Once the humanoid mind became forward-looking, extrapolating into the fuure, even if for a distance of only a few moments, the tree would reach through, contact its future self and snatch it into the present.
“For Pete’s sake,
“Nobody knows.”
“Then how do you know all this other stuff about the Melas tree?”
“I was told.” She added, archly, “Some very wise men have stayed under this roof.”
“H’m. A lot of supposition, but some of it is probably true. Certainly, every time I contemplated making a movement, or a sequence of movements, a tree materialized—sometimes in batches. You can’t make a movement without thinking about it first, however fleetingly. But did they have to keep barring my way?”
“Of course, darling. They didn’t want you to escape until they’d used your mind to the limit.”
“But they were trying to crush me to death.”
His voice became tight, constricted, and at the word “death” broke on an off-key note. It was as though invisible hands were throttling him. The room seemed to darken, as though the shadow of death had fallen upon it.
CHAPTER FOUR
« ^ »
THE BLACK CLOUD passing across his mind lasted maybe only seconds, but it left him gasping.
Rosala was watching him concernedly. When he could breathe again, she said, quietly, “You and I, Sherry, we’re both much too frightened of death.”
He wiped his damp forehead, and muttered, “I’m not afraid of death, but sometimes I’m afraid of dying.”
“For me, it’s the other way about. I’m not frightened of dying, but I’m really afraid of being—
A short silence. Then Sherret said, “I don’t understand. Perhaps we’re not talking about quite the same thing. You’re still a mystery to me, Rosala. I know I love you. That’s all I really know about you. You know far more about me.”
“Yes, Sherry, that’s true. I know things about you that you don’t even know yourself—your unconscious fears and conflicts. When you were ill and delirious, I tried to help you externalize some of the bad things which were living in your mind like parasites. The strongest of them was a terror of being trapped in a small space and there strangled to death.”
He stared at her, the choking sensation returning.
“You feel it now? Then we failed. ‘Difficult Birth’ failed.”
“Difficult what?”
She sighed. “It was the title we gave our symbolic painting. You seemed to understand it then. Your fear of confined spaces and strangulation was born when you were born. Obviously, something went wrong. Possibly the umbilical cord was twisted around your neck. You were nearly suffocated to death.”
Nervously, he rubbed his neck, but he was interested. “That could be so. And when the Melas trees closed in around me, trying to kill me—”
“No, they weren’t trying to kill you. Only capture you. They were trying to form a stockade around you.”
“I see. But eventually I should have starved to death.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. That’s what usually happens. But by then you would have helped to create a whole forest of Melas trees.”
“Well, that’s quite a consolation. How did you manage to save me, Rosala?”
“Partly you saved yourself, by becoming unconscious. They could no longer enter your mind, and therefore couldn’t complete the barrier around you. So I was able to reach you and get you out.”
“I owe you plenty for that. But to get at me, you must have walked beneath their branches. Yet, apparently, they
