Free In the Shadow of the Trees by Elenor Gill Page A

downpour had calmed but its rhythm was now made irregular by the tortuous zigzag journey through branches. All around me I could hear drips and splashes as droplets pooled their weight in leafy cups before spilling down to the level below. Each drop sounded its own note in the cascade, high or low, like the run of notes from a xylophone. I laughed and thought, yes, that’s exactly what it was. ‘Xylo’, meaning wood. Xylophone—wood sound: the trees were making their own music. I moved down the steps so I could better hear, from deep in the bush, the giants playing their own tune.
    Then I heard a different note.
    Not the sharp staccato of raindrops; this was a sustained keening, ending in a sob. Another followed. It was the tremulous weeping of a violin, the music I had heard before, only this timethe melody was slow and mournful. Each note hung upon the air as if it were falling with the rain, gliding softly from leaf to leaf. I reached out, trying to catch the sound, constructing note upon note to form the tune. Slow and sad, it was, as if the tears from the sky were of its own making.
    Where was it coming from? It was impossible to see anything. The small clearing in which the cottage stood was illuminated by light flooding from the open door and window. Everything beyond was black, apart from the faintest shimmer on the surface of the lake, and even that was obscured in the mist of raindrops pattering the surface. You see, I did need that torch. And the boots and the raincoat, although I was already wet through.
    The beam threw a yellow circle onto the mud. What had been pathways through the bush were now bubbling streams and I had to squelch along the edges to make any headway. Outside the music seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. I turned slowly to gain a bearing, slipped, struggled and grasped at slimy branches. This was all familiar, somehow. The dream—that’s what I had done in the dream. Only this time it was real, or was it? For a moment I faltered and the two worlds eclipsed each other until I was no longer certain of anything.
    Then I started forward, following the bobbing disc thrown out by the torch. It slid along the ground ahead of me and made attempts to escape by shimmying up tree trunks. Then there was a glow through the trees. The light and the music seemed to converge and all at once I found myself heading for the woolshed. The tune grew louder as I reached the building and a wedge of yellow light jutted out across the mud with music flowing over it and filtering away into blackness. I switched off the torch and reached for the door.
    Inside was a cocoon woven from the soft glow of a lantern. It was a golden aura that closed off the dark edges of the room and brought the tableau at the centre into sharp focus. He saton a wooden stool, his back toward the door. Even if I had been visible to him, he was so spellbound by his own creation that nothing from this earthly place could have touched him. With the fiddle tight between shoulder and jaw, the muscles of his left arm revealed the tension of his gliding fingers. The bow hovered, a note held poised upon the air and there was such sadness and such tenderness as string met fibre. Then his right shoulder rose and dipped, the bow sweeping back and forth to make a sweet sound in the stillness of the night.
    I stood motionless until the last note dropped away and his arms lowered, carrying instrument and bow to their resting place on his knee. For a moment he did not breathe, and I dared not. When I did it was a gasp. Connors jumped from the stool and spun round, hunched, like an animal caught in a sprung trap. I found my voice in spite of his fear, or maybe because of it.
    ‘Oh, God,’ I whispered, ‘that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.’
    For an endless moment he stared, his body poised for fight or flight. Then, slowly, he stretched upright and his shoulders relaxed.
    ‘Jesus, would you look at yourself. You’re like a