Dark faces, light faces, short and tall, old, young, and those in between, clustered around the central stairway from Bough One all the way to the top of the canopy at Bough Seven. In that narrow, vertical space, the silent gathering appeared vast. A light breeze rustled through the needles, the soft whoosh mixing with inhalations, exhalations, and quiet weeping.
Wingnut stood beside me along the edge of the crowd on Bough One. We’d hurried over from the clinic. My mother remained behind, monitoring Hamamalis in between sewing and bandaging the injured. I would have stayed to help, but she insisted Wingnut and I attend the Feeding Ceremony. “Their future doctor needs to be there, in community with them. Lend a shoulder to the bereaved,” she said.
I glimpsed Cassia and Cedrus near the center, his arm wrapped jealously around her. Her eyes, like those of most of the crowd, were red-rimmed and swollen. Cedrus’s mouth was clamped tightly in a grimace, his eyes hooded under heavy brows. The sorrow and despair weighted me down, threatened to suffocate me. My skin crawled, every nerve on alert. I bounced one leg, wiggled the other, desperate to flee, forcing myself to stay. I felt a tickle on my fingertips and glanced down. Wingnut’s muscular hand brushed mine, his fingers thrummed against my palm. I looked up at him, startled by the contact. He hated this, too. Too many people. Too much emotion. Too much—everything. I wrapped my pinkie finger around his, drawing strength from his companionable discomfort. I turned my attention to the tiny white-haired woman ascending the stairs.
All eyes followed her as she climbed, her cedar rain cape flowing behind her. When she’d climbed several steps and positioned herself above the heads of the Bough One crowd, she stopped and faced us. Her intelligent brown eyes skimmed over the assembled faces. She saw me standing awkwardly beside Wingnut and her lips curved in a barely perceptible smile. My grandmother, Councilor Butia.
Barely five feet tall, her bones sharp and bent, her presence held the crowd. What she lacked in stature she more than made up for with her voice. Deep, gravelly, and resonant, it was calm and nurturing, commanding and powerful. She was cunning and politically agile. She accurately gauged the mood of the people, made difficult decisions, and somehow convinced others to live with the consequences. My mother said she was cold-blooded, a raptor feasting on the weak. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I knew there was no love lost between my mother and my grandmother.
Butia had been the Councilor of the Council of Maestros for as long as I could remember. She’d outlasted plenty of powerful leaders. Despite what my mother thought of her, I supposed she must be loved by most of the climbers. Otherwise, why would they continue to select her to serve? Butia was unusual in another way. She was old, ancient by our standards. It was not only unusual for a seventy-five-year-old to be the Councilor, it was unusual for a seventy-five-year-old to be alive. If a member of the canopy lived past sixty—and with all the hazards of life in the treetops, that was a big if—they more likely than not suffered from arthritis or rheumatism, possibly even the wasting disease. Unfortunate individuals like Thevetia lost their memories or personalities. Some developed blindness, a death sentence in the canopy. A seventy-five-year-old woman with none of those ailments, fully in command of her mental faculties and as physically healthy as a woman decades younger was more than an anomaly.
Though she was my grandmother, I didn’t look anything like her. Joshua had shared her brown eyes and petite build, her cunning intelligence, her unsettling ability to see and know all. I was the female version of her life partner, my grandfather, the doctor before Michelia. Tall and gangly, awkward and pale. My mother and I had inherited his heterochromia, our trademark blue eye and green eye passed down through generations along with the suffocating expectations of our ancestor Pseudotsuga.
“My fellow climbers.” Her voice rang out from the central stairway. “Our canopy has sustained a tremendous, heart-rending loss. We have lost many loved and valued members of our shared family. We who are assembled here are like the First Climbers. We have survived when others have not. Let us think on that for a moment.”
Around me, heads bowed and eyes closed. I bowed my head, too. Butia might call us family, but it felt weird to close my eyes even among familiar community members, so I kept them open. I tried to catch Wingnut’s eye, but his eyes were shut, giving him a sweet little kid look.
“Great Ones, we thank you for our lives, for sheltering and protecting us through this latest storm and every day of our lives. We obey the commandments of The Book of Silvanus transcribed by that wisest of climbers, Pseudotsuga, and protected by the First Climbers, so that we all might be educated by the words. We take only what we need. We produce only to replace. We acknowledge that all spirits are equal.”
Butia’s voice caressed and hypnotized us. We rested in the soft cocoon she wove around us. She continued, “We offer you, in gratitude, the bodies of our loved ones, our family in the trees. As you feed and nurture us all the days of our lives, so we will feed and nurture you all the days of our death. We offer you our sustenance from the north to the south and from the east to the west.”
Her rasping voice became insistent. “Everyone, let us thank the Great Ones together.”
As one, we recited the words we’d all learned on the laps of our parents and teachers when we were young: “The Great Ones shelter and clothe and feed us. Protect us while we live, oh Great Ones, and when we die, we will feed you.”
Everyone opened their eyes and raised their heads. The ceremony part of the Feeding Ceremony had ended. Now for the feeding part. Butia commanded, “The west side has had its fill. The storm saw to that. Maestro Hamamalis is in clinic, so we will ask only three maestros to administer the feeding. Boughs One and Two, you will feed the north side with me. Boughs Three and Four, you will feed the south side with Maestro Drypetes. Five and above, Maestro Wollemia will feed your dead to the east side.”
The crowd began to disperse, moving off to gather the wrapped bodies of the storm victims. Butia cleared her throat loudly. “One last reminder. None of us has escaped this tempest unscathed. The storm was a warning to us all. The Great Ones are angry. We must all be aware of our actions and those of our fellow climbers.” Her voice boomed. “The commandments must be followed!”
In all my time living in the canopy, I never witnessed so massive a Feeding Ceremony. So many bodies. So much death. All that week, we had ceremonies twice daily: one in the morning for those who had died in the night, and one in the evening for those who hadn’t lasted through the day. In the extreme heat, even two feedings a day wasn’t often enough.
After that first week, the feeding ceremonies were intermittent. Smaller ceremonies continued throughout the month. Many of the wounded sickened and died of secondary infections, especially those with burns and crush injuries. Michelia worked at the clinic night and day. I ran from one home visit to the next, up and down the canopy, and still the ceremonies continued. Throughout the month, we fed three corners: north, south, and east. The west had feasted during the storm. And with the bridges out, we had no way left to get there.
No matter how Michelia and I labored, no matter how many patients we treated, the feeding ceremonies didn’t stop. They had scarcely begun.