And the Dead Tree
“So!” Harry said as he strolled down the street with Cassandra. “First case as a Librarian!”
“Exciting, right?”
“I mean, yeah. Now it’s actually my job!” Harry replied. “So, the Clippings Book sends us to Weeping Pine, Indiana, basically a Podunk nowhere town, and gives us articles from the nineties as our reference.”
“All of which are seemingly improbable deaths, and they’re all people who managed to narrowly avoid a fatal accident. There haven't been any recent deaths reported on by the town newspaper, but the Clippings Book had a handwritten note about ‘the lone pine’ and ‘saving the five’ before it was too late.”
“Ya know, it’s kinda funny, but this sounds a load like a Final Destination movie. Or it's just got the same shtick.” Harry commented.
“A what?” Cassandra asked.
“What? You don’t know what Final Destination is?” Harry asked, receiving an affirming response. “Well that is a travesty. It’s a movie franchise, horror. The main character gets a prophetic vision of some big accident, manages to save some people, and Death starts cleaning up shop. There’s usually only two people who make it through the movie alive.”
“Well that’s… disturbingly similar.” Cassandra replied. “Well then, Mr. Horror, where would you go for information if you were in a Final Destination movie?”
“Oh that’s easy. The morgue.” Harry replied. “The Undertaker gives the lowdown on the rules of Death in the movies.”
“Well then, to the… dead person freezer room.”
—O—
“So, why are we waiting? Why not talk to one of them?”
“We don’t know which one to talk to yet. The Undertaker, he always has a gravitas to him, there are a few fan theories that he’s Death, or his messenger, giving the survivors a fair chance.” Harry replied.
“Well, suppose that this is a magical effect orchestrating something similar to the franchise, that should mean the magic would select an undertaker to be the Undertaker…” Cassandra began.
“Which would mean the right one would have a magical aura that could be perceived!” Harry finished, pulling his goggles over his eyes. “You’re a genius Cassie.”
“Thank you.” Cassandra replied, looking at the various undertakers wandering around the morgue as Harry fiddled with the dials on his goggles.
“That one.” Harry said, pointing at an unassuming middle-aged man as he pulled the goggles over his face.
“Excuse me, would you mind if we asked you some questions?” Cassandra asked, tapping the man on his shoulder.
“Perhaps.” The man replied, his voice a deep reverberating baritone. “Who would you two happen to be?”
“We’re the Librarians.” She responded.
“Ahh, Librarians.” The Undertaker replied. “I’m quite surprised it took this long for you to act, instead of react.”
“I’m sorry what?”
“The boy…” The Undertaker said, tilting his head to look at Harry. “Mr. Potter, I believe, knows of what I mean.”
“He does? You do?” Cassandra asked, addressing the last part to Harry.
“He’s the Undertaker.” Harry replied, eyeing the man. “The Undertaker knows all that he needs to, to serve his role correctly. I have a question though.”
“Do ask.”
“Why follow the FD rules?” Harry asked, looking at the man wonderingly. “Or is it the FD rules that follow yours? The cases do date back to the early nineties, and FD one was released in two thousand.”
“Such intricacies do not matter, Librarian. All that matters is that you cannot stop it. And the tree will feed.”
—O—
“’The tree will feed.’ Are ya sure that was exactly what he said?” Jacob asked.
“Yes.” Harry replied, looking over newspaper articles, tracking obituaries and hometowns on his laptop. “What I’m trying to figure out is the pattern. Each accident, and subsequent death series happened in a town with Pine in its name. Weeping Pine, Lonely Pine, Pine, Pine Bluff, Pine Creek.”
“Well, I did some poking around and, apparently, all your mystery towns have one thing in common mate.” Ezekiel commented, striding into the room. “They were all founded around dead pine trees.”
“Well, there goes my theory.” Jacob muttered.
“Which was?” Cassandra asked, perusing a book on death omens as she did.
“I was thinkin’ it mighta been a hamadryad. They’re a type of nymph, their lives are tied to specific trees, but if they’re all dead then the nymphs woulda died as well.”
“And we’re certain all of the deaths are related?” Cassandra asked.
“They all popped up in the Clippings Book.” Harry replied. “It has to be something to do with the trees the towns were founded around.”
All of a sudden, Harry slammed the book he was reading closed and jumped out of his seat, giving a parting comment about finding Flynn as he ran off somewhere. Harry checked Flynn’s office, Jenkins’ lab, Eve’s office, and even Nicole’s office, all of which were dead ends. It was only after Nicole’s office that he thought to look for Excalibur, eventually finding the two of them sparring on a balcony in the Library.”
“There… there you are.” Harry panted, slightly out of breath.
“Ah, Mr. Potter, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It’s… hang on, gotta catch my breath.” Harry said, waiting a little bit before continuing. “It’s about the case Cassie and I are working on. You know things about trees, right?”
“Of course I know various facts about trees, how to identify trees, native tree ranges, and the like. Trees are fascinating, why wouldn’t I know things about trees?”
“Okay, hypothetically, would it be possible for a collection of dead, potentially magical pine trees to all be connected to each other?”
“Well now, what you would be talking about is a mycorrhizal network, they’re made of the hyphae of mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrhi-zzzz-al. That’s a fun word, mycorrhizal.” Flynn said, elongating the z sound, as well as rolling the r in the word. “Mycorrhizal. Anyway, they’re usually mutualistic, though on the odd occasion they have been known to be parasitic. They connect all sorts of plants, arbuscular mycorrhizal ones penetrate into the root’s cell walls, where ectomycorrhizal networks wind through and around the cell walls. As a rule, they connect to living matter, but if magic was involved it wouldn’t be out of the question.”
Suddenly, Flynn looked at Excalibur, then back at Harry.
“How is this related to the mysterious deaths from the nineties and a small town in Indiana?”
“Zeke found records that every single town was founded around a dead pine tree, it’s why they’ve all got pine in their name. Whatever it is that caused the deaths, it has a representative, the Undertaker.” Harry commented, keeping up with Flynn’s stride as they walked through the Library. “The Undertaker said that ‘the tree will feed.’ It’s only a theory, but I think there’s something inside the tree, and they act like some kind of… public transit, with a mycorrhizal network being the railway. Jake thought it might have been a hamadryad, given the trees thing but, again, the trees are all dead. But I don’t think we should rule out the possibility of something being in the trees.”
“Well, you’ll just have to get a look at the tree then!”
—O—
“Well, it looks normal.” Harry commented.
“There’s… there’s something odd about the bark.” Cassandra commented. “Like it isn’t the real bark, like it was made by someone who hadn’t really seen a tree in a while.”
“Hmm. Let’s see what the Sensor says.” Harry muttered as he powered it up and waved it near the tree. “Yep, that’s an illusion’s signal pattern.”
Stepping up to the tree, Harry placed his hand on the wood and spoke.
“Dissipo fabula pro veritas.”
He also immediately yanked his hand away, wiping it on a nearby curtain.
“Ew, what the hell is that?”
“I don’t think trees are supposed to bleed.”