Maple Jack's Arc

Chapter 11 of 14

The morning after the cold imp ran, Maple Jack felt something shift inside his south branches. Two new red sparks budded between the older ones, heavy and bright before he understood where they had come from. He counted thirteen sparks now, then fourteen by midday. The warmth he had spent on the yellow spark had loosened something in his heartwood. Stories he had pressed down for years were ripening at once. He looked north and saw the wind coming. It moved low over the prairie, bending the grass in a clean line. At its head spun a tight, blade-edged whirl, jutting with sharp currents. It was strong, straight, and aimed past the grain elevator toward the yellow building two blocks south. Maple Jack knew this wind. It would not come again before Canada Day. If he sent every red spark through it now, all of them would reach the children in time. He hesitated only once. Fourteen sparks was every grown story he had. Sending them all meant nothing left in his south branches, nothing held back, nothing kept for himself. He thought of the children at the corner who had waited seven winters and made up stories to cover for him. He loosened his grip. The sparks lifted one by one. The wind caught them and pulled them into its spiral. Maple Jack watched a single red spark ride the current high above the field, glowing like an October leaf against the pale sky, then another, then a stream of them. Behind the grain elevator, the wind funneled tight and shot south. The sparks rode it in a red line. At the yellow day care, a wooden platform stood in the yard, painted red and white, its open center waiting. The sparks dropped onto the boards one after another. Children came out the green door. A small pastel creature with curled horns sat on the platform rail, clutching a book, catching each spark as it landed and setting it gently down for the children to hear. Maple Jack stood empty in his south branches. The wind died as the last spark cleared the corridor. He had done what he came for, almost. Then he felt the small yellow spark stir inside his trunk, warmer now, heavier than yesterday. It was not ripe yet, but it was close. And inside him, behind the knot of heartwood, one more thing waited that he had not sent: the worn groove where the Yellowknife mitten story had lived for seven winters, and the question he had never answered about which story was hardest to let go.