Rose stepped closer, took my hand, and led me forward into the start of a dance. The spiral revealed itself after a few turns around the tree in ever-widening circles. Joining my voice and my feet with the rhythm set by the drums, I left my head-centered space and connected further with everything around me. As the spiral turned back in on itself and drew me closer and closer to the massive apple tree at the center of the field, my blood answered the call and wet my inner thighs.
More hands than I could count passed me down the line and guided me to face the great tree and the maw that split its trunk. The opening looked less like a mouth and more like a heart ripped open from the inside.
“You must enter Her, Calliope.” Whispered words coming from no one place, no one woman. Maybe the words were in the air or in the ground or dropped from the branches like over-ripe fruit. “Enter the tree.”
Bark, loamy and musky on my nose and sharp on my cheek, drew close to my face. A hand on my head reminded me to duck. I gathered the skirt of my dress, pressed my elbows against my sides, and entered. Dropping the layers of silk and cotton, I stood, extended one arm, and the other until my fingertips made contact with the interior surface. The wood was worn smooth. I turned slowly, unable to see anything, and let my eyelids close and my other senses take over.
I smelled honey. My back made contact with heartwood. The wood was surprisingly warm, inviting me to lean in and feel it supporting the entire length of my body, the backs of my shoulders, buttocks, thighs, and calves. Pressing my palms against the inner surface of the tree, I walked my fingers up. At shoulder height, branches split away from the center, offering a set of living wood sleeves. I slipped my arms up and in, dressing myself in the tree, a little girl playing with an ancestor’s old gown.
A wider stance was needed for the bottom half of my body to feel balanced, sturdy, and steady. I stepped my feet apart, giving blood space to flow from my womb and onto the ground. Bees buzzed from far up the inner tree and honey dripped onto my head.
The tree began to fit itself to me like a custom-made dress, molding to every curve and bend in my body from wrists to ankles. I had room to breathe—or maybe the tree breathed me—and outside, the drumming and chanting had begun to echo the rhythm of a human heartbeat. The longer the women played, the more I dissolved into the tree until I moved beyond the inner surface, beyond the outer bark, projected into the field and the surrounding forests and coastline until I wasn’t one body—I was a million bodies with a million umbilical connections.
And a little too late for me to do a damn thing about it, an ancient presence slipped inside the tree with me and whispered the word, mine, mine, over and over again until my blood fed the earth, my breath fed the sky, and my brain synapses sparked in time with the twinkling stars.
I giggled and cried until I burst apart.
Sounds of suction breaking drew me back into my tree-bound body. The release of wood wrapping flesh began around my ankles and travelled upward until only my wrists and fingers were encased. I took in a deep breath, felt no restriction in my chest, and took in more breaths. I pressed down with my toes, rocked my weight back onto my heels, revelled in the strength of my legs.
“Ready,” I exhaled, and the pressure around my leather-wrapped wrists loosened until my arms were free. I lowered them slowly, patted my face and chest, smoothed the front and sides of my dress. My hands stuck to the fabric in places; I was sticky all over—and under—and the bottom of the red dress glowed rose and yellow with bright morning sun. My toenails winked under streaks of blood and dirt, and I waited.
Silence. I bent my knees enough I could slip out the gap in the tree’s trunk and lean against the bark.
The pots of soil I’d carried from my garden were empty and neatly queued at the base of the tree. I dropped to my knees and read a note instructing me to refill the little pots with soil from where I had been standing. I scooped up the damp dirt with the trowel provided and filled each pot to the rim.
Done. What was next?
Squatting, I surveyed what was directly within my field of vision. I couldn’t see much past my extended arms and the lowest branches, other than the tops of tents scattered throughout the grassy field.
Crawling forward, gathering the layers of my dress to my waist, I grew ever more aware I was covered in blood and dirt and honey, bits of crushed fruit, sticks and leaves. I stopped. The ground lurched into a spiraling movement, and I fell over, onto my side, and watched a line of black-winged birds circling above the wide reach of the mother tree’s branches.
Blood. And honey. I wanted blood, and I wanted honey. I wanted to pierce my skin and lick my self-inflicted wounds, fly in the company of bees and drown in flower cups of fresh nectar. I wanted to eat dirt and tickle beetle bellies and rush up the oak trees like squirrels after branches full of ripened nuts.
My giggles grew into a full-bellied laugh. The birds and branches were joined by a
