Tree of Life

Book II Chapter 12

TREE OF LIFE BOOK II

CHAPTER 12

Two hours later and still early into the wee hours of the next morning, Julian was wide, wide awake. Though his mind told him he really ought to get some rest, what with everything that had happened that day but somehow, he just couldn’t make himself fall asleep. So he gave up. Just now, he was perched on the edge of the tree platform with one foot on it, one foot off, and his arm looped around a branch from the next tree over like a little monkey, only bigger and just a tad less hairy. Hanging off it, he swayed back and forth as he gazed into the distance and the smoking edge of forest that marked the limit of the latest Movartis modernization project. “You know, Nicole…”

Nicole was trying to get some shut-eye herself but was also having no luck. And it didn’t help that Julian kept trying to talk to her. She frowned, and then twisted around in the sleeping bag to put her back to him. “Julian, I can’t talk to you like that.”

He turned around to face her. “What?”

“Go put on some pants first.”

He looked down. “Oh.” He grabbed his pants that had been tossed off to one side in their earlier haste. “I didn’t hear you complaining about that before…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” As he got dressed, he spoke to her over his shoulder. “Do you think it’s too early to go back?”

“You mean, ‘now’?” She scoffed. She closed her eyes and stayed horizontal. “He said ‘two days’.”

“No, he said ‘at least two days’.”

“Well, there you go.”

“But…”

“How many days has it been? Like zero?”

“Yeah, but…”

Nicole opened her eyes and rolled them, but still had her back to him. “Oh, right. I almost forgot. You can’t count to three, let alone two…”

“Oh, you had to go and bring that up! That was like a mega-tera-jillion years ago.”

“Yeah, but who does that? Nobody does that! Nobody says they’re going to count to three and then just says three! Who does that?!” Nicole sat up and turned around.

She glared at him. “What are you doing?”

Julian was completely dressed and was gathering up his things, like he was packing to leave right then. “Nothing.” He was holding a set of binoculars in his hand. He put it back down.

“Nothing?”

Julian sighed. He hung his head and sat back. He shoved his pack off to one side.

Nicole shuffled over to him, with the sleeping bag still wrapped around her. She had nothing on underneath besides her locket. Now, as she snuggled up next to him, the necklace had sneaked past the sleeping bag and was dangling back and forth on its chain from her neck.

“You’re worried,” she said.

Julian nodded, while gazing out into the distance.

She shrugged. “So, let’s go.”

~~~

It was almost morning. The sky was lightening on one side. The sun was just threatening to come up and over the top of the trees. Nicole and Julian had been flying through the forest, jumping from branch to branch for about an hour now. They were almost there. Just another ten minutes or so and they would be back at the city of the Tree. The two were just going to head down to ground level to run the remaining half mile to the entrance of the clearing, when Julian pulled up short and signalled for Nicole to do the same. He crouched down on the branch that he was on. She remained standing on the one behind.