There was no sun here. It was the wrong kind of sky for shining, and the wrong kind of tree to appreciate it.
For this was a Night Tree, rising under cover of darkness to clear the circulation of a troubled world. And its roots searched not for water but for monsters… the insidious demon weeds against which all manner of cosmic life was destined to struggle.
Whereas normal trees take many seasons to stretch their tender limbs into rough-barked maturity, this tree traced the same path in a matter of minutes. And it grew not in soil but in concrete, cracking its way through the desolate floor of an old container dock.
It spread its branches high up over the dark, lapping water, sliding their slender forms between the old cranes which now sat dormant like moody, rusted ogres. Fatigued metal creaked a pitiful welcome to the newcomer, perhaps recalling the company of operators long-since dismissed.
Breezes gathered around the damp trunk, stroking eager new shoots out of their buds, spray-painting the phantom bark with yesterday’s pollutants.
There were an awful lot of bad vibes riding these breezes. A lot of dreams turned sour, good times grown stale. The docks, the ailing river, the downbeat housing estates in the surrounding neighbourhood… all had been tainted by the same poison.
Much work to do.
The First Leaf made a spectacular entrance, unfolding against a stray moonbeam into twin rows of crinkly, jagged-edged leaflets. And the first of many new worlds took shape against the wailing night.
Oh yes, he thought to himself, thrilled by the taste of treasure in his veins. I can do something with this!
Just then, Leaf Number Two popped out, a couple of side-branches further down - a single body this time, smoother and more delicately textured than its predecessor. Dockland breezes are rarely known for their sensitivity, yet even these seemed to shift and stammer in her presence, as if they could tell just by looking at her that she was a nice, easy-going kind of leaf.
She gingerly tasted the surrounding atmosphere, breathing deep portions of soiled air through her stomatal pores and filtering its secrets into her cells. It didn’t take more than a few sniffs for the First Leaf’s evil intentions to become clear.
Leaves are very good at sensing each other’s moods and motives. It makes being part of a tree that much easier.
“There are monsters here,” warned Leaf Number Two. “Dangerous monsters!”
“Indeed!” replied the First Leaf, as if to confirm his deputy’s suspicions. “Isn’t it glorious?”
“We’re not here to make pets of them!” cried Leaf Number Two. “We’re here to clear them away!”
The First Leaf swung around angrily toward the new arrival.
“We’re here to do what I say - that’s what we’re here to do! I am the First Leaf, you know! The tree follows my lead - that’s the rules!”
This was an occupational hazard in the arboreal trade. Occasionally, a First Leaf would arrive, soak in too much of the situation and find itself tainted by the surrounding atmosphere. And being the First Leaf, it would turn the whole tree into a rogue demon.
Leaf Number Two had been a freelance phantom leaf for many thousands of years, and had seen it happen all too often.
She’d seen what a bad idea could do to a bunch of decent, hard-working leaves - how it could gnaw into their impressionable sap and twist them out of shape until they lost all sight of the task in hand and gave in to the forces of chaos - and worst of all, she’d seen what horrors the resulting monster could unleash.
A couple of times, she’d even deserted her branch and gone autumn, so sickening was the spectacle. Unfortunately, going autumn was considered to be a particularly heinous crime among leaf-kind, and on both occasions she had been banned from work for a century - without sap.
Which was probably the main reason why she had never made it past the rank of “deputy“.
While she was languishing in the shadow-forests of disgrace, most of her old friends had grabbed their opportunities for metaphysical career advancement, leaving Leaf Number Two increasingly isolated. Her job now was the same every time - to nursemaid keen young leaf-leaders who would all eventually desert her for the bright lights of cosmic management.
This time, however, she wasn’t about to take it lying down.
“Listen!” she shouted. “Either you get those nasty ideas out of your head or I’m challenging you for the Firstship!”
“You can’t do that,” replied the First Leaf smugly. “I’m a compound leaf. See?”
He rustled his leaflets, all connected to the branch by a single petiole, just like it says in the rule book.
“So?”
“So majority rules, doesn’t it? I’ve got fifteen leaflets to your one leaf!”
“That doesn’t count - they’re not independent spiritual entities, are they?”
“How would you know, eh? You ever been compound?”
“Actually,” replied Leaf Number Two, “I generally prefer to work alone. I’ve rarely met a compound I can trust.”
“Well, that’s your problem! You can follow me or you can take a hike!”
Other leaves were emerging thick and fast now, as the tree began to pull on the hidden soul drains of the surrounding land. All sorts of unpleasantness was pumping its way up through the branches, stamping its bigoted creed into tender rib tissue and stirring the deep-rooted passions of foliage brotherhood - to the delight of the First Leaf.
“That’s it, lads!” he roared, watching the loose pulley cables drum the crate-side walls to the steady chorus of brute song. “Bring on the dance of demons!”
Even the breezes seemed to have turned nasty, their air-sculpted forms ignited into fierce, howling flame by the breath of dragons. Girders began to snap and clatter across the dockyard arena. Broken-boned cranes wailed piteous insults over the nearby streets.
Determined not to be beaten, Leaf Number Two flexed her vascular bundles and sucked hard on the grim soul-sap.
“OY! What d’ you think you’re doing?” snapped the First Leaf.
But Leaf Number Two was too preoccupied to reply. She didn’t know if this was possible, re-routing the entire sap flow to one leaf through sheer force of suck, but eighteen thousand years of leaf-labour experience had to count for something.
There were, she had suddenly decided, more than enough monsters about already. By keeping her head down, not making waves, playing the game, she’d allowed too many of these petty tyrants to mess with the cosmic fabric - and the time had come to make a stand.
A hot tide of fury washed into her veins, swelling her with all manner of bitterness and resentment… stinging her with dark memories of greed and betrayal… of a community killed by its own dreams and abandoned by the very industry it had sought to serve… a community whose success had outstripped its capacity, whose failures had driven the ships to new harbours.
This had been a place of dreams once, where all manner of new worlds could be forged from a length of chain and a strong heart. It was a place of magic, from a time when real souls could blossom and shadow trees were not needed.
“Noble sacrifice, eh?” sneered the First Leaf. “Well, it won’t work! There’s a whole history of whispering demons down here, and only one soft-hearted leaf to stand in their way! Any moment now, you won’t be able to take any more - you’ll burst your veins and shatter!”
“He’s right, too, damn him!” thought Leaf Number Two. She could feel the demon sap began to crack through her soft tubing and slice its way out across her rim in thick, fiery fountains.
“Shatter! Shatter! Shatter!” chanted the other leaves.
Gargoyle faces moulded themselves into thick, grey storm cloud, glaring unsettled scores over the once-vibrant streets, raining rage and hatred over the dying rooftops. Chains snapped against the shallow, silted waterline.
“Shatter! Shatter! Shatter!”
But then, with an abruptness that caught the brotherhood completely by surprise, the rain abated. Fresh beams of eerie phosphorescence splashed out across the dockyard as the shoreline exploded with sea spray, singing out the sudden shift in mood. Something was pulling itself from the surf, wrapping its luminescent tentacles around the crane cable as it climbed up towards the Night Tree.
A beacon spirit of some sort, bursting with overdue revelations for the abandoned storage bays.
Feeling the fire dissolve inside her, Leaf Number Two shook herself ecstatically in the melody. Demons hissed and withered across the tortured Night Tree bark. Green gargoyle faces softened and cried as their voices were drawn into the chorus.
These were the songs of heroes, the fuel of mighty ships. These were the hands of builders and the hearts of pioneers, breaking free from the air which had swallowed them. These were the communal dreams which had once made this harbour sing - the flipside of the mob.
Revelation passed from leaf to leaf, leaflet to leaflet.
A hidden army of priceless moments, no longer diluted in the general bile, now rushed forward to weave their stories into the dockside. Meanwhile, the beacon spirit crawled down from the crane and turned its sinuous face to Leaf Number Two.
“I owe you my thanks,” it whispered, as if fearful of breaking the musical spell with its voice. “I have been burrowing uselessly beneath these evening tides for longer than I can remember, crashing into the shoreline as the dockyard spirits refused my pleas for sanctuary, hoping with each rebirth that some miracle might lift me free.”
Along the water’s edge, the old cranes turned their creaky girder necks towards the clouds, sipping raindrops from the billowy blossom which now dominated the sky.
New magic had been germinated here, and the demon weeds had been dispersed. It was now time for the Night Tree to disband and report back to the Cosmos.
“Maybe I’m not cut out for this demon-cleansing work,” sighed the First Leaf, watching the rebirth he had very nearly prevented from happening. He thought back to a time when his whole existence had hinged upon the sunlight, when his only duty had been to swing wild on the branches. As the cranes grazed freely on the cloud blossom, he realised that chains and cables were not nearly so alien as he had first thought.
“Thanks to us,” said Leaf Number Two, “seeds from this place will ride out on the morning tide to bless other places, and the soul of an entire world will taste new magic. Keep that in mind, and you’ll do much better next time.”
The long dark night of the sap was over - for both of them.
