The grave tree

The bare November trees were hard and cold as Billy knocked his head back against one to keep from snapping at Robin. She had stopped her slow pace to stare at the map, and sighing again for the thousandth time that day, Billy waited for her to continue leading them through the woods.

Her small hands peek out from her giant coat and tightly grip the paper map. The wind seems intent on preventing her from reading it, folding it over in her hands, but she resolutely sniffs and flips it back open, while Billy shivers. That cursed map had been nothing but trouble since he found it among his mom’s things stuffed in the attic. Now he’s out here, blindly following someone he barely knew deeper into the forest. This was the one piece of hocus-pocus that he was letting himself get caught up in. It was all or nothing now.

With no sign of getting to the end of the trail on the ratty piece of paper flailing about in Robin’s hands, Billy smacks his head back against the tree a second time before he grumbles at her.

“We still headed the right way?”

“Why yes we are Billy!” Robin says in a bright saccharine tone. “In fact, we are still just as on track as we were 10 minutes ago the last time you asked.”

Billy pushes off the tree to scuff at the ground, ignoring Robin's eye roll, obvious even from behind her when she rolled her whole head. They’d been walking for an hour at least now.

Robin sways, nose pressing into the paper, and gives a small sharp pivot. Finally, she continues, leading them toward the thinning clusters of trees.

“You’re making it really hard to trust your sense of direction here.”

“My sense of direction is perfect! We are going exactly where the map says.” She shoves the paper under his nose. “See, hmm, right here, we did this pace, then turned here, had to circle back to get to this spot and stay on track, and now, can you guess which way we are going?”

The blank paper in front of Billy made his eyes ache. He was sick of looking at it, had stared for far too long before admitting he couldn’t see any sort of map on it and needed to let someone else read it. He’d needed Robin to even tell him it was a map at all. He swats her hand away, but she just gives him an angry kind of gleeful look, just smug enough that Billy knew this felt like a win to her. He glares at her back as she keeps walking.

“Just don't get us lost Graves.”

Her last name was the one sore spot Billy knew about her, and Robin bristles hearing it. Billy almost walks into her when she spins around. Her grey eyes turn on him and the bite of the wind stalls as his ears feel tighter and clogged. Like a pocket of air was being squeezed around him. Billy grits his teeth through it as Robin’s shouting seemed to agitate whatever freaky density she was causing.

“What is your problem man? I’m literally helping you with this!”

“Well sorry, but it’s a bit difficult when you’re the only one who can see the map and you keep spinning us around.” He says, grimacing at the compression on his skull.

“You think I want to spend my Saturday listening to you grumble and stomp around? Not a chance! But you said I could keep this map if I get you to the grove that it leads to, so that’s what I’m doing. Do you really think I'm going to lead you to the wrong place when this artifact is on the line? Can’t you trust me?”

Billy could have growled. He didn't want to hear it. Didn't need another reminder that he never learned magic. Not from his mom, and not from her relatives when she left. Never had a chance. He wasn’t planning on keeping the map after this little trip. Didn’t need more junk hanging around remind him mom’s stuff was at home but she wasn’t. She didn’t want to take him with her in the divorce, didn’t care that he wanted to escape that house too. It was too likely that this map was one big joke instead of the directions to a blessed site of nature. That’s just what life was like. And if it wasn’t, that’s at least how it worked for him. But goddamit if it didn’t feel like maybe life would give him a break this time. It was childish to think, but if this is real, if this is his only chance to find magic and Robin was leading him in circles--

He must have taken too long to answer her question because the pressure subsides, and now Robin looks at him with something like pity.

“You can trust my selfishness at least. I’ll get you to the grove.”

“Whatever, let's just keep going.” Billy brushes past her and walks ahead a few paces before remembering he didn't know where they were going. Robin moves slowly behind him while Billy keeps looking ahead. She'd correct him if they needed to turn.

They walk, leaves crunch under their feet over the rising sound of nearby cars. Billy slows down to let Robin pass him. She’d make some adjustment again and then they’d walk back in the forest, because she’s just as lost as he is trying to read that stupid thing.

But she keeps going. The woods thin out as the noise of traffic grows, and the two of them found themselves next to an overpass. Cars speed across it and more drive on the highway underneath. They must have walked through the whole forest.

“I think this is it…” Robin says flatly. Cold wind pushes against Billy’s back, as if he isn’t seeing the scenery before him and needs someone to point it out to him.

The map led them here? To nothing? Billy looks at Robin. A twist to her brow, not looking at the map, but looking hollowly at the grey road.

Of course. Of fucking course. Billy runs his hands through his hair, stopping at the top to grip a fistful in both hands and pull. It was more nothing! The words of his father float into his mind. He should have known better. Magic was a cheap lie, and no son of his was going to be fooled by it. And yet here he was, having gotten his hopes up, and he gets another slap in the face! It was the one thing his dad seemed to be right about. The cold sinks into his chest while his throat starts to burn. He laughs, a sick sounding thing that makes his throat squeeze tighter, as if he were an injured animal yipping in pain after getting caught in a trap. Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? How funny really. That he fell for it. That he was stupid enough to think he’d find anything at the end of this map. Strands of hair tear out of his skull as he pulls. Funny that he could have ever believed she left something behind for him. The only thing she ever left behind was him!

Behind him he hears Robin stutter.

“Wait-wait, maybe we went…or we could have…” she spins in a slow circle, retracing their steps in her head from the map, and turns right back to the interstate before them.

She hugs herself, crushing the map to her chest. The tip of it thrashes in her hold, unable to give them that final slap of irony by blowing away in the wind and mocking the two fools who followed its path in the hopes of finding some kind of magic.

“This can’t be it.” Says robin.

“Oooh but this is it!” He turns to Robin, and she flinches, taking a step back. “Don’t you see, this is aaaaall that it is!” Billy howls, arms wide as he gestures to the bleak scene behind him. Robin winces, looking hurt, like this was that big of a deal to her.

“Well obviously there used to be something here!”

“Who cares? There’s nothing here now! I mean why would there be?!” He said, harsh breath coming out too fast, too ragged. “Why would the one thing she left behind actually be something helpful?”

It was just grey sky and grey road and grey trees. Bland and empty and reaching farther than he could ever go.

“…she?”

A cold shock hit his ribs and knocked them into his stomach. No. He can’t do more of this. She doesn’t get to see that part. Billy rubs his face, and gives a shaky exhale, the air not yet cold enough to see it as vapor. He tucks his hands into his pockets.

“I wanna leave.” Billy’s voice is steadier than he expected, but it still cracks in the middle. Robin graciously doesn’t point it out.

“Look maybe we can still find, you know, something-“

“Do you really think the construction crew left a magic shrub on the median?” It was supposed to be a biting comment, but it just comes out so flat, even to his own ears. Robin only shrugs.

“What now? Spill it Graves.”

That got her. Robin glares at him again. “You know what, maybe I won’t tell you! I’m not supposed to share secrets with outsiders anyway.”

He’d heard that before. The world and everyone in it had already decided those secrets weren’t his problem. Even if one time it might have been. Stupid magic. Stupid map.

“I don’t mean it like that! Sorry, it’s just…” Robin starts, much softer than before. He must have done something with his face to make her back pedal so quickly. Or maybe keeping his composure shook her more. She fiddles with the hem of her sleeve, a sudden red shyness seeping into her cheeks.

“Look, I'm guessing here, but this grove might be the kind of place that you get wands from. Or staffs. For bigger magic or easier channeling. There could be something on the edges here? We might be able to find one…maybe?”

She turns from him and heads down the little hill they are on towards the edge of the highway. Billy watches as Robin steps over pieces of trash that have accumulated in the brambles and vines of bittersweet on the road. The whole edge was littered in garbage. Everywhere you looked. Even tossed up against the taller trees. A skinny one stuck out to Billy, bare of branches, and a trunk pointing straight up to the sky. Really it was just a trunk at this point. A plastic bag was stuck on its top. He gets closer, and could see a vine had coiled up its trunk in a neat spiral.

How stupid would he look if he ran over to Robin and had to ask if this was what a staff even looked like? The vine curled so evenly up the trunk, weirdly stopping where a knot had formed.

He didn’t want to know. It was just a tree, get over it.

He turns away from it. But Robin is right behind him.

“Wow, did you find one?” She says with an awe in her voice he’d only heard when he had first showed her the map a few days ago.

“It’s just a dead tree.”

Robin walks around it, looking at it up and down, her eyes big and wide trying to take it all in. Billy feels an urge to kick the thing over, to see how she’d react. It probably wouldn’t hold up to his boot. Maybe Robin would cry out at him, shake him like this dead thing had some importance.

“This was a waste of time. Let’s just go.” Billy scowls, already turning back up the hill.

“Oh, come on! Let’s give this a chance.”

“Look you get to keep the map alright? That’s my end of the deal done. So, unless you want to walk back home, then we’re leaving.”

====

The drive back to town is tense and silent. Robin gnaws her lips red with over thinking, and maybe with the effort it takes not to burst into an essay recapping the whole trip. He sees her glance at him every so often, like she wants to ask. About his little meltdown, or maybe she’d dare ask him about his mom. Every glance makes him tighten his grip on the wheel. But he was over it all. Over his parents, and his grandparents, and whatever that grove was, if there had even been one at the end of the map at all.

Even if his mom had stayed, that highway wasn’t new. The grove was probably destroyed before he was born. Yeah, that sounds right. Just another example of why none of this mattered. Robin gives him another anxious glance, the wet sound of her biting just noticeable above the engine hum. She might know how old the highway was.

He pulls up to Robin’s house before he gives in to those thoughts. The warm orange light from the windows shows people bustling about inside. Robin clicks her seatbelt off, but doesn’t get out of her seat. She was going to ask, Billy knew it. The tension in his jaw returned.

“Hey I’m… sorry this didn’t’ -

“Thanks for your help, Robin.” Billy interrupts. He keeps his eyes ahead of him, staring at the house. He didn’t need to see her pity him for being magicless. A door opens at the front of the house, and an old woman reaching the top of the door frame stood in front of that warm glow.

“Your nan is waiting.” Robin startles out of her intense staring, sitting up straight from where she was hunched over her knees.

With a final glance that he ignores, she jumps out of the car. Billy feels his shoulders drop, the tension in his body being replaced with a tremor and headache. The He waits, tries to summon a bit of strength for the ride home. Billy sees Robin hug her nan, and they both have matching smiles on their faces. Someone else comes by to grab Robin’s shoulder in passing.

A sourness builds in his throat to match the headache behind his eyes. It’s all of it too warm and too tight. He didn’t need to see this. Should have left as soon as Robin was out of his car. Taking a breath, the shakiest one of today, he restarts the car.

Billy jumps at a knock on his window. It was Robin again, giving an apologetic wince for startling him. Billy wrenches his walls back up, pulling his face back to something strong and impassive, and rolls down the window.

“You forget something?” He asks crossly. Tough and sharp. Good.

“I just wanted to ask if you wanted to come back tomorrow with me?” She rushes through the sentence. “It’s just that I’m free, and I don’t know what you're doing, but my Aunt Shiloh can drive us. My nan thinks you might have found a staff or a wand or something. Which is so cool.” She’s smiling at him, eyes flipping from his face to the hem of her sleeve and back. Billy glances at the house, and sees two women now, looking back at them and whispering. Robin’s nan has a glare in her eyes, staring right at Billy. She didn’t want him to be free for tomorrow. In fact, she was watching like she wanted to atomize him on the spot just so Robin wouldn’t be able to bring him along. He could tell, they didn’t want to let the outsider know their secrets.

Robin rocks on her feet, and seeming to steel herself, says with a sincerity that spread the sour feeling from Billy’s throat into his whole chest. “You should check it out with us. We can go together.”

Robin’s freckled cheeks are scrunched up from her smile. He watches that smile smooth down to a frown as he spoke.

“You can have all the fun you want playing on the highway, but don’t bother me with it.”

“Oh, okay…sure. That’s cool.” Robin steps back from his car, and Billy pulls out of their drive as fast as he can, watching as Robin stares, and as her nan starts to approach. But he’s already kicking up loose gravel as he tears out of there before she could get close.

He takes a different route than he planned, not heading home but to the overpass itself, going right to the spot where he and Robin had trekked. It was darker out now, less cars, and he pulls off of the road once he reaches the hill they were on.

Even in the dark he finds that bare tree again, the plastic bag no longer on top. With the knife from the car, he slices at the bottom of the tree, as close to the roots as he could. The bark of the tree gave way to softer green growth. Slowly he chips away at it. It takes an hour but with a final kick, the tree snaps at its base.

He fits it into his car, tilting it between the front seats, and out a back window. The wind rushes through his car, keeping everything cold.

It hadn’t been worth it, trusting magic would never be worth it. It was never going to be his. But now he felt it. It was a crisp clarity, that tightness from Robin’s house nowhere in his head or his shoulders. This was an end of everything his mom had started. She threw that map away, left it to rot in that house, just like him.

He would burn this tree when he got home.