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Raven in a Tree
“Mowgli, come on!”
“No!” I hear a shout down from somewhere in the branches.
That's my little sister, Maggie. She's decided to climb to the top of the tallest tree in our backyard as a way to be angry at me.
“Mowgli, please. we're sorry!”
Branches rustle and then I see her head pop out from the green shield of leaves.
“No,” she yells again. “I'm staying up here forever and you can't stop me.”
Her head disappears and I jog to the base of the tree and rest my palms on the rough bark. Looking up, I see her sitting on a branch and swinging her feet back and forth like she's about to launch herself.
“Margret-Sophia. I'm going to call mom if you don't come down from there right now.” Its a desperate move using her full name, but I'm supposed to be babysitting and if she fell out of that tree. Well, let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. I'm talking about what would happen to me, by the way.
In response, Maggie kicks her shoes down at me. One thuds into the grass just beside me. The other plinks off a branch on the way down and smokes me straight in the shoulder.
“Ow!” I yell and grab where I can already feel it darkening into a bruise.
“Serves you right!” she yells.
Furious, I jump and grab the lowest branch and start hauling myself up, but Maggie skitters higher and I let myself drop back to the ground. There's no point in trying to catch her. She might as well have wings.
Its kind of amazing to watch her climb: the way her hands and feet sway and stretch in unison, the perfect sense of balance she has. I've seen her balance on one foot on a branch that bobbed and sagged under her tiny form. I've seen her hang one handed and drop ten feet down to land on a branch as if it were a concrete platform instead of a swaying inch-diameter stick.
My sister has no fear. She's sat in the top of trees during thunder storms. She's jumped into the sea lion tank at the local aquarium. She's come into my room before with a black widow resting in her palm so I can see it spin a web between her fingers. She's walked across town at midnight to see if she can trap the moon in a butterfly net.
“Noah, is everything okay?” That's Alice. She comes out of the house and stands on the patio.
“She'll be fine,” I say.
Alice shades her eyes against the sun and looks up at the top of the tree. It looks like its dancing in the wind. I can't see my sister anymore and I wonder what she's doing up there. Trying to shake the tree hard enough to pull it from the ground and fly away with it, maybe. Maybe.
“Maggie, please come down. I'll make you a chocolate Sunday,” Alice yells from the patio.
Nothing. Not a peep and I wonder if she's considering the offer.
“No?”
Nothing.
“Are you sure?”
“No!”
“No you're not sure?” Alice asks with a grin.
“Go away.”
Alice shrugs and sits next to me against the trunk of the tree. She squeezes my hand, which I take as an apology. She's the reason Maggie is mad after all.
Alice looks at me and mouths I'm sorry.
It's okay.
Make it up to you.
Lock the door next time.
A little stick hits Alice in the head. “Stop plotting!” Maggie hollers.
“Maggie!” I yell.
“Eff you!”
Just then, I hear a car pulling into the driveway followed by a horn.
“That's me,” Alice says. “I figured it might be better if I wasn't here.”
“Oh.”
We stand and Alice gives me a quick kiss. “I love you,” she whispers.
“You too.”
She squeezes my hand one last time and tells me she'll call me when she gets home. Then she jogs out of the backyard. Moments later I hear the car pulling away.
My sister is fearless, but I am fearful. Absolutely dripping in them. Heights. Spiders. Jellyfish. Dying. The dark. Alien invasions. Becoming addicted to strange things like eating cigarette butts or collecting bottle caps I find on the street. I am afraid of flying, well, afraid of falling might be more accurate. I am afraid of getting bad grades and not getting into the University of Montreal. I am afraid that I will someday discover that I am gay long after I have a wife and kids and two mortgages to pay. I am afraid of being like our father.
Slowly, the sun sets. Maggie is still sitting in the top of the tree, gently swinging back and forth. I wonder if she's getting hungry. Mom won't be home until tomorrow morning so I wonder if Maggie will try to sleep in the tree. Should I get her some blankets? Should I set up camp beneath the tree for the evening? Is it even possible to sleep in a tree?
“Mom is going to be so angry at you,” I yell up at Maggie. Its the first thing either of us has said in hours.
“I'll tell her what I saw,” she yells back down at me.
For a while we are both quiet. Then I hear her shift high above me. Suddenly there's a loud crack and she screams.
“Maggie!” Before I know it I'm halfway up the tree. She's hanging above me with one hand. The branch she was sitting on has cracked and dangles limply against the tree trunk and the one she's holding on to is bowing dangerously.
Maggie grabs another branch with her free hand and stretches her leg elegantly back, feeling around until it finds a hold on a thick arm close to the trunk. I keep climbing towards her even as she lets go and spins herself around so both feet rest safely on the solid branch. The dangling branch finally falls away and Maggie leans against the trunk and rests both hands behind her back. She smiles at me.
“Jesus Christ,” I say and keep climbing until I'm sitting next to her.
“What?” she asks, still grinning with the perfect grace of a tightrope walker.
“I thought you were going to fall.” My heart is still pounding double bass in my chest.
“I never fall.”
“I'm sorry,” I tell her.
“I know what you guys were doing,” she says. “I'm not stupid.”
I blush and apologize again.
“Are you in love with her?” Maggie asks.
Immediately I start to respond, but I hesitate. “I think so,” I say.
“That's what I was afraid of.”
“What do you mean?”
“You guys are in love. So you do it. Then you get married. Then Alice gets pregnant and you have kids so you have to move away together and then you have to get a job because you have to pay the mortgage and then you'll be busy all the time with working and taking care of your kids—”
“Whoa, Mowgli, slow down. We're not going to get married, we've just started dating.”
“You'll forget about me.”
Her statement hits me harder than I think its meant to.
“I could never.”
“That's what Dad said.”
I scratch the top of her head and she scowls at me to conceal the fact that she likes it.
“Montreal is so far away,” she says.
“It's not far if you fly,” I tell her. “I bet you could see it from here.”
So my sister climbs up to the very tip of the tree and, like a sailor standing in the crow's nest leans way out to the east with one hand over her focused eyes.
In my pocket, my phone starts to vibrate but I ignore it. In the fading eveninglight I see black feathers drifting down from my sister's outstretched arms.
Mathew Fasullo holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria. He currently writes stories from his kitchen table in Edmonton, Alberta and is terrified of someday having a daughter like Maggie. You can find his work in Hoot Review and online at The Glass Typewriter
Email: Mathew Fasullo
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