The Hoop Tree
“But no Guardian has ever left the Neverhood,” Arig said uneasily.His mother clapped him on the back. “Then that will make you the first.” She smiled at the boy and he returned a little, shy smile. “It's going to be a great trip, I promise. You can do all sorts of things on the Brokenhood. I've heard that not only are the rocks and minerals different, the klay that makes them up is something else entirely! That would be exciting to study, right?”
Looking down, a wider smile tugged on the corners of Arig's mouth. It was exciting. “I'm just scared to leave,” he mumbled. “What if my help is needed here while I'm gone?”
“Then your brothers will take care of it, like they always do,” Klaya coaxed him. “Be brave, my boy. I know Ruze is always calling you a wimp, don't you want to prove him otherwise?”
Not really, no, Arig wanted to say. He disliked that sort of competing. But on the outside he only shrugged.
There was a knock on the door then, and the Guardian of Fire peeked into the room. “Hey,” he greeted the two Neverhoodians. “So have you decided? Is Arig going?”
Klaya glanced at the Guardian of Earth, who took an uncomfortable moment to nod.
“Swell!” Dake grinned. “Send us a postcard!”
After the bright flash of white vanished, Arig took a while to collect himself. Teleporting across an interplanetary distance wasn't in the book of his most pleasant experiences. Gingerly he crawled out of the machine. When he stepped on the ground, he froze.
While the teleporter was of familiar substance (figures – all teleporters are the same), the ground felt strange. Perverse. Gritty? He couldn't put his finger on it.
“Arig, dear, come here,” Klaya called. “Ottimo, Tuborg, this is my son Arig. Arig, these are Ottimo and Tuborg, Ottoborg's eldest sons and heirs to the throne.”
They were twins. Dressed the same, moving the same, wearing the same expressions. The only difference were the letters etched into the buckles of their crimson cloaks: an ornate O and T.
“Hello there,” they spoke in unison. They grinned while they extended their hands to Arig. The Guardian wondered nervously which one he should shake first when he saw that they actually offered one left hand and one right hand. He took them with both hands at once, surprised when he felt eyeballs nestled in their palms. “It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The words rolled out of him automatically. The twins gave him a surprised look.
“No need to be so formal,” they both said. One twin elbowed the other lightly and gave a glowering look.
“I was supposed to speak now.”
“Sorry,” the other said dutifully, not a hint of guilt in his voice.
“As I was saying,” Ottimo resumed, “don't be so formal with us. It's weird.”
“But you are heirs to the throne,” Klaya chimed in. “That should warrant some formality, don't you think?” She gave them a warm smile and winked at Arig furtively. He nodded back. She had saved him from having to answer.
“We aren't into that sort of stuff here on the Brokenhood,” Ottimo declared as they began walking. “I know that Hoborg gets his kick out of titles, but we're pretty much a single family here.”
“It's a single family on the Neverhood, too,” Klaya pointed out.
Arig stopped listening. He was too busy taking in all the wonders around him. They passed a simple metallic box attached to the wall, which had an astounding tangle of fine wires inside, arranged in patterns so complicated that the Guardian barely had time to glimpse them before they walked past. He didn't recognise two thirds of the materials that made up a weathered couch pressed against the wall. Looking out the window he spotted a tall tree whose branches ended with hoops so big that a grown Hoodian could fit through them.
On occasion he caught bits of the conversation. Soon he got the impression that Klaya was outrageously flirty with one of the twins, and from then on he made an earnest effort of not listening to them.
They exited the low building which housed the teleporter and walked through an expanse of trees that could pass for a park if there weren't vegetable patches scattered all over it. Arig couldn't hear the plants over his mother's talking but he was determined to return here as soon as the formalities were out of the way. He was curious what the plants of a different world had to say.
Immersed as he was in looking around, Arig didn't notice that one of the twins had detached from the trio ahead until the prince spoke at his side.
“Do you like it here?”
The Guardian winced but covered it up. “Yes,” he said. “You have a lot of interesting things here.”
“Yeah?” the twin chuckled. Tuborg, his buckle said. “But the only thing your mum is interested in is my brother.” He sounded a little sour.
“Oh.”
When nothing else was forthcoming, Tuborg asked: “What exactly do you find interesting? I heard that you were one of the elementals living on the Neverhood. I can't imagine…” he trailed off. “Well,” he gave an embarrassed smile. “Just um, so. What's interesting here? To you, I mean.”
“Everything,” Arig shrugged unhelpfully. Quater he disliked keeping up conversations. Tuborg glanced at the two walking in front of them. Klaya had laced her arm through Ottimo's.
“Oh for the love of…” Tuborg little more than whispered. Arig gave him a look.
“I'm sorry if I sound rude, but… does it bother you?” He gestured vaguely forward.
Tuborg sighed. “Yes? I mean, I know it shouldn't. She's just being friendly.”
Arig shook his head. “I um… don't think that she's being friendly.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Tuborg hung his head. They walked the rest of the way in silence, trying to ignore the heated discussion in the front.
The introduction to the family went about as well as could be expected. Ottoborg was boisterous and loud. His children were yellow and plentiful. Caline was big and motherlike, and Arig recoiled from the way she and Klaya were politely glaring daggers at each other. Alan, Ceola and Plekti made up a family inside the family, collected and calm with a son who seemed as eager to interact with the visitors as Arig was eager to interact with his hosts.
A few minutes before they all sat around a huge, intimidating table, Alan took the two visitors to a secluded room. There he explained that eating regular klay for the first time was not an overly pleasant experience for a Neverhoodian. Both Arig and Klaya listened intently and thanked for the instructions afterwards.
The Guardian happily used the excuse that he wasn't feeling well and needed some air to flee the family meal even before the main course was served. Paying no heed to the concerned eyes that followed him, he walked a good distance from the dining room before collapsing into a convenient chair. He really was not used to having so many people around. Sure, his brothers and mother shared a big meal from time to time. But that was family. This was a bunch of strangers. Even if Klaya did her best to steer the conversation away from him, it was stressing beyond anything he ever knew. The only thing that came close was that unbelievable ruckus right after he and his brothers were born forty years ago.
Rising from the chair Arig decided that he wasn't ready to head back and he wouldn't be for the rest of the day. So, with little better to do, he headed to the park.
Along the way he got distracted by dozens of little things. There were wires everywhere, running through the walls, into light bulbs and other more mysterious machines, pulsating with a crackling energy that the Guardian recognised as electricity. He spent a good while examining the curtains of one room before coming to the conclusion that they were, in fact, made of the same material as all the textile here. The only difference between Ottoborg's blue sweater and these fine curtains was the width of the thread. Curious.
Distracted as he was, it was no great surprise that someone found him before he managed to reach the park. He was examining a potted flower when he heard footsteps from the hallway behind him. He froze. But, to his relief, it was only his mother.
“There you are,” she sighed with a smile. Smiles always came easy to her. Arig appreciated it. “They've started asking about you. Are you alright?”
Arig nodded.
“Do you feel sick?”
To his own surprise, Arig shook his head. He didn't feel sick at all. How long did Alan say that he'd be able to keep food down? Thirty minutes if he tried really hard?
“That's good to hear.” Klaya cupped her own belly. “I'm not feeling well, though. Caline really tried with this feast but… well. There's only so much she can do. I think I'm going to find a bathroom.”
“If you want-” Arig raised his hands but his mother cut him short.
“No. It's very sweet of you, but no. Save your powers.”
“I want to help,” he objected. He was nearly sure that it was because of the healing power inside him that he didn't feel nauseated.
Klaya hesitated, weighing her options. “It's not much of a big deal,” she said slowly. “I've thrown up before and it wasn't…”
Arig cut in, taking her hand. He hoped that his worried expression would deliver the message. It definitely wasn't normal for Neverhoodians to throw up.
“Oh no,” Klaya chuckled, that easy smile creeping on her face again. “I wasn't sick from eating anything bad. Don't worry about it.”
“Then why?” Arig asked. The White Mother blanched a little more. Suddenly the Guardian knew that he had overstepped himself.
“You shouldn't concern yourself, dear,” Klaya smiled and took him by the elbow. She walked him to the main door, chattering amiably. Arig did not dare speak up. Before they parted, though, he took his mother's hand and gently held her in place while he cupped her stomach and called upon his Auro. At first Klaya protested, but shortly her objections died down as her nausea retreated.
“Give everyone my regards,” Arig said softly before letting her go. “I'll be in the park.”
The park offered phenomena uncountable. The Guardian was almost happy that his mother had persuaded him to go. What was this soft and yielding plant which covered the ground in an almost uniform carpet of green? The word grass came to mind but he would have to double-check with the locals. The flowers were, of course, different. Arig noticed that while there were dozens species in the park in total, not all of them were in bloom. He found trees which were in full bloom but none that carried fruit. It was a sort of harmony. Like all the plants had agreed beforehand to go through their cycles all together.
Of course, he tried to talk to them. But be it the strange klay or the foreign land, he couldn't understand anything. And he couldn't tell if they understood any of his words either. It was surprising, frustrating, and the only kind of challenge that the Guardian of Earth enjoyed.
He was doggedly trying to get through to the tree with hoops at the ends of its branches when Tuborg approached him. Arig saw the prince before the prince saw Arig. The Guardian got to his feet and dusted his knees off. It seemed impolite to hide.
“Hey. I see you've found the hoop tree,” Tuborg remarked.
“I was wondering what its purpose was,” Arig shared his thoughts. Then he paused. “Is it like that in here? Do all plants and trees have a purpose?”
The prince pursed his lips. “I don't think that holds in general. But in the garden, yeah I guess. Mum, Ceola and Plekti plant what they want and weed what they don't want, so everything that stays has a purpose.”
“It's a garden, then?” Arig echoed the word curiously.
Tuborg nodded. “What else would it be?”
Arig shrugged. To him the difference between a park and a garden was great. A park was public, a place for both people and plants. A garden was private like a house, a place only for plants.
“And um, if you're wondering about the purpose of the hoop tree…” Unclasping the buckle at his throat Tuborg took his crimson cloak off and lay it half-folded at the roots of the tree. Arig understood the reason when the prince climbed through one of the tree's hoops and began swinging like a child. “It's really relaxing,” he explained. “Come swing, too.”
The Guardian hesitated. “Are you sure it doesn't hurt the tree? It seems very old.”
“Not at all,” Tuborg smiled. “It's what it was made for, after all!”
A little regretful and guilty that he couldn't ask the tree for permission, Arig gripped a hoop that dangled at his side and climbed inside. He eased his weight into it slowly, not sure if the hoop could support him. But the wood didn't even creak. It merely sighed, elastic but firm. Arig pushed off the ground to swing a little. He surveyed the area from the gentle swing. The lone twin, staring down with a slightly sad expression. The lovely, blooming garden. The great mansion in the background.
“Is the meal over?” the Guardian asked.
Tuborg raised his head, roused from his thoughts. “Well. Yes and no. The meal itself is over but the company just moved to the living room. Klaya said that you weren't feeling well. Are you okay?”
Arig nodded. “How is she?”
Tuborg hesitated. “Klaya?” Once he received an affirmative, he bit his lip. “She's uh, charming.”
Klaya was always charming. From what Arig had heard, she always had a group of admirers following her around. He wondered if Ottimo would fall for her charm as well.
“I…” Tuborg began, “this is a pretty personal question, but…”
“Tuborg!” a call interrupted him. Arig peeked around the large trunk of the hoop tree. Ottimo was striding in with long angry steps.
“What is it?” Tuborg asked, turning his hoop so that he was facing his brother.
“That woman is insufferable!” Ottimo spat. “Quater, if she calls me honey one more time I'll- oh. Hi. I didn't see you there.”
Arig waved feebly from his place behind the hoop tree. Ottimo rubbed the back of his head.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…” He took his twin's hand and their fingers entwined with familiar ease. Arig noticed that their posture changed with that. Their backs straightened as they became calm and self-assured. He wondered if that gesture meant “together” for them.
“It's not like we think your mother is a bad person,” Tuborg said.
“She's just needlessly pushy. Like she expects to marry me on the next day.” Ottimo sighed.
“It's infuriating,” they both said. Promptly Ottimo gasped in mock offence.
“That was my line!”
“Sorry,” Tuborg apologised. But they were both grinning. Suddenly Arig understood why they disliked his mother. She was trying to separate them, whether she realised it or not. It was like cutting a flower from its root and expecting both to get by wonderfully.
Ottimo didn't bother taking his own cloak off before he climbed into a hoop near his brother's. The crimson fabric billowed around him as they played like little children, swinging in wide arcs and tangling their branches together. All the time the hoop tree did not crack or creak painfully. It merely sighed and swayed. It seemed happy.
Days passed. Arig explored the Brokenhood with the curiosity of a one-day-old. He had come to understand the difference between the klay of his home and this klay, even though he couldn't put it into words very well. Ceola offered to show him the plants and trees. (The ever-present green carpet plant was indeed called grass.) In exchange Arig helped the flowers that weren't doing very well, earning her gratitude and respect.
Halfway through exploring a winding silver mine, abandoned by Ottoborg ever since the silver vein was lost, it occurred to him that Krevel would have liked to see this. The Guardian grew melancholic until he found a familiar mark on the wall. It was a rumpled three point star with a short line across one of its branches. Krevel's cross-section mark. The geologist had been here.
In hindsight it wasn't such a riddle. Krevel had mentioned that every once in a while the mulberry tree would go into bloom, and then there was no place on the Neverhood where he could hide. He had been coming to the Brokenhood every pollen season, Arig reminded himself, of course he would have visited the silver mine.
It was nice to know that a friend had been here.
As time passed, Arig grew accustomed to this new world and its slow, steady rhythm. Once the concept of seasons was explained to him, he had a base to build upon in the local flower language. He was whispering back and forth with a nettle when his mother found him. She was in tears.
“Ottimo has sent me to-” she hesitated. “Well. Somewhere inappropriate. I should have known. He's a brute. Now Tuborg, he's a sweetheart. I'm sure that he'll be much more open-minded than his brother.”
Arig considered telling her that Tuborg probably wouldn't enjoy her attention either. But he restrained. It was her battle to fight. He couldn't dissuade her from her decision to marry a Brokenhoodian prince anyway.
And so it happened that when it happened, the Guardian of Earth found his mother tucked away in the garage, peeking over Tuborg's shoulder as he tinkered on the workbench.
“Mother!” he cried out, clutching the door frame. Distantly he heard metal creaking. He looked at his hand. It had dented the iron door frame with its grip.
“Arig?” his mother was rushing to his side, taking his hand in hers. “What's wrong? You look terrible!”
The Guardian shook his head, trying to clear it. Panic and fear were eating at his guts. “The old tree in the garden,” he blurted out. His voice sounded frantic, and foreign. “It isn't a hoop tree. I asked it and – and it showed me-” He bit his words off. He couldn't say it. He couldn't breathe.
“Sit down, dear,” his mother urged him. Arig plopped down on the provided stool, shivering and curling in on himself.
“What did the tree tell you?” Klaya asked calmly. “Tell me. You'll feel better.”
Arig shook his head again. He was barely aware of Tuborg watching him. “It's no hoop tree,” he repeated. The tree was aware of its purpose with terrible sharpness. Firmly it had told him of a small, sad man, who had only one wish left in his life. How the man had climbed the tree. Somehow the Guardian forced the trembling words out. “It's a noose tree. Ottoborg created it to hang himself.”
There was a clatter of metal against stone. Tuborg was staring at the Guardian with wide eyes.
“What?” the prince whispered.
Arig could only gaze back pathetically. His tongue felt wooden.
“Dear, please,” Klaya spoke up, her voice unnaturally high. “Could you give us some space?”
Tuborg nodded. He knocked a stool over as he couldn't leave the room fast enough.
Klaya turned back to Arig. “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice hushed. Arig nodded shakily. “You poor thing,” she crooned, gathering him in her arms. “It's alright. Do you hear me? It's fine. The hoop tree might have been created for… that. But it never served its purpose. Did it?” Arig shook his head. “See? Now children play in it. Don't tell me that the tree isn't happy with that.”
“Maybe,” Arig muttered. “But…” He gave a shaky sigh. “You don't create things to… You create things to be happy. I cultivate new plants and flowers because they're beautiful. Or because they help someone. It's so wrong to create something for…” He shuddered. “Why did he leave it there? So that he can walk around it every day and think 'oh I nearly took my own life here'?”
“Yes,” came a soft voice from the door. Arig winced, turning his head around. Ottoborg was standing in the door frame, wearing a tired smile. Klaya stared at him as the king walked into the room and sat on one of the workbenches. “I don't think that the boy will get it but… I left that tree there as a reminder. There's always a choice.”
“The choice to end your life?” Klaya asked sharply.
Ottoborg flinched, then shrugged. “That too. But I thought more about… boy, did the tree tell you what happened after I climbed it?”
“No,” Arig mumbled. He hadn't given it the chance, really.
“Well.” Ottoborg gave a small embarrassed laugh. “Truth be told, I slipped. I thought I was falling to my death when my foot caught in one of the nooses.” He snorted. “I was swaying upside down like an idiot, and… well. I couldn't help but laugh. I was such a failure that I couldn't even kill myself proper.”
Arig winced at that and Klaya glared at the king.
“The point is…” Ottoborg sighed and smiled a weary smile. “When you're dangling off your foot ten meters above ground, you kinda see things in a new perspective. In my case, it all seemed ridiculous.” He shrugged. “Why hang myself over something ridiculous? I like the hoop tree much better than the noose tree. It's a nice tree. All my kids have swung there.” He scratched his curl self-consciously. “I'm sorry for not giving you a heads-up, Arig. I should've thought of it the moment your ma said you could talk to plants. I saw you from the window talking to it but I didn't realise this would happen… Not until Tuborg hugged me all teary eyed and demanded that I don't die.” He pulled at his curl in a nervous gesture. “Speaking of Tuborg, I should go and find him. You'll manage over here?”
Klaya nodded stiffly, pressing Arig closer to her side.
“Kay. One thing though. Don't tell anybody, alright? My lovely wife would take the tree down herself if she knew what it was made for.”
After the incident Arig's curiosity died down. For half a day he lay on the bed of the guest room appointed to him and his mother, gazing at the ceiling. No matter how much he tried he couldn't wrap his mind around it. To think that such a tree even existed. To create a tree singly to fulfil such a desire… It was twisted. And it was wrong.
However, even with such chaos in his head, the Guardian couldn't stay inside forever. Like flowers he needed sunlight. So, he went out. He walked far away from the mansion, through the birch grove, passing the crystal spring, over the pastures where sheep grazed. He watched Ceola shave wool off the sheep and recognised the coarse and curly material as the base of Brokenhood textiles. He climbed the lookout tower and spent a long while overlooking the land. Eventually as night pulled close, he made his hesitant way to the park in front of the mansion.
Cherry trees rustled in the wind, shrugging off veils of white petals. Arig caught one of them in his hand. With a faint dying voice, it seemed to say with the rest of the park, “I am sorry”.
The hoop tree was the oldest living thing in the park. A king of sorts. Its top reached higher than any other tree and its branches were long enough to almost reach the ground. As the Guardian regarded its silhouette against the sky, it occurred to him that nobody could hang himself on such a hoop.
Carefully he stepped closer to the tree. Closer still. The tree didn't notice him until he touched one of its many branches.
“Oh. It's you.”
The tree swayed with recognition.
“You were very upset. I am sorry. But I was only telling the truth. I was made for-”
The feeling of being climbed on, something pushes through a small noose. A fall, and a jarring stop. Something heavy hanging on one of the branches.
“But today, things are different.”
Small and happy, swinging in the high hanging branches. Laughing children, twisting the branches, clawing at them and climbing them, pulling them longer and longer. Unending patience.
“I am glad to be here. Can't you see? It is good to be here.”
A large, looming figure. The master, the first man. He climbs into a hoop and swings. Sometimes gently. Sometimes wildly. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with his family.
“It isn't wrong.”
Arig sat down at the roots of the hoop tree. In a quiet, conciliatory gesture, he sat there until his mother came to get him, worried that he wasn't in bed this late.
It would be nice to say that goodbyes went warmly. But it wouldn't be true. Arig could barely breathe past the tension as his mother and Caline glared at each other in open hostility. Ottimo was holding Tuborg's hand, fingers intertwined, and he looked angry enough for both of them. From mentions and references Arig guessed that there had been an argument between the four of them on the previous night. He didn't know the details. His mother refused to talk about it.
“Well,” Ottoborg took the lead. “We wish you a nice journey back. I hope we'll meet again.”
Caline shot her husband an extremely disapproving look. She obviously hoped not to see them ever again. Ceola patted her arm and stepped forward, taking Arig's hand into hers.
“I hope you'll be back, Arig. The garden has been thriving with you around. I'd like to share some of its fruits when they're ripe in autumn.”
The Guardian of Earth nodded. “I'm looking forward to it.”
Ceola smiled and made space for Alan to say his goodbye.
Setting the failed courting aside, it wasn't so bad. Arig was even moderately certain that he would miss the Brokenhood. Moderately. As interesting as everything was, the food wasn't as good, the plants weren't as conscious and he wanted to see his brothers again.
On the way back to the teleporter, Ottimo and Tuborg made their escort once again. This time, however, they avoided as much as looking at Klaya, and made careful conversation with the Guardian alone. They passed a worn couch stuffed with wool and a fuse box with steel cladding. The White Mother sat in the teleporter first and the twins sent her away without a word.
“Well, off you go,” Ottimo smiled at Arig when she was gone, suddenly a lot more at ease. “Bring some of your brothers next time you visit.”
“The more the merrier,” Tuborg added.
Climbing into the teleporter the Guardian nodded.
“Bye bye,” the twins chanted in unison before the world disintegrated in a flash of white.
The first thing that Arig saw upon arrival was the affronted face of the Guardian of Fire.
“You said you'd send a postcard!” Dake complained, helping Arig out of the teleporter.
“Sorry,” the Guardian of Earth muttered. Everyone was here. Gome and Usha were crowding their mother, asking for what had been happening in excited voices. Ruze stood in the background, turning the teleporter off. When he caught Arig's eye, he gave a small wave.
“Man, we missed you!” Dake exclaimed, swinging an arm over Arig's shoulders. “Next time you've got to take us along, you globe-trotter!”
Arig was protesting softly when Ruze came up on his other side, throwing an arm around him as well. “Cut the false modesty,” he grinned. “Who would've thought you'd be the first Guardian to leave the Neverhood! Maybe you'll be a little more sociable after this.”
The Guardian of Earth laughed.
(Picture by OttonandPooky.)
