The Last Song

Under a bruised sky, ruptured by lightning, in the smoke and haze of the clearance zone, three hundred figures in green and yellow clashed. They fought in a no-man’s land, kicking up ash onto logging machinery while the old forest, bent and weary, shivered. Its canopy was greyish, not green; it stood alone on the barren face of its world, holding memories and desperate animals in equal measure.

Serena McLeod toddled, red-faced, into the cool gloom unnoticed; her mother was brawling with a jack-booted construction worker. In the frail, young shape of her shoulders and hands, a keen eye could see the broad back and strong body she would inherit from her mother if the crumbling world could be saved. Hiccupping, she wet her shirt with tears and snot as she first stumbled to a small birch, then crawled under the hanging pine branches. By the time Lilith and Malcolm noticed she was gone, already cuffed in the back of a police van, Serena had stepped onto a forgotten path and was wandering amongst old trees with gnarled faces in their bark. The forest watched her pass with a hundred weary eyes until she stumbled on a protruding root and tumbled, headlong, into a forgotten place.

Midder the Sessile Oak was perhaps the largest living tree in Alba, now, and certainly the oldest. Her wide branches sheltered the clearing like a roof, letting rays of muddy light through, catching the ash and smoke like a great filter. In the hush-hush silence she created, Serena's cries and wails were deafening. The root that had tripped her was Midder's, and the old oak sent down a shower of leaves to caress her tiny, weary body as a cool, clean wind whistled along the moss and lichen-covered ground. Still, she cried, a small ooze of blood dripping from her chubby knee. Flowers bloomed around her. Still, she cried and screamed,

"Mama!" The child kicked waved its soft hands and looked around for help that was not coming. It was a hoarse sound - reedy and lost. Filled with panic and pain. It was a sound Midder knew well, and though she drooped her lowest branches, she could not hold the human child as she could the forest. Instead, she rumbled and shivered, singing an old song to rouse the sleeping dragon beneath her roots.

In her slumber below the roots, Cailleach had weathered the steady decay around the old forest without turning. In the forgotten place, she had prepared for her long sleep in the same way that countless other guardians had before her. Now entombed in concrete, cracked open and sold, their songs were silent. Their stories had faded into darkness. This cry, however, tore the silence and roused her. One eye, gold as ripe wheat and wide as a dinner plate, opened and scanned the darkness. The sound was coming from below Midder’s canopy, close enough to make her grumble and rise. She slithered from her den and took in the scent of the air; under the fresh scent of moss and damp mud, there was a copperish reek, and beyond that, the smell of fire and oil and smoke was pervasive. Cailleach's tail whipped the ground, her great claws dug the earth, and as she passed, weak shoots grew from the wounds her passing had left.

It was hairless, gaudy, and bleeding, and when it saw her, it shrieked before extending its chubby arms, face puce and wet. She turned her head left and then right, but no elders came. A great gust of air left her lungs:

Even the dumbest beasts of the forest do not leave their young unattended. Have humans fallen so far, Little One?

The child - for it was a human child, she was sure - stopped wailing and hiccupped, blue eyes as wide as saucers. Cailleach blinked and lowered her great head.

Can you hear? Do you understand? She extended one claw to prod the soft belly and recoiled when it let out a series of sharp, musical sounds, face twisting to display small, blunt teeth and pink flesh.

Words printed on the thin yellow cloth covering its body, in a bastard language less elegant than the one the last humans had spoken, read: "Protect Our Trees, Save Our World". Someone had covered the child with this rag, but it would be little use in the night.

Interesting. She raised her snout to stare at Midder's canopy high above. Can you hear, Midder?

The song was weak. Midder was sick; her great roots were thick with poison. Unease rippled through Cailleach’s broad body, the moss that clung to her shivered as her muscles moved and she lowered her face to stare at the child.

Stay.

Not all dragons were flightless, she knew, and there had been times in her long life that she regretted her heavy body. This was one of them. When she was young and Midder's sire was the forest matriarch, she had climbed the branches with ease. Now her long, grey claws dug deep into the old Seissle’s body.

Forgive me, old friend.

New sprouts grew from the bark in her wake, but they were twisted and grey. They withered and fell after a few moments. From the high canopy, the old forest was a marooned island of myrtle green and drab grey. In the distance, thick smoke grew like grass, and the sky threatened violence in shades of purple and red. Cailleach blinked her large eyes and shivered once more, remembering the screams of the other guardians, and wondered if those had not been dreams.

What is afoot, old friend? she asked Midder, and found the tree as scared as she.

The roots are dying, the children are weeping.

The message was almost too faint to hear, like the last hiss of a dying breath.

The world shrinks, Little Guardian. We are alone. There will be no more songs.

Cailleach shook her head, dread creeping into her weary body, and looked around, ears turning to catch any trace of sound. The forest was silent; if the child had elders, they were not here. She slithered down the trunk, wincing with each fresh spill of sap; the moss on her feet died, turning brown and dry.

Standing at two feet in height, it was a large child, but not grown. It babbled and stumbled. The humans had grown in size, but perhaps not wisdom. Come, child, this is no place for younglings. With that, she scooped it up and placed it on her back, but it slipped off and started to weep once more. Cailleach sighed and tried again. Hold on, now, she coaxed, and it wrapped its chubby arms around one of the tall, blunt spines on her back.

From behind the thick length of her neck, in the shadow of the crown of thorns on her head, it could see nothing, but it did not matter. The scent was strong, even in the gathering gloom. The darkness of the old forest was a comfort to Cailleach, so similar to her root-covered den, but as she slipped through the wide spaces between the towering oaks and, at first, Cailleach felt the sickness grow. The child sniffed and sputtered, barking half-formed words, at first, and after a time went silent. The eyes of the forest followed them until the spaces between the trees shrank and the undergrowth became scrubby. The moon peeked through a last gap in the canopy, now high in the sky as they passed onto a weathered track. A stunted elder tree drooped at the edge of the old growth. Too young to have stopped sprouting, it seemed weary of life. She sniffed it and recoiled from the diseased scent it carried.

What is afoot, Little One? She turned her head to stare at the child, but it had fallen into a fitful slumber, Is this what your elders wish to save? No answer.

They passed into a young land where the air was bitter with ash and oil. In the darkness, Cailleach could not see the new growth, and for the first time, she was glad to be robbed of the sight of saplings. The child whimpered and kicked her back in its sleep. To cover the cold chill in her veins, Cailleach spoke,

Do you know, Little One, the story of this forest is older than Midder?

No answer came, of course.

She huffed and spoke nonetheless: When your kind was young, there were boars the size of small bears. And bears twice the size of that. They fought a war over this forest and fed Midder and her sire with their blood. The wolves and wild cats and your forebears hid in fear from fang and tooth until, digging their dens, the bears wounded Midder's sire; I forget her name. Life is long... for some. The forest grew sick, like it is now, because the sire was its mother and she could not feed it when her oldest root was so torn. Your people wandered into the forgotten places of the forest and found the wound. They covered it with mud and moss, and gave blood of their own. The boar and bear clans were so touched that they called a truce, and the bears left for the northern forests in shame. Today, you will find only bones. Do you like that story?

The child breathed softly on her back. Its heart beat fast, like a little bird's, and its soft belly grumbled with emptiness. The smell of waste reached her nose. Cailleach grumbled and lowered it from her back with one long-toed hind foot. The contraption on its rear was foul with waste and pressed against the skin. The pale flesh under it was tender and inflamed. Cailleach discarded it with a retch and tore moss from her back to wipe the skin clean before she wrapped long strips of it around the child's belly and rump.

You should have kept your fur, little one. It's warmer.

Nestled safely on her back, the child fell asleep once more, and Cailleach journeyed on, following the scent as it dwindled and mingled with harder, alien smells. The sun rose early, for it was spring, but the light sputtered weakly through thick, oily clouds, illuminating only shapes below the canopy. Cailleach pushed through a thick layer of pines, using her crown to shield the child. As light flooded her eyes and her great foot hit the hard-packed ground, she froze, mighty body shaking. The child let out a reedy whine as she scrambled forward, jostling it as horror flooded every part of her frame.

The new growth was weak and sick and stunted, but it was the wounded who called to Cailleach most fiercely. In between the small trees stood mighty stumps, still weeping rich sap. The fiercest of Midder’s grandchildren lay in piles, corpses stacked high like cairns, and the world was still.

It was a silent spring - the children of the forest did not respond to her cries. Only the human child, who wept furiously and shrilly until Cailleach dumped it in the dead earth and whirled, tail knocking down a pill of small branches.

What is it you weep for? she demanded, advancing as if to flatten it, but it only cried and kicked its feet before getting up.

It stood, at full height, below her chin and raised its arms to her. "Mama!"

I am not your mother.

Cailleach left it in the dirt, ready to return to the forest and her den. Her tomb. The world was silent; even the birds could not sing in these ruins. But the child could; its song was hard and needy, demanding and greedy. She turned her gold eyes to it once more and saw it, the child of the earth, with its wet face and moss-covered legs, and sighed. It stepped towards her again and again.

Go that way. She nudged it away, but it clung to her leg. Go away, tiny pest.

The wrath was cooling. It did not understand. It did not know. She scooped it up and turned her face to the dead land and the rising sun, moving east through filth as the moss on her legs dried and turned brown and her eyes itched. Beyond the stacks of old trees, there was nothing but churned dirt and thin, weak weeds sprouting where they could. The seeds that sprouted from the earth under her feet made a path that she would rather have followed, but the weak scent went east.

When the last of the stumps appeared, grey and hard as stone, dead beyond repair, Cailleach stopped, slumped to the earth, and pressed her nose to the soil, seeking the sounds and smells of the insects. They too were silent; their song had ended.

Perhaps we are the last, Little One, she whispered, now sorry for the little beast. Perhaps we will be the very last. Her tears did not sprout; there were no seeds to take them.

The wind was acrid and hot, rough with grit, and the rising sun seemed to bleed as she passed into a wide flat land where the scent, or one like it, became unbearable. Animal, but not of the world she knew; dirty and fearful. Under it, the copperish smell of blood and the thick, cloying smoke of green wood. A thin yellow line formed in the distance, and a new song came forward. Desperate, frantic, and filled with fear,

"Serena!" Voices on voices, young and old, cried out the song.

Cailleach turned her head to look at the pale, listless child.

Is this your song? she asked, but if it could hear, it did not answer, and so she spoke again. Serena, as in serene - of peace. The world is certainly peaceful now.

The smell of blood grew stronger; the air was thick with it here, and the yellow shapes were, indeed, elders. They stopped as they saw Cailleach. Only two broke into a run; a large, bullish female with fresh wounds on her face, and a smaller, agile male with long legs. They too wore yellow cloth.

"Protect Our Trees. Save Our World."

They called out as they ran, bodies tense and hard as stone, reeking of fear, and only stopped when Cailleach craned to grip the child. They raised their hands as if in prayer and pleading. She placed it on the earth and stepped back, watching them run to scoop it up, their eyes wide and fearful. Cailleach looked around at the soot-black plains, turned her head to the forest, and then watched as the others crept forward.

It was so far, and she had become so weary. When she sank to the ground, body heavy as stone, they crowded her, touching the moss and spines on her body, pouring water into their hands from clear jugs and letting it trickle onto her. They shuffled back when a single seed, hidden and hardy, sprouted by her head, growing slowly until a thick, spiky, green weed with a shock of purple down on its head formed.

Hello, little friend, she whispered, watching it bounce and shake.

The humans gathered around it, touching it with wonder, then spoke to her in the garbled tongue, gentle hands patting her sides and spines. One tried to pluck it from the earth, but another slapped its hand away. Cailleach raised her eyes.

Is this how you protect our trees? she asked, expecting no song in return, but the child raised its head, and so did its parents.

"We're trying," the mother said. "I promise, we're trying." Some of the others whispered their own song, touching her moss and legs softly, pouring clear water over her. One rubbed some around her aching eyes and mouth to clear the ash. "Tell us what we have to do. Please?"

Cailleach huffed, lips curled to reveal sharp teeth. It is your world. What can I offer? There are no more seeds. There are no more songs.

The mother put its head down and wept, shaking it over and over. "That can't be true. The forest is still standing." it pointed to the old forest, to the sickly barrier. "This thistle came from a seed. We have seeds."

The mother dug into the folds of its clothing and offered a handful of mixed seeds, scattering them around Cailleach, digging them into the earth with its thin, blunt claws. Its song was furious, blunt, and bleeding with fear and need. It was a fierce big creature; its scarred face was twisted, but not with hate. It's song battered against Cailleach's tired mind, clawed at the earth, and demanded an answering call. The seeds sprouted, sickly but striving.

"We have seeds. We have water. We have this earth." The mother slapped its broad hands against the dead earth. "This land. It is ours, yours." The child grumbled and whined. "Hers."

In the distance, a bird called, and for an age, there was no reply. Then a single trilling answer, carried by a westward wind that brought the smell of the old forest and its sickness. Its' living sickness.

"You say there are no more songs," the mother pressed, "but I was told there are no dragons. Here you are, I know a dragon when I see one. Can't there still be songs, if there are dragons?"

Midder’s song was all but gone, but her deep roots were under the soil. Even here, her children's fingers pushed in search of healthy land. The thistle bobbed in the wind, joined by violets and forget-me-nots and late snowdrops and the growing stalks of foxglove. Cailleach struggled to her feet with a weary rumble that scattered the humans, sniffing the ground for Midder’s scent as they followed.

"The loggers will be back soon," a new voice said, and the humans talked amongst themselves of conflict. Of blood. Their song was sharp and alien to her; it wavered in the air like a war cry and kindled a seed in her heart.

Little warriors, she said, and they became still. There is one more song. You must help me.

They took turns, digging where she told them too. It was slow going with small tools and their blunt digits, but they dug. They watched the horizon when they tired, and when a sound like rumbling thunder became hulking black shapes that moved smoothly over the dead earth, they turned to shield her.

The new humans that appeared had their own song, and whether the yellow elders knew it or not, it was sad. Sad and desperate. It tugged at something in her. Clad in forest green, ironically, these newcomers gaped at her and her followers.

There is one more song, Cailleach said to the gathered crowd as she dug, the moss on her body, now uniformly brown, fell in clumps to root in the ground and spread. When the grass and wildflowers reached their feet, the green humans backed away, shouting into nothing. Their song became fearful, but it was still a comfort. To hear strong music after so long.

And still more came, in every colour, bringing metal and bright white light that made her eyes ache. They stood behind the thin yellow line, demanding, shouting. Their noise covered the sound of Cailleach’s claws until she hit the thick root and cut its flesh. The forest rumbled; the humans fell silent.

The child toddled to Cailleach's feet, touched her dry skin, and gurgled when that sloughed off under its tiny hand.

"By the Gods," the mother whispered. "Are you sick?"

We are all sick, Little Warrior, Cailleach turned one gold eye to take in the full sight of her. I am dying. You must dig for me.

Others pleaded, or exclaimed in fear, but the parents dropped to their knees and dug, making the trench wider by inches until their friends stooped to help. Until some of the grey humans left their black metal creations and dropped to dig. Until the trench became a wide, shallow bowl and she stepped into it. Her bulk settled into the bowl as if it was made to do so. Perhaps it was.

The humans crowded in until the mother stood.

"Enough, you should be ashamed." It was a cry from before. An older soul that spoke for it. "Show some dignity." They did not listen, simply crowded closer until those in yellow stood to shield Cailleach.

I am tired, Cailleach whispered, and this time, there was a song in reply. Her children; the flowers of the dead land leaned to her and whispered gently. Her warriors, little yellow flames, touched her body softly.

"You can sleep," the mother said and pulled the child back. "You can sleep. We can do it."

No, only I can. You must protect it. Cailleach dug a claw deep into the root below her and let her chin rest amongst the sprouting flowers. They grew small, their petals pale and sickly, but they grew. When the sun hit the ground in full, they released weak scents.

"Seeds," the mother whispered, then raised its voice. "Seeds, and water. Who has them?"

Those in yellow produced parcels full of them, darting sly looks at those in grey, and poured them onto the earth, digging them into the soil with their small hands.

Seeds from no earth. How strange.

They handed them to the mess of others that came forward, and water - water came from every jug and jar Cailleach could have imagined. And the green spread until it reached a long-dead stump. A sapling, a seed almost dead, forced its head to the surface for a gulp of greasy air and weak sunshine.

The humans were a hive, or so it seemed because the murmur rippled from one to the next as if they too were rooted together. Only the child stared at Cailleach, now, its wide blue eyes blank as her skin lost its vibrant green hue and her spines fell away like old teeth to sprout bramble patches. That round, pale face, pink from the wind, grimy with dirt, was Cailleach’s world until the gold of her eyes became milky white and her teeth hit the earth, becoming wild, scrubby heather sprouts. The mother’s touch was gentle, but its image was gone. Cailleach whimpered in the darkness and let the rough palm ground her in the void.

I am afraid, Little Warrior. Midder is alone. And she opened her mind to the touch, showing the mother that long path to the ancient Sessile Oak and her den. I want to go home.

"You are home," the mother whispered and pressed its damp head to Cailleach’s skeletal crown. "I will care for Midder. You can sleep, now." It mean it, too. She could feel the truth in the words like cool water on a parched tongue. The cracks and groans of the ancient root were like thunder; they drew screams from the hive of humans around her. "Thank you."

With a last groan, Cailleach let her body go, and it became a soft mound in the earth, so soft that she barely felt them cry. Barely felt their hands as they tucked seeds under her belly and legs or fastened strips of yellow cloth to her crown.

Serena McLeod squeezed an acorn in her small, soft hands and stared at the huge tree that guarded the entrance to the forest, surrounded by its children, adorned with strips of faded yellow cloth. Her mind turned in the way that only a child’s can,

"There's a face, mummy," she said. "There's a face." Her sharp little nail caught the light as she pointed, and her mother, Lilith, crouched to look.

"There is," she said and patted her daughter's slim shoulders with rough, swollen hands. The dirt of the forest had been engrained in every line and pore over the years. The pointed snout was still visible, but Cailleach's crown had long been swallowed by the grand Sessile Oak tree that grew from her belly that day, a moment that had sent ripples through the world. Young but strong, it stood tall and proud. Scrubby heather surrounded her roots, sporting vibrant purple blooms to match the rampant bramble bushes they cohabited with. She plucked a dark berry and let the juice flood her mouth. It would have made no sense to any botanist, but then nothing here did.

"Put the seed in here," Lilith said and stuck her fingers in the small hole they had made in the earth. "And then give it some water."

"There's a face," Serena said. "A big one."

"Yes, it's a dragon face," Lilith said, her breath tickling the curling blonde hairs by her chin, making the girl giggle.

"Dragons are make-believe," Serena whispered and pushed the acorn into the hole.

Lilith smiled and touched her head. "Sure are, and trees don't grow in fields of heather." The acorn sprouted, the face faded, and the song that Lilith had been hearing at the edge of her consciousness dimmed a little more. She dreaded the silence as often as she enjoyed the cool, clean air.

"Shall we sing a song?" she asked and watched in wonder as her daughter's face became her own for a short moment.

"Okay," Serena touched the tiny sapling, trying to pull it from the ground.

"No, Serena," Lilith said, holding the small hand still. "Let it grow. It'll get better if you do. Big and strong, like its mother." Serena huffed and twisted her thin, pink mouth.

"Okay. Can we sing jingle bells?" she asked, rolling her eyes with a smirk.

"A Christmas song in March?" Lilith feigned shock then grinned. "Of course." The song floated through the new forest, dimming as it traversed moss and thickets and low-hanging branches. By the time it stumbled on that old, protruding root and tumbled into a place less forgotten, it was just a whisper on the wind.

At the centre of a great clearing, the sessile oak that held court shivered. Midder’s leaves rustled and cascaded to the ground, covering a gaping hole under her great roots. In the dark, cool space below, reason was thwarted once again; a long-headed poppy sat in the centre of an empty den, growing in darkness and increasing in size by the day. At the heart of its flower, something moved, no bigger than the head of a pin. When its petals closed with the setting sun, there was a light within, flickering like a single match in the wind, that illuminated the shape of a jagged crown and stubby wings.