The Fire Tree: A Play in One Act
*
CHARACTERS
KATJA, a thirteen-year-old girl, quiet and serious
LORE, her hard-working older sister, an apothecary
MAMA, their mother, deceased
PAPA, their father, deceased
BENNO, the village shaman, appointed last year
THE NIGHT PEOPLE, those hungry ones who come out in the long dark of winter
THE FIRE TREE, a tree of mysterious light
*
SETTING
An isolated, troubled village in a land that is not our own, surrounded by woods and rivers.
TIME
Evening. Late autumn. The taste of winter is in the air.
*
Scene I
(Inside a humble cottage, patched with uneven repairs. Katja sits on the floor by a dim fire, sorting through bottles of poultices and tinctures. Lore enters, bundled up in winter clothes. Snow sits on her shoulders.)
LORE
Hurry, sister. The first snow has come. It is time to find the Fire Tree.
KATJA
(Katja looks up from her work, confused.)
What is a fire tree?
LORE
(gently)
No. It is the Fire Tree. And it is time to find it.
KATJA
(reluctantly)
But we have so much work to do. Winter is our busiest season, and it is so cold out!
LORE
Yes, and it will only get colder. We only have so much time to find it.
KATJA
To find the Fire Tree?
(beat)
What is it, sister? Tell me, what is the Fire Tree?
LORE
(Lore is quiet for a long time. She looks at the bed where their parents once slept. This is the first winter the girls have spent without them. Katja changes the linens every week so that the bed continues to look fresh and happy in the far corner.)
If we had found the Fire Tree last year, sister, our parents might still be with us.
KATJA
(Katja grows very still, thinking of the horrible night last winter when the lights went out. She is afraid of winter, though she does not tell Lore this. She wants Lore to think she is brave. Lore is the bravest girl Katja knows. Lore works so hard to keep them fed and warm.)
The Fire Tree would have kept Mama and Papa safe?
LORE
The Fire Tree would have given us light all winter.
KATJA
The lights would have never gone out?
(whispering, suddenly tearful but trying to hide it)
The darkness would not have come?
LORE
(Her face and voice are hard. She does not let her sister see how she is always afraid.)
The Night People would not have come. The Fire Tree would have kept them away.
KATJA
The Night People?
(beat)
Do you mean the pieces of darkness that came? The shadows that whispered our names and laughed at us?
LORE
Sister. Dear sister.
(Lore kneels in front of Katja and takes her hands. Katja’s hands are bare and cold. Lore warms them in her fraying mittens.)
I know this will be frightening to you. That is why you have never heard of such things until now—things like the Fire Tree and the Night People. But now you are thirteen, and now Mama and Papa are gone. Now I feel that you deserve to know, and Benno agrees.
KATJA
(Katja thinks of Benno, the village shaman with striking blue eyes who was appointed last year before winter set in.)
You talk to Benno too much. He keeps you from working. He keeps you from—
LORE
—from you? Sister.
(Lore kisses Katja’s forehead.)
You know that I will never love anyone more than I love you. Not even Benno.
KATJA
(satisfied)
Tell me about the Night People.
LORE
(hesitates)
They come the night after the first snow of winter. Every night they find a fire and put it out. They whisper and they laugh. They tear your secrets from you. They beg you to tell them your dreams, and then they laugh at you for what you dared to dream. They inhabit mirrors and turn your reflection into something ugly, so that you dread looking at yourself. Every night they find a fire and put it out, and after they put out a fire, that fire can never be lit again. And when all the fires are put out . . .
KATJA
(shivering, remembering)
When there are no more lights and the village goes dark . . .
LORE
(Lore pulls Katja beneath her coat to warm her and hold her close.)
When that happens, and the cold bites at your skin, that is when the Night People feed. They feed upon those who have the most light inside them.
KATJA
(whispering)
I remember Papa screaming. I remember Mama. They dragged her out across the river. Dark hands. Hands like pieces of night torn loose from the sky.
LORE
(closing her eyes)
You understand now why we must find the Fire Tree, sister. We could not find it last year. We did not try hard enough. We were foolish. But if we find it this year, we can provide light for the entire village, all through the winter.
KATJA
I will not lose you, Lore. Not you too.
LORE
And you will not. And I will not lose you. We will find the Fire Tree. I have a hopeful feeling inside me, Katja.
KATJA
Why?
(quietly)
I cannot remember what a hopeful feeling is like.
LORE
I feel hopeful because now you are with me.
(Rising, she leads Katja toward the door.)
Come. They are waiting for us.
(Katja slips into her winter coat, trimmed with fur, and slips on her matching gloves. She puts a scarf around her neck. She takes her sister’s hand, and together they step out into a light snow. Beyond their cottage, a group of villagers with lanterns and torches are waiting. Benno is among them. The other villagers are gathered around him. They are hoping that since he is the shaman, he will save them.
BENNO
I see we have a new hunter in our group this year.
(He places a hand on Katja’s head. He is smiling.)
Hello, Katja.
KATJA
You do not hunt the Fire Tree, Benno. It is not a thing for you to use as you will with no thought to what you are doing.
(Katja does not know what she is saying. She only just learned about the Fire Tree. But the words come out of a deep place inside her, the same deep place that tells her she loves Lore, the same deep place that urges her to keep her parents’ bed clean and tidy even though it makes no sense to do so.)
This is not a game. You should not be smiling. How can you be smiling when you failed to find the Fire Tree last year? You are the reason our parents are dead. You are a shaman. You are supposed to save us. But you did not. Maybe you should not be shaman at all.
LORE
(scolding)
Katja!
BENNO
It is all right, Lore. Katja has been hurting. I understand.
(Benno turns away. The eyes of dozens of frightened villagers meet his. The youngest of them are thirteen years old, like Katja. The eldest are white-haired and frail. The ones who have seen the most winters have the darkest eyes, as if the Night People have left shadows behind, year after year, and the shadows have sunk into the blood of these people, and linger there.)
(As everyone makes for the forest, Benno turns quietly to Katja.)
Sometimes, Katja, I am frightened. The Night People frighten me. It frightens me that I may never be able to find the Fire Tree as my predecessors did, that people in my village will die every winter because I am not wise enough to know the right places to look.
(beat)
Sometimes, Katja, I talk about hunting and games because those are things that I know. And things that I know help me pretend I am not frightened. I do not feel so cold when I think of things that I know.
(They pass beneath black trees rimmed white with snow. Katja is between Lore and Benno. She thinks of Benno’s words. They run under her skin like bugs, stirring her to think too many thoughts. The forest whispers and rustles, hiding things.)
*
Scene II
(It is true night. The villagers have been searching for the Fire Tree for hours. They have separated into smaller group, and they comb the forest. Their torches are sputtering; their lanterns dim. The wind picks up, scraping dead leaves along the forest floor. Night sounds do not emerge—no animals, no running river water. Only the wind, and the scraping leaves, and the crackling torches, and the footsteps of the villagers.)
(Katja is in a group with Lore and Benno. She is shivering. Every sound makes her jump. She does not recognize her own forest, not this night. Snow is falling.)
KATJA
Explain to me again what the Fire Tree looks like?
LORE
(hushed)
I have told you many times.
KATJA
Tell me again. The world is less frightening when I hear you speak.
LORE
It is a white tree, gnarled and thick. Its branches are bare, yet it sparks with leaves made of fire—red and yellow and gold.
BENNO
(takes Lore’s hand)
It is beautiful, isn’t it? I remember. I remember the first time I saw it, when I was thirteen.
LORE
I also remember. It was like seeing something out of a dream. Something that should not be, and yet there it was. I was frightened, and I was glad. I put my hand in the flames, to grab a branch, and yet I did not burn.
KATJA
(sniffling—angry, impatient, afraid)
How can that be? Where does the fire come from? Who starts it? What happens to the tree after it burns? How can a fire not burn your skin if you touch it?
BENNO
Some things, Katja, you cannot explain with sense.
LORE
Some things you cannot explain at all.
KATJA
(quietly, turning away from them)
I do not trust things I cannot explain. Like the way Benno looks at Lore, and the way she looks at him. Like Mama and Papa no longer being here. Like pieces of night that come to life and feed on mothers and fathers.
(An outcry arises from somewhere in the thick tangle of trees. Lanterns fall to root and stone, and clang and shatter.)
(Someone screams. Two, three people scream.)
(A high, whistling sound. A high, screeching sound. Unkind laughter.)
(The wind is suddenly still.)
KATJA
(gasping, tugging at her scarf)
It is too dark! I cannot breathe in this darkness! Lore?
(A rushing of darkness, all around Katja, that is blacker than the night sky.)
Lore? Lore! Sister!
(Katja runs wildly, searching, but in the chaos of darkness and the screams of her neighbors, she stumbles and becomes lost.)
(Hands snatch at her. She cannot see the hands, but she knows they are hands. She feels the lengths of fingers, and the sharpness of fingernails. Both are longer than they should be.)
I must find the Fire Tree. I must! Lore? Lore, please answer me!
(But Lore does not answer.)
Benno? Are you there?
(Katja is desperate. She claws through the darkness, pushing past trees, falling and coughing up dirt, plugging her ears against the sounds of the Night People feeding. For surely that is what is happening.)
(Katja screams into the forest, at the Night People she can and cannot see—slivers of darkness, human-shaped, long and lean.)
Why did you not wait? You did not even give us a chance to find the Fire Tree! You are supposed to put out one fire a night, and only then are you supposed to feed! Why are you doing this? What are you?
(She is sobbing. She hears screams that have Lore’s voice inside them.)
(Then, she sees it, ahead of her: a swarm of darkness, and a ghostly flicker of white.)
(It is a horde of Night People, and they are wrapped around a tree. They are crawling over it, clawing at it. They are tearing it to pieces. It is little more than a sapling, having been shredded to bits.)
Stop! No! Stop it! Leave it be!
(The Night People turn in one movement, their heads snapping like the heads of birds. Their faces are darker than the rest of their bodies. They are holes into which Katja feels close to falling.)
THE NIGHT PEOPLE
Pretty girl, pretty girl!
(Katja clamps her hands over her ears. The Night People’s voices are a din of anger and thunder.)
Tasty girl, scrumptious girl!
(The Night People are approaching. Some remain affixed to the tree. Others crawl quickly through the dirt toward Katja, like spiders.)
KATJA
Get away from me!
(She kicks them. She hits them. She runs, and they grab her ankles and pull her down.)
Lore! Benno! Lore!
(Then Katja hears it, as night cloaks her vision and plugs up her ears and stings her lips with cold.)
(Voices, familiar and whispering.)
MAMA
Darling Katja, darling one, don’t be afraid.
PAPA
Little Katja, brave Katja, be still and listen.
MAMA
We are here, very close.
PAPA
We are all here, not so far away.
(Katja raises her head from the dirt. It is a huge effort. The Night People are pressing down on her. They are feeding on her. They are biting and gnawing and dousing out her light.)
KATJA
My light. My light. Don’t take it from me!
(She raises herself up onto her hands. She scrapes the darkness from her face. Night peels away from her like layers of tar. It hurts. It is so cold.)
They want my light. They wanted your light, Mama, Papa. And they took it.
(She is sobbing. She feels sick.)
Is this some kind of nasty trick? Where are you?
THE NIGHT PEOPLE
(mockingly)
Where are you? Where are you? Mama! Papa! Where, where?
MAMA
Think, clever one, dear one.
KATJA
(beginning to understand)
But it isn’t possible! It doesn’t make sense!
PAPA
Believe, clever one, precious one. Believe what your heart tells you.
MAMA
Believe what your light tells you.
THE NIGHT PEOPLE
(slobbering, chomping, gnawing)
Believe, stupid girl. Believe the darkness.
(Katja scrapes night from her eyes. It is cold. She is made of cold. She tries to find what is left of the sad silver tree. She can still hear the screams of Lore, of Benno.)
(The Night People are howling, tearing at her scalp.)
KATJA
My light is going out, Mama. Papa, they are taking it from me. I am so cold.
MAMA
But our light does not go out, not ever, not truly.
PAPA
It may change, it may be hidden, but—
KATJA
It may change.
(beat)
It may change!
(Katja now understands.)
The Fire Tree. The Fire Tree is us. The Fire Tree is the light of everyone we have ever loved.
(Katja struggles to her feet, shaking the Night People off of her, dislodging their frigid claws.)
That is why the Fire Tree does not burn when we touch it.
(Katja fights her way toward the sad silver tree half-hidden in its swarming cloak of night. She scrapes night from her ears and hears a whispering of many, growing louder.)
The Fire Tree’s light is our light. Our light never goes away, even when we die. It simply changes. Mama! Papa!
(Katja throws herself at the sad silver tree, and when her skin touches it—her skin, torn and bloody, marked by Night People teeth—the tree comes to life.)
(It blooms like a fresh fire.)
(Its light is a universe of tiny flaming leaves.)
(Katja’s blood—Katja’s light—feeds it, and it is hungry.)
(And Katja does not feel pain. She feels only warmth, and a feeling of comfort. She feels her mother, and her father, and many other villagers who have died over too many years for little Katja to comprehend.)
(Their light brings the Fire Tree to brilliant life.)
THE NIGHT PEOPLE
Wicked girl, wicked girl!
Nasty, foul, vile girl!
(The Night People are blinded. In the light of the Fire Tree, Katja sees how the Night People are not soft and dark, but brittle and graying.)
KATJA
Mama? Papa?
MAMA
Yes, sweet one?
PAPA
What is it, my child?
KATJA
(She does not want to watch the fire catch on to the Night People and burn them. She does not want to listen to the Night People’s awful cries as they writhe and crumble. But she makes herself, because she feels that this is important.)
The world feels full of people right now. I don’t understand it. They’re coming from the Fire Tree, and I don’t understand it. Some of them I feel like I know, even though I can’t see them. Like you, Mama. Like you, Papa. But some of them, I don’t know. I feel them, but I don’t know who they are.
MAMA
I know, Katja.
PAPA
I didn’t understand at first, either.
KATJA
(quietly)
I feel you around me, as if you’re alive again. But you’re not, are you?
(silence)
You’re just helping us. You are the Fire Tree, and the Fire Tree is you, but you’re no longer Mama and Papa. Are you?
(silence)
(Katja whispers, crying)
I don’t understand this.
MAMA
It’s all right. You don’t need to yet.
KATJA
(Katja plucks a branch from the Fire Tree. The touch of its light against her skin feels like her mother’s kiss.)
Is this all right? Can I do this?
PAPA
You know what you must do.
KATJA
I must go help the others. Lore, and Benno. Even though I am afraid.
(Katja holds the branch up higher, flooding the forest with light. It pulses with her heartbeat.)
I must light the fires, and keep winter away. I must bring your light to the others.
PAPA
Yes.
KATJA
I must not sit here forever, in the Fire Tree, and talk to you, even though I want to.
MAMA
(whispering)
No, my daughter.
KATJA
(crying)
It is not fair. I don’t understand any of this. Why now? Why did the Night People do this? They were trying to hide you forever. They were trying to tear down the Fire Tree so we might never find it. They are supposed to put out one fire a night, all winter, and only then are they supposed to feed. That’s what Lore told me.
(silence, except for the Night People’s withering screams)
MAMA
Because this winter was different.
PAPA
Because this year, you came to the forest.
MAMA
Because, Katja, you are so full of light.
PAPA
Because, Katja, you are so very bright.
MAMA
They wanted to lure you.
PAPA
They wanted you most of all, because you have so much to give.
KATJA
(Katja takes another branch from the Fire Tree. She is a blazing creature of light, and the Night People shrink before her.)
I must go help the others. I must tell them what I have seen.
The people of our village have been so afraid for so long.
PAPA
Be kind to Benno. He is so new and eager. He has many secrets to learn.
MAMA
Take care of Lore. She works too hard.
KATJA
Will the Night People leave after this? Is this the end?
MAMA
No.
PAPA
No.
THE FIRE TREE
(whispering, in many voices—young and old, old and new, familiar and not)
There will always be evil to fight.
And there will always be light as long as there are those brave enough to find it.
MAMA
Good-bye, daughter. For now.
PAPA
Shine on, daughter. Shine, shine.
(Katja leaves the Fire Tree burning behind her with the light of a hundred thousand souls. With a blazing branch in each hand, she proceeds through the tangle of screaming Night People. Their claws are dull. Their teeth fall out. They are trails of darkness behind Katja’s feet, and they melt into the snow.)
(Katja finds Lore, bleeding but alive, half submerged in the frozen river. Katja puts the flame of the Fire Tree to the ice, and the ice melts. She helps her sister out and warms her, and others emerge from the night, drawn by the light in Katja’s hands.)
LORE
(shivering)
Katja? What is that? What is in your hands? What happened to us, sister? You have been crying. The Night People—are they gone?
KATJA
I will tell you all of those things. But first I must tell you the secret of the Fire Tree.
LORE
You found it? Dear sister. You look different. What happened to you?
KATJA
(tearfully)
I think, sister, that I have remembered what a hopeful feeling is like.
(Katja and Lore rise, and find Benno, and find others—but not all—and walk home to prepare their waiting hearths for winter.)
(Blackout.)
FIN
Dear Claire,
I am officially creeped out.
Also, I love this line: “Some things you cannot explain at all.”
Very spare and epocative and haunting.
*locks the curious cabinet so the Night People cannot get out*
Thank you for stopping by, Christina!
Don’t worry, I have the Night People behind several layers of protective wards. They creeped ME out. And that’s saying something.
Very nicely done, yet again! I really enjoyed the village setting and the whole idea of the Fire Tree and the Night People.
Thank you, Lucia! I’m so glad you enjoyed the story. I, too, enjoyed the village setting, and writing about the villagers’ legends. In fact, I wanted to stay there for a while and write more stories about them! Maybe someday . . .
Dear Claire Christine, crystal, clear Light. I enjoyed this very much. Even though I suppose it was meant to creep me out, I found wistful tears, first with longing, then hope, and at last, Love. What a warrior, this Katja.
<3 <3 <3