Midday Fantasy

Trips into town were a rarity, but they were Arabella’s favourite thing to do. The walk took several hours so she had to leave at the first sign of light if she wanted to spend a good amount of time there and be back before her father got home. He didn’t like her leaving the house on her own, and he would never take her anywhere, so they stayed at home; she and him together, always. She didn’t mind the long walks so much though, she liked to be outside with trees and the animals. Most of her days were spent in the sprawling forest that surrounded their cottage, where she would collect berries, flowers, and anything she could use to make dye. Anything to give some life to the rags her father sometimes gifted to her. She was a fairly talented seamstress and had made some beautiful dresses, but there was a limit to what a needle and thread could do when you’ve only got rags to work with. She stroked her dress and it felt like there were tiny pieces of glass hiding amongst the threads, always scratching and irritating her skin. No amount of dye could hide the horrible quality of the material. You didn’t even have to get close to see it - not that anyone ever tried. As much as she tried to hide it, poverty hung on her like a sign around her neck. Looking through the windows in town was enough, well not really, but it was better than nothing. The women in the windows were elegant, demure, and respected by everyone - even their terrible children were treated like royalty. 

That day a woman caught her eye. She had threads of gold woven in an intricate floral pattern that sprouted at the hem of her skirt and grew up and around her figure, encasing her in a knot of thorns and roses. The gold left the dress and snaked its way up around her throat. It left teardrops on her earlobes, chains on her wrists, and jewelled ties around her fingers. Though she was bound, she had them all at her beck and call. It was like the glint of gold in the sun hypnotised them. It hypnotised Arabella. She couldn’t get it off her mind. The whole walk home she pictured herself glittering in the sun, dripping in gold. 

When Arabella and her father sat down for dinner, she asked him if her mother had ever had any jewellery. 

“I gave her my mother’s wedding ring when we got married, but we had to sell it when you were young.”

“Why on earth would you sell it?” She couldn’t believe they could part with something so precious.

“Well, after your mother died, I had to stay home to look after you. It was the only way to keep food on the table.”

Arabella cried herself to sleep that night for the loss of her mother’s ring. She dreamt of finding it in the woods.

When she woke up, her father had already left for work. When he wasn’t there she could do whatever she wanted, and she was feeling defiant. She packed a basket with some food for her journey and supplies to collect her materials. She worked her way through the forest going further than she’d ever been before. She was determined to find something that could colour her fabrics gold. After a few hours and a basket half-full of yellow flowers, she stopped to take lunch and sat down on a fallen tree. It gave way beneath her and she fell backward through the dense shrubbery at her back, rolling and tumbling down a hill. Her legs and arms were all scratched up, and she’d torn the skirt of her dress, but nothing was broken. She picked herself up, brushed off the dirt, and took stock of her scattered belongings. It wasn’t until after she’d gathered all her things that she looked around her. She’d fallen through to a field that was smothered by a blanket of pink and purple flowers. She saw it; a golden tree standing tall amidst the sea of flowers, glinting like a midday fantasy. She ran to it and touched the cold, smooth surface of the trunk, tapped it and heard the solid thunk of metal. This can’t be real, she thought. She used her gardening snips to cut a few leaves off and stashed them in her basket. Her hands shook and she barely kept her footing climbing back up the hill. She ran all the way home and got there with just enough time to start supper before her father got home. When he walked through the door, he looked in a better mood than usual, so she decided to take her chances. 

“Father, have you ever heard of a tree made of gold? Do you think such a thing could exist?”

“What an odd question. What on earth has you thinking about golden trees?”

“I was just reading today and my mind drifted. I wondered if it would be possible.”

“Well, no, I don’t imagine it’s possible, but it’s very strange that you bring it up. My mother used to be obsessed with it. She told me as a child that my father had run off and ruined his life over a golden tree. She said the tree had a curse upon it and would poison the life of anyone who took from it. But she was just a bitter old woman trying to make up a story to explain why he left us.”

That night she was haunted by visions of the tree, of it melting through her skin as she tried to take from it. In the light of a new day though, her father’s warnings fell flat and she decided she didn’t believe in the curse after all. There was nothing she could do now anyway; she’d already taken from the tree. She was up early enough that day to catch her father before he left for work, and told him that she was sick of staying home all the time and would be heading to town to find a job. There wasn’t anything he could say to stop her. 

As soon as she got to town, she headed to the blacksmith to show him the gold leaves. She told him she’d found them hidden amongst her mother’s things and asked if he would buy them. He agreed and gave her an even larger sum than she expected. She had enough to buy fresh food for dinner as well as a pair of gold earrings for herself. She pushed them through her earlobes to create a hole. As much as it hurt and her ears bled, she saw her reflection in the shop window, saw the sun glinting on her ears, and was happy for the first time in her life.

Of course her father noticed the earrings as soon as he saw them.

“Did you steal them?” He asked.

“No, I promise. The seamstress gave me a job and one of the rich ladies who came in bought them for me.” 

He furrowed his brow. “Now why would they do that?”

“Well, I heard her complaining about the dress she’d just bought and I offered to fix it for her on the spot. She was so grateful when she saw it that she went straight out and got them for me.”

“And did she give you money for all the food as well?”
            “Well no, I told Mrs. Amboise that I didn’t have anything to make for supper and she gave me a small advance after seeing how well I handled the customer.”

“So you’re just going around telling everyone how poor we are now?”

“No Father, it was just Mrs. Amboise.”

“Well don’t go saying anything like that again or you won’t be working anymore. I don’t need you giving me a bad name; I don’t care how much you make.” 

The confrontation with her father did little to deter Arabella from visiting the tree again. In fact, any day that she wasn’t in town shopping, she was at the tree filling her basket with leaves. She took enough to buy all the dresses she could hope for, and with all the purchases came the respect she’d always wanted. Everyone in town knew her name and would drop whatever they were doing to help her. She lived for the way they treated her, but as soon as she went home, she was unhappy again. The sadness was in her bones and she knew that she couldn't be happy while they still lived in the cottage, so she announced to her father that she wanted to buy them a new house where he could have his own farm instead of having to work on someone else’s. As much as he didn’t like the idea of his daughter paying for their new home, he knew that if he had his own farm, he could at least contribute to their growing wealth.

There was nowhere else Arabella would consider making a home than on the land where the tree grew, but that belonged to the king. She knew that the king would be unwilling to sell though, so she would have to present him with an offer he couldn’t refuse. She stripped the tree of more than half of its leaves and had them melted into gold bars. When the king saw the pile of gold, he gave up the rights to the land immediately. He wondered why he’d never heard of this beautiful wealthy woman before and asked her if he knew her family. She told him that her and her father had come from a land far from his kingdom and that they were hoping for a fresh start. He was a suspicious man though, and sent spies to follow her through the town. 

Arabella was a clever woman and noticed the men watching her through the store windows as she had once done. These were not poor men wishing for a future they could never have; they wore the rags of poverty, but it hadn’t seeped into their bones. She slipped out the back door and down an alleyway, winding through the narrow streets until she was sure no one had followed her. An old friend of her father lived in a small house on the outskirts of town, and she stopped by to ask him to gather men to build a huge wall along the borders of her new property. She promised to pay more than required to get the job done, so he was happy to oblige. 

When the wall was complete and the men had lined their pockets with gold, she asked them to build her a house of windows so she could look out over everything she owned. The property was large enough that they built it all without ever seeing the clearing or the tree, but with so many golden leaves floating around now people were starting to wonder what’s going on. One afternoon, Arabella is strolling through her forest and came across one of the builders searching for answers. He stopped in his tracks and they stared at each other for a moment. 

“What are you doing out here?” She asked.

“I was just going for a walk.” He said.

“You know you’re not allowed out here. What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, I just had to know what was going on out here.”

“Do I not pay you enough to mind your own business?”

“You do.” He stammered. “Curiosity just got the better of me.”

As sorry as he looked, Arabella knew she couldn’t trust him anymore. She couldn’t trust any of them.

“You need to turn around right now and go back to work.”

He turned and ran back in the direction of the house. 

With the house practically finished and all the farming equipment set up and ready to go, she invited all of the builders to celebrate with an evening party in her new home. They brought their wives and children all dressed in their finest clothes. She had a feast set out for them to enjoy and they gorged themselves on meat and wine, while she sat back and enjoyed none of it. The poison was fast-acting, and they began to choke and fall within the hour. She looked over the piles of bodies, finally satisfied that the tree would be safe. 

Arabella told her father that their new house was finally finished and they could move in and start working on getting the farm up and running. Everything started off well, except for the fact that they couldn’t seem to find people willing to work for them. Her Father couldn’t wrap his head around why no one would be willing to work for such a generous wage. He was wandering the grounds thinking on it when he stumbled into the clearing and saw the tree stripped of almost all of its leaves. He realised what had happened and that his mother was telling the truth about his father all along. He was furious and headed back to the house to confront Arabella about it. 

“All this time you never had a job you were just taking from the tree.”

“Well, yeah,” She said guiltily, “but look at what I’ve been able to do because of it.”

“I told you about what my mother said, about how the tree is cursed. How could you still take from it?”

“Well I’d already taken some when you told me, so I figured the damage was already done.”

“I can’t believe you would do this to us.”

“What, make us rich? We’ve got things now that we never would have been able to with just your job. Way more even than if I had really been working as a seamstress. Are you really mad about this?”

“Yeah, I’m mad. My father abandoned me and my mother because of this tree.”

“Well I didn’t abandon you, shouldn’t that count for something.”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “This all feels wrong. Why can’t we get anyone to work here? Have you been sabotaging my hires so they don’t find out about the tree?” 

“No. I promise.”

“Then why will no one take a job here - we’re offering more than anyone else.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe they’re scared”

“Why would they be scared?”

“I don’t want to tell you.” She said, fiddling with her dress.

“I’m sick of being lied to, Arabella. Tell me now or I’m leaving.”

“Ok, fine.” She sighed. “I had a few men working on building the walls and the house and I found one of them near the clearing once. I told him to go back to work, but I could tell he would go searching again as soon I wasn’t around. I figured he’d probably tell everyone else about it as well. I couldn’t risk them finding it. What if they took all the leaves and left me with nothing?”

“What did you do, Bella?”

“Well, I had to make them go away.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What do you mean ‘go away’?”

“I had to make sure no one would ever know what we have here.”

“You killed them.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, baby, and you chose to kill all those men. No wonder people are scared of you.”

“I had to protect what we have. I can’t go back to how we used to live.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “What about their families? Why has no one said anything?”

            “I invited them all here for a party. They ate and drank well, and It was quite painless, I swear.”

He wiped tears from his eyes and hung his head. “I’m sorry darling, but I can’t do this with you. This tree has poisoned you and I won’t let it do the same to me.”

“What, so you’re just going to leave me after all I’ve done for you?”

“I still love you, but I can’t be around this. I’m going to go back to the old house, you can come if you want, but if you do, you can’t ever take from the tree again.”

“You can’t force me to go back to living in squalor.”

“I’m not forcing you to do anything. You can either stay here by yourself or come home with me.”

“This is my home now”

He was filled with sadness as he walked away, so much that he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye or even take one last look at her. He packed his bags and left.

Arabella went about the house in a fit of rage, breaking anything she came across. She dragged all of his farming equipment into the stables and lit them on fire. The horses screamed as they burned alive, but she couldn’t bring herself to cry for them. She grabbed a blanket and went to sit out by the tree. She stayed there day and night watching the last few leaves blow in the wind, making sure no one was coming for them. She guarded the tree with her life and sat there until she got so weak that she could barely lift her arms. The leaves began to fall on their own, and with the loss of each one, she lost more of herself. She looked up at the tree one last time, and with her final breath the last leaf fell.