Lesson in Wood

by Oonah V Joslin

Robinia stared at her hands, then at her little tree. Contorted Dwarf they called it. She'd watched it grow from a single fork of branches spreading to front and side, conjuring leaves from air and water, like round green piglets suckling at the nurturing sap.

She preferred the name Lady Lace. In spring it flounced and ruched, a flummery of green for dull eyes. Robinia knew every twist of its growing pains - its silver-brown trunk and twiggy, untamable growth. In summer it exploded with irrepressible gaiety. In winter its skeleton writhed against the wind like a demon deformed.

They shared the name Robinia and now she too was a contorted dwarf, stooped; confined, petrified. She couldn't straighten her fingers today and her wrists were distorted and gnarled. “Don't worry,” she said, “in spring you will be young again.”

A tear fell on her swollen hands.