Treeson (Mother Nature)

Gary Randolph was a very eco-minded guy, which made it odd that he was a lumberjack by trade.

It wasn’t his choice, honestly. He’d been picked up as a kid for a few smash-and-grabs, and as he put it: “You try finding a job when you’ve got a record.” He’d tried local pawn shops; auto dealers; even telemarketing firms. But while all of these people would hire other felons, nobody trusted a thief.

He’d had nowhere else to turn but the Alcobb Lumber Company, which drove him mad. They were deforesting his local town and he was working for them! It was like a Satanist being hired as church organist.

But he was damned good at the job, and he soon rose to be the foremost logger at his branch. He had a lot of say, but corporate could shut him down whenever they wanted.

Like now. For all his influence, Gary had nothing he could do to prevent the damnable company from chopping down his childhood woods; nothing he could do but pray. Thankfully for him, he lived in a world where the supernatural could become real. And one day, his prayers were answered…

Gary grunted as his axe bit deep into the bark of another magnificent oak. Small tears formed at the corners of his eyes, and he told himself it was from sawdust.

“You okay, Gary?” A woman’s voice interrupted his reverie.

Gary felt his eyes narrowing. Doris Alcobb, his botch of a biss. Or something like that. Doris was a horrid excuse for a woman, a horse-faced, self-proclaimed ‘fitness freak’ who enjoyed micromanaging her loggers. She’d inherited the generations-old company from her dead dad, and of course she had to just personally manage his branch.

She peered over his shoulder, smirking. “Surely this doesn’t have to do with your little protests regarding your childhood? Our town need wood more than it needs trees, Gary. You know that.”

“Yes ma’am.” He grit his teeth, biting his axe deeper into the wood. It sank in with a loud thunk.

“Because I think it just might. You’re using an axe, when our new chainsaws are all the more effective. It can’t be you’re trying to sabotage our project?”

If Gary concentrated just right, he could almost picture her face on the bark… “Yes ma’am.” Thunk.

“What have I always told you, Gary? Corporate loyalty. I need you to pretend, for just one moment, that this job is more important than your woods.”

“Yes ma’am.” Thunk.

“Gary? I need you to be honest with me. I need to hear the words from your mouth. Tell me that this job is worth more than your childhood.”

“Yes ma’am.” Thunk.

“Gary. Look me in the eyes. And tell me what you think.” Doris’s next words came in a sickeningly sing-song voice. “Or you’re fired.”

Thud.

Gary buried his axe in the ground, spinning to face the evil little woman. “You want to know what I think? You really want to know?”

She started the muscled man down, a smirk on her glossed lips. “Absolutely.” Her eyes narrowed. “And remember that your job is on the line.”

Gary bit his lip so hard it almost bled. “I think…” He sighed, calming his beating heart. “I think that. This job.” He had to force the words out and feel his pride breaking.

“This job is?” Doris played her finger in a small circle, glaring at her employee.

“Please, let me finish on my own time.” Gary sighed, running a hand through his sweat-matted hair. “I’m giving you what you want.”

“Not quickly enough, I’m afraid. Tick-tock.” Doris chuckled.

Something inside Gary snapped, and his right eye ticked dangerously. “I think that this job is a steaming load, and that the only way the company could have hired a little toad like you is because you made some deal with Satan after you slid from his urethra.” He breathed heavily, his hands slowly unballing from fists. “Ma’am.”

“You ungrateful junkie.” Doris hissed, her eyes narrowing.

“I don’t do drugs.” Gary mumbled, his voice sounding a little silly now that he realized what he’d just said.

Doris continued as though she didn’t hear him. “I employed you, you grub. I made you who you are. And now, you have the audacity to commit treason? To say these… these…”

“Truths?” A musical female voice interrupted her, and both Gary and Doris turned to face the new entry.

She was a gorgeous woman; divinely beautiful. Her skin seemed to literally glow, and the dead leaves under her feet began to curl and sprout new buds.

“And who the hell are you?” Doris spat, glaring. “Gary’s girlfriend? His wife?”

The woman chuckled. “I’m less of a ‘wife, and more of a ‘mother’.” Her teeth flashed as she smiled. “You can call me Mother Nature.” The woman’s eyes flashed, and small roots began to writhe their way around Doris’s feet. The roots bound her fast, like makeshift manacles.

“What the hell do you want, you deranged…” Doris tried to lift a leg, but found them held fast. “What?” She glared up, her eyes flashing.

Mother Nature chuckled. “I want much what you do. I want to provide your town with lumber.” As she spoke, the brown from the roots seemed to rub off onto Doris’s skin.

From the look in her eyes, Doris could actually feel these changes happening to her; feel her skin hardening to bark.

“You’re making me into a tree?” Doris screeched, her beady eyes glaring as her skin continued to harden.

“No.” Mother Nature said, looking around the clearing. A brief frown flitted across her features, and she looked at Gary with sympathy in her eyes.

In that brief moment, so much understanding had passed between the two, and Gary knew that his prayers had been answered. He nodded subtly and Mother Nature returned the gesture.

“What’s that look for? What are you doing?” Doris glared, the bark spreading up to her calves.

Mother Nature flashed Doris a smile that could only be described as ‘sadistic’. “I’ll make you into a few more than one.” Mother Nature turned back to the lumberjack. “Tell me, Gary. How many trees do you folk cut down at a time?”

“Five, maybe?” He shrugged, tilting his head. “We’ve got ten teams total, but they’re usually half off.”

“So let’s make it ten.”

“Nah, better be safe.” Gary tapped his lower lip. “Twenty sounds fair.”

Mother Nature smiled. “Gary… I like the way you think. Plus, of course, the main tree.”

The goddess snapped her fingers, and Doris’s legs snapped together. Her feet loudly cracked, and the woman shrieked as her heels began to lengthen.

Gary watched with interest as her heels began to pull out to duplicates of her feet. It looked like a horrible Photoshop come to life, the woman now standing on long fleshy slats. Then her feet cracked again, the pair going from a line to an angled pair of appendages. It looked like she was standing on four feet, splayed like an ‘X’.

“That looks painful.” Gary pointed out glibly, watching her wobble slightly.

“No duh, numb-nuts!” Doris retorted.

Gary chuckled. “Nuts. Funny. Like acorns.”

“What?” She snapped back at him.

Mother Nature laughed, too. “Don’t worry, you’ll soon be intimately familiar with the joke.”

Doris opened her mouth to snap again, but her jaw clicked closed a moment later.

“My mom always said ‘if you can’t say something nice; don’t say it at all’.” Gary chuckled, his hands on his hips. He turned slightly, seeing some of the other workers crowding around to catch a better look.

Doris mumbled something behind her sealed lips, the creaking bark creeping up her thighs now. It looked like her toes were lengthening, and she mumbled the same thing again. It must have been some variant of ‘help’.

But if she was looking for help, she should have looked elsewhere. One of the fallers heaved his saw onto his shoulder, looking the woman-turning-tree up and down. “Tree fell on her?” He said, his gaze unwavering.

Gary grinned. “Tree fell on her.”

The other loggers smiled too. They hailed from all over: other criminals; some honest men; even one or two cops working as a part-time. And every single one of them hated Doris with a burning passion.

Doris screeched, and all present found the sight of her screaming with a closed mouth to be exceptionally unsettling. Thankfully, that included Mother Nature, and she flicked up one of her arms.

As she did, the thick bark covering Doris accelerated, covering her completely in wood. The woman had time to let loose one last shriek before she was totally trapped, her arms lifting towards the heavens and becoming branches.

Her body expanded and lengthened, becoming a thick trunk; and her feet began to stretch out into a deep and thick root network. But Doris’s toes; those were the real magic.

Gary watched down as each of her twenty toes snaked out, forming almost a vine connecting it to her main body. Each of the toes continued until they were a few yards out; then they bloomed into long and thin shoots.

The gathered men stared in astonishment as twenty new trees each sprouted in a staggered circle around Doris’s transformed body. And as they kept growing, so did her main trunk. It looked like her body was growing thicker and broader, expanding to at least thrice that of her mighty sub-trees.

They watched in awe as Doris grew to a titanic tree, surrounded by twenty offshoots that were each as large as though she’d been having them chop down. Moreover, each of them seemed to be a different species.

Gary swept a hand through his hair, his eyes wide as he looked Doris up and down. “Well, that’s not something you see every day.” He muttered, looking to Mother Nature with wide eyes. “So, what now?”

“Hm?” She arched an eyebrow, quickly admiring her own handiwork. “What do you mean by that? You can work on her.”

Gary frowned. “Meaning no offense, but that’s only twenty-one trees. We’ll burn through that in a matter of days, even if we take our time. And that’s even if we can sell this wood.”

Mother Nature chuckled patronizingly, crossing her arms. “Pick up your axe and try out one of her offshoots.” She paused, looking back to the other loggers. “You all might want to take a step back.”

For a moment, they smiled and laughed among themselves. Then they realized they’d just seen this goddess change someone into a tree. All of them took a generous pace or two back, nodding at Gary.

He sighed, stooping down to pick up the axe. “I hope she can feel this.” He muttered, walking up to a tree that looked like a pine. Then he swung back, bringing it forward with a mighty thunderclap.

Wood splintered as Gary’s mighty swing carried his blade through the offshoot’s trunk. It clove through the bark in a mighty blow, and the offshoot tipped back with a loud creaking.

“Headache.” Gary muttered, his eyes wide as the huge tree slowly fell towards him. He dove out of the way with a yelp, and the tree fell with a mighty crash just inches from his body.

Gary looked back to the stump and his jaw fell slack. The offshoot was already regrowing itself, lengthening in seconds to its former glory.

“I wasn’t sure that would work, to be honest.” Mother Nature chuckled, walking up to the regrown stump to tap at it. It gave a resounding knock, and she smiled with the satisfaction of a job well-done. “I think that Doris here will be more than willing to contribute to your lumber yard.”

Gary rolled over onto his rear, scooting his legs up. “Um. Yeah, I guess she will.” He sighed, looking back at the big tree. “So… She’s a tree now.”

Mother Nature smiled, trailing her fingers up and down the pine’s bark. “That she is. And as long as her main trunk is alive, then her off-shoots will keep growing back, and back, and back…” The goddess realized she was smiling sadistically again, and she cleared her throat. “Until she’s paid for her company’s sins.”

“So, she’ll be a tree forever?” Gary frowned, scratching his beard.

Mother Nature laughed, the sound rich like wind across a meadow. “No, she’ll only be a tree until she’s produced as much wood as her company has consumed.”

The lumberjack looked at her funnily. “Yeah, but the company stretches across America. There’s no way we’ll be able to harvest enough trees from these twenty!”

That soothing sound of a goddess’s laughter blew across the woods once more. “Exactly.”

“Oh. Ohhh.” Gary grinned. “You know, I thought that if there was someone like yourself, she’d punish the workers instead of corporate.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.” Mother Nature smiled impishly. “I’m still convinced you’d make a rather cute beaver. But you weren’t the one at fault here.” She smiled as the other fallers on hand took up their tools, eager to work out some of their job-related stresses.

“Yeah, guess not.” Gary sighed, looking up again to see her form beginning to fade away. “Going somewhere?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Sorry, a mountain climber just knocked down an eagle’s nest.” She sighed, a disappointed frown on her face. “You humans sometimes…”

Gary stood up, dusting himself off. “Yeah, well we’re not all bad people. Case in point: me and mine won’t tell a soul about what happened here.” He held out a hand and she smiled, cupping it in hers.

“I should hope you wouldn’t, unless you’d rather be biting at those trees than cutting them. If you ever want to try on a spin of the fur…” She let the offer hang in the air, now almost entirely transparent.

“Yeah, you’ll be the first I pray to. And, miss?”

She arched an eyebrow, no doubt unused to being addressed as such.

“Thanks.” Gary smiled.

And just like that she was gone. Not that Gary minded too much. In all honesty, the goddess had scared him half to death.

But she had taken care of him, and his fellow loggers. Their mill soon produced the finest wood of any of Alcobb's branches. And faced with that, the company saw it fit to promote the most senior logger to the head of the branch.

Indeed, Gary went from bottom-rung to top-tier. And all it took was for him to stand up for himself. All it took was a little bit of treeson.