A Question of Time
“Please hold on to your leaves,” Niles whispered to his trees.
The night draped his courtyard like a velvet blanket.
Niles had donned a couple of extra layers and cradled an insulated mug of mulled wine.
Since Orren had taught him to listen, he spent even more time in his glade, talking to the trees before they succumbed to their winter sleep. It comforted him like nothing else.
“Expecting Orren to leave has been bad enough,” he whispered.
“Knowing he will is worse. I have so much yet to learn.” And though there was not even the hint of a breeze, his trees replied with an amused rustle of leaves.
“It’s true,” he said. “I had no idea someone like Orren even existed. I didn’t know trees had memories or that you need to learn like we do.
He’s introduced me to a whole other world, and I don’t want him to leave, not yet. ”
Another amused rustle and Niles’s shoulders sagged. He took a sip from his mug and sighed. “Yes, I like him.”
More amused rustling.
“I like him so much, I might be falling in love with him,” he admitted. He’d never say this aloud anywhere else. “I was so alone before he came. Back in the spring I would have told you that was fine. But now I’ve met him, spent time with him… I don’t want to go back to feeling that way.”
This time the rustle was comforting. Niles couldn’t explain how he knew the difference, just that he felt it.
And maybe that was the difference. He’d walled himself off from feeling.
His work was logical, creative in a structured way feelings never were.
There was no logic to the lump in his throat or the prickling behind his eyelids.
There was no logic to feeling so torn up at the thought of Orren’s leaving.
You haven’t even asked him to stay. The thought floated through his mind, in a voice that wasn’t his.
“You give to the trees,” Orren had told him. “Memories, emotions, thoughts, and feelings they can share amongst themselves. And sometimes, when they’re in agreement, trees give back.”
Were his trees telling him he was an idiot?
It wouldn’t surprise him. Orren had said he’d have to leave when the trees were bare and Niles had accepted it without question. He hadn’t asked under which conditions Orren would be prepared or allowed to stay. Maybe it was time to remedy that.
Morning came with a brisk wind that danced around the courtyard, intent on pulling leaves from branches. The trees shivered and bent towards Orren, who sat in the glade, back against the birch, knees drawn tight to his chest, and with his eyes closed.
His posture radiated pain and he didn’t look up when Niles approached.
“Orren? Is something wrong?”
“One of the mother trees... I can’t hear it anymore,” he said. “The connection used to be strong. Now there’s just... static.”
Niles sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. “What does that mean?”
“Most likely that a tree I’ve talked to since I was human…
is gone.” He turned his face into Niles’s shoulder, and Niles felt the dampness of tears through his shirt.
“We shared so many memories over the years that I’m tasked to spread far and wide.
I’m not supposed to grieve for a single tree, a single voice. But I do. Every time.”
Niles stayed silent. He just put his arms around Orren and held on. The wind swirled around them and a gust came from nowhere, yanking on Niles’s collar until he hissed at the sting. “That felt like an angry slap,” he said, without meaning to.
His words brought Orren out of his trance
“It was a reminder,” Orren said, his voice more vibration than sound. “The wind knows the cycle of the seasons the way the earth and the trees do.”
“And my trees are behind the times.”
“They are, but you have much to learn and I want to share what I know before I must leave.”
An opening as if he had engineered it. Niles raised his head. “Why must you leave?”
“For everything, there’s a season,” Orren quoted. “Autumn is short on days, yet long on memories. When autumn ends…”
“If I asked you, would you stay?” Niles blurted before he lost his nerve.
Orren’s fingertips traced his cheekbone in a barely-there caress. “I would stay,” he said, “and be glad for it. But it takes more than you asking.” He straightened and then pushed to his feet. “Shall we continue?”
Niles had a million questions, but Orren didn’t seem inclined to answer any of those. So he took Orren’s hand and towed him to the entrance of the library. “Teach me what I need to know.”
For the next week, the books Niles read became older and odder.
The language went from old-fashioned to something Chaucer would have been comfortable with.
Orren was a patient teacher, and an even more patient translator while Niles’s library acquired books and dictionaries on old English and arcane spelling.
Niles didn’t mind. Research was familiar and comfortable, even if he researched topics his university professors wouldn’t have recognised.
Every day they sat in the glade with the trees. “It feels as if the trees are as eager for me to learn as I am,” Niles said one afternoon.
“Of course they are,” Orren answered. “Trees share everything. It saddened them that you’d made a home for them, but they couldn’t share their joy with you.”
“They see me as an honorary tree?”
“You’re part of their family. By now, maples in Japan, birches in Finland, baobab in the Serengeti, and the mother trees in the rainforest will have heard of you.”
Ice dropped into Niles’s stomach. “That’s not as comforting as you think it is, having my bumbling laid out for all the world to see.”
“Why do you feel you’re bumbling?”
“Because I planted a glade without knowing what I was doing. I sat among the trees and talked to them because it comforted me, not realising they needed the comfort too, and so much more. And I shudder to think I neglected them.”
“You did nothing of the sort. Had you neglected your trees, I wouldn’t be here.
The birch worked for two years, guided by the memories in your building to reach the nearest tree outside.
Then the tale spread of trees in a courtyard that nevertheless learned and spoke.
When you planted the ginkgo tree, you gave me a path to you. ”
“I meant to ask about that.”
“The tree of memories, and a pathway for all memory keepers. I watched you for two autumns before deciding to show myself.”
“Why not sooner?”
“Because knowledge is not an easy gift, and you seemed unduly burdened already.”
Niles scoffed at that. “‘Unduly burdened’? How do you figure that? I have a roof over my head and food on the table. I have projects that keep my mind sharp and the means to build a library nobody visits.”
Orren’s smile wasn’t joyful then. “You have all this, yes. And yet, you seemed like a solitary tree to me, without companionship or even a shared history. You reached out over and over, but none of your efforts connected.” Tears glistened in Orren’s eyes when he met Niles’s gaze.
“You’re clever, curious, considerate, and kind—and all these attributes set you apart.
They created your fortune, but they left you lonely and disconnected.
And I didn’t want to heap a secret on your head that widened that gap. ”
“That’s…” Niles couldn’t even imagine code to describe what he felt, and words eluded him entirely. “That’s a lopsided way of looking at things,” he managed after a time. “Kindness is supposed to bring us closer together, not keep us apart.”
“In your world, it makes people uncomfortable. Offer something for free, and everyone looks at you askance and suspects you of ulterior motives. Am I not correct?”
“You’re saying building the library achieved the opposite of what I wanted? I’d hoped to meet people, become part of a community, and instead I… isolated myself?”
“Community is a two-way street,” Orren pointed out. “Which is why your trees are ecstatic you can now hear them. And I’m glad I plucked up the courage to make myself known to you.”
Niles wanted to laugh, and cry, and rage, but settled for making more coffee instead. The mundane actions soothed him more than a tantrum ever would. He was lousy at understanding people and their motivations, never mind he excelled at creating apps that gave them exactly what they wanted.
The conundrum made his head hurt.
“I’m glad you did,” he said. “I’ll treasure these weeks and our conversations.” Niles gulped coffee, but then voiced the rest of his words. “Even if you’re going to leave me lonelier than before when you go.”
He was so spun into his thoughts, he barely noticed Orren taking the coffee cup from his hand.
Then Orren wrapped his arms around him and held him, and the mix of strength and gentleness brought tears to Niles’s eyes.
He hid his face against Orren’s shoulder, just as Orren had done in the glade, and cried out a heartache he’d never acknowledged before.
“Loneliness is not an ending. It’s just the precursor for a different kind of growth.” Orren’s fingers carded through Niles’s hair, the steady rhythm soothing. “Empty branches are a promise.”