“You’un make this here tree stop doing all this,” she demanded, pointing all around as if it was my fault. “It’s gonna bury the house and me with it.”
“Ummm. It’s your tree, sister mine. You make it stop.”
She stomped her foot. “I can’t—” She froze. Grabbed her belly. Looked down.
I walked closer and directed the light at her feet. Pouring over the blossoming boards was pale green liquid. Esther’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. I reached her and took her hand. Turned off my light.
We stood there, hand in hand, beneath the last of the night’s full moon. I let my consciousness move down, through the land, into the deeps of Soulwood. Into the intertwined roots of the tree growing here. Searching. And I found him.
The Green Knight was fully armored, his sword drawn, a shield on his left arm. He was sitting on his paler green horse, who now had a blaze down his face in purest white, shaped like a handprint between his eyes, with a trailing wrist to his nose. The steed stomped, the vibration reaching me. He snorted, horse breath like a bellows blowing. The knight planted his halberd in the ground with a thump. Beside them was a pole flying a swallowtail pennant, centered with a dark green tree with tiny white flowers. As I watched, white flowers burst into bloom everywhere, in the grass beneath him, from the halberd’s hardened shaft, from the top of the pennant pole, from the knight’s hands.
“I’m having a baby,” Esther whispered.
“Yes,” I breathed, pulling myself back to her. “And the trees must have known it. I think the growth is a protection and a gift.”
“You’un gonna call Mama?”
“I’m gonna call all the mamas, and the midwife, and Mud. And we’re gonna make tea and tell stories and sing songs, and welcome your baby into this world, right here in your magical tree house.”
Esther nodded. “That’s good. That’s real good.” She let go of my hand, gathered up her soaked nightgown skirt, and bunched it beneath her. She waddled back inside. And called over her shoulder, “Clean up that mess, you’un hear?”
I laughed. From the ground beneath the porch, tendrils were rising, bursting with pale green leaves and minuscule white flower buds. The vines sucked up all the fluid, and the white flowers burst open. “I think your land is taking care of any mess, sister mine.” I pulled my cell and started making calls. The first baby plant-person was about to be born.
* * *
* * *
My cell rang, and Occam’s name was on the display. I stepped outside my sister’s house into the bright light of late dawn and went down the steps to the ground. I answered, saying, “Hey, cat-man.”
“You’re on speaker to all the cats, Nell, sugar. That was amazing.” A peculiar joy sounded in his voice. “Soulwood’s practically dancin’ with joy. We take it you’re an aunt again?”
“I am.” I closed my eyes and thought about the land beneath my bare feet, and realized that he was right. The land was singing, a warm vibration like spring and growth and all things good.
In the background I heard Rick say, “We all sense it. Something special in the land. Even in our human forms, we still feel it.”
“Boy or girl?” Margot asked. “And how are they?”
“Both. We got us some twins.” I knew what she really wanted to ask and so I said, “And they’re all right as rain. And the babies have skin, not bark and leaves. They look human.”
“That right there is good news, Nell, sugar. Hang on. I’m setting us to private. Okay. You tell your family we’ve set a date?”
Joy filled me, stronger than an ancient oak, but I wasn’t really feeling strong. It had been a long night, and I was worn slap out. I leaned against the outer wall and rested my head on the pinkish logs nestled between bunches of white flowers. I dug my bare feet into Esther’s land and it recognized me, accepted me. “Esther’s had a rough night. Two babies in four hours was fast. I thought we’d let her have the spotlight for a few days and tell the Nicholsons at Thanksgiving.”
“Tell us what at Thanksgiving?”
I whirled and saw Mud, her head sticking out of the door. “Shhh,” I said. “None a your’un business.”
Her eyes went wide. “Mama!” she hollered. “Nell’s getting hitched! We’uns having twins and a wedding!”