Tree of Wishes

The Family Heartbreaker: A Cypress Perspective

Life and death are always in a constant, intertwining cycle with one another, yet this cycle is what allows for new and exciting opportunities to emerge. Spring is the best example of that, with many creatures, big or small, bringing their offspringing into the world while plants sprout out of the warming soil to blossom and scatter across their seeds. This will all flourish, attempt to survive, and once they've served their purpose, return to the earth to be turned into fertilizer for the next generation.

So why then would anyone want to ruin that with their selfishness? It was a question I found myself pondering over on a warm day, sitting on the porch while Anubis and Eddie laid on the ground. I could tell from how they were staring up at the clouds that they were bored out of their minds. It was a slow month with no visitors in sight.

Eddie leaned his head back to look at me from an upside-down perspective. "How the hell do you wear that get-up all year around? I took off my jacket 'cause it's too stuffy."

"I do change what I wear underneath to match the weather," I answered, tugging on my robe to reveal my short-sleeved shirt. "The robe itself is necessary to establish my role as head of the household."

"So... it's like a family tradition?"

"Essentially."

"Huh..." Eddie turned his head back up at the clouds, which I was hoping meant he was finished asking questions, but then he continued, "What were they like? Your family, I mean. I imagine them bein' super old fashioned."

"It wasn't old back then," I retorted with an eye roll. "But it was different from how things are now. Before I took over, the Sylvans were a large family with everyone acting as a guardian for the tree."

Hearing this caused Anubis to jolt back into reality, wiggling his little paws while still on his back. "Woooah! Your whole family had powers? That's so cool!"

"What ruined that?" Eddie asked, sounding both confused and concerned. "From what you mentioned, they left Gradmid and you were all alone. I can't think of anything you could do that'd make them abandon the tree."

"That's because you're correct," I said. "It was actually one visitor that tore our family apart."

Anubis hopped up back onto his feet, his tail wagging with excitement. "Oh, oh! Is it storytime?"

I chuckled and patted my lap to invite Anubis over. "Yes, it's storytime."

"Yay!" Anubis shouted as he accepted my invitation, jumping onto my lap and getting into a comfortable position. I swear if he wasn't so adorable, I wouldn't be this easygoing with him. Judging from Eddie's smirk when he sat up to face us, he must have known asking questions Anubis would care about would increase the chance of me answering them in greater detail. Well played.

First, some context on the family dynamic is in order. At the time, my father Watson was the head of the household, who had succeeded my grandmother, Rosemary. She was the eldest of three sisters, so combined with her quick wit and hard determination, she rose to the top without opposition and had her husband adopt her last name rather than the other way around. Having stepped down from her position as the matriarch to let my father take over, she served as the second-in-command providing insight with her vast wisdom.

I was my father's only child, so therefore all expectations of being the next successor were placed on me. However, there were others to take my place if I failed. My father had a younger brother with two sons, Jarred and Alder, both several years older than me. They could be best described as rowdy teenagers eager to mess with a little boy like myself.

Those three were part of the larger group of guardians who made up the rest of my family. This included my father's two aunts, two uncles who also changed their last names, and six cousins with five of their children. If you did the math, altogether there were twenty people protecting the tree at the time including my father and grandmother, with more ready to come as the children grew older. In fact, there were five more waiting in reserve. The youngest cousin, my aunt Heather, had just given birth to a baby, and it was from her I learned how mothers care for their infants.