An Offering at Alderley Edge
A short story. This one is based on a conversation I had with my daughter Daisy at Alderley Edge. I wrote it in the wake of my mum passing away, so it dates from around seven years ago.
At Stormy Point he clutched his daughter’s hand and they looked out over the Cheshire Plain to the Pennines beyond. They stood like this together for moments in silence until she said, I wish Nanna were here to see this.
Maybe she is, he said.
She looked up at him and then back to the view and said, Hm. Then she said, Can we go now?
Sure, he said.
They headed along Carriage Drive, the Autumn sun warm on their faces, the Scots pine and beeches indifferent to their leaving. In the woodland she ran amongst the fallen leaves and along a thick branch. The branch was rotting, becoming one with the ground it once gave shelter to. She trod carefully, balancing with her arms out wide, careful not to drop into the larva she imagined running in rivers along the ground. She stopped as something glinting in the wood caught her eye. Forgetting her peril, she bent low and picked at the bark and pulled free a two-pence piece. She brushed it off and put it in her pocket. Further up the branch she saw two, three, four more coins embedded in the moss that had begun to take hold on the branch’s surface. Three of them she prised out, but the fourth remained stuck. She did a silent math inside her head, her lips moving as she counted out six pence. She added them to the coin she’d already placed in her pocket.
From a stump her father sat and watched her continue in this way until she skipped to him and turned out her pockets.
Look, she said. Pennies from the tree.
They counted them together and she beamed when he told her how much she had.
You’re rich, he said.
Can I tell Nanna?
That’d be nice, he said. Though, I don’t have any paper.
Hm.
Or a pencil.
Oh.
She thought on this for a moment. While she did, the moment found a space in her father’s memory. It nested there in his brain as though the space had been awaiting its arrival, reserving a space amongst the memories of his mother, her Nanna, and the moments they had shared when he was his daughter’s age.
He thought, All these moments.
Silent deliberation followed, then she ran back to the branch and crawled alongside it. She came back with a piece of loose bark in one hand and a short stick in the other.
I can use these, she said. To write with, I mean.
Good idea, he said. He shuffled around the stump enough for her to sit down beside him.
She wrote her message on the underside of the bark using the stick as a writing implement. The words were barely discernible to the naked eye. In her mind they were as clear as the sky. When she had finished writing, she looked up at her father.
Done? he asked.
Yep, she said.
Shall we walk on?
Okay, she said, and placed the bark and the stick inside her coat.
As father and daughter walked they kicked the leaves that covered the ground while the sun began to lower itself to meet the earth. All around The Edge black shadows crept low along the ground and high up the rockface where the wizard’s face became less distinct, readying himself for his evening’s rest. They threaded through silver birch trees, white sentinels stark against the gloaming, and looked up through branches silhouetted black against a twilit sky bruised with cloud. At a clearing, they reached an oak tree, beyond which the sky burned with the dying sun.
The man pointed out how angry the red oak looked.
Maybe I should give him the pennies I’ve taken, said the daughter.
Him?
Or her, she said. Maybe I should give her back her pennies.
You think that would make the tree happy?
She shrugged and said, Maybe. Yes.
Her hand left his and went to her pocket where she felt the coins, cold and metallic between her fingers. She ran the tips of her fingers along their edges and traced the outline of the queen on their faces.
Okay, she said.
The man sat on a large stone and watched her run to meet the oak.
She knelt in the dirt at the foot of the oak and formed a small pile with the pennies. Slowly, she raised her eyes to peer up at the thick trunk and the burning branches fiery against the sky. The oak, it was apparent, was still very angry with her.
I brought you these, she said, bowing her head.
These? said the oak with scorn. Why would you give me these?
Because I took them from the woods and the woods are a part of you, she said.
The woods are a part of me, said the oak. As I am a part of them. The pennies, however, are apart from me.
The branches above swayed and glowed redder than before and the girl became a little more frightened.
Give me something else and be on your way, said the oak. Something pure of heart, not cold to the touch.
The girl thought of how the coins had felt against her skin when she touched them with her fingers. She thought of how the stick and the bark had worked together, and how she had been able to share her message with her Nanna in the sky. She reached inside her coat and pulled out the stick and lay it at the foot of the tree. Then she pulled out the piece of bark and rested it against the oak’s trunk. She made sure that the inside of the bark with the message written on it was facing the trunk. In the dim light the bark melded with that of the oak, rendering it invisible.
Will you look after this? the girl asked.
The oak took a while to answer as he let the words the girl had written leave an impression on his thick body. As it did, the branches lost their red hue and became black outlines against the purple sky. Eventually, the tree spoke.
With these words you have proven yourself to be much richer than any coin will ever allow.
And the pennies, asked the girl. What shall I do with them?
Leave them, the oak said. The moss will cover them until the ground takes them whole.
Then maybe someone else will find them sometime in the future, the girl said.
They will. And I’ll be here waiting for them.
The girl stood, pressed her lips against the oak’s bark, turned and ran back to her father.
The father watched his daughter running to him and when she reached him, he held her and asked if the tree was happy.
I think so, the girl said.
Did she like the pennies?
No. Why would she?
This time it was his turn to think for a moment.
All these moments.
Good point, he said. Shall we go home now?
Okay, she said.
And they did.
The End