The magic tree of wishes

…an enchanted love story. From one girl to another

With the tip of her toe touching the cold lake, Faye was smiling and oww-ing at the cold touch of water. The sun warmed her soft skin, making it glow like a rhinestone surface. She resisted and sank her left foot, taking it out immediately. She skipped back to a meadow, feeling the freshly cut grass under her feet. When she was out there, the entire nature engulfed her beauty, and the grass moved in the wind more voraciously than ever. The leaves danced in the rosy air, raising a few rebellious ones around her hair, materialising her magnificent aura.

Her cookie-brown hair was swaying like sea waves at dawn on her shoulder, and stopped when reaching a huge tree. It was a dying tree, but it was the biggest tree Faye had seen (and believed she owned) in her life. She called her Arabella, for its beauty. She was convinced it, was a her. She would sit there, near Arabella’s roots and talk for hours. She was her confidant and biggest believer. No one knew about this tree but her. They might have seen it, her family that was, but she didn’t tell anyone. Besides, it was a bit far from her house, and her sisters would rarely come here.

Sometimes she would put little notes and hang them on the branches. They would come true in a few months. This, Faye called the magic tree.

The tree’s branches were half empty, and it wouldn’t leaf, no matter the season. It could be July, but the leaves would be scattered, and the green ones would simply fall within a week. It was like looking at a giant, with hundreds of empty wooden arms. Faye imagined it was dying, but in a hidden corner of her heart, the possibility of it being immortal, and simply not a real tree, bloomed brighter and brighter each day. It was as if the tree was leafing somewhere else, somewhere not in plain sight. Perhaps in the spark of faith inside her.

Truly special it was, and Faye could stand there for hours, for days if she brought food and a tent to sleep in. Sometimes she would do that when her parents were away. It was a bit dangerous, even though it was a meadow. And no one walked around this area ever, as it was intersecting with their private property, and people didn’t have access to this meadow from another direction, but through their chalet. So although she treated this space as her own, it really wasn’t hers, and didn’t belong to their family. Their property ended just before the lake. This zone was a grey area. The smallest dot on the map, that belonged to no one.

Faye liked to think many things were hers, even though she didn’t own them. It was as easy as that to play pretend at 10 years old, that she couldn’t give a hoot about what anyone thinks. If someone contradicted her, she’d simply listen and think whatever she was thinking before anyway.

It was hard to yield her out of her stubbornness. But she was content every day. How many kids could say that? No, really, even with food or chores, she wouldn’t complain about anything. Of course again, there weren’t many things to be done around the house that the maids wouldn’t do, although they did keep a few tasks daily, for the girls. They needed to learn responsibility and discipline, and all four girls were aware of this.

One can say they were the sweetest girls on earth. Faye was a bit different from them, though. She liked to talk about things that kids at 10 years old don’t usually talk about. That’s why she came here often, because Arabella listened and didn’t ask silly questions like “How do you know all this at your age?” or “How come you think like that?”

One day she brought there, to the tree, all her rhinestones and colorful little stones that sparked in hundreds of shades as you’d turn them to the light, that her mother gave her to play with when she was five. These stones were special, her mother said as they were passed down from generation to generation. They weren’t diamonds, she said, but some sort of crystals.

So she played on a sunny Saturday afternoon, creating worlds with a few stones, throwing them and watching them fall. She couldn’t have enough of this. She used to put them on her hands, and create an imaginary bracelet or rings, chains, or attach some to her clothing.

As she tried to lie down on her back and put some of them on top of her to watch them shine, she saw a boy just in front, by the lake. She had risen and walked slowly towards the boy, more intrigued than ever. A boy, in here? But we never…

The boy was paying attention to his reflection in the lake and the way his hands looked. He kept turning them in awe, until he turned around when she said ‘hello there’.

– Huhh — he jumped back on his feet and towards the crystal voice that talked to him — ..uh..hi there. How are you?

– I’m doing alright, thank you. Who are you?

– I’m Thomas. Who are you?

– How did you get here, Thomas?

– I came from here.

– From the lake?

– Yes

– What do you mean?

– I mean I just got out.

Faye noticed he was soaked, frowned and took a round walk around him, not missing him from her sight.

– How is that possible? You broke into our chalet?

– No, not at all.

– Then how did you get outside a lake? People can’t just come from lakes.

– Oh..right. Said Thomas, rather embarrassed, his eyes wandering elsewhere than at her. He tried to look around and saw the biggest tree he had ever seen. — What is that??? He gasped, ploughing ahead in that direction

They talked for hours about everything else than how he got here. He calmed Faye, and the fact that he was her age helped, of course. She couldn’t believe he would do any harm to anybody. It was a mystery, but Faye was used to mysteries by now and didn’t stew it for too long. She did suspect the tree of having something to do with it. Her last wish was something like.. I would like a friend who I can really talk to, and he would really listen to me, as he means it. I would like to meet a boy as I never had, and I am a bit tired of talking to girls. I love my sisters, but they can be a handful sometimes. I just want something else.

So maybe…Thomas? She thought.

– What do you mean you have no friends coming over here? It’s a beautiful place. Most beautiful I’ve ever seen. — he said that the fourth time, while looking some more around, at the carefully handled fields of colorful flowers of all sorts just near them, placed in circles, lines and other shapes. There were roses, carnations, peonies, coneflowers, dahlias, and it goes on. Also, there were the gold wooden staples, much farther from them, closer to the house. Faint shadows of mountains could be spotted far in the distance. — And what do you do all day?

– We go to a school nearby, play, we clean, cook, read, paint. Lots of stuff. I come here a lot.

– It’s nice here. I will come more often if you’d like.

– Would you?

– Yes, I like talking to you.

– I like talking to you too.

Thomas and Faye remained friends years later, when she found out he had actually sneaked into her house, because Mabel, her sister, had forgotten the gate open that day. At 18, they broke the bond, as they both move in different places, far from each other. Writing at that age was such an afterthought in their exciting worlds that they simply wouldn’t bother. Faye wanted to write to him many, many times, and Thomas as well. It’s just that a lot of things happened, so fast, that it was always tomorrow. And tomorrow was always the day after tomorrow. And over the weekends, they were meeting their friends.

And weeks, months, years have passed until they met again, when Faye was 30, and Thomas was 32. They noticed immediately how young they both looked, and were aghast that since 18, nothing had changed in their appearance. And that was true. Everyone complimented them both, and even asked for their id number when buying cigarettes or beers.

How crazy was that? To run like that into each other in Mykonos, while Faye was having the night out with her girlfriends. She called him up, at her resort, stood by the pool, in the summer air, had beers and talked until the sunrise. They had filled each other in with everything there was to know, and beyond. So many feelings, so many sensations that were there between them, unsaid, drifting like a paper boat caught in a windy, sunny afternoon. Caught on a sunny Saturday, smelling the roses, near a beautiful, gigantic tree. The heat could be felt in between them, under, above, everywhere. The tension was palpable. As they were for each other, “the one that got away”.

They kept in touch every day since then. Not more than two weeks had passed, and they were mooning over each other like crazy. They were at each other’s place once a month, because of the distance between their cities, but soon after, Thomas moved to London, where Faye was established now, as the editor-in-chief at a hip international magazine.

Faye got a call from her sister Mabel on a Monday, when she had just entered her office, and things were so very fresh and exciting with Thomas. Her eyes were still smiling from the text message he had sent her early that morning, after leaving her peacefully sleeping for another hour.

– Yes Mabi, what’s good?

– Faye..I don’t know how to tell you this. There’s no better way, so here it is: your tree is dying.

– What?

– I went there yesterday and saw it. The branches have fallen, most of them. There are still over 20, but no more. It’s sudden, really, because last week I was there too, and it was fine. As mighty as always. I can’t explain it.

Faye’s heart pumped fast, and her eyes felt heavy. She stared at the window, looking at the city and thinking it wouldn’t, and it couldn’t ever compare with how she felt near that tree. The tree of her childhood. Her Arabella. She couldn’t speak. Her throat had a blockage, and she just couldn’t say another word back. She hung up and went to her laptop to find a ticket to her native town, to her childhood chalet, where her parents still lived.

On the plane, as she browsed through her purse for her mirror to fix her make-up a little bit. She’d always keep this part for the plane, as she enjoyed it so much. She noticed a few wrinkles, like crow’s feet, under her eyes. She didn’t have them before. She knew for a fact she didn’t have them yesterday. She didn’t have any wrinkles whatsoever, and in fact, everyone at the company she worked for was muted as soon as they heard her age. Everyone new thought she was some freshly graduated girl who came here on nepotism. Their colleagues had gotten used to her, though, although sometimes they would make serious jokes that she should move, as people were starting to suspect she might be a vampire.

It was funny, but also scary. She and Thomas knew they were the only ones they both knew who looked like that at 30.

And now, this?

She thought about it. I mean, what a coincidence, right? Her Arabella is dying, and now…wrinkles?

She immediately messaged Thomas for a photo. Make it in daylight, she said. PLS it’s super important. I’ll call you when I land.

Thomas knew all about that tree. Faye had told him all that she wished underneath its branches, and it came true. She told him she wished for a boy that she could talk to, and that’s when he appeared. Thomas never made a wish, as Faye recalls, but he was awestruck by her stories. And he did find the tree incredibly intricate and majestic.

1 hour in, on her way to her childhood house, Faye felt weaker, and her muscles sore. She rushed as fast as she could, going through the back door, avoiding her sister, until she was finally there.

Thomas’s photo was alright. He was the same as always, which settled Faye’s mind, at least a part of it. She hurried madly and ploughed towards its roots, opened her arms and burst into tears.

Oh, my dearest Arabella. What have I done? What have you done? You didn’t make us younger. You just made me look younger until you could. And now I look like 30. Ohhh noo. You are my sacred tree. Please, I beg you, stay alive. I’ll come to see you every week. We’ll talk like we used to and stay together for hours. No, not because I look like 30 now. I know I won’t die either. I feel it. I just feel the time now, the magic is slowly fading. It’s because I don’t want to live this life without knowing I have you here. There’s no one that I can talk to like I talk to you Arabella. Ohhh God, please. Save her! Thomas and her, and my family are the most important for me. I would give anything else.

And so she kept by her tree, hours, until the dusk began to set. The wind moving and twirling around felt like engulfing her, pushing her closer to the tree. She felt the love language of her divine being. Also, some things cleared up in her mind as she stood there, patiently waiting and eying her huge wood branches. She wanted to think more about the moments she had with the tree, and she did. But as she went down her memory rooms, one by one, were replaced with the memories she had with Thomas. When she met him by the lake, and how much they talked by the tree. And then it came to her. She saw him a couple of times near her school, with his mom. All those memories kept coming back to her, and how she wrote in her journal about seeing a cute boy near school.

That’s how, in her final hour, Arabella told Faye the truth, without speaking. Thomas was there all along. She saw him before manifesting her wish. He didn’t magically appear, but she did help bring him closer to Faye.

What Faye couldn’t understand was why she didn’t remember this all along. Why did she wish for someone without thinking about Thomas, if she even wrote in his journal about him?

And then the tree gave her another memory that wasn’t hers. It was of a girl, called Arabella, who wondered and wondered the earth, in 57 different cities, restless and young. Her skin was tight, and everyone paid her compliments. It was the 40s, and Arabella had the moves. She was the centre of attention of anyone who met her. She stuck like a resin to a tree.

But in all that beauty and exuberance, there was a major flaw that hovered over her aura, like a black cloud. Her relationships were meaningless, because she always wanted what she couldn’t have, and one day she went to bed, thinking — I wish I wouldn’t have to wish anything anymore. I’m tired of wishing and wishing. My last wish is not to have to wish for anything anymore. And that’s the last memory she has of her human body.

But even if her last wish carved her in the most majestic tree that ever lived, she spent the rest of her days granting Faye all the wishes she couldn’t fulfill for her anymore. She didn’t know of her power; she just heard Faye, in her profound sleep, and wished for what she wished. She didn’t have any will or power to wish for something for herself. The resemblance between Faye and Arabella started to take shape when Faye asked her what she didn’t have. Or didn’t care to see.

So you see in life, sometimes we miss what’s really in front of us, because we want something new. And also, we can never stop wishing. Because the moment we do, we’re lifeless. It is the universe’s power to make us see our way — the right way. And to show us how easy it can be.

It’s its energy that guides us through, and that is its duty. As our duty to ourselves is to never stop working inwards. And that implies wishing.

Faye’s last wish was for Arabella to be able to make her final wish for her, before she goes in peace.

Originally posted on Medium