“Good morning,” I said, my voice still cracked.
Ruby looked up. “Hey, mum!” And went straight back to the princess she was colouring in with crayons.
“Morning,” Dad said to me. I noted the wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as he pushed a cup of coffee towards me. I wrapped my cold fingers around it.
“Nothing good on the morning news.”
“Maybe you should stop watching them,” I mumbled, mainly to myself, but Dad heard.
“I can’t do that,” he shrugged and fixed his eyes on me. Was he wondering why I wasn’t my usual cautious self? “How else would I know about the new measures? They’re now asking everyone, not just sick people, to avoid public places, unless absolutely necessary. How are we going to get to the South Island? This won’t blow over in a week…”
“So let’s not go. Let’s stay here,” I said and the phlegm rumbled in my throat. “I know that the South Island looks amazing, it’d be a shame to miss it… but under these safety measures we don’t really have much choice but to stay put.” I tried not to look too relieved. At least I didn’t have to come up with any other reason why we can’t take the ferry to the other side of New Zealand as planned.
Dad seemed lost in thought for a few minutes. “What if this pandemic lasts several months? Borders are closed, there’s no air traffic besides army planes! How are we gonna get home?”
I wasn’t hungry, but since I needed to get some strength, I picked a banana from the fruit bowl. “I could think of worse places to be stuck in than New Zealand.”
“Connie!” Dad exclaimed, appalled. It had been a while since I’d heard this tone from him, at least in connection to my words or my behaviour. “This is serious!”
“Dad, I’m freaked out by what’s going on and that all these people are sick. I’m just trying to stay calm and not panic, because that won’t get us anywhere.”
He exhaled slowly. “You’re right. I guess I got carried away… It looks pretty full on.”
“So we shouldn’t be going to public places?” I returned to the safety measure. I was surprised it had taken the government that long to enforce it, given how often we’d hear things like prevention first and foremost.
Dad sighed. “So these last trips are probably not on the table anymore, right?”
I took a moment to think but struggled, as if my brain had slowed down to half of its normal speed since I’d gotten sick. I hoped it would get back to normal soon. I gathered our maps and lists of activities and trips.
“How about instead of going to the museum, we hike up here?” I pointed my finger to a place on the map which I’d been thinking about a lot even back in Perth, but never dared to tell Dad about. It had seemed pointless before, but now my thoughts were drawn to it as if there were invisible strings tying me to this place.
Dad peered at the map. “And what’s there?”
“I was reading about it recently, and it just got back to me,” I said slyly. “There’s a strange phenomenon.”
That piqued his curiosity. “What kind?”
I smiled. “A tree. It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds, I promise. But it’s probably better to just see it in real life.”
Frank
I had to agree. At first I was a bit unsure if the hike, several hours long, and by no means easy, would be worth it. But we got our prize in the end.
“Wh-what?” I stammered, laughing, and rubbed my eyes.
I put Ruby, who’d been clinging to my back for the last half an hour, down, and focused all my attention on the tree on the hill opposite us. I wanted to go all the way over to it, of course, but the view from here was probably better, you could see the whole thing.
The trunk, from the roots all the way to the branches, was painted bright blue, and stood out beautifully against the background. But there was something else… I laughed again. The tree was upside down. Its branches were stuck in the ground while its roots looked like they were supporting the sky. It was like looking at a house standing on its roof.
I wished I had a camera or my phone. It had been left abandoned on my bedside table for a few days now, I only used it in the evenings to reply to my concerned family’s messages. The virus was waging war in Europe just as much as here, but I’d been selfish enough to ignore any news about other parts of the world. My daughter’s illness was more pressing.
But now she was feeling better, and she took us here to look at this strange thing, a part of nature that had been completely transformed by man.
Why did Connie choose this place of all? I wasn’t complaining, I liked hiking in nature, and I liked the blue tree too, plus I knew that our choices of trips were very limited now. It just seemed a bit unusual. Connie’s trips had so far focused strictly on the natural, and this was clearly man-made.
When I asked her, she shrugged.
“It seemed interesting,” she said simply. “It was within walking distance of the farm, and away from other people.”
We had a snack and after hanging around the upside down tree for half an hour, we set off on our way home. It took us almost twice as long as the way there.
“Ruby, do you need to pee? Do you want a break? Are you hungry?”
This time it was Constance who was acting like a mother hen, anxiously watching and tending to her
