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Ahead, on the plain, an oak tree towers. Untouched. On the high branches, leaves dance in the wind.
Will Schofield walks to the oak tree.
His body walks, yes, all the bones and tissue of his legs take him from one foot to the other, from one patch of grass and weeds to the next. His body walks, but his mind pulls back, and back—first he loses his hands, the ones that held Blake’s as he died, his fingers close now around open air. Then he loses his wrists, his forearms, his shoulders, the burn of his muscles fade into faint static, like the birdsong, like faraway rain. Then he loses his torso, his hips, his legs. His legs are still moving, they must be, but they aren’t his legs now, they belong to some other Will Schofield, some mechanical man, some toy soldier grown past his designated size and given a rifle too heavy to lift.
Will sits against the tree. He almost feels it: the bark, rough against his back even through two layers of uniform shirts, warm from the sun.
Here is the thing about trees: they hold you. They give you a shape, they have enough steadiness to lend it out, if only for a moment. One tree, how many rings of bark are layered on that wizened trunk? Dozens, hundreds, all those warm springs and windy winters precise in their lengths yet tucked inside, hidden from view, so all you see is the final layer. The last year. This is how the tree survives: by growing out. Covering its scars.
A tree can put on weight without falling. For a man, it’s not so easy.
Blake was like that: always putting on weight, then swaying beneath it. Like a colt on shaky legs, harnessed too soon. He could read the map, Blake could, any map, give him chicken-scratch on the inside of a book published a hundred years ago and he’d guide you to the gold buried within. He could read it, yes, but could he carry it, could he give you directions without stumbling into you—of course not, because he wasn’t looking, he was never looking, he was never.
Will knows a hundred boys like Blake. Knew, knows. What’s the difference—he carries their ghosts either way. He knows how they smile and shine and fall, almost like they want you to watch. To point out their glittering tail and make a wish, just as they disappear from view.
Will doesn’t want anyone to watch. He sits at the tree. He tips his head against the bark. He fumbles, with hands that no longer belong to him, in his pocket—his fingers, numb and cold as though he’s reaching from underwater, open the tin and take out the photographs, well-worn. He reads the message, because he needs to, because he has it memorized.
Come back to us.
What will she do, when she gets the news? Will she scream, cry, drop to the floor? Slam the door in some poor messenger’s face, tell him he must be wrong?
No. She will stand tall. He can picture it now, their little cottage on the outskirts of town, the birch tree stretching out by the kitchen window, the herb garden lining the path up to the front door. The messenger marching up, taking a deep breath, adjusting his cap before he knocks, once, twice. Her face as she opens it, going pale as a ghost, her curls falling over her forehead, her sweater hanging off her shoulders. Her hands as she reaches, her skin dry and her nails too long, her fingers shaking as she takes the message. Her eyes as she tears the envelope open, reads once and once again and once just to be certain, her dark eyes widen and go soft, filling with tears. Her arm rises to brush them away. She nods to the messenger. She squares her shoulders and turns: calls to the girls.
You would’ve made a better soldier, he tells her. You wouldn’t have been so selfish. You would have come back.
She would have run up that path, trampled stone and herbs underfoot, thrown her arms wide. The door would’ve been open before she even had the chance to knock. Or perhaps she, too, would collapse against this tree, lean her head against the bark and try to feel the sun on her face. Perhaps she, too, would stumble under the ghosts on her back as he does, bucking on limbs that are no longer her own.
The war takes everything: land and bodies. It takes the sun and says, this is a tool to see the enemy. It takes the fog and says, this is a weapon to attack under cover. It takes fields and says battlegrounds, it takes cows and says, weakness, it takes trees and says, fuel. It takes bodies and says, numbers. It takes your brother and says, this is your mission. It takes your love and says, put it to work.
It takes your limbs and numbs them, one by one. Will sits back against the tree, he tries to focus on the bark, the grass, the birds singing, the photographs sharp in his hands. There is a pounding in his head. Through Ecoust he could ignore it, Ecoust and the river and the trenches, but now—he is not quite a soldier, he does not quite have a mission, nobody has told him where to put this pounding and so it engulfs him. He is a body on the current, he is slipping down the waterfall, he is tumbling into the sun.
I’m sorry, he tells her. And he closes his eyes.
The oak tree stands on the plain. The soldier will be a dent in its bark for a few hours, perhaps a day. The bark will grow out around him. Another warm spring.