-breath.”
Sorbus swung his arms and legs off the limb again. “Ignore her. Eventually she’ll go away. Like a fly.”
“More like a mosquito. She’ll bite us full of holes before she leaves.”
“Aw, come on you guys. You know you love me. Who else is gonna tell you the truth? But seriously. Where is Ostrya? I haven’t seen her all day.”
Mangrove shrugged and looked away. Salix rolled her eyes and turned her attention to her brother. “How did your meeting go, Sorbus? Did you get the traineeship with Cedrus?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s great!” She punched his arm. “So, give me the details. What did he say? I mean, you certainly weren’t his first choice.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Sorbus rubbed his arm.
“Come on, don’t be like that. Tell me what happened! I need details.”
“Four of us applied. Canopy needs builders, so they took all of us.”
“Yeah, but how’d you get Cedrus? I’m sure the other three wanted to work with him. He’s the best. Everyone knows that.” Salix was a know-it-all. Even when she had no clue.
“Salix, geesh. Do you really think I suck that hard? That he wouldn’t choose me?”
Salix pressed her brother. “Just tell me. How’d you get it?”
Sorbus rolled his eyes. “Cedrus chose last.”
Salix whooped. “I KNEW it! You only got Cedrus because he had no other choice!”
“Mangrove, do you know how lucky you are NOT to have a sister?”
“I thank the Great Ones.”
I’d been on the receiving end of Salix’s needling many times myself. If she weren’t my only female friend, well, I wouldn’t have any. It was time to make my entrance, so I pretended I’d just arrived. “Hey! Are you guys down there?” I called.
“Hey there, Ostrya! Get on down here!” yelled Salix.
I swung out of the tree to Salix’s far side. Mangrove stepped beneath me; his arms extended upward as if I needed help. Really insulting when you consider I could climb circles around him.
“You gonna move?” I shimmied down the tree trunk, my thighs clenched tightly to its girth and my fingernails digging into the bark.
“I thought … an extra hand …,” he said.
I snorted, kicked his arms away, and jumped down to the branch. I dusted off my thighs and blew my loose, tangled hair out of my eyes.
Mangrove’s eyes roamed from my legs to my stomach, and then upward. When his eyes finally reached my face and I met them with a clear look of my own, he reddened, which of course set me off into a blush. I turned my head to find a seat and moved over next to Salix.
“So, how’s everyone?” I asked brightly, hoping Salix didn’t mention my burning cheeks. I had no desire to be her next victim.
“Yeah, so my dumb brother got chosen by Cedrus.”
“Hey! That’s great news, Sorbus,” I said.
His eyes flickered over to me, and a hint of smile touched his lips.
“He was the only one left. Cedrus had no other options.”
I shot her a look, but she ignored me. We both knew that when it came to treating brothers kindly, I had little to say. But Sorbus had talked about this traineeship for the past year. “Cedrus is lucky to have you,” I said.
“Want to know about my traineeship?” asked Mangrove, staring at me.
“Sure, tell us,” said Salix.
“I’ll be answering to Maestro Hamamalis.”
“Maestro Hamamalis heads up the agriculture crew. I didn’t know you wanted to garden.” Salix expressed the surprise I also felt.
“No, I won’t be a gardener. I’m going to be a hunter.”
“Do you need a traineeship for that? I mean, grab a spider stick and whack away.”
Sorbus sneered. “Duh, Salix. When was the last time you ate a spider? Where do you think the meat at the market comes from? A team of hunters supplies the meat for all us climbers. Hunters are the only ones allowed to kill prey.”
“Well, technically we’re the only ones allowed to take more than we need, because we provide for others,” said Mangrove. “Any of you could kill to protect yourselves, like from a spider. And you could hunt to feed your family, but only your family.”
When Joshua and I were kids, Yew had taught us to use slingshots on tiny prey. Anything we’d slain, we’d had to eat: All spirits are equal. You take a life only to prolong your own. Joshua had understood immediately, but I’d eaten a vast quantity of beetles before I learned my lesson.
“The hunters kill more than they need, so they report to Maestro Hamamalis, along with the gardeners,” said Sorbus.
Salix shook her head. “I didn’t know that. Did you know that Ostrya?”
“I knew Yew got the meat for the market from the hunters. I guess I never thought about who the hunters were. Seems silly, because we’d starve without them,” I said.
“We wouldn’t starve without them. We could always eat plants. Like Wingnut. He’s a vegetarian,” said Salix.
“Can’t you go one hour without saying his name?” said Sorbus.
“I was just … he’s the only vegetarian I could think of.”
“We couldn’t all be vegetarians. Do you know how many plants we’d need?”
“If we were all gardeners—”
“It still wouldn’t work. Not enough sunny places to grow as much as we’d need.”
Salix’s expression indicated that she was about to dig in for a great sibling debate, so I changed the subject. “So, Mangrove, who’s your teacher?”
He grinned, thrilled to have the attention. “No traineeship. They tested my aim with the bow and arrow, my skill with the climbing rope, and boom! Done! I’m a hunter.”
“I’m super excited,” said Salix. “Wollemia chose me, out of everyone. Me. I’ll be designing and making clothing.”
“Really?” The word slipped out of my mouth and I instantly regretted it. I tried to explain myself, but I only made it worse. “I mean, I’m surprised you want to work on Bough One, all those old people and little kids—”
“So what? You’re working on Bough One.”
“I mean, I never thought, working fiber seems so, so … not like …”
“You know, Ostrya, some of us have to choose for ourselves. We don’t all get to be a doctor because mommy says so. Not all of us are born into such an important family.”
Her words stung. Her intention was to hurt, her tone was sarcastic, but all she said was true. And if I was being honest, my words had been insensitive and stupid. She was so smug and selfish dismissing Sorbus and Mangrove with a flick of her tongue. I guess I wanted to hurt her. But I couldn’t stomach being the bad guy. “I’m sorry, Salix! I didn’t mean it like that! Fiber is an important job—the entire community needs clothing and blankets, and—” I didn’t know what else Wollemia’s fiber team did. “What I meant was, you know, I thought you’d want something more, um, physical maybe? Up in the canopy, I don’t know …”
Salix punched me in the arm. “Dude, don’t hurt yourself. No need to apologize. I love working with fiber—and I’m good at it! I’m gonna learn everything. Wollemia can barely sew anymore, her arthritis is so bad. I’m gonna do all the fine work—so much more than the other trainees.”
I barely heard her. My heart was pounding and my head was spinning, not the good turbulence like when I’m climbing, but the sick feeling I wake up with in the morning when I think of all the people I’ll have to smile at and greet. Salix was my friend, and I didn’t even know how to talk to her. How was I supposed to learn how to talk to patients?
Salix elbowed me in the side. “Hey, come on! You’re gonna be a great doctor. You’re smart. You’re gonna learn all the bones and medicine recipes and, whatever, wicked fast.”
I nodded and forced a smile. To my relief, Salix moved on to other prey. Her roommate Toona was pining after Sorbus, and this was apparently hilarious beyond measure.
The chartreuse larva of a Geometridae moth dropped from a small branch at my eyeline. I found it odd that they were called inchworms, since they were at least half a foot long. The Book of Silvanus classified the arachnids and arthropods living on the earth and in the trees. Generations ago, the Book claimed, insects and spiders were so small they would fit in the palm of your hand. The oxygen increases generated by the Great Ones had allowed them to grow ever larger; that’s what my mother explained. Of course, she believed in the Book. But such small orb weavers and beetles and inchworms—I didn’t believe they ever existed.
I bit a hangnail while I considered the worm drifting in the breeze. Blood welled up around my cuticle and I pressed my index finger against it to staunch the bleeding.
“Ostrya?” Mangrove had settled in beside me without my realizing.
I glanced at him and he reddened again, but he didn’t look away. His direct gaze was unnerving, and my heart began to beat loudly in my chest. I was sure he must be able to hear it. His brown eyes were soft and concerned. “What’s wrong? We’re talking about our new jobs. You don’t seem excited about yours.”
“I don’t get to choose, do I?” It came out more bitterly than I’d intended.
Salix stopped midsentence in her diatribe about her roommate. “What do you mean, Ostrya? We all thought you wanted to be a doctor.”
“No, not really.”
“Oh? What traineeship do you want?”
“It’s not about the traineeship. Or not only. It’s about everything. All of it.”
“Why do you have to make everything so serious all the time?” Salix fluffed her hair again. “You’re too intense. Relax. It won’t kill you.”
I was sick of being considered weird, especially by her. She’d look at me in a pitying way and shake her head. It was infuriating. And anger made me honest for once. “Don’t you ever wonder what else there is? Beyond these trees? Beyond these pathways? Outside of the canopy?”
“Ummm, earthwalkers and cannibals,” she said. Sorbus nodded his head in agreement. Even Mangrove seemed puzzled by my question.
“Earthwalkers and cannibals. Really? You believe all that duff they tell us when we’re little? Where’s the proof?”
Salix stared at me. “You know what happened. Earthwalkers destroyed everything down below and there was nothing left to eat, no plants or animals, so they started eating each other. Our ancestors escaped into the trees. Anyone left alive down there, as unlikely as that would be, eats human flesh. So, what else do you need to know?”
I’d started with this honesty thing and there was no stopping whatever came tumbling out. “What’s the point of it all?”
“The point of what?”
“We’re caged like those fantastical animals in The Book of Silvanus. The elephants and tigers. But we’ve caged ourselves. We’re both the zoo animals and the keepers. I mean, we’re born in these trees, we live in these trees, we die in these trees. We’re not allowed to climb past Bough Seven. We’re not allowed to climb into the Outer Reaches. That’s a pretty small area to live a life.
“And then, what do our lives look like? We figure out what job we want to do for the entire rest of our time in the trees, we do it every day until we’re too old to do it, and then we fall out of the trees, or get high and jump. Our lives are no different than our parents’ lives, their parents’ lives, all the way back to the First Climbers. That’s all our lives amount to. You want to see your future? Look at your parents.”
Sorbus and Mangrove stared at me like I’d consumed the clinic’s entire supply of psilocybin mushrooms. “You forgot falling in love and having sex and being partnered and having babies, though,” said Salix.
“Oh, yeah. How could I forget? Life is so satisfying that we create more people to come after us and enjoy the same exciting life. Nothing changes for anyone ever.”
“You’re even more sunshiny than usual this afternoon.” Salix rolled her eyes and stood up, signaling the end of the conversation as far as she was concerned. Sorbus stood, shrugged his shoulders, and the twins began making their way back to the legal limits.
Mangrove remained, dangling his feet over the branch. We sat in companionable silence, independently together, watching the inchworm descend on its invisible thread. After a while, he said, “Ostrya? What do you want? What would make you happy? If you could do anything?”
In that moment, it seemed as though the sunlight through the upper branches condensed into one ray and lit my heart with a warm orange glow. I turned my head and considered him, watching me with those needy brown eyes. He didn’t look away. He didn’t blush. He wasn’t thinking of me that way. He was simply thinking of me.
I said, “I want to climb down.”