The Moving Tree

The winter break passed more quickly than he'd expected. There was no visit from the hypnotist, for which he had to be thankful. He spent most of his time in the music tower, playing and gazing out at the city. At other times he was wandering the halls of the Academy, wondering why each passage suddenly felt so familiar to him. Sometimes the hypnotist would appear and order him back to the tower, but at other times he would walk until he reached something that caught his eye. And he would look at it and feel something stirring deep inside of him, just as it had when he'd met the boy in the tower. He would touch the object, but nothing was revealed that he didn't already know.

He would return to the tower with nothing gained, not even a smidgen of recollection. Back to the endless playing and gazing out of the window into a world he wasn't a part of.

It was funny. The thought that he was not part of the outside world had never crossed his mind until the boy had entered his life.

Before he knew it, the first day of the new term had arrived. He sat in assembly with the other teachers, listening to the children and adults trying to sing in the cold weather.

'Do you call that singing?' roared Dr. Saltweather. 'It's a horrible moan. It's a disgraceful whine. You're musicians, for goodness sake. Sing in tune, give it some life! Now — back to the beginning, please!'

The boy was there, standing in the front row with the orphan. The smallest boys always sat in the front row. It gave him a chance to really observe him, and try to pin-point what exactly was so familiar about the boy.

There was a loud, violent cracking noise that shocked the entire room into silence.

'Good grief!' Dr. Saltweather exclaimed. 'Look at the old cedar!'

Then…

A flash of orange and red caught his eye. A movement. He stared out of the window into the area beyond the fallen tree, and his heart pounded. For there stood a tree—a tree with golden leaves and a reddish truck. A tree that emanated love, compassion and strength.

For a moment, he could clearly see what had been eluding him for so long. The woman's face, her kind blue eyes and golden-brown hair that she usually wore in a ponytail tied back with a red ribbon. Her face alight with joy as they kissed, his face mirroring her own, so happy that the moment had finally come. That she'd said yes. Then laughter, light and merry, as they sat together on a patchwork quilt in a familiar-looking room, playing with a baby that must be their son.

Dimly he heard a crash, and realised that he'd stood up, toppling his chair in the process. Beyond, the tree still stood, filling him with feelings that he couldn't describe. You are not alone, it seemed to say. Take heart, and fight.

The tree disappeared, as if it had never been there, but the feelings it had evoked in him remained. It was strange, how, as they touched him, they were like familiar strangers. They stayed with him after assembly had ended and he'd returned to the tower for the piano boy's music lesson. He didn't speak, couldn't speak, but the pupil didn't seem to mind, waiting patiently for any constructive feedback but not expecting any. The boy's playing was good (more than good, in fact), and the teacher was pleased, though he never showed it openly. After the lesson was over the boy left, and he was alone again.

The hours flew by as he lost himself in the music. Close to midnight, he stopped playing and walked into the main tower room, prepared to go to bed. There was a boy at the high window, gazing out at the city. A boy who looked similar to the boy, except his clothes were surprisingly old-fashioned, as if they had come from a different era.

'Motor cars,' the boy murmured. 'So many.'

'So many,' the teacher agreed.

The boy looked away from the window, and saw him. 'Are you Mr. Pilgrim?' he asked.

The teacher didn't know how to answer him. Everyone, even his fellow teachers, called him by that name, but he knew that it wasn't the name he had been born with. It wasn't his real name. No matter what the Bloors said, he knew that.

'I'm Henry Yewbeam,' said the boy.

Yewbeam… Why did that name feel familiar?

'I'm very old,' the boy continued. 'Or at least I should be.'

The cathedral clock began to strike midnight. At the twelfth stroke, the teacher found himself saying, 'Are you cold?'

'Yes,' said Henry.

Feeling something he hadn't felt in a long time, if ever, the piano teacher took off his blue cape and wrapped it around the boy's shoulders. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. It was too cold in the music tower at night to be without a cape.

'Thank you,' the boy said, with surprise in his eyes.

He felt himself smile—something else he hadn't fully experienced in years. Wanting to do something else for the boy, he reached for the tin of oatcakes that he kept on the high shelf and offered it to Henry.

'Oatcakes,' he said. 'You see I live up here, practically. And one gets hungry.'

'One does,' Henry agreed, taking only one oatcake.

He put the tin on the stool and said, 'Help yourself.'

The chimes had stopped; he felt the fog roll over him once more. He tried to remember, but it was no use.

Frowning, he murmured, 'Good night.'

And then he left, walking down to the stairs to the ground floor with barely a sound. Part of him felt guilt at leaving the boy in the tower on his own, but it couldn't be helped.

As he was making his way to his allocated bedroom, he happened upon Mrs Bloor. The Dark Lady to the students of Bloor's Academy. She had become a ghost of herself after her fingers had been crushed in between a door, and was often seen haunting the music tower. He'd seen her in the past, as he was leaving the tower to go to bed, and so this encounter was not a surprise to him. She stared at him with dull, hopeless eyes; he gazed back and stopped himself from asking her if they'd ever met. They said nothing to one another; their eyes spoke for them. Then they went their separate ways—she to the west wing, and he to his cold bedroom.