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The Green Man’s Guest

by Juliet E. McKenna

Trees die, like every living thing. Left to their own devices, they’ll gradually succumb to old age after decades or even centuries. If they’re not so lucky, a storm or a nearby tree toppled by strong winds can bring them crashing down. These days, if they’re really unlucky, some spreading blight can make felling them essential.

However it happens, whoever’s in charge of that back garden or public park or private woodland faces the same question. How do we get the stump out? What do we do about the hole? Even a smallish tree has a sizeable root ball.

Or… how about doing something else? I don’t know who came up with the idea of turning tree stumps into sculptures instead of grubbing them out, but as soon as I came across it, I wanted to give it a try. I did a load of research online and watched a lot of videos. I bought some specialist power tools and taught myself to use them on scrap timber from various projects. I’ve been taking care of the estate’s woods at Blithehurst Manor for the past few years, so I reckoned I’d get my chance sooner or later.

Last autumn, a sudden squall snapped a venerable sweet chestnut in half. It already had dead wood in its crown, and the gardeners and I agreed there was no saving the tree. So I turned the stump into a life-sized statue of Sir Graelent de Beauchene, who had been given the manor and its lands by William the Conqueror. One of his descendants had planted that chestnut tree when the family were building the Tudor house to replace Sir Graelent’s original, damp and draughty medieval stone home down by the river. The Beauchene family still own the estate, but these days the house and gardens are run as a tourist attraction.

I should have remembered that doing a good job guarantees you’ll be asked to do it again. My boss, Eleanor Beauchene, had photos of Sir Graelent on her phone when she went to a country landowner’s conference. A few months later, she got a call. The owners of this arboretum in West Sussex wanted to know the going rate for me carving them a tree sculpture. One of their cedars of Lebanon had been risk-assessed as far too likely to start dropping branches on visitors’ heads.

I wasn’t complaining. Driving down from Staffordshire this late spring morning, I was keen to get to grips with this interesting challenge. Now I walked slowly around the sizeable remnant of the cedar, pressing the button on my tape measure to rewind the flexible metal. The arboretum’s tree surgeon had done a good job making the condemned tree safe and still leaving me plenty of wood to work with. Ideally, I wanted at least a couple of meters of sound timber which was a minimum of thirty or forty centimetres across. I’d have far more here, even after the tree’s bark and outer layers had been stripped off to get to the heartwood.

So now I needed some ideas to suggest to Alexander, who was in charge of the arboretum. He was paying for my time and skill, but he didn’t seem to have a clue what sort of sculpture he wanted. I started taking photos with my phone from every possible angle. Then I stood and looked at the stump again, hoping for inspiration.

‘Good afternoon,’ a cheerful voice said behind me. ‘Who are you?’

I turned around to see a little girl smiling up at me. She wore denim dungarees over a pale yellow sweater and I guessed she was somewhere around ten years old. Her long black hair was tied up in bunches high on her head, and her eyes were dark brown. I thought she was most probably Japanese, though I reminded myself not to make assumptions that might cause unintended offence.

‘Hello.’ I looked around for whatever tour party or family group she must be part of. The arboretum was full of visitors on this fine and sunny Saturday afternoon.

‘Why are you interested in this tree?’ She spoke slowly and carefully, though she had barely an accent.

She was looking past me towards the cedar stump. I realised seeing me measuring and taking photographs must have made her curious. Back at Blithehurst I’m not usually a visitor’s first choice when they want to practise their English by talking to someone on the staff. I’m six foot four and, according to my mate Aled, my usual expression can be described as ‘off-putting’.

‘This tree had to be cut down because it wasn’t safe. I’m going to carve the wood that’s left into a statue.’ I waited to see if she understood me. I wasn’t sure what I could do if she didn’t. I don’t speak a word of Japanese.

‘That is a good idea,’ she said, approving. ‘My name is Moriko. What is your name?’

‘Dan.’ I looked around again for whoever she should be with. At Blithehurst, I’d take a lost kid to the cafe, where Lynne would dry tears and offer reassurance along with chocolate biscuits. One of her teenage staff would alert everyone working in the house and the grounds. Someone would soon spot an exasperated or frantic parent. Here, there was only Alexander, sitting in the ticket office. That was right over on the far side of the site with the loos in what had once been a big country house’s gate lodge. ‘Did you come here with your mum and dad?’

The little girl frowned and took a lot longer to reply than I expected. ‘I am here with my grandfather.’

‘Right.’ Shit. Her parents must be a sensitive subject. I’d better not ask again. The last thing I needed was passing visitors seeing I’d made a little girl cry. ‘Can you see him? Your grandfather?’

She surprised me with another bright smile. ‘He will come and find me. What will your statue be?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t decided.’ I took a few steps to look at the cedar from another angle. Now I was far enough away from the little girl so passers-by wouldn’t think I was about to grab her and carry her off. I was still close enough to stop anyone else trying. I looked around for anyone who could possibly be her grandfather. The sooner I could hand her over to an adult she knew, the happier I would be.

I was looking in the wrong direction. When I glanced back, to be sure where Moriko was, an older man stood beside her. How old? Old enough to be her grandfather. Beyond that, I couldn’t say. His hair was dark without a hint of grey, but his face was deeply lined and weathered. His trousers and collared shirt were more suited to an office rather than a day out in the English countryside, but his casual jacket and the camera around his neck were typical tourist gear.

Moriko was holding his hand and talking to him, fast and eager. He listened and nodded, and his shrewd, dark eyes were studying me. I must have been close to a foot taller than him, and my shoulders were twice as wide. I saw that didn’t bother him in the slightest.

‘Good afternoon.’ I used my best customer service training course manners.

He said something to Moriko. For a small man, his voice was surprisingly deep and resonant. His tone made me think he was used to people paying attention.

‘Grandfather says your statue should be an owl,’ she said, excited.

‘That’s a good idea.’ It was, but I couldn’t commit to anything before I’d spoken to Alexander.

I saw the old man watching for my reaction. Something about the intensity in his eyes made me think he spoke more English than he was going to admit. Or at least, he understood English when he heard it.

He gazed back at me. I was the first one to blink. I thought he smiled, but if he did, that was gone so fast that I could have imagined it. He looked down at Moriko, definitely smiling as he spoke to her.

She looked at me, her little face serious. ‘Grandfather wishes you good luck with your work.’

That was unexpected. I appreciated it all the same. ‘Thank you. I mean, please say thank you to your grandfather from me.’

As Moriko spoke, the old man grunted with satisfaction, deep in his chest. He looked at me and nodded slowly. I did the same. I think I was supposed to bow, but I had no idea how to do that right, and I wasn’t going to risk getting it wrong.

At least he didn’t look offended. He grunted a second time and turned to walk away. Moriko skipped along beside him, holding his hand and talking excitedly. They didn’t head for the lodge and the gates. They went over to the far side of the arboretum… and walked into a mature conifer.

To be clear, when I say ‘walked into’, I don’t mean they smacked into it like some cartoon animal. The two of them passed into the trunk as easily as I would walk through a curtain. That was one hell of a surprise. Again, to be clear, I don’t mean I was surprised that they could do that. I’ve seen my mother passing in and out of her oak trees since I was a kid myself. She’s a dryad after all.

But it had never once occurred to me that eighteenth and nineteenth century plant hunters and explorers could have brought other tree spirits to places like this, when they came back to England with the saplings and seeds they had gathered all over the world.

I wondered how old their tree might be. It was an impressive specimen, easily thirty metres tall and with a trunk over two metres in diameter. It had reddish fibrous bark and fine, feathery foliage on well-spaced branches.

---

I took out my phone and checked the time. Nearly four o’clock. When I’d arrived, Alexander had said that’s when he stopped selling entry tickets. At half past, he had told me, he’d do a circuit of the paths on his bicycle, reminding any lingering visitors that the gates would be locked promptly at five pm. While I was waiting for him to do that, I decided, I could get a drink from the snack wagon in the car park. I’d noticed their menu board said they would be open until five.

Before I took the path to the gates, I went over to the tree where Moriko and her grandfather lived. Since this was an arboretum, a helpfully informative plaque on a little white post told me the tree’s different names. Japanese Red Cedar. Cryptomeria Japonica. Sugi. The last line was a Japanese character which, obviously, I couldn’t read.

I looked more closely at the nearest branch. A botanical genius who didn’t know nearly as much as he should, might have called this species of tree a cedar when he first came across one, but this was no relative of that cedar of Lebanon I would be carving. I didn’t need to see its different Latin name to know that.

I took a photo of the plaque with my phone. I waited to see if Moriko or her grandfather would reappear. They didn’t, so I walked back to the car park. I got myself a cup of tea and a lemon drizzle muffin and sat in my Land Rover while I waited for Alexander to close up. I studied the
photos on my phone and sketched a few rough ideas on a pad I’d brought with me.

Every so often, I looked up as an engine started and a car drove away. When my Landy and Alexander’s Prius were the only vehicles left, I got out and walked over to the lodge where he was locking the front door. He was quite a bit younger than me.

He shoved his bunch of keys into a pocket of his battered waxed jacket. ‘How did you get on?’

‘Very well.’ I didn’t say anything about meeting Moriko or her grandfather, obviously. ‘How do you feel about a sculpture of an owl?’ That might have been the old tree spirit’s suggestion, but the more I had studied my photos of the stump, the more I liked the idea.

Alexander brushed long wavy hair out of his eyes with a skinny hand. ‘That’s certainly a thought.’

‘I’ll do a few sketches this evening,’ I offered. ‘You can take your time to think it over. I won’t be getting started until I’ve got the chainsaw work done tomorrow.’

‘That sounds like a plan,’ he agreed. ‘Now, let me show you where you’ll be staying, and you can get settled in before dinner.’

‘Thanks.’ I headed back to the Landy while he got into his Prius.

I only needed to do that to avoid getting the Land Rover locked inside the car park. Identical brick and flint houses in terraces of four lined both sides of the road that led up to the gates and the lodge. This village had been purpose-built for the servants who once worked on this estate, Alexander had explained. He and his older brothers and sisters still owned them, Eleanor had told me, along with most
of the estate land that went with the arboretum. Only the stately home itself had been sold off in the 1960s, to be turned into a hotel.

Alexander pulled into the left-hand kerb, about halfway down the village street. As I stopped behind him, he got out of the Prius and made an open-your-window gesture. When I did that, he pointed to the entry between this terrace and the next.

‘You can park around the back.’

‘Right. Thanks.’ I turned the wheel and drove slowly over the gravel to tuck the Land Rover behind the little house. That was fine with me. Since I’d come here to do at least a week’s work, I had a lot of my tools in the back, even if the sticker on the door said the opposite. No one could see inside to call me a liar.

Alexander was unlocking the cottage’s back door. I got my overnight bag out of the passenger footwell. He held up the keys so I could take them from him. ‘Here you are.’

‘Thanks.’ I followed him into a kitchen fitted with modern units and a quarry tiled floor. ‘This is nice.’

He nodded. ‘You should have everything you need, but give me a shout if not. I’m only over the road. I’ll pick you up for dinner at seven thirty?’

‘Fine with me.’

‘Right then. See you later.’

He closed the back door behind him. I took my laptop out of my overnight bag and set it up on the kitchen table. A folder with instruction booklets for the kitchen appliances had the Wi-Fi details printed on a label stuck to the front. I sat down and logged on. I honestly only meant to look up a couple of things, but I was still sitting there when my phone startled me with a text. Alexander was waiting outside to take me to dinner. I grabbed the keys off the table and my jacket off the chair and headed out.

I had learned a lot of interesting things. For a start, Japanese tree spirits are called kodama. They can appear as men or women, unlike dryads who are always female. They can also appear as animals or mysterious lights, and no dryad I’ve ever met can do that. Kodama live in remote mountainous forests and they are most often associated with sugi trees, especially the oldest, giant specimens. I wasn’t remotely surprised that cutting down a tree where a kodama lives is an instant guarantee of bad luck. I’ve seen what a pissed off dryad can do.

Sugi trees themselves were absolutely fascinating. The oldest ones are protected and revered, and some could be up to seven thousand years old. Sugi are often planted around temples, but historically they were extensively cultivated for aromatic, rotresistant and durable wood that could be used to make pretty much anything. That’s not the half of it. Around eight hundred years ago, the Japanese developed a technique somewhere between pollarding and coppicing called daisugi. This keeps the great trees alive and producing a harvest of straight logs big enough for building houses every couple of decades. The photos online were astonishing. As far as I was concerned, there’s no way any of that could have happened without the kodama lending a hand.

But none of that was remotely relevant to the job I had come here to do. To my relief, once I got into the Prius, Alexander was more interested in telling me about his family and their various businesses, than asking what I’d been doing.

He accelerated down the road, gesturing at the terraces on either side. ‘We keep a couple of the cottages for the use of contractors like yourself, who need accommodation locally, and for anyone in the family who wants to come down from London for a weekend or a bit of a holiday. The rest are long term rentals.’

I realised I was supposed to make conversation. ‘Not holiday lets?’

He shook his head. ‘We’ve got a dozen forest lodges over on the other side of the golf course. What with last-minute bookings and cancellations, as well as never knowing how much mess will need cleaning up for weekly turnarounds, they’re more than enough hassle.’

‘Right.’ I tried to think of something else to say. I pictured the map of the estate I’d looked at online. ‘How far are they from your paintball place?’

‘Far enough for us not to get complaints about the noise,’ Alexander said with relief as he turned the steering wheel.

Since I was thinking about the estate, I realised we were heading up what had once been the main drive to the big house. ‘Where are we going for dinner?’

‘The hotel.’ Alexander grinned. ‘I get a discount. We’ve done a nice deal with the new owners so their guests can use our golf course, and some of their corporate team-building conferences go paintballing.’

The Prius crested a rise in the driveway. I saw an imposing Palladian building ahead. If he’d told me where we were going, I might have put on my good jeans. On the other hand, Alexander was still wearing the same faded brown cords and checked shirt.

‘You don’t wish your family still owned this place?’

‘Not for a second,’ he assured me. ‘The best thing great-Grandad ever did was offload it before the upkeep and repairs bankrupted him.’

‘Right.’ I wondered how often the house had been sold, if new owners had taken it on recently.

We reached the car park and Alexander pulled into a space marked as reserved. That was useful as every other space looked taken. As we got out of the Prius, I saw a couple of Porsches and an Aston Martin. Not much sign of a cost of living crisis around here. I hoped the new owners were turning a profit to keep their staff in work.

‘The restaurant’s in what used to be the Orangery.’ Alexander led the way along a path towards the side of the house. ‘Great-great – I forget how many greats – Uncle William had that built in 1853 at the same time as he was setting up the Arboretum. He was supposed to be a clergyman carrying the gospel to far-flung corners of the Empire, but he only went into the church because that’s what third sons were expected to do. He came home every year or so with a whole load of new specimens, and his will insisted the Arboretum had to be kept in the family. Fortunately the botany gene passed down the family tree to me. I loved coming here as a kid, and I was more than happy to take it on when I finished uni.’

‘Right.’ I wondered if any dryads living here in days gone by had got Great Uncle William interested in trees. If so, they were long gone now. I also wondered how they might have reacted when one of his specimens had arrived from Japan with a passenger.

‘So how did you get on?’ Alexander asked as we turned a corner of the path and saw the Orangery lit up ahead. ‘Any suggestions for the sculpture?’

‘The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of an owl. If you’re going to let people come right up to it, a solid shape will be much less vulnerable to damage.’

‘That’s a very good point,’ he agreed.

I’d also learned from the Internet that in Japanese culture, the owl supposedly brings good luck, wisdom, and success in business. Since annoying the old kodama would most likely guarantee the opposite, following up on his suggestion made sense to me.

---

We had a very good meal in the fancy restaurant, then Alexander drove us back to the village. This time I did take a look around the cottage, opening the fridge and the kitchen cupboards. He was right. I did have everything I needed. I plugged in the power packs for my various power tools to charge them overnight and went to bed.

---

I woke up bright and early and cooked myself a big breakfast. It might be Sunday but I wasn’t having a lie-in. The Arboretum wouldn’t open until midday. That had been specified when it first opened to the public, to make sure no one was tempted to skip church, according to Alexander. That meant I could get the chainsaw preparation work done this morning with no one else around. That meant a lot less hassle with risk assessments as well as saving a day’s cost for the Heras safety fencing that was arriving tomorrow morning. Though, as far as I was concerned, the main purpose of that would be to stop members of the public helping themselves to my tools when my back was turned.

Alexander had given me a key to the car park. As I locked the gate behind me, I looked around for Moriko or her grandfather. Not that he would actually be her grandfather, I guessed, not by any human definition of their relationship. Calling him her elder was probably more accurate. I wondered how old she was, and how she had come to be here, sharing the old kodama’s tree. I didn’t expect to get any answers to those questions. Most likely I wouldn’t ever find out. Dryads keep themselves to themselves, and I couldn’t see any reason why kodama would be different.

I drove the Landy slowly along the wide gravel path and parked close to the cedar of Lebanon stump. I got my protective gear and my new shaping chainsaw out of the back. After a last look around and a final glance towards the sugi, I put on the PPE and started stripping off the cedar’s bark and sapwood. I put the tree spirits out of my mind as I concentrated. Working with power tools and letting your mind wander is a bad idea.

It was sweaty work, even though it wasn’t a particularly warm day. When I was about halfway done, I stopped the chainsaw and took a step back, ready to go and get a bottle of water. I pulled off my ear defenders and lifted my helmet’s safety visor on. Feeling the breeze on my face helped ease the claustrophobic sensation of not being able to hear clearly. I turned around and nearly dropped the chainsaw on my foot. Moriko and her grandfather stood there. How long had they been watching?

‘Good morning, Dan,’ she said cheerfully.

‘Good morning, Moriko.’ I looked at the old kodama and nodded politely. ‘Good morning.’

He nodded and grunted, but this time he definitely smiled, just for a few seconds. He looked as if he’d stepped out of a samurai movie, dressed in traditional Japanese clothing in muted shades of grey and green. He didn’t have any swords, obviously, but he carried a stick in one hand. It was a couple of centimetres in diameter and maybe a metre and a quarter long.

I remembered something I’d read. The biggest threat in a dojo is the little old man with the broom. Okay, that wasn’t a broom handle, but the old kodama was smiling again, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Could he read my mind? The Internet hadn’t said anything about that.

‘Excuse me, please.’ I walked over to the Landy and opened the back door to find the bottle of water I’d chilled in the fridge overnight. Moriko and her grandfather came with me. She was wearing some sort of pale green kimono that was nowhere near as fancy or complicated as the ones I’d seen on TV.

She peered inside the Land Rover, openly curious. ‘How will you carve the wood?’

I opened a wooden box to show her the various cutting and burr bits I’d bought to go with my new rotary carving tool. ‘With these.’

The old kodama reached past me to pick up one of old chisels I’d put in the box as well, in case I needed to do something by hand. Studying the different initials burned into the wooden handle, he asked Moriko a question, before looking at me expecting an answer. She took a moment to find the right words. She must have learned her English from people visiting the arboretum and this was hardly a
typical tourist conversation.

‘Grandfather asks how many generations of craftsmen have taught you.’

I picked up another chisel and pointed to each set of initials in turn. ‘This is me, Daniel Mackmain. J M, that’s my dad. Bill Mackmain was his father and he was Gilbert’s son.’

The old kodama grunted with what sounded like satisfaction. He said something else to Moriko that surprised her. She answered him back, objecting, but he insisted. She looked at me, unexpectedly shy.

‘Please, Dan, my grandfather asks, who is your mother?’

‘That’s okay.’ I’d been expecting this. The kodama must have realised I was a bit more than ordinarily human as soon as I’d set foot in the arboretum. That had to be why Moriko come to talk to me. I told them about the remnant of ancient woodland on the Oxfordshire-Warwickshire border where my mum tended her trees. I explained how she’d fallen in love with my dad, when the land became a nature reserve and he joined the volunteers who looked after it. A bit later, I was born. My mother’s blood means I can see supernatural folk and creatures that ordinary people think are myths.

Moriko was delighted by my parents’ story. Grandfather looked thoughtful. I heard church bells on the breeze and realised the time was getting on. I took a long drink and put the bottle of water back in the Landy. ‘I had better get on.’

The two tree spirits stepped aside. They stood and watched as I put my PPE on again and started up the chainsaw. I don’t like being watched when I’m working, but I focused on preparing the cedar, and soon forgot they were there.

When I was finished, I was very satisfied with my morning’s work. Now I needed to put my tools and safety gear away, and clear up the stripped bark and sapwood, before Alexander unlocked the gates for today’s visitors.

When I turned around, I saw the old kodama sitting cross-legged on the grass, busy with something in his lap. Moriko stood beside him with pieces of scrap cedar in one hand and one of my old chisels in the other. Grandfather saw me and stood up to offer me what he’d been working on. A square with sides as long as my hand framed an intricate design made from interlaced strips of wood.

‘This is incredible.’ I let him see I was impressed, as I took it and studied it closely.

He grunted with satisfaction. ‘Kumiko.’

I recognised that word. I’d discovered it online last night, clicking from link to link about traditional Japanese woodworking. This an ancient craft where strips of wood are used to make anything from window shutters to storage boxes to table mats. The skill is in the way the strips hold each other securely in place without any need for nails or glue.

‘Thank you, Dan.’ Moriko handed me the chisel and disappeared.

The old kodama smiled and vanished as well.

Hang on a bloody minute. I looked at the tool I was holding. No dryad I knew, or any other spirit of wood or water, earth or air, could handle steel. Kodama were very different to the unseen folk I was used to encountering.

---

Eleanor put the kumiko piece down on her desk. ‘This really is gorgeous, and so unusual.’

‘I’m going to have a go at doing it.’ I was sitting on the small sofa in her private study, upstairs in the Tudor house. I’d got back to Blithehurst late the night before. ‘I’ve been seeing what I can find out about designs and techniques online.’

Kumiko didn’t look easy. That was okay. Things worth doing are worth the effort.

‘Well, the sculpture looks fantastic. Alexander is delighted, and he’s already paid the invoice, so that’s good news.’ Eleanor had her laptop open. She clicked through the photographs I’d sent her. ‘What sort of owl is it?’

‘A Japanese scops owl. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to be.’ I think the old kodama approved. I was sure he’d have let me know if he didn’t.

‘I like those tufts of feathers on its head. Like big bushy eyebrows.’ Eleanor closed her laptop and looked at the earthenware pot I’d put on her desk. It held a small sapling with reddish bark and feathery, dull green foliage. ‘And you didn’t see Grandad kodama again till the end of the week?’

I nodded. ‘He appeared when I was clearing up after finishing work on the sculpture.

She gestured at the seedling. ‘What exactly does he want you to do with this?’

‘He asked me to take it to my mum’s wood, but I explained that the nature reserve volunteers are always on watch for anyone sneakily digging up plants, so they’d be bound to notice this turning up. It’s not a native species so someone would have it out of there as soon as they could fetch a trowel.’

I really hoped Moriko had understood what I was saying. I didn’t want her grandfather to think I was being deliberately unhelpful. ‘So I suggested bringing it here instead.’

A good few Beauchenes came home from their travels with interesting plants over the centuries. Plenty of them are still flourishing in the carefully tended grounds. More importantly, Eleanor’s the boss here. She could ask the gardeners to find this little sugi sapling a suitable home and no one would think twice about it. Well, no one human.

‘You told him about Blithehurst’s dryads.’

That wasn’t a question. Greenwood blood from a couple of centuries back flows through the Beauchene family’s veins. Eleanor has been able to see the manor’s resident dryads all her life, even if her brothers and sister never could. At least she didn’t have to deal with them on her own now. That wasn’t the only reason I’d got this job, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

‘What are you going to tell them?’ Her expression was somewhere between amused and apprehensive.

‘Do I have to tell them anything?’

Eleanor gave me the scathing look that deserved. ‘You seriously think Frai won’t want to know what’s going on as soon as she lays eyes on this?’

‘I suppose,’ I admitted.

Frai is the older of the two dryads at Blithehurst, and to call her a force of nature is an understatement. While I’d been working on that wooden sculpture of Sir Graelent, she had advised me as I carved every millimetre. At least, that’s what it felt like. Frai had known Sir Graelent personally, and if she hadn’t been satisfied the statue was a good likeness, I was pretty sure she would have blasted it into matchsticks somehow.

‘What are you going to say to her?’ Eleanor persisted. ‘And why did the grandfather kodama want you to have a seedling from their tree?’

I shrugged. ‘According to Moriko, he said that no one knows what the future might bring. He wants her to have some way to contact a friend if she ever needs help. Until I turned up, though, he had no idea how to find someone he could trust.’ By trustworthy, he meant another tree spirit. I was under no illusions about that.

‘She’ll be able to come straight here to this tree?’

‘That seems to be how it works.’ I hadn’t been able to get any more details. Just the idea of being without her grandfather had upset Moriko horribly. She had vanished in floods of tears. He disappeared a moment later. ‘That’s what I’ll tell Frai. It’s the truth after all.’

Dryads can always tell if someone is lying; though that wouldn’t necessarily get me off the hook if Frai refused to accept the little tree. We’d have to appeal to her daughter. Asca is equally strong willed, but not nearly so abrasive.

Eleanor stood up. ‘Let’s go and see what she says. We’d probably better let her decide where to plant it.’

‘Right.’ I picked up the little tree in its pot and followed her downstairs and out of the house.

We walked through the gardens, down towards the river and the medieval ruins overlooked by the manor. We reached the fork in the path, and I turned towards the wooded pasture where we’d hopefully find the dryads.

Frai and Asca appeared. Both dryads wore flowing draperies like something off a Greek vase, so that meant only Eleanor and I could see them.

‘This way.’ Frai strode towards the Wilderness Garden on the other side of the velvety green lawn. She didn’t look back to see if we were following.

Asca was still standing there. I couldn’t guess what she was thinking. I glanced at Eleanor. She shrugged. I shrugged back. We started walking towards the Wilderness Garden. There were a good few visitors around, but none of them were over that way.

‘What is this?’ Frai demanded as soon as we reached her.

I told her everything I had just told Eleanor. The old dryad’s face gave nothing away as she listened to me. When I finished speaking, I waited for her response. She didn’t say anything.

‘How fascinating.’ Asca stepped forward to take the little tree from me. ‘Of course we will accept this gift. Leave it with me.’

She turned away, but not before I saw her secretive, satisfied smile. I didn’t ask any questions. That smile was good enough for me.

---

The little sugi is flourishing in a sheltered spot where a magnificent Douglas fir once stood. That tree hadn’t fallen victim to old age, accident or disease, but that’s another story. A few years ago now, Eleanor, the dryads and I had to fight to save Blithehurst from a far more dangerous threat than any of those calamities.

Whenever I’m working in the manor grounds, I see how the sapling is getting on. I’ve seen Frai as well as Asca checking up on it too. None the manor gardeners have ever asked where the sugi came from, or who planted it there. Dryads can’t read minds, but they can twist human perceptions to suit their own purposes when they choose to.

I wonder if kodama can do that sort of thing. I can’t help wondering if I will see Moriko or her grandfather again. Obviously, I don’t want anything bad to happen to them. Maybe I should drive down to Surrey sometime, when I’ve got a day or two off. I can tell Alexander I’ve come to see how the owl looks, now that the wood’s had a few months to weather.

And I wonder what other gardens and botanical collections might be home to unsuspected visitors from overseas.