It was like falling. Falling and falling and falling. He couldn’t quite place how he ended up where he did, or when the tree bled away and the edges of reality seeped into the picture, but they did, they did all the same.
When he woke up to the baying of wolves soaked to the bone, outside a shack with a hole in the roof, it was all he could do not to curl up into a ball and cry.
Flashes streaked across the tar colored sky. Fin shielded his eyes and flinched away; surges of light made painful stabs into his dilated pupils. Rain hammered down on his face and soaked his bones. The house with the hole in the roof poked fun at him. It taunted him in its quiet way, watching him, passing its judgements. The world started spinning. The ocean was furious, churning out waves thick enough to wash the island itself away. He panicked and tried to find his feet. He fell down twice and felt something sharp bite into his arm. In a frantic sprawl he bolted toward the forest, smacking his hands against his sopping pant legs in a useless attempt to scrape the sand off. The soggy grains gnawed at his fingers. Over the shrieks of wind he heard the howling. Close. He didn’t want to run. But he had to run. Fin ran. Clumps of sand shot out from under his feet. A clear (bitter) thought catapulted itself to the forefront of his mind about the others: They knew how to deal with wolves. They built fires. They didn’t have to run. And as the forest became closer, some part of him was trying to reason that he had never actually seen these wolves.
A sour taste crept into his mouth. That gnarly, squishy texture that follows a handful of rotten berries. That taste of being wrong hand hoping that an opportunity comes along to justify the wrongness later. Ideally in a safer, dryer place. His breath exploded out of him in a wet wheeze and his chest tightened; he ran a little faster just the same. The forest swallowed him up, eager to have him, in a way, it drank his fears like a potion and painting them across its trees. Twisted faces of hallowed totems snarled at him, accusing him of all the things he quietly accused himself of. They snapped their roots at his feet and retracted the leaves atop their canopy, allowing the rain-turned-hail to crash down on the back of his neck.
Tonight there were no whispers. The totems’ voice was a low chant, hateful and toxic. Fin kept running. Deeper and deeper into the forest that had so readily turned itself against him, begging it for forgiveness he didn’t believe would come. The trees heard him and agreed. A twisted path opened up before him. A path that led to the center of the island, he thought. His heart flopped over and skipped an unhealthy amount of beats. The cruelty of hope wound its decrepit fingers around that rusty knife it so loved and twisted it right into him. His chest felt like it was going to explode from the pressure. He remembered when the forest used to shield him from the storm, even smudge out the sounds. Each thundering clap the dark sky made conveyed the unpleasant contrast to make the memory of the Tree all the more pungent. He began to doubt its existence. The path snatched at his feet with black mud that threatened to swallow his feet at each step. Slick rotten leaves coated the top of it, nearly sending him headfirst into the mouth of one of those horrible totems.
Twice he slipped. Twice he nearly fell into the maw of those trees. Twice, he heard those angry chants clear enough that he mistook them for his own thoughts.
Then there was another flash. This flash was different. It wasn’t the lighting in the sky, or the stars that result from smashing your head into a tree. It was the kind of flash that happened when too much is happening, and you shut off.
The Tree was in his mind. This is where the twisted path led. It’s where it must lead. It’s real. The thought was so desperate, he almost needed to believe himself. If he could just close his eyes, and let go of this murderous wood around him, he’d forget everything. He’d forget all those things he didn’t want to remember, and remember that special place. The Tree wasn’t really part of the island, as far as he was concerned. This waking tomb full of strangers was a whole other world. He saw it, just for a moment.
It was different this time. So different, he wondered if it had ever been real in the first place. He could paint the picture in his mind but just like the lightning bolts that revealed the rotten-muck of forest floor, he couldn’t escape his doubts. A shiver ricocheted up his spine. An uncomfortable jittering started to snap his teeth together, and everything become cold. So very, very cold…
He remembered the feeling of falling. Icy mud swallowing him up, he couldn’t breathe. He tried to cough, but the mud just reached further into lungs. His world darkened, and the last thing he felt was hail pounding away at his back.
—
—
He saw a skyline. Rusty towers reaching so high cotton ball clouds got stuck on the tops of spires. Wonderful flying machines full of propellers and plated white copper floated by. There were people too. Others…but these “others” were familiar.
Then there was the Tree. Fin took a bite of its fruit; everything was beautiful.
—
—
There was more.
He was sure of it.
There was no moment when the terrible storm had passed or the chanting had stopped. He couldn’t point out when it ended or how he ended up where he did, but here he was all the same. He felt like something was missing, the place where he was supposed to be sure was gone, and the emptiness it left behind, he filled it with doubt. The doubt was just some wispy guess at what actually belonged, and the only part he was certain of is that something had happened, and there was something that belonged, to fill the lack of sureness up with something better than doubt, but when he reached out to it, he found it elusive.
—
—
He woke up outside his shack with the hole in the roof. He started to tear it down. After the sun had crawled its long arc into high noon, his determination began to wane. A marked impulse surged through him with a sort of manic electricity. The Tree. The song his heart sang with his teeth clamping down on its sweet, sweet fruit. There was a fleeting thought of Leaf in his mind. It was a dulled musing, and what his mind’s eye called up was distant. The impulse won. Giving into his desire he left his untidy ensemble of sticks and headed back to the forest. His stomach rumbled. Briefly he considered delaying his quest back to the center of the island in pursuit of catching a fish or two. No. The impulse had a way with words. And with outstretched arms his hopes slapped blinding manacles around his wrists.
The journey felt different this time. He chewed on the idea, tossing it around his head. Tumblers and locks began to click and turn, attempting to betray the doorway to his great mystery. The paths were new, the hollow tree totems were scattered, not congesting in their usual pods of whispery condescension. During the storm the path had been windy, angry. Now it kept leading him in circles. He was thinking about it long after he realized, hardly noticing the sweet pine-sap in the air, or the lullaby of birds. He wandered for hours, certainly lost, searching for a Tree he could not find. Frustration began its swordfight with rationality for control of his senses. Troubled or not, the Tree was gone.
A lead-weighted heart sunk into his chest. He decided to fish instead, an ugly plan-B. And much like the fish in the cold river with smooth rocks, his doubts swam gracefully around his net of questions. The undeniable glom of a wasted day plopped down on his shoulders. No fish, no tree, no Leaf. He trudged back to a half dismantled house. The sky had become cloudy and the black sky gave way to no moon. The day had passed him by without him realizing it. A shame,  he thought, and made his way back to the beach. The ocean was peaceful, black glass washing over itself to a steady rhythm, he found himself lost in its tempo. He planted himself down at the water’s edge and watched the waves come and go. He crossed his arms together like chain links protecting something that isn’t worth protecting, and he drew his knees into his chest. The possibility that the Tree was some twisted joke this island, or those others had played, made him feel sick. His face smooshed up against his knees while his dim eyes grew dimmer. The memory that such happiness could exist, but ultimately was just a farce was cold and cruel. He thought bitterly of Leaf. The one person he had; the one person who left.
No sleep came to him that night, and it frustrated him even more. Every time his head touched the sand his stomach would remind him that he failed to catch dinner. It was not a pleasant reminder. Thoughts drifted into feelings, feelings became memories, and memories twisted into monsters. Loud-mouthed monsters at that. His companion, his only friend, (his love, he supposed) had left. She fell away like an amber blade from an autumn tree, but never grew back in the spring. She vanished from his life—from his island—in just a day. No warning, no nothing, just gone.
Venomous bile replaced the saliva in his mouth. She wasn’t around to sting with his toxic words tonight, though. Although, if she was, he figured that would be a pretty poor way to welcome her back. The cyclical idea of it was maddening, and he kicked at the sand, which didn’t really seem to care. It had started so wonderfully. She was an answer, for God’s sake she was a savior. Someone worth surviving this fickle island for. But she’d become distant too, just like everything else, until she faded altogether. Emotion broke its dam all at once, and drowned him in its water. Less than happily, he remembered her. He remembered that she, to him anyway, had really, really mattered.
Eventually sleep came, and then it went again. He awoke riddled with doubt and hurt, and he turned to face his anchor. Stick by stick he worked and time seemed to lose track of itself, but eventually he had his key. And the house with the hole in the roof had become his raft. He dragged it to the ocean’s lip where sand and water kissed.
He stared out at the open sea. The ocean chanted its lonely ebb and flow, inviting him in. It taunted him. Come to me, dear Fin. Come to me and find solace beneath my waves. There was a power from that Voice, an unfamiliar one, but it captivated him. He felt like it made a pretty compelling argument. Standing with tear clouded sight he trudged into the water until his shins were below the surface, the raft in his tow. The entirety of his experience in this place struck him all at once. Here he was, for better or worse, standing before an ocean of potential. Terror struck him as he realized he considered drowning in it. He considered marching in and allowing the riptide to steal him away from the island, never to feel its lonely power again. Fin threw back his head and screamed into the empty air. That was the moment he made his decision. He made the choice to finish what he started. It was the moment he realized that he didn’t have to drown under the water’s enormity to experience it. His thoughts made their way back to the memory of a house, before it had the hole in the roof.
His place here, just like Leaf’s place, was gone. Torn down by self-sabotaging tendencies that masqueraded as change, but the “change” was always presented to be on his terms. Right when he signed the dotted line, the rug was yanked out from underneath his feet. That was the moment his sleeping psyche took to pile-drive a very distant memory of a glass bottle to the fore-front of his mind. That little glass bottle with a water-logged note and forgotten secrets launched right through Fin’s beautiful walls. It punched its hole right through his armored insecurities, and united his neat, quarantined compartments. That note still held its one word, but that one word managed to get the point across. He broke down.
There was more.
It was time to go.
He called his saboteur-impulses bluff, and stood up. He looked at the sea one last time. The clouds were thinning, and stars twinkled off the obsidian water’s surface. He no longer saw a vast body water, trapping him on an island filled with others and trees, filled with wolves and hurt. Suddenly the mysterious door was in front of him, each wave an open invitation. The sea was no longer his jeering gaoler; this time it was freedom. He turned back to his ruined house, and a peculiar thought popped into his mind: He never caught Leaf’s name. It didn’t upset him nearly as much as he figured it should.
Crudely tied together with vines and no place to sit comfortably, it looked like someone had thrown together a compilation of driftwood and glued a pile of twigs together, poorly. That didn’t matter, not anymore at least. There was no way he’d rebuild his house. This was his key to that sea full of opportunity. So he stood waiting for high tide. It occurred to Fin that this was the longest wait he’d ever experienced. Some unseen hand had snuck a proverbial eternity inside of a few hours. He tapped an irritated foot, swishing it under the water.
He tried not squander his little-forever entirely. After all, you’re only allotted so many of these. He gave the gravity of what he was about to do a cheap appraisal. A quick pros and cons list without any paper would have to do. The cons quickly caught wind of what was happening and clumped together at alarming speeds. They coursed—with the crystal clear sound of well-rehearsed harmony—Don’t do it.
           The wolves don’t actually bother you
           The totems you’ve come to rue, only want the best for you
           The others aren’t so bad, you’ve no cause to be mad
           There’s no leaves out at sea
Under most circumstances the argument would have won him over. His raft, would have become a pile of twigs in an attempt to return to its previous self, and that, that alone was enough to convince Fin he had no use for lists of pros and cons.
Despite the clamoring shouts this “running” was impulsive cowardice, he knew better. Deep in his bone he felt it like he felt the change of air before a storm. This was right, and if it wasn’t, he knew sticking around wasn’t right either. None of the reasons for not to go weren’t wrong, either. It was simply the one reason to go that was right. And high-tide had arrived, bringing an early conclusion to his forever. And with every fear made wolf howling, and each hollow totem whispering silent words he shoved off. Whether or not the raft held, he knew two things: The Tree was real, and he had a pretty good idea that he’d found its seed; the second thing he knew was that he was going to a genuine somewhere. A city full of people, and devoid of others. He thought fondly of the note, and laughed as he finally solved that damned riddle. What a lovely name.
High tide came and went. Fin went with it.