A Winter Story: Christmas Trees by Allison Ruvidich

In celebration of Christmas, I invited readers to write a story about the painting below. Enjoy the short stories submitted and have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Trees

by

Allison Ruvidich

O

n the coldest day of the year, the fire went out.

            The wavering smoke awoke Fatima: the soft, drifting smells of comfort and prosperity.  The smoke awoke her, but the expectation of tasseled ribbons and glossy paper brought her out of bed and rushing down the stairs.  A blanket cape fluttered behind her, and the cold stung a pale flush to her cheeks and nose.

            And there they were.  The presents.  Gleaming beneath evergreen boughs laden with blown-glass and sparkling tinsel, so warm and bright and so very, very beautiful.

            Then Fatima saw the threads of smoke, the grey hearth.  The absence of hope.

            Hadn’t she set more logs on before she went to bed?  Of course she had.  Or—or had she stared at the freshly-dressed tree in awe, picturing the wonders she would find there come morning?  Oh, how could she have done that?  And how displeased would her parents be?

            Then Fatima realized how quiet the house was.  How soft and grey the light that crept through the windows.  Fatima had always complained that her family slept in on Christmas morn; now she blessed them for it.

            Half a minute later, clad in a warm, sturdy dress and cape, Fatima bounded out the front door.  Tucked under her arm was one of the new books, now so delightfully inexpensive with a printing press come to a nearby town.  Snuggling her cloak around her, Fatima ran among the trees, her boots punching through the crisp snow. 

            If it had been cold inside, it was frigid without.  Snow had fallen over the evergreen forest, wreathing the dark green boughs in frosty white shells; the rising sun bounced and smiled and gleamed off every facet.  A few winter birds sang, their voices distant and lonesome as they waited for spring.

            Fatima helped herself to snow off a squat evergreen.  It tasted of damp new beginnings, pine and berries, and the early morning.  Delicious.

            “You’ll do quite well, Sir Tree,” she said, moving aside her cloak to reveal a hatchet hung from her belt.  She settled her feet in the snow and half-sung, half-mumbled a few strands of song.  “How lovely are thy branches…”

            With a determined grunt, she swung.  The axe bit deeply into the tree’s soft trunk, releasing the quiet, exciting scent of pine.

            “Oh…”

            Fatima, halfway back for another stroke, lowered her hatchet.

            “Hello?” she called out to the empty forest.  The soft needles kept her voice from echoing.  She could’ve sworn someone had groaned.  Fatima shrugged and drew back the axe.

            “Please…”

            This time Fatima knew she had heard something.  She stepped back as the evergreen tree shivered, its frosted boughs rippling.

            “That—that wasn’t you, was it?” she said in a low voice.  “’Course it wasn’t.  Ursa would die laughing if I thought trees could talk.”

            She fingered the axe uncertainly.

            “Kindly relinquish… your weapon.”

            The low, scraggly voice was muffled, but it unmistakably came from the tree.  Baffled, Fatima circled around its width until she came to the other side.  Pockmarks in the needles suggested a craggy face, rough, unformed, and a little frightening.

            “Much better,” the tree said in a voice as slow and deep as some great, forgotten cavern.  “I can see you now.  Cease from chopping me down.”

            “You can talk,” Fatima said, mystified.  “How is that possible?”

            “The same way you can, I imagine.  By using my mouth,” the tree said.  Its low, emotionless voice shivered up Fatima’s spine.  “Why would you strike me with your weapon?”

            “We need wood for the fire.  I let it go out, and it’s cold.”

            “Humbug!” the tree exclaimed.  No, not exclaimed.  It snarled the word.  “If you humans had the sense to have warm, thick needles like mine, and a strong, sturdy trunk, you wouldn’t find yourselves in so many silly predicaments.”

            “I can’t help the way I look, or I would look more like Ursa,” Fatima said crossly.  She had an increasing sense that by staying and talking to the tree, she was being naughty, and it made her feel guilty.

            “What is Ursa?”

            “She’s a pain in the neck.”  Fatima leaned on her axe.  “I’m sorry, but I need wood.  I’ll go and find some other tree.”

            “How will you choose who will die so you can be warm?” the tree asked.

            “I suppose you’re right.”  Fatima frowned.  “Maybe I…”

            She moved to return the axe to her belt; the pocket sprang open, and the book tumbled out, landing face-down on the snow.  Dampness spread across its yellow pages.

            “Oh, no!” Fatima said in dismay.

            The tree roared, an ancient sound of thunder and wind and wolves.  It reared on its trunk; the gap in the needles that was its mouth spread, and spread, and spread, until it encircled the tree almost halfway around.

            “Tree-killer!” it roared, “death to trees, waste, abominable waste!”

            Its roots churned at the soil, crawling, rising up, tearing the book in half from the spine, scattering pages.  A thick, gnarled root lashed out for Fatima.

            She screamed, slid on the damp snow, and ran, sprinting through a maze of evergreens.  Blindly she kept on, until the ground rose beneath her, and she tripped onto a stone bridge, bruising the bony parts of her knees.

            Fatima wept, from fear and from pain, as she raised her cheek from the frigid stone slab.  A swift stream churned beneath her, half frozen but still struggling along.

            In a distant sort of way, she wondered why the trees around her didn’t join their fellow in ripping her to pieces.  The thought made her start crying again.  In the distance, tree roots scraped over snow and ice and stones.  Coming toward the bridge.

            Fatima had to make a plan.  She had to escape the forest and make it home to open presents with her family.  There were so many things she had to do that didn’t involve dying alone on this bridge on Christmas Day.  But all she could see was the tree’s gaping mouth, stretching wider, wider, impossibly wide.

            And she was cold.  It rose from the bridge, through her dress, and into her bones.  It burned, it scratched; she fancied she heard it whispering in her ear, clucking for her to lie down again on the icy slab.  It radiated from the head of the axe at her side.

            She wanted to sleep.  She wanted to lie down and sleep forever beneath a protective layer of snow.

            “Why was its mouth so wide?”

            It took Fatima a moment to realize it was she who had spoken.  The logic of the question appealed to her, and she argued aloud.

            “Creatures adapt to their needs.  People are small, usually; the tree doesn’t need a mouth that big to eat people.  Therefore, people aren’t its food.”

            That thought cheered her somewhat, although the scraping still approached the bridge, and her teeth chattered.

            “And if it doesn’t eat people, what does it eat?”  She forced herself to hold her hands so far apart, ignoring the burrowing scrape of the tree coming closer.  “What’s this big?  Lots of things.  Benches.  Tables.  Chairs.  And what do they all have in common?  Carpenters make them.  They’re made of—“

            Wood.

            “The tree eats wood,” she said, mist rising from her mouth as well as truth.  Then she scrambled to her feet, wrenching the axe from her side.  She ran to the edge of the bridge.

            “You’re hungry,” she called to the approaching tree.  “I understand that.  And I have something to give you.”

            Triumphantly, she flung the axe into the woods.  The lower green boughs enveloped it; a muted crunch, and the tree swept past, leaving a dully shining metal axe-head in its wake.

            “It is stained with the blood of trees,” the tree rumbled.  “As are you.  It is not enough to reclaim my fallen brethren anymore.  You and your kind have slaughtered us, and it is your turn now.”

            It rolled inexorably towards her.  Fatima sank back on the bridge, weak from fear and cold.  All she could think was that she wished Ursa was here.

            Then a new voice said, “If your cause is so righteous, why haven’t the other trees joined you?”

            The tree froze.  Fatima didn’t blame it.  She couldn’t believe her eyes.

            A new tree walked the forest, tall and graceful, strewn with glass ornaments and wreathed with a royal red tree-skirt.  A Christmas tree.  Fatima’s Christmas tree.

            The winter wind swept the skirt to the side, revealing a neatly severed trunk.

            “They’ve killed you,” the tree said, appalled.  “You are another casualty in a war that spans all of time.  Aid me in killing the first human.”

            “You make three mistakes there,” the Christmas tree said crisply.  “Firstly, you speak for all trees, and we do not support you.  Secondly, you assume that, even if we felt owed vengeance, we would choose to exact it.  And thirdly, the human you speak of is my girl.  You will not harm her.”

            The tree was silent.  Fatima thought it had seen logic when it said, “You are just another horrible thing humans have made.  I am sorry.  I truly am.  But there is no place for you anymore.”

            It charged the Christmas tree.  Fatima screamed.

            But the Christmas tree met the charge.  At first it staggered.  Then sunlight caught the golden star that crowned it, and it rushed forward, driving the lost tree towards the stream.

            “There is always a place for a good tree on Christmas Day,” the Christmas tree said, forcing the tree into the rushing waters.  “But there is not for you any longer.  Not today.  Not on a day of peace.”

            Churning ice-water closed over the tree.  Then the fast little stream swept it away, bobbing and floating and finally sinking into the distance.

            Fatima sat down on the bridge.  Her breath wreathed her in an icy shroud.

            “It is always said when a great one falls,” the tree remarked, gazing into the stream.  “Especially when the fall is of their own making.”  It seemed to sigh, then.  The bells on its boughs chimed and twinkled.

            “But it w-w-was right,” Fatima said through numb lips, her teeth chattering.  “You’re going to die.  We killed you so we could have something pretty in our home.”

            The Christmas tree turned.  If the tree’s face had been rough and craggy, the Christmas tree’s was beautiful and smiling, touched with sadness, love, and peace in equal parts.

            “So will I,” the tree said.  “And so will you.  And so will we all in our turn.”

            Fatima’s eyes grew heavy, listening to the tree’s voice.  It was the easiest thing in the world to lie back down on the bridge.

            “I am old, Fatima.  I have watched you for the last seasons of my life.  I have seen you grow, envy and love Ursa, be so alive.  If I must die, I am both proud and humbled that it is in beauty and offering, in making your lives brighter with mine, and something greater than I.”

            The tumultuous silver-grey clouds rained more snowflakes down; they fell in vast spirals, settling into Fatima’s eyelashes.  The trees around the stream glowed, decked with rich lights and soft shadows and golden glows, until they were all Christmas trees.

            “I will not see you grow,” the tree said, “but my children will, and somehow, somewhere, I shall know, too.  There is so much I cannot do to help you.  I cannot lift you in my arms and carry you home.  I cannot mend your scraped knee and bruised pride.”

            Fiery warmth surrounded Fatima.  The trees glowed cozily in the snow-brought dimness.  It curled around her like a kitten, soft and small and tender-sounding.  She closed her eyes.

            “So much I cannot do…”

            Her heartbeat stretched and lengthened in her ears.

            “So much…”

            A tear fell down her cheek, into silence.

            “But I do what I can.  And this much I can do.”

            A light pierced the dimness, true and golden and strong.  Beautiful, too, but the kind of beauty that made everything else radiant as well.

            “Fatima?” cried the girl carrying the lantern.  “Fatima, how long have you been out here?”  She struggled through snow up to her shins, hiking up the edge of her cloak and dress to move more swiftly.

            “Live well,” the Christmas tree whispered, receding into the distance.  “Remember me.”

            The girl dropped to her knees beside her sister, the light swinging on its handle.  “Fatima,” she said, fumbling to pull her cloak off.  “You’re freezing, you silly goose.”

            “Go away, Ursa,” Fatima mumbled to her pretty older sister.  “I’m lovely warm.”

            “Oh, no, you’re not.”  Gently, Ursa laid the cloak across her sister.  “Can you walk?  Never mind.”

Gently, she gathered up Fatima in her arms and set off back towards home.  The pattern of her steps lulled Fatima back to sleep, and she dreamed ice flowed through her veins, snow dusted her hair, and her heart was as half frozen as that of the poor, poor lost tree.

On the coldest day of the year, the fire blazed brightly.  The cheerful crackling woke Fatima: the sound of stories, and adventures, and time spent with family.  The crackling woke her, but the expectation of Christmas brought her running down the stairs.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Ursa said from where she, wrapped up in a robe, tended the merrily popping fire.  “You slept late.”

“Never mind that,” Fatima said impatiently, hunting beneath the Christmas tree.  She straightened up and squinted at it.  “Has the tree gotten shorter?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”  Mischievously, Ursa used a poker to stir the fire of curiously slim logs.  “I suppose you can open a present before Momma and Papa come down.  Just one.”

“Thank you, Ursa!”  Fatima kneeled down to examine the presents.  She grunted as her knees protested, almost like they’d been bruised in a sharp fall.  And now that she looked, her fingers were red and chapped, like she’d been out in the snow.

“It’s funny,” she said, rubbing them; they even felt chilled.  “I had a strange dream, about…”  She flushed, red travelling up the back of her neck.  “It was a strange dream.”

“Funny things, dreams,” Ursa said, gazing into the fire.  “They can tell us things about ourselves that we never, ever knew.  They can inspire us and destroy us and enslave us.  And they’re always kind of beautiful.”

“This one was beautiful,” Fatima said, resting a present on her lap.  “Sad, but beautiful.  I think it made me cry.”  She glanced up at her sister.  “Do you think it was real?”

Ursa’s smile widened.  “That I can’t say,” she said.  “I don’t think anyone can.  But I think it’s important that you remember it.”

Fatima gazed up at the sparkling tree, trimmed and decorated and bound with a great red tree-skirt.  And frosted with dew, like it had been covered with snow.

“Yes,” she said at last.  “I don’t think I’ll forget.”

The fire burned, and the chill wind howled, and snow glided past the windows, but the snug walls kept the warmth and happiness of a family on Christmas morning inside.  The trees in the forest swayed and hunkered down beneath the wind, the sun danced with the wind and dashed between gaps in the clouds, and everything celebrated Christmas.