Raven-black Tree

It was a tree that stood in solitude atop a hill where silence in form of grey mist hang; the fog seemed to carry all the cries the whole human race had let out: it was a cold and desolate cloud enshrouding a one-tree hill. No other life was to be found there. The grass that struggled to raise its fingers to the sky was impeded and killed at the moment of their conception by an unknown force. The tree stood like a victor as it cast a deathly shadow upon the sterile hill. The tree itself, towering is if it wanted to reach the sky, was as black as night. It was a skeleton of a time long past. A monument of a glorious and chthonic part. But it stood, as persistent as the red moon that guarded it at night, as if it was pointing its fingers accusingly to the sky. It was like a cross to mark someone else's grave. The wind was persistent in its journey toward the unknown. Had the tree--lonely and alone--been clothed with leaves, it would have swayed to the cadence of the mountain's breath. But it did not have leaves to begin with. The only thing that swayed on that dead tree was a noose. The rope was tied to the seemingly strongest branch, its end formed to serve as the most grin of all execution device. The cold symphony of the misty wind was the only mark to indicate that time was still affecting the quiet hill.

Through the mist, a young girl as comely as a blooming rose was passing. The countenance conveyed the purity of her heart. She was a small girl for her age. The face, framed by a neatly cut hair the colour of the blackest night, was a canvass for the curious and intelligent eyes, a small nose and a mouth that held all the inertia of mystery and pulchritude. She was known for her mildness, her fragility and curiosity. A typical young lady who would partake on a caucus around a camp fire. Well, she was, in her own way, a girl around a camp fire.

She eventually saw the foreboding that was the raven-black tree. At first, the tree was, for her, a crack upon the white mist, a rift upon the sky. But as her steps progressed, as she approached, the place was revealed to her. It was indeed a funereal tree of whose grave she did not know. She knew of the infamy the tree had. She grew up with the people who feared it. Why? Why would they fear it? It was just a dead chunk of wood! She did not fear the tree. The girl who made the place a temporary refuge came back there again and again. It was always misty whenever she came. She felt hidden from the rest of the world. She would sit on its roots and contemplate on the tree's being there for hours on end. She would look at the noose and wondered who would have used it to kill himself. The question would always taunt her, interest her to no avail. She would also wonder why the townspeople would let the lifeless tree alone. As it was. Don't they care? Was she the only one who had the liberty to ask questions? To--as the other people would say--blaspheme? She would ask her mother what that tree was doing there. Why it was feared. The old lady would scold her for being inquisitive and admonish her. She would be told to drop the matter off. And never to go there anymore. She became silent but the questions remained. The girl asked other townspeople, creating theories as she went on. Maybe someone who was in despair committed suicide there. But upon telling them what she was doing there, they would tell her, just like what her mother told her, to never return to that place again. The raven-black tree was cursed. It would drive her insane, or kill her, if she would keep on going there. This remark made a big impression on her; this only strengthened her desire to go back. Nothing could stop her, even the ghastliness of the place. Even the cloudy foreboding that descended and eventually veiled the place. The tree standing in the middle of that hill became a symbol of her inquiry.

The town wherein she lived was never to prosper; it was, as the old fellows said, the curse of the raven tree. Why? Again, she was not told. She was only forbidden to utter anything concerning the tree; otherwise another curse upon them should befall. The history of that malefaction, the tree, the one who committed suicide there would not be disclosed. It would remain a mystery. They just believed that via tree was powerful to cast a curse of perdition upon its blasphemer. No words were uttered against the infamous tree. Upon observing those she asked, she noticed that they conveyed ad nauseum a kind of reverence upon the tree. The tree with its concealed part was left alone amid the fog. No one ever dared to go there.

When night fell, the villagers shut their houses tightly lest something--a progeny of darkness, they reckoned--would enter the house and kill them all; the practice was reminiscent of Egypt back in the Mosaic times. The wind would blow and shake the roofs of windows slightly. Fear was with them as they supped and eventually went to sleep. The girl did not share the prevailing atmosphere. In fact, she was growing more curious. If given a chance she would open a door or a window, to have a peek outside.

That morning, she decided once more to visit the forlorn place. She touched the dead bark, feeling its roughness; it made her skin infantile in comparison. Her touch lowered until it reached a cavity. Something was telling her to plunge her hand into that hole. And she did. Her trembling hand explored the hole. She was like an inexperienced spelunker in search of a hidden treasure. She jerked her hand to the other direction. Nothing. To the other direction. Noth-- she gasped. There was something that greeted her skin; it was like a smite of a cold air from another world. She grasped the object and extracted it from the hole: a leather-bound pocketbook. The wind, with its symphony, continued to blow, swaying the noose and her hair frantically. The mist-veiled hill seemed to warn her against opening the book. She remained standing on the foot of the dead tree; she was deciding whether to unravel the book's content or let it be. She opened it.

The book's content was let out like a dam breaking before her eyes. It answered all the questions she was shouldering: about the tree, the noose, the past, the fear. In her mind was the fog dispersing. According to the book, there was once a witch whose description was not given-- she had to rely on the stereotypical appearance of one-- who disseminated fear upon the village. The witch was a one-woman army victorious upon her mission. The villagers lived in fear for far too long. No one rose to defy the supernatural ability of the said scoundrel. It was an irrational fear deemed rational by irrationality. Man fears death: this the witch used to manipulate the village people. But one man stood up to end that reign of darkness; he persuaded the others to rise up and end this crow-black tyranny. It was strength in number against a demonic art. They vanquished the evil incarnate and hanged her on that tall tree; but before the execution occurred, the old witch cast a curse upon the row of pitchfork and torch: the rustic place would be relentlessly beaten by storms every now and then, the fog would haunt them like the howling of wolves, a specter would fly every night in search of human flesh, and the utterance of her story would bring a curse. The tree that once bore leaves died when the witch's breath of life left her. It was a nightmare to remember. It was a nightmare to forget.

It was a legend according to the book; it was a myth studded with sheer mendacity and exaggerated by fear. It was a hearsay nevertheless. A gossip opted to be believed by people who could not think for and by themselves. The shame! she thought. Evidences gathered by the writer of that book led to the contradiction of such an absurd tale. At the tree she looked. In her eyes grew indignation-- a righteous anger for her townsfolk. She cursed the tree for bringing fear to her fellow townspeople. Now, the time had come to liberate them from such foolishness. With that book in her hands, she strongly believed that that naïve people would take her word.

She ran swiftly towards town; her feet were given a surge of juvenile energy to fulfil a task. Through the sulky vapour and fields of leafless trees she darted. Liberation was tightly clasp upon her hand, and she wanted to impart that freedom she had found to the folklore-chained dwellers of that dismal town. When she reached the town, she screamed despite her gasping for air: "All that you believed in all your life is a lie! It's all a lie! You're just deceiving yourselves!"

They stopped walking, talking and working. Their collective and scrutinising eyes were focused upon the young girl. Each and all eyes wondering. An old man approached her, his eyes although softly alarmed was inquisitive. "What's the problem, child?" His hoarse voice blared through the fog. That kid he recognised was the daughter of the weaver; he knew that the child was a gentle soul. He saw her eyes: eager, naïve but inquisitive.

"The hill. . . The tree!" And all the words of veracity poured out from her mouth. She narrated with vigour the story behind the accursed tree, unravelled the truth about the fear that consumed them all; the fear that they devotedly regarded. The urgency was in her voice. The need to free her fellow villagers overflowing.

But as she related her tale, the anger in the old man's face began to form and rise. He was horrified. Enraged. He seized the young girl by the hand, shook it and shouted at her. "What did you-- Do you know what you've done?!?!"

Incredulous, she looked at the old man shaking her. When she recovered, she tried shaking herself from the man's tenacious grasp. But her efforts to tear herself from the old man's grip was in vain. The man continued his harassing, his asking, but she did not want-- and ultimately could not-- answer the questions. Slowly, like the cold embracing the land, her heart was gripped with fear. Tears welled from her comely eyes-- eyes that could magnify the most minute of all her emotions.

"What have you done, you foolish child! Do you know?! Do you--"

At last, with a vicious heave, she managed to free herself from the man's anger. Her mind was as misty as the frigid air; she could not think. Fear and confusion overwhelmed her. What did I do wrong? this echoed in her mind. What? The backward step she made was an initiative to find and retreat to an unknown comfort. She must run! She must hide! What did I do wrong? With all the strength she could muster, she looked at the face of the old man; she realised that that one countenance was also the collective faces of all those who dwell in fear. Dwellers of the shadow. She became the object of humiliation. The ignominy incarnate about to sentenced of being banished. She must run! She must hide! The hand was about to get her again. She felt as though it were a snake about to bite her. She must run. She must hide. Mustering all the feminine and childlike strength left in her she scrambled once again through the mist towards the veiled comfort of the cold.

---

The wind blew harder. The fog seemed to grow thicker and more dismal than ever before. The sun seemed to have betrayed them. But the curse had not befallen yet. However, despite this, some people talked about its impending arrival. They feared, and the fear was enough to drive them crazy.

"It was always like this. We would like peacefully without any worries as long as we consecrate the tree until a girl with a preposterous idea would come to distort our way of living," that same old man said..

"I know. I'd rather obey the tradition than to risk my neck saying something wretched about it." One would say. "Besides, the tree has taken many lives. If it couldn't be attributed to it, I don't know what is."

They were afraid that via more "innocent" minds would be affected by the discovery. They were afraid that all the things they know, all the things they believed in--all the things they reverently feared-- would be questioned and ultimately alter their their ways of life. They feared the tree and dared not to go near it. As long as the wolves howled at the moon-- wishing for its lunar guidance-- they would believe that it was the voice of the tree. As long as the nocturnal rustles and noises existed when darkness fell, they would believe that they were the witchcraft of the tree. As long as the fog hang ominously, they would think that chaos would stretch its arms and wipe them off the face of the earth with the most sickening notion of pestilence. The dusk would come with the darkness it conceives and the dawn and the light with which it deceives, and between those two they would live in false fear forevermore. The girl saw all of these and more. She was an anathema from that point on. A blasphemer to a persistent belief. A victim of traditions. But on the other hand, she liberated herself from the curse of the raven-black tree. With no second thought, she poured the petrol on its roots and struck a match. The fire, which the thickest of damp mist could not fight off, rose to the sky. The fingers that accusingly pointed to heaven was devoured by flames of fire.

Yes. It "was" a tree that stood in solitude atop a hill where silence in form of gray mist hang. The fog that seemed to carry all the cries of the whole human race had let out rose with the smoke of a once infamous tree that scared a whole village-worth of fools.