COMMON ROOM: A Short Story Anthology

The Married Tree by Antara G. Roy (Wattpad username: _coralsky_)

THE MARRIED TREE

by Antara G. Roy (Wattpad username: _coralsky_)

Mentor: Kelly Loy Gilbert, author of CONVICTION, releasing May 19, 2015, from Disney-Hyperion

*** 

She married a tree. They made her marry it.

On the sixth night of the waxing moon, three women stood in the courtyard. They faced the sky and offered a prayer, beads twirling in their fingers. A lone leaf fell from the tree above. It was brown, its vein dry, a victim of drought. The clouds wandered off, leaving the moon naked. The women began to move forward, their eyes solemn, their veil held in place by conch. The time had come.

Unbeknown to them, a lone figure stood behind a tall post witnessing this ritual.

Three wise men met the women halfway through the forest. Only the moon witnessed this. The men had an air of conspicuousness about them. They exchanged strange courtesies. The women pulled off the conch and handed it to the men.

Each man put two fingers inside and a hand on the other side of the shell. And they blew. And they blew so hard that lights began to appear.

Blink. One.

Blink. Two.

Several.

The scone of torches appeared one by one. Those carrying the torches began to walk toward where the six people had gathered.

The lone figure, Asha, continued to watch from a distance. She noticed the men and women were now seated under a giant tree.

The Peepal Tree. Not just any Peepal Tree. The fabled tree of the Sukshma Village, their lord, their protector.

She crept forward, toward the light, all the while making sure that her footsteps were not heard.

The commotion began to settle down until there was absolute, pin-drop silence.

Asha stopped and listened, bending down to the earth. Asha could listen now. Her grandmother told her so. The earth could make you hear any kind of noise, however far away.

Her mother didn’t believe her, but Asha heard her father when he was off to war.

She could listen.

“I hope you understand the gravity of this matter,” a solemn voice said. It was the sarpanch, the village head, a wise man of one hundred years with a snow white, chin-length beard and a thin, stick body. “We are at the hands of drought. Only God can help us now.”

An exhale from the group.

“I had a dream last night.” Now a woman’s voice.

Silence again for several minutes. Asha briefly wondered if the earth had turned deaf for her, or, had they left?

“The Lord wants to marry,” murmurs broke out.

“Marry? Marry whom? Marry what? How can we be sure?”

“Silence everybody,” came a different commanding voice. “We are not here to speculate. We are here to come to a conclusion. Today on Purnima, the most auspicious day of the month, Lord will show us what he wishes for.”

“But how?” a voice rang out. Asha was certain that it was that of a villager. It sounded bleak and unsure. The very thing she was feeling right then. How can a tree marry? Wasn’t it a nonliving tree?

Asha was confused. She was just a child, but she waited eagerly to hear what the sarpanch had to say. The wise man had an answer for everything.

“We will pray,” the old man said now, “and he will listen.” He said this with absolute certainty, which made her think briefly about the rigid faith they had in that tree. It was just a tree after all, a big, unmoving thing made of green-yellow curly leaves.