The Mother of the Tree of Life, Aleister Hanek [best way to read ebooks txt] 📗

strong that her weight was not enough to flatten it. The wind is touching her everywhere, nature’s decadent pleasure has her even less inclined to stand up.
But she does give in; she opens her eyes to gentle light so she opens them all the way. She feels strength in her so new she’s sure it isn’t her own strength. Oh, but it must be hers, as surely as these helpful hosts are hers. Mercadia sees one of them now, and after the initial shock of seeing lips that literally spread to both ends of the jaw, she is stunned by the woman’s beauty.
This smiling beauty reminds her very much of Murcilla, whose lips are very small.
“You’re awake.” Her voice is beautiful too, if she didn’t know any better she would swear this woman loves her.
“I was always awake dear,” Mercadia replies regretfully. “I can’t sleep anymore. I feel like I never will again.”
“Oh dear,” the woman strokes Mercadia’s hair and pouts. “We’ll help you sleep, I promise.”
“No, that’s okay.” Mercadia musters the will to stand up –for she certainly has the strength now, she just feels very lazy—“I don’t think I’d want to miss a second in this place.” Mercadia looks at this land for the first time, and for the first time feels her first great temptation.
The strong lush grass supporting her weight –and the weight of the baby mind you—is blanketed throughout the valley. Along the perimeter of the whole place, an imperfect circle, are trees that stretch as far as the eye can see. Great black fruits shaped like gourds hang from the trees almost as plentifully as the leaves do. There are other trees and bushes scattered with no pattern, and each of them sprouts with different fruits of bright varying colors.
Though she has never seen this place before she recognizes the kind of fruition here: this is the work of the plague Melkam, her people would consider this place unholy ground. Fruit and foliage brought forth by the death of innocents can be nothing but unholy. This place was probably bustling with people once. Innocents swept away by that horrible black and purple mist.
“Melkam did this didn’t he?” Ning misses the contempt in Mercadia’s voice, for hearing Melkam’s name swells her admiration for her home.
“Oh, yes. Malk and I have always been so happy here. We don’t mind that the nearest village is beyond our reach.” She looks at Mercadia then, apologetic. “I’m sorry dear, my name is Ning.” She holds out her hand and Mercadia grasps it, these are those loving hands.
“I am Mercadia.”
“Oh, we know. Melkam told us.”
Mercadia feels her whole body tighten, the baby is uncomfortable inside her suddenly, and she says “that was rude. I should be the one to introduce myself.”
“Mercadia darling, you weren’t around to introduce yourself then.”
“… Explain.” she says rudely, but Ning understands that rudeness isn’t for her.
And Ning tells her everything. She even begins with meeting Malk when they were very young even though Mercadia didn’t ask. And despite her impatience to hear about the spirit she hates, she is touched by their story. A cavity in her somewhere twitches painfully for Andun. Even though he abandoned her, and deserves more hate than Melkam does for it, she misses him.
“My husband ran away when the bullets came.” Mercadia says “I don’t even know if he’s safe. Not sure I care.”
Ning is silent and when Mercadia looks up she is staring at her. The pity in that gorgeous face makes the baby feel twice as heavy. Ning says, “I can’t imagine that. If Malk were in danger I’d have to find him.”
“I wanted to find Andun.” Mercadia says harshly, and that accusation is a dart to Ning’s breast “But Melkam made me run. He said that Andun was The Coward, as though that were his title. It made me sick, it still does.”
Ning is quiet again but not for long, she thinks carefully before she talks. Mercadia is easily offended it seems. “Melkam visits us sometimes. He once told us that The Mothers first trial would be to leave The Coward behind.”
Mercadia’s eyes are wide suddenly, as though she’d been struck in the back of the head and her eyes almost popped out. “He never said anything to me about trials.”
“Oh yes.” Ning says compassionate, but that compassion is lost on Mercadia. This woman has no idea what she’s going through.
No fucking idea!
She goes on seeming to quote Melkam, for words this cryptic could only come from him. “The Mother has three trials to overcome before she can give birth. The first is to abandon The Coward. The Coward ties her to childhood, and hides her from maturity. Only a woman can give birth to a child, only girls are given birth too.”
In her heart, she knows that Andun did just that for her. She has always known he did, that was why she loved him after all. It made him seem like a real man, to able to protect her from something unavoidable like adulthood. Growing up has always been the last thing she wanted to do. She always hoped she wouldn’t have to go through with it. She feels adulthood creeping up on her now, and she is thusly losing her love for Andun. It makes her feel dirty.
“Did he tell you about the other trials?”
Normally she would be so outraged that she would demand that Melkam show himself and tell her everything right now. But she is growing fond of this Ning, and would much rather hear it from her.
“Not the last one.” Something in Mercadia falls, hearing that; as it would not surprise and adult, it doesn’t surprise her. “He told us about The Coward. Then he told us about your trial here.”
“Here?” A trial here? But this is paradise. This place is love, nourishment, and cleansing. She feels like she could live forever in this place. Ning is fantastic company and surely her Malk is too. And the soil is fertile here, soft and alive, just perfect for her baby to take root in and save the world…
My baby isn’t human. She thinks. But I love it anyway.
She’s shocked at herself.
Melkam isn’t.
“What is it?” she asks, solemn.
“To leave.”
For a second, just a second before she asked Ning what it was, she was sure she could do it. She was so sure.
“But…”
“I’m sorry, Mercadia.”
She wishes she had called her Mercy, she needs to be called that. “That’s what I’m supposed to tell you. I pity you, darling, he said we could leave when you did but I don’t think we will.”
“We love this place.” Mercadia turns around and sees the one-armed man. In the first instant she is shocked by his face too, but then she finds him handsome. “It is symbolic of our love. We will never leave, but...” he holds up his one index finger, “if it were for your sake Mercadia, we would leave. But Melkam told us that this is the only thing we can do for you. We were to heal you, then to tempt you to stay, to test your resilience.”
Mercadia’s forehead becomes ridged like the barren earth this place once was. “He would do that. He doesn’t want me to have any help.” Mercadia tries to hide her face in her knees but her pregnancy keeps her knees too far apart. Malk is kneeling and can still see her face.
The lovers look each other in the eyes and show each other the pity they have for this little girl. Crossing over to adulthood should not be this hard for anybody. It’s so hard for this girl; Malk thinks she’ll just sit around and wait for somebody else to do her task for her. Sadly, that only means that she’ll suffer more.
But that is the point of this trial, isn’t it?
“Mercadia,” Malk says, and then holds out his hand to her. “You can stay here as long as you want.”
Her forehead becomes smooth again and she takes Malk’s powerful arm. It’s just like taking hold of a tree’s thick branch. Malk lifts her to her feet with ease she knows she could never muster. She’s sure in fact that she won’t be able to stand up on her own with the baby swollen this big.
“Thank you,” she says but her gratitude is silent, Malk and Ning are left to pretend her graciousness. “I think I’ll be staying for a while.”

7

And Mercadia does stay; she stays for weeks and weeks. She becomes slothful from the comfort of paradise, and the burden in her belly only gets heavier. The child becomes so large in fact that Mercadia must constantly hold it with both hands; otherwise it feels as though it will simply fall out of her stomach. The pain of letting go is frightening and enormous.
Though she does not want to leave this place –ever- Mercadia decides that she should know how to leave. Even the air here is euphoric, and deludes her that she can be happy in this place forever. She has to try, to think hard to form the words ‘murderous flora.’ The wonders of paradise are making her forget the consequence of her slothfulness, and she knows it.
So one day after a rich meal with the lovers she has grown to love, she went outside to walk alone. Malk offered to help her but she refused him and staggered down the hill, almost falling many times. The couple looked on but didn’t follow her, and eventually went back inside the house.
Now Mercadia is so far away that she can’t hear them, and she’s very glad of that.
Her first guess was to look around the perimeter of paradise. She takes most of the day to examine it entirely but she finds no way out. Not only do these trees stretch for miles and miles, but they have grown so close to each other that she could never squeeze through this pregnant. If she were her old skinny self maybe, but certainly not now.
“Am I supposed to fly away or something?” she yells eventually “The sky’s the limit here; I don’t see any other way out!” She means to talk to herself, but she knows that now, when she talks alone, she is talking to Melkam.
She has accepted that she must leave but she has no idea how.
“So you have earned some help.”
Mercadia lowers her gaze to the ground and Melkam is manifest again. It’s been so long since she has seen him she has forgotten what exactly had made her so angry at the spirit.
Bitterness still lingers in her, however.
“I’m thrilled to hear you of all people say that.”
“The way out is through the bushes.”
“The bushes?” She shouts but not in anger, just surprise.
The bushes?
“You can’t fly as, you said. And you can’t pass through the forest. That just leaves you the one option.”
Mercadia looks around, there are a number of bushes scattered nearby, “Which one?”
“Right there.” He gestures with his head to a bush not far away. Mercadia stares at Melkam then, suspicious of how blasé he sounds.
Mercadia looks to the nearest bush, an enormous burst of vegetation that reaches higher than Malk and hanging on one end is the only fruit. An earthling would think it like a weeping willow.
Mercadia is surprised at herself for a second. When she and Andun were little they hid in the bushes together all the time. She might have checked the bushes first for nostalgic nourishment.
“Try the fruit,” Melkam says. She wants to defy him, but refusing his fruit seems silly for some reason.
She goes to the bush,