A new, flash fiction story in this week’s Anecdotage post. A young girl finds comfort in the empowering branches of an ancient tree…

It’s the top of the world, a pinnacle where the landscape lays beneath like a map studded with vehicles and figures, or at least that’s how it seems to Ada, who has never climbed to this position before.

At this height, the branches become spindly and precarious, susceptible to the slightest breath of breeze, but the girl enjoys the thrill of the swaying limbs, the danger they promise. She also understands that the tree is her protector, will never let her fall and has her best interests at heart. She’s confessed to it, held fast to it, spoken her fears to its sturdy trunk while her arms stretched around to encircled it.

She feels empowered in this lofty perch where nothing can touch her. Below, on the scruffy patch of grass they call a lawn her little sister, Jessie is talking to her doll, Clarissa and although Ada can’t make out the words, Jessie’s hectoring tone indicates that Clarissa is in trouble. She watches as Jessie shakes a warning finger at the doll, where it lays in the battered pram.

In the field next door to their garden, the Baildons’ shire horse, Toby is cutting a diligent swathe through the grass, his nimble teeth tugging the stalks as he steps. Ada loves Toby and dreams of straddling his broad back to roam the lanes, perhaps to school where she would be the envy of all the others.

An insistent buzz comes fromthe opposite side of the garden, where the churchyard paths are being mown. From this high, the ebb and flow of her father and stepmother’s current row is little more than a blurred grumble, alternate high-pitched whine and low growl. If there was more height, more branches to climb she’d continue the ascent until the voices disappeared altogether.

Jessie’s taken Clarissa out of the pram now and is giving the doll a hard smacking. She must have done something very wrong- failed to eat her dinner, perhaps, or left her room untidy? Maybe she’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Wood smoke drifts across Ada in the breeze and she inhales as it passes, relishing the sweet, earthy aroma. A long time ago, when they used to visit their grandparents, she’d been allowed to help out when they had a bonfire in their garden and needed to clear unwanted growth and prunings, raking up twigs and leaves and tossing them on to the flames. She’d loved doing it; loved watching the flames spring into action, licking up around the bundle of trimmings as if accepting an offering. They never visited their grandparents now, since Mum went.

She looks downthrough the leafy boughs to the washing line and tries to conjure the figure of her mother, working her way along the line, a peg in her mouth as she hung items there. If she caught sight of Ada in the tree she’d wave before returning inside or she would bring biscuits and milk out for her and Jessie, placing the cups on the picnic table and fetching her coffee so they could all sit together in the sunshine. They’re not allowed to snack between meals now.

There’s a bang from somewhere inside the house, a door slamming then rapid footsteps. A moment later her stepmother emerges, stomping to her car, wrenching the door open and driving away. Dad comes out and she can see the round, thinning circle on the top of his head as he stands gazing at where the car was, before taking a long drag of a cigarette and blowing the smoke out in a long, irritated plume. Ada can smell the smoke, the dry, acrid wisp making her nose wrinkle. Dad murmurs something to Jessie, who’s engaged in tucking the blankets round Clarissa, who must have been forgiven her misdemeanours. Jessie shrugs without looking up. Dad glances around before returning indoors but doesn’t raise his eyes skyward, doesn’t imagine for a moment that Ada is right here above his balding head where she can peer down on it.

She closes her eyes, resing her cheek against the knobbly bark and inhaling its wholesome, mossy scent. Suppose she could live up here?She could bring some planks from the shed, rig up a shelter from old, plastic sheeting, add cushions and the sleeping bag she used to use when Mum and Dad took them camping. It’s still in the house somewhere, she’s certain. She’d only need to climb down for food and water, which she could collect at night, although the house might be locked up of course. But she knows there’s a spare key under the flower pot by the back door. Ada drifts into a semi-doze where she sits leaning on the oak’s solid, reassuring trunk.

A shout jerks her from her everie. Jessie is directly underneath her, squinting up. ‘Dad says do we want to go out for pizza?’ her sister asks, peering up into the branches. Ada sighs, nods.

‘Yeah. Yeah, alright’

and she drops one foot down to a lower branch, then another until she’s back on the ground. Back to Earth.

Read these 2 novels by Jane Deans: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com