I have her make her own birch. It’s an implement she’s unfamiliar with, so I show her a picture on my phone. “Long, straight twigs,” I tell her. “Thin ones. Not too green but not dead either. And break off any pointy bits.”
She hums as she picks her way off through the trees, examining branches, plucking at leaves. I sit in the sun and wait for her. I can hear her humming an exceptional distance away. It’s quiet here. We’re a long way from the road.
When she returns she’s carrying a heavy bolt of sticks. Not twigs. Not a brushlike bundle but instead a fistful of birch rods, each as thick as my little finger. She presents them to me.
To her credit, she has at least broken off any pointy bits.
“These are… quite thick,” I say.
“I can find some thinner ones. There were lots of thinner ones.” She reaches to take them back, but I move the bundle out of her reach. “No,” I say. “These will do.”
She falters. Hands still reaching. “You’re sure?”
“Against the tree.”
I have her stand against the tree, forehead to the trunk as I wrap the grip of the sticks in twine. They aren’t very straight either. It’s an ugly little tool. Painfullooking. Very heavy. I tell her to lower her jeans, which she does, breathing quicker now, not turning from the trunk.
The first time I hit her she grabs the tree in front of her. Squeaks. Wraps her arms around it and presses her face to the bark. Blood already. I put a hand in the small of her back to keep her in place and beat her with the birch until most of the sticks have broken. Twelve strokes in all. She clutches the tree and cries out as it’s happening, and on the last stroke she manages to speak.
“Please… please…”
I drop the birch. She doesn’t move. She’s crying and there is blossom and bark in her hair and she is hunched against the tree. She’s holding it very tightly, arms quivering. White knuckle.
I let her be there for a minute before pulling up her jeans for her, peeling her arms from around the trunk. She keeps her eyes shut. Holds my hands tightly. Wet eyes. “I feel…”
“Yes?”
“I think… I think I’m going to faint.”
I help her lie down in the grass. Face down. She breathes. In through the nose and out through the mouth. In a minute or two she’s feeling better. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just the shock. That hurt so much.”
She’s fascinating. The way she reacts to pain. The way her body reacts. I fetch my flask. We drink some water. In a minute I will want more from her, but for now we rest. Piece by piece I pick the blossom from her hair.
