The Juniper tree

Richard liked to work in the mornings before the mist burned away. Because of the nature of the wind in the valley, the fog that cloaked Landes and its tributaries persisted late and rose early, often cloaking everything in a veil of grey that stole sounds from your lips and made driving in the mornings and evenings a risky affair. Richard liked the moist feeling of it against his skin as he worked, sweat mixing with dew in the dawn hours.

At eighty, he awoke early if he slept through the night at all, clinging to fragmenting wakefulness as if to avoid the dangerous time when he might not wake at all. He was up before his wife in the dark before dawn, breathing in the damp air, cradling his aching bones, and feeling grateful to still be alive.

His employees didn’t know that this was why he summoned them so early, but sensed at least that the temperature was part of it, the cool not quite breeze that made working a pleasure. Mark had been coming over for just over a month now, and each time he suggested that they start a little later, and Richard would wheedle him back towards dawn. “I need to leave at noon so maybe we could start at seven thirty?” He would suggest easily, and Mark would wince and agree. He had never bargained later than nine.

This morning Mark arrived at eight rubbing sleep from his eyes. He appeared to be in his late twenties, with short curly brown hair and stubble around his cheeks that never seemed to touch his chin. He was a large man, well built with forearms that belied his casual strength, and a hard worker as Richard was apt to tell him as they finished each day, reaffirming a wish that he could pay him more - but they both knew by now it was never going to happen. Richard was not rich.

He had always worked for himself, Mark learned, and never built up anything for his old age. The sawmill that had served him in his youth was still his bread and butter now, and while he had to hire a neighbor to help him with the backbreaking work of hauling logs, he still made just enough to live on. Richard was a gangly man, with snow white hair and a red face that begged for a great white beard but indignantly bent to his razor and remained smooth. He was a musician by passion, still bitter that his bachelors degree hadn’t raised him out of poverty. He tread the fine line between hick and hipy - but Mark had never seen anyone more attentive to trees.

Richard was hard of hearing in both ears from the constant roar of the sawmill penetrating past his earplugs. He read lips passably but only the common things. Jokes, Mark found, flew past him - because by nature they contain something unexpected. Richard on the other hand was always joking, good natured, one sided, banter to fill the space, full of old TV references and phrases from the past.

When Mark had started he’d expected more work at the sawmill, making lumber. Instead he’d discovered half the work was shoveling sawdust from where it mounded around the machine, going and getting fallen trees from a neighbor down the street, each of which wanted to trade the wood for lumber. Richard would agree and mill half to return to them and keep the other half to sell, despite the fact he needed the money more than the lumber.

Yet because of his easy way with money and wood, everyone knew and loved the old man. As they passed houses on Landes and sometimes beyond he would give inventory. “The siding on that place is mine.” or “They came and got ends for their garden - cedar, it’s still standing twenty years later.” or “All these fence posts along here are mine.” Occasionally as they were working he’d boast that “Half of the houses in this area have some piece of my lumber or another,” and Mark believed him.

The other thing that Mark spent time on, was tending baby trees. Richard had logged the adjoining ten acres to his house, and replanted with a mix of fir, cedar, hemlock, and what had to be Juniper. Every week Richard would have a new section of brush for Mark to clear away - to “let the little trees get a head up.” He would untangle the trailing blackberries that threatened to engulf the trees, fertilize their bases with slow dissolving pellets, and carve trails between them so that Richard could walk out and see how each was doing, muttering inconsiderations at the maples.

“They just don’t die.” He’d grumble. “Spring up like weeds, shade everybody else out, and then when you cut them down ten more stalks spring up from the stalk -  I should bring in a stump grinder.”

Each little tree took his special considerations. He’d explain where they were getting enough light and where not, by the angling of their needles. He could spot a disease at fifty feet, and took pains to amputate as soon as he could, cutting close to the trunk to minimize dead wood that would have to rot away before sap could seal it. He checked the dampness of the ground, and even had Mark carry out several buckets of water into the thicket to dump on a few trees he deemed drought stricken. “Just to give them a boost.”

He was fond of pointing out his closest neighbor’s folly in planting his trees so close together. Explaining how all the resulting dead wood was perfect tinder, and how all it would take is one good fire to take out his neighbor’s whole forest, and threaten his. He’d taken down the trees on that side too, and had no plans to replant. He wanted as wide a buffer as he could get.

Besides the buffer his clearing was covered in trees as well. Mark had pruned them all in the spring, avoiding the blossoms so as not to make even one less apple - but aggressively cutting back the stalks that reached so plaintively for the sky, and releasing the dead wood that accumulated over the winter. Trees, dogs, and stinging nettle - that was what the property was full of.

Two of the dogs had quieted and grown accustomed to Mark after he had surreptitiously fed them, but the third could not be silenced. She would circle him from a safe distance barking her distaste. Richard promised she would eventually accept him. “She’s like this with all the neghbors who come visit, but never with the people who come in from town. I’ve never figured it out,” he explained. She still barked at him constantly three months later, although only when he was in sight now. It was something.

Mark wondered at the fearsome protectors who chose to surround the old man. He was so open, so generous, so friendly - yet the nettles lining the driveway seemed to be clustering to protect him, and the dog seemed like an instinct to distrust.

Wood was Richard’s passion and he read it like a book. In spare moments he had Mark split firewood from the ends that couldn’t be made into boards.

“See this one? No stump rot - this we can make into shingles - but all these over here are beginning to go. You can see the black in the summer growth.” Mark couldn’t tell what was summer and winter growth, but he could see the creeping darkness beginning to penetrate. He learned to look for it.

Richard would watch his progress, pointing out a knot in the wood and suggesting an angle at which to chop. Mark had always brute forced his way through the chore of chopping wood for the winter, but once pointed out he could see the wisdom in it - the wood split so much easier.

In fact Mark was quite convinced the wood split easier when Richard was present, whether he gave advice or not. Maybe it was that he put more strength into it when he was being watched, but the moment Richard left, the wood became recalcitrant, taking ten strikes instead of two.

Richard kept the sharpest axes that Mark had ever used, and that made splitting wood a pleasure. Those ten strikes might easily have been twenty with a normal ax - struggling against big rounds, the remains of tree bases.

Wood chopping was today’s inclination. There were such large pieces that Richard fired up the gas powered wood splitter, to cycle these huge stumps through, while Mark alternated between splitting and tossing both their gains into the quad trailer to be taken down to the shed.

The dog knew better than to bark while the engine was drowning her out, but as soon as it stopped she started again, right behind Mark. He was putting the case on the axe head - to keep it sharp - and the bark made him start. His thumb barely touched the axe head but it sliced long across his thumb. He cursed under his breath and Richard looked up and saw the blood.

“What happened?”
“I nicked it on your axe - just goes to show how sharp you keep it.”
“Looks painful. Let’s get you a bandaid.”
“No, I’m good thanks.”
“I don’t want you bleeding on everything.”
Mark protested more, but Richard wouldn’t stand for it and hustled him into the house, calling for his wife.

Alex was a short plump woman in her early seventies. Her hair was white and cut in a matter of fact way around her shoulders. She had first introduced herself to Mark with “Hi, I’m Alex - yeah just like the guy’s name. I’m sorry.”

Mark was still protesting when he was sat at the table and she brought down the medical box, “Let’s wash it off first.” - she murmured
“No!”
“Nonsense.” She took her spunge and gently dabbed at the cut. “That’s weird,” she finally said. “There doesn’t seem to be a cut.”
“Must have been small and bled a lot,” Mark suggested.
“No - you can see where it should be. There’s nothing here.”
Mark shrugged uncomfortably. Alex lowered her spectacles and peered at him intently for a moment. “I should have seen it immediately,” she announced at last. “You’re a Warden aren’t you?”

His shoulders slumped, “Yes,” he finally admitted.
“I should have seen right off, it’s just been such a long time since I saw one of your kind. I’m just a minor truthseer myself, barely a dribble of the talent - just enough to have me not register as human.” She paused, “Hey Richard! Come over here!” She shouted.
“. . . Is he?” Mark mouthed.
“Mark is a Warden - A fairy knight.” She announced loudly, answering his question.
“A garden in the night?”
“One of the Foluin Dhu!
“Oh!” He turned in surprise looking at Mark closer.
“I’m actually of the Den Akloo - the Foluin are further east.” corrected Mark.
“See, I’m not from here,” Alex apologized. “Now Richard he grew up around here, he knows this kind of thing.”
“Not really,” said Richard “- we haven’t had a fairy court here for well over a hundred years. My Pa used to tell me stories from when he was a kid, but from that it sounded like the Den Akloo were all dead.”
Mark shrugged uncomfortably again. “We’re hard to kill,” he said softly. Alex gave him a piercing look.
“Say what?” Asked Richard.
“We’re hard to kill!”
“Not so hard,” said Richard “-Story I heard is that one of their own turned against the Winter queen. Then the order started killing each other.”
“There’s a new queen,” Mark allowed, mostly to change the subject. He knew very well how a truth seer worked, how hard it was to keep secrets when you were walking around the very ground they were burried in.
“Is there really?!” Richard exclaimed. “I didn’t think we’d have another in my lifetime.”
“Summer, this time. I’d been asleep and she just woke me up. It’s all very exciting.”
“Summer!? I don’t know that this is a good place for a summer court, there are still so many remnanats of old winter here.”
“We know about the wolves.”
“It’s not just the wolves.”

A pause, “So what are you again?” - Mark looked at Richard but it was Alex who answered.
“He’s a dryad - honey, can I talk to Mark alone for a bit?”
“I’ll just be out stacking wood, send him out when you’re done.” Richard acquessed. When he was gone the truth seer looked at him with her piercing blue eyes, and Mark shivered a little. He knew this couldn’t be good.

“Mariah is our new summer queen?” She began.
There was no point in denying it. “Yes.”
“She’s a little young to be starting her own court isn’t she?”
“She doesn’t know what she is yet. She suspects - when you’re celebrating your   fiftieth and look like you’re twenty you have to suspect - but the spells that hid her from old winter still hold.”
“So she doesn’t know what you are?”
“She knows I’m there to protect her.”
“What do you think she’d think if she knew you killed the queen before her?”
Mark jerked as if struck. Last time he’d been around a truth seer he hadn’t had any secrets, but he doubted this one was truly ‘minor’
“How?” He finally asked.
“Oh come! - The Winter Queen died by having a millstone dropped on her head - and she was betrayed by a Warden, likely the one protecting her in that moment. I know enough to remember that Wardens sleep after great feats of strength, and the longer the battle the longer the sleep. I imagine if you killed a queen - which I’m impressed by the way - I’m from South dakota and we’ve been trying to kill Winter for millenia - and then you killed the other Wardens trying to avenge her, that would have you sleeping until maybe . . .  now?”

Mark gulped, “Oh,” was all he said.

“But in reality I didn’t really know at all until you just confirmed it for me.” Alex gave him a sly little smile and began putting away the bandaids and gauze back into their box.
Mark sighed. Alex continued.
“So unless I miss my guess, you haven’t told her because you’re watching to see what kind of queen she’ll make. You’re not one of those Wardens who serves for the sake of order - believing that any court is better than no court at all. That’s why you haven’t told her.”

Mark looked indignant. “There’s another Warden who came with her, and a king with the old blood in him who’s been guiding her. They want to see her awaken on her own.”
“But they don’t know about you do they?”
“That was a winter queen! This is summer!”
“And tell me dear - what happened to spring?” She had an edge in her voice.
“Unprotected seasons die all the time. It wasn’t me.” She held his gaze for a moment and then nodded, accepting.

“So here’s the deal I’ll make with you dear,” she finally said. “We’ll stay quiet about you - to the queen and her other warden, and king old blood besides - if you stay quiet about us.”
“That seems fair,” admitted Mark.
“We aren’t all too excited for a new regime. We’ve lived without a court for all of our lives and done just fine without someone telling us what to do. So if you see miss Mariah growing up to be a queen none of us can respect - you just let us know all quiet-like - and I’m sure you’ll have the support you need to take her down.”
Mark nodded, solemn, “I don’t expect it’ll be needed, but as she discovers her powers we’ll see how it changes her.”
“Oh, we will indeed.” Alex laughed, “We will indeed.”

Mark was just about to go out and rejoin Richard, when he paused by the door. “Richard is a -dryad?”
“Sure is.”
“What kind of self respecting dryad logs ten acres next to his house?”
“Or makes his living off cutting up trees?”
Mark paused, “he usually does it pretty sustainably - deadfalls and the like - but the logging is different”

Alex cocked her head as if deciding how much to tell him, and then finally seemed to come to the conclusion she had enough power over him so as not to worry.
“He’s trying to start a grove,” she said.
“A real grove? In this day and age?”
“He thinks it’ll work. He has four human kids by his ex wife - but I think he finally decided that his kind were worth keeping around.”
Mark smiled, paused, “So then - all the trees I’ve been caring for . . .”
“Just the Junipers. The others we planted to give them a little cover. - But yeah he’s been going out and cuming in holes in the ground for years now.” Her eyes crinkled in humor. “It’s a good thing I’m not the jealous type.”

Mark grinned and made his way back out. He and Richard worked steadily in relative silence, each piecing together the little peculiarities they had noticed about each other. Mark never wore gloves because he didn’t have to. Richard’s low monologue to the logs as he cut them into boards was actually why they turned out so straight - and that weird look he got in his eye when he stripped off bark - Mark decided to ignore it.

“So what I’m actually getting from today’s revelations,” Richard said as he was pulling cash out of his wallet to pay for the day's exertions, “Is that I should be paying you a -lot- more. You could do a day’s work in an hour.”

“Doesn’t really work like that.” Mark smiled, “I have to be in battle mode.”
“So, if I went into my terrible aspect . . .”
“Then I could work for an hour and sleep for a week. You’re getting what you’re paying for.”

Richard laughed but soon grew serious. “I know what kind of things you’re capable of. I’d like to move you to working the sawmill as much as you can, and paying better too. It’ll do me good to know if you lose a finger it’ll grow back in a week.”
Mark considered.”I won’t say no to whatever work you put me on, but I can’t let you pay me more. You also know that I don’t find any of this work hard.”
“We’ll see how much more I can make with more lumber running through. If it’s because of you, you deserve a cut.”

Neither particularly willing to back down in their generosity, they both promised to think on it, neither with any intention of actually doing so, and each thinking the other would have to back down once he had thought about it. As was their custom, Richard sent Mark off with a slap on the back and a television reference, but it was different now.  As he did it he realized Mark didn’t get it  - not because he was too young - but because he was far, far, too old.