Walking the Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

to like a man like that. It's terrifying."
      What makes one person so shy and frightened, yet others so foolhardy? Lillah thought. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to," she said. "It is not set in wood that you have to be a teacher."
      "I'm scared of leaving this home. What if others don't like me?"
      "Haven't we always welcomed newcomers and teachers? That's how we'll be welcomed. Come with us and see. If you really can't bear it, you won't choose a mate and you'll walk home again."
      Thea shook her head. "I have to be somewhere they don't know about the drowning. I have to start again, as me, not as the one who drowned the children."
      Thea was called in to the fathers. Lillah, her head near the window, could hear most of the interview.
      "I just don't know how I'll manage without Mother and Father. I'll never see them again," Thea told them.
      "Thea, this is your obligation. The birth rate is low all around the Tree and you must play your part. There is no choice in the matter. If chosen, you will be with Lillah and Melia. Your home will be wherever you are with your friends and the children in your care. Then at last you will find a man to love and you will stop and have children of your own."
      Thea was a very tall, solid woman. She sat uncomfortably on the floor, her knees pointing upwards. Her hair was long and she wore it in plaits, as if she wanted to cling on to childhood and not take on the responsibilities of an adult. "You have talent and strength to share," Erica's father said. "You are our strongest swimmer."
      She loved to swim and was very fast. When someone spotted flotsam out at sea, often she didn't wait to see if it would come in to shore. She would swim out to it, rope around her waist to tow it back again. A carved plank of wood which once told a story but was now blurred. A pot with a strange sticky substance inside. A box with odd skin-like straps nobody wanted to touch.
      "I would be happy to do that forever; swimming out to find treasures. I don't think I'll make a good mother."
      The fathers sighed. "Any more reasons you shouldn't go?" one said.
      Thea smiled. "I'm sure I can think of a dozen more." She looked hopeful; maybe they would let her stay behind. "Did you know I can't see very well? There's something wrong with my eyes. I'm not healthy enough to breed. I'm a defect. And I'm too big for a woman. We don't want that passed on."
      The fathers were unmoved by her plea.
      "You are the strongest, healthiest woman we've had in a long time. It is your duty to pass on those genes."
      "There is no place for you here, now. You have to move on so another young woman can stay. This is how our world must work. We cannot have children born of two people close in geography or blood. You know that."
      One of the other fathers had not yet spoken. He coughed now. "I am of the opinion that you are not a worthy teacher. You have shown us you are not capable of keeping children safe. You have, perhaps, shown us that you dislike children and do not think they deserve to be safe. I am of the opinion that you should stay here. It is our obligation to keep the flawed at home."
      Thea sobbed. "No! I did all I could for those children! They drowned despite all I did to save them."
      There was silence.
      "You may go, Thea," Agara's father said.
      Thea slumped. She crawled out of the Tree Hall, blubbering. Dickson and Tax, her brothers, hovering outside the circle, came to put their arms around her.
      Lillah hoped she wouldn't take her depression along with her; it would make school very dull.
      "Good luck," Melia said.
      "Aren't you next?"
      "They've spoken to me already." She shrugged. "It was okay. Terrifying, but okay. It's when they look at each other. I get nervous and start talking too much. Don't talk too much. Don't fill the blanks in. They know it all, anyway."
      Lillah nodded. "All right." She stepped into the Tree Hall.