hold onto for a little while. A tree might have a branch where you could perch and wait for a bit, gathering yourself for the much longer than expected swim back.
My toe brushed something and I jumped. Then I sent my toe back down again for another feel, because this was what I was after, wasn’t it – a branch, something I could stand on?
A wide, flat branch, even. A branch wider and flatter, in fact, than any branch ever before found in nature.
Which was weird until I realised.
Not a branch, but a platform.
A platform at the top of the tallest tree in Old Lower Grange, in the whole shire. A platform with a peg ladder spiralling below it all the way down to the silty mud.
The fire tree!
I felt around with my toes. It was definitely a platform, going right around the trunk. The wood was rotting and falling away but the metal frame was still there and it was enough for me to rest my feet on, and lean back against the tree and close my eyes, just for a second, and rest, and breathe.
I was here. I was somewhere.
ten
When my breathing had slowed, I took a long look around me. I inched around the metal frame with my toes, felt the slippery bark around the trunk with my fingers.
The fire tree! How did it get here? I mean, not how did it
get
here. That was quite possibly the world’s dumbest question. Obviously, it had been here all along, for hundreds of years in fact, growing and growing and slowly leaving behind everything around it while it reached for the sky.
But still, how did it get
here
?
Up into the actual sky above the water? And how had I never noticed it before?
I looked back the way I had come, across to the shoreline where my orange towel sat flapping on a low-hanging tree branch.
And I saw something. A dark stain around the lake, a line along the water’s edge like you see at the ocean when the tide has gone out.
Except that there were no tides at the lake.
My eyes flicked from the water to my towel and back again, from the water to the tree line and back again.
And then I realised.
Something that should have been obvious days ago, maybe even weeks.
The water level was going down. It had been a dry winter, a dry few years, and now summer was sinking its teeth in and the lake was, well, sinking.
It was lower than I’d ever seen it.
That meant water restrictions over summer. It meant watering one day a week and Mum sticking an eggtimer in the shower.
But it meant something else too.
It meant this tree, the old fire tree, the stuff of photos and stories and a hundred crayon drawings, was suddenly reaching up from the deep with its spindly fingers.
I stared down through the water at my feet, at the platform, at the pegs that spiralled down and down into the dark.
Old Lower Grange was down there. It had always been there, but now it was right below me. Now I was standing on something that was actually connected to it, something I had seen in photos and heard about in stories, and there was a road, right here, leading down, saying
come on
.
How deep could it be?
How far could it be?
How far?
A thought lodged in my throat like a stone.
I looked out across the water, all the way to the shoreline, and my heart sank.
It was so far. It seemed obvious now. Maybe it was because I’d already swum it once. Maybe it was because the shore was bigger and wider and made it easier to get a sense of things.
It didn’t matter why. It was a long way. Just getting here I’d probably swum further than I ever had before.
But I didn’t feel like patting myself on the back for that.
I was bigger now, and stronger, but I was still an idiot.
I was in Old Lower Grange, where the water was dropping to meet the town. I was on top of the fire tree. From here, I could dive down into my own secret Atlantis.
But right now, all I could think about was how I was going to make it back to shore.
It was getting late. I needed to be over there. I needed to be on the shore, pulling on my socks and my shoes, bumping
My toe brushed something and I jumped. Then I sent my toe back down again for another feel, because this was what I was after, wasn’t it – a branch, something I could stand on?
A wide, flat branch, even. A branch wider and flatter, in fact, than any branch ever before found in nature.
Which was weird until I realised.
Not a branch, but a platform.
A platform at the top of the tallest tree in Old Lower Grange, in the whole shire. A platform with a peg ladder spiralling below it all the way down to the silty mud.
The fire tree!
I felt around with my toes. It was definitely a platform, going right around the trunk. The wood was rotting and falling away but the metal frame was still there and it was enough for me to rest my feet on, and lean back against the tree and close my eyes, just for a second, and rest, and breathe.
I was here. I was somewhere.
ten
When my breathing had slowed, I took a long look around me. I inched around the metal frame with my toes, felt the slippery bark around the trunk with my fingers.
The fire tree! How did it get here? I mean, not how did it
get
here. That was quite possibly the world’s dumbest question. Obviously, it had been here all along, for hundreds of years in fact, growing and growing and slowly leaving behind everything around it while it reached for the sky.
But still, how did it get
here
?
Up into the actual sky above the water? And how had I never noticed it before?
I looked back the way I had come, across to the shoreline where my orange towel sat flapping on a low-hanging tree branch.
And I saw something. A dark stain around the lake, a line along the water’s edge like you see at the ocean when the tide has gone out.
Except that there were no tides at the lake.
My eyes flicked from the water to my towel and back again, from the water to the tree line and back again.
And then I realised.
Something that should have been obvious days ago, maybe even weeks.
The water level was going down. It had been a dry winter, a dry few years, and now summer was sinking its teeth in and the lake was, well, sinking.
It was lower than I’d ever seen it.
That meant water restrictions over summer. It meant watering one day a week and Mum sticking an eggtimer in the shower.
But it meant something else too.
It meant this tree, the old fire tree, the stuff of photos and stories and a hundred crayon drawings, was suddenly reaching up from the deep with its spindly fingers.
I stared down through the water at my feet, at the platform, at the pegs that spiralled down and down into the dark.
Old Lower Grange was down there. It had always been there, but now it was right below me. Now I was standing on something that was actually connected to it, something I had seen in photos and heard about in stories, and there was a road, right here, leading down, saying
come on
.
How deep could it be?
How far could it be?
How far?
A thought lodged in my throat like a stone.
I looked out across the water, all the way to the shoreline, and my heart sank.
It was so far. It seemed obvious now. Maybe it was because I’d already swum it once. Maybe it was because the shore was bigger and wider and made it easier to get a sense of things.
It didn’t matter why. It was a long way. Just getting here I’d probably swum further than I ever had before.
But I didn’t feel like patting myself on the back for that.
I was bigger now, and stronger, but I was still an idiot.
I was in Old Lower Grange, where the water was dropping to meet the town. I was on top of the fire tree. From here, I could dive down into my own secret Atlantis.
But right now, all I could think about was how I was going to make it back to shore.
It was getting late. I needed to be over there. I needed to be on the shore, pulling on my socks and my shoes, bumping
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