The Snowblower Bandit And Other Stories

The Witch Tree

When I was seven years old, I really wanted a peach tree. We had a yard that was a little over an acre, and the only trees on it were a pine tree and a maple tree. It was mostly weeds. One glorious day, which I'm sure my dad later regretted, he taught me that people can buy and plant trees wherever they want! I went on a planting rampage.

You would be amazed how many trees you can get for $15 or less. I had talked my parents into plum trees, a pear tree, three different apples, a crabapple, a sour cherry tree, three butternut trees, and four hazelnut bushes. The one I just couldn't convince them to get me was a peach tree. "We're too far north," they said.

You see, most peach trees will survive in northern Wisconsin, they just won't produce fruit. The flowers come too early, and frost will kill them. The varieties that bud late enough to produce fruit up here are...well, 'okay tasting' is about as far as most people go.

I finally talked my parents into getting me an honest to goodness southern peach tree. Even if it only produced fruit once every ten years, I'd be happy! So, seven year old me set out to find the perfect location in our yard and dig what my grandpa used to call, "A $15 hole for a $5 tree." I dug it extra deep so I could fill the bottom with compost that it would take the roots of the tree years to find. I even mixed in the good stuff from our vermicomposter (worm composter). At the level its current roots would be at.

I had to clear away rocks the size of my torso by digging around them, using a pry bar to get them up just enough to kick some dirt underneath, then repeating the process until it was out of the hole. Sometimes it took me an entire afternoon to roll one around the house and into the back yard. (Over several years, they became the foundation of our fire pit circle.)

The day finally came, and my tree was delivered. I could feel the love pouring off of it as soon as its root ball kissed the delicious mix of soil and compost waiting for it. I patted the soil in around it, mulched it, watered it well, and spent hours just admiring it. I wrapped the trunk with rabbit and mouse proof plastic to prevent it from being girdled. I set up a ladder and dragged a sledgehammer to the top of it so I could pound metal posts into the ground and wrap wire fencing around it to keep away deer (or 'giant hoofed rats' as I like to call them).

Yes, little me was in love with my peach tree, even though I knew it might never produce fruit for me. How pure of a love was that?

Then it died.

Yep, even by the end of the summer I knew it wasn't looking very good. I looked at it out of my window all winter, hoping it was just sleeping and finding the strength to grow again.

It didn't.

I let it stand, just in case, but it didn't bud. By mid summer it was obviously just a dried up stick. I left it there as a marker of the perfect spot to plant another tree someday.

A strange thing happened, though. Another trunk started to grow from its base. I couldn't tell if it was from below the grafting or not.

You see, the easiest way to get a new fruit tree is to cut a branch off of a tree you like and connect it to the trunk of another tree you've chopped off, preferably a very hardy one. I had no idea if this new tree coming up was my peach tree, rising from the grave, or whatever the root stock was. I cut the dead trunk off, and let nature take its course.

By the time I was ten, it was obvious that this...thing...was no peach tree. It was fast growing, had darker, almost black bark with what looked like scars in it. Every twig of it was covered in vicious thorns. It's branches twisted around each other to create a thicket of threatening, angry evil.

I loved it.

I had never seen a tree like that, and haven't since. I don't want to identify it, because at the tender age of ten, I knew there was only one thing it could be...a witch that had been cursed to take the form of a tree so that she could no longer hurt anyone.

But then, by early summer, emerald leaves would sprout and it would look like a perfectly respectable tree. Pretty, in fact. Leaves smoothed over the jagged edges and hid the thorns, allowing the viewer to appreciate the flowing curves of the tree's branches better.

In winter, when the leaves had fallen, it looked like something straight out of the bowels of Pandemonium itself. By summer, it was a paragon of wild, but beautiful, nature.

That's when I figured out its secret. That's when I knew the witch's crime.

The witch had fallen in love with a beautiful princess. The king, who would never allow his daughter to be courted by this peasant witch, decreed that she should be cursed to live as a tree until such time as the king should deign to fell it.

The princess, desperate to save her love, threw herself into the arms of her lover as the curse was performed. They became a part of each other in a way that no two people ever had before. By denying his daughter the right to love whomever she was meant to, he lost her forever.

Now all winter the witch suffers in silence so that her love can sleep away the cold months. In spring, the princess awakens and they celebrate their love through the long summer days and warm summer nights.

By fall, the witch must again lull her princess to sleep so that she can survive the bitter cold, protected by the witch's love. The king would never fell the tree, knowing that if he did, he would be killing his own daughter.

The only person I ever told this to was my little sister. I believe her response was, "That's stupid."

I got a text from her today. She said my parents decreed that they could finally get rid of "that horrible tree" now that I'm not going to be there much (I left for college last fall, and have been living with my girlfriend since the pandemic started).

My little sister, who had never really been an ally to me in any way, told me she stood in front of the Witch Tree, protecting it, and yelled at my dad for wanting to cut it down. "This is mine and Annie's tree!" She said. "It's staying!" He relented, and agreed it could stay.

Thank you, Brat. I owe you one.

* * *

Update!

My sister said the Witch Tree produced fruit this year! She said it looks like a plum, but she's afraid to try it.

Do you know what this means? The witch worked her magic so that they could have a child!

...In so many ways, I'm still ten years old.