Toby Alone

Author:Timothee de Fombelle [de Fombelle, Timothée]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406330533
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
Published: 2010-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Isha was thinking about something else.

She was thinking that winter had arrived. Right now. And a winter that mowed down the fastest insect in the Tree (twenty-four kilometres an hour) with its first kiss, would be a merciless winter.

Elisha’s mother left the outsized insect’s skin where it was, and went back inside the house. She took a big cloth bag and emptied half her larder into it. Next Isha ran over to the two new worm beetles, Kim and Lorca. They were the fourth generation of beetles to lodge at the Lees’ since the Lolness family had first arrived in the region, six years earlier. Next to them, a shed kept the last eggs of the season safe. She stuffed at least half of them into the bag and set off towards the moss woods, by the path that led to the lake.

She strode purposefully, her load over her shoulder, advancing against the freezing wind that had just seized the Tree. When she reached the viewing point, she surprised her daughter, who was on her way back.

Elisha stopped in her tracks and stared at her mother. They looked like two slightly embarrassed reflections of the same person.

“So, Elisha, have you been swimming?” her mother asked.

“Yes, Mum.”

“Not too cold?”

“No, Mum.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes…”

Isha gestured towards the lake. Elisha turned around to see.

The lake’s surface was entirely frozen over.

“So? It doesn’t hurt too much when you dive in?”

Elisha’s cheeks were red. She was chewing her lips.

“I didn’t go for a swim today, Mum.”

“What about yesterday?”

“No I didn’t go then either … or the month before that…”

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

Isha wasn’t angry, but she was starting to get impatient.

“Quickly! Where is he?”

The cold wind was spreading and night was about to fall. Elisha shivered as she looked at her mother.

“He’s up there.”

Isha Lee overtook her daughter, raced down the slope, skirted the lake and started climbing back up the other side. Elisha struggled to keep up, even though her mother was carrying a heavy bag.

Toby was busy drawing on the cave walls. He was painting with a russet-coloured piece of mildew, the kind you find on the edge of the lake at the end of autumn. He was drawing a flower, an orchid.

A flower had grown in the Tree a long time ago, or so the story goes. Out of nowhere, an orchid had taken root in a branch in the Heights. It died on the first day of December, long before Toby was born, or his parents, or his parents’ parents.

Since that time, a Flower Festival was celebrated every first day of December. A crowd would throng onto the branch where the orchid had grown. No statue or monument marked the spot. The flower had simply been left to dry, and so it had kept on changing, with the wind and the rain, gradually shrivelling.

But when Toby had gone back up to the Heights, the dried flower had been razed to the ground. A Joe Mitch Arbor housing project was blossoming in its place.

So Toby was busy painting the memory of that orchid, when someone rose up behind him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.