SWINGING AND SLIDING
Prompt - Swinging & Sliding : Write something inspired by a playground or treehouse
"See you tomorrow, gotta go."
"I thought you went that way home?"
"Er, no, well yes, but I've found a new shortcut path through the woods. See ya." She'd become a proficient liar.
Susan headed off into the trees, leaving her school friends behind again. Inviting anyone home wasn't really an option for her. Home was... well, it was always home, and so often different. And she new this was to be a Move Day, so her father could again be closer to his work. So her first challenge would be finding it. She walked on deeper into the trees, looking around, looking up, always up.
Her father was a forester. A tree surgeon, arborist, arboriculturist, bûcheron, baumpflegerin, eco warrior. He was all of those things and none of them, for he was really a tree magician. While mother was a herbalist. And an apothecary, therapist, holistic healer, enchanter, chamane, kräuterkenner. A shaman. Both went by whatever title suited the moment, suited the needs of the trees. They were forest spirits. But they still wanted their daughter to have a decent education, have choices in life. Outlier spirits.
It took her forty five minutes, but there it was, exactly the same as always and totally different to before. The basic size and shape of the treehouse was always as it was, except that the walls, and interior, elasticated itself in and around the branches of its new host, a perfect symbiosis. In return for providing a platform for their accomodation, her parents always left their new ariel partner in better health than when they arrived.
The ladder unrolled for her as she walked up and she climbed into her new old residence, the steps of rope curling up behind her. She knew from experience it was best to stand for a few moments, turning to see what the new layout might offer, trying to figure out where her room was. The interior was still four times the size of the external dimensions (another reason why she could never have friends round...), but the doors off the trapdoor space could lead anywhere, the layout adjusted to the thick bark covered limbs that snaked through every room, became part of the decor, the furniture, the artistry of the place. Susan chose a door.
""Hello darling, found us again." Her mother was bent over her workbench, concocting. She didn't look up. "Your room's by the twisted branch with the knot that looks like Noddy Holder. I'll create a meal when your father gets home." Susan was used to being dismissed so readily, knew that all three of them would talk about their days over the evening meal. She found Noddy, and her room, worked out which cupboard was where, and settled on her bed to do homework on the laptop. A part of her still marvelled that a shape shifting house with no electricity should have the most reliable internet connection of all her friends group. Something else she had to lie about.
She had a life like nobody she knew, and often wondered what it would be like to be ordinary, what people called 'normal'. Living in a tree house that could instantly change location WAS normal to her. Should she resent this bizarre upbringing, or cherish it? Her parents refused to confine her to the paths that theirs had taken them down, and every generation that had gone before. She didn't have to be a magician, she had to want to be. There were so many other options out there. But... she'd make up her mind, one day. For now it was enough to be special.
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