People like trees.
They like them for their shade, they like them for their timber. They like them for the refreshing way their leaves wibble in the wind. They like them for their sap, their bark, their firewood, and their ability to form thickets and windbreaks, as shelter and as excellent places to go make out.
The people of the village of Small Rock were fond of trees for all of these reasons, which is why they were most sorely vexed when they started disappearing.
Sometimes during the night, sometimes during the day, sometimes just when you turned your back for a minute. There’d be a grunt, a wrench, an earthy thud and some crackling branches. There was never anything left behind besides a big dirty pit and a pile of sticks. This was obviously a problem, especially for woodcutters and teenagers, and many people took to tethering their trees with rope, sinew, and in one case large chains. None of it helped.
At length the problem came to be a matter of governance.
“People of Small Rock,” said the Big Man, “this sucks. Our trees are growing fewer, our lumberjacks are growing grumpier, and our teenagers are going to explode from pent-up and inept lust. What do we do?”
“We figure out what we know,” volunteered Tog, the loudest person.
“Okay,” said the Big Man. “Okay. Okay okay okay. Hey, what do we know again?”
Get, the oldest person, held up his hand. “It’s big enough to uproot trees and take them away.”
“Okay,” said the Big Man. “Okay. What do we do?”
“We send our greatest warriors and leaders to confront it,” said Tog.
The Big Man looked at her.
“Okay,” he said. “Hey everyone, I’ve got a great idea!”
And that was why Tog, the loudest person, was camped out under a raspberry bush in the damp and the rain watching an innocuous strand of cedars like a wet and crabby hawk.
“Shit,” she told the world and everyone in it. Again.
“Shit,” she reiterated. It made sense, and was expressive besides.
Gronch, replied the tree.
“Shit,” she said, really getting into the rhythm of it. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Then her ears caught up with her and she stopped talking.
Thud, thud thud. Gronch.
Tog, the loudest person, deeply resented her title, and prided herself on her ability to be quite quiet when necessary. She just often disagreed with other people on when exactly that was.
This felt important, and so she tiptoed with great diligence.
Not that it was necessary. Every ten seconds or so a great and powerful GRONCH would tear apart the night and make her very much unhearable. She would use this time to say something like ‘shit’ and do a little run, which eventually put her inside a different bush at the edge of the extremely diminishing grove.
GRONCH, said the tree right above her as it went into the sky.
It was a giant, and a pretty good one, very respectably massive. Stood taller than a hill and just as broad, with burly arms and strong fingers, which were hard at work picking all the branches off the tree-trunk, which she swallowed whole.
“Belch,” she said.
“Excuse you,” said Tog, the loudest person.
“Hello down there!” said the giant, looking around. “You are there, aren’t you? It’s very hard to tell.”
“Yep,” said Tog. “Hey, why are you doing that?”
“I just like eating trees,” said the giant. “Hey, why are you asking that?”
“I just like asking questions,” said Tog.
“Fair enough. Got any others?”
“Yeah,” said Tog. “Why are you doing it wrong?”
The giant’s brow furrowed, which was a pretty spectacular sight since it was over half her face – proud, wild and vigorous. “Huh?”
“You’re wasting all the good parts. All the nutrition’s in the fresh shoots and leaves at the tips of the branches, and you’re just eating the trunk. That’s just wood. You just in this for the roughage or what?”
“But the branches stick in my throat,” complained the giant. “It’s scratchy.”
“I can fix that for you, no problem at all,” said Tog. “You ever heard of rope?”
The giant hadn’t heard of rope, but was very excited by it once Tog liberated most of it from the Big Man’s house. He slept over-sound, and he’d never miss it.
“Right, so take this end, and tie it to the top of the tree.”
“Do what to the top of the tree?”
“Oh, right. Just do what I’m doing with my hands.”
The giant frowned. “I can hardly see you, let alone your little wiggly bits. Here, this is faster.”
And the giant picked up Tog and rubbed her against the crown of the tree until a knot happened.
“Arrgh,” said Tog. “Ow.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes. Now take the rope, and wrap it around the tree. Squish and squash those branches until they’re pressed tight as a drum.”
“As a what?”
“Never mind.”
The giant may not have known knots, but she damned well knew how to squeeze. The tree was trussed tighter than a spider’s lunch before two minutes were out, and then Tog tied the knot on its stump with all due haste.
“There,” she said. “All done. Now you can double your nutrtition.”
“I can eat twice as many trees?” said the giant.
“Sure, why not. Go for it. I’ll just hold this end of the rope so you don’t get it caught in your teeth.”
“Great!” said the giant. “Thanks, buddy!”
And she stuffed the whole tree in her mouth without chewing, just like Tog knew she would, which meant that the whole tree was still in one piece when Tog pulled the slipknot loose and every single branch sprang out sideways.
“I demand three cheers,” said Tog, the loudest person.
“We’ll need to scrub the village for weeks,” said the Big Man.
“But you still have the trees to make scrubbing-brushes from,” said Tog. “Three of ‘em. Good ones. I want to hear plenty of heart, and stomach and lungs too.”
“Shut up and do it,” said Get, the oldest person.
The cheers were a little sarcastic, but very loud, and that was good enough.
That, and the fact that Tog’s house had been on the other side of the village. It had avoided most of the spray pretty nicely.
And normally at this point everyone would’ve lived happily ever after, but life complicated things. A month later there was a powerful stomping sound and into town came another giant.
“Hey,” it asked them. “Have you seen my sister?”
The Big Man looked at Tog and looked at Get and looked at everyone and finally, against all his will, looked at the giant.
“Uhh. No?” he said.
“Pity,” said the giant. “She used to live around here. I heard some smartass little folks tricked her into eating her lunch the wrong way. Warned her not to trust anyone under thirty foot, but she was always a hungry one. I’m pretty famished myself. You folks got anything to eat?”
The Big Man looked at Tog and then looked at the giant and then looked at Tog and then looked at the giant and then looked at Tog and sighed and nodded.
“Hey!” said Tog. “How do you feel about trees?”
“Eh,” said the giant. “I prefer rocks.”
“Oh,” said Tog. “What kind?”
“This kind,” said the giant.
And she dislocated her jaw, sank it into the soil, ate the rock out from underneath the village in one bite, and stomped off laughing.
The event was never terribly well-publicized in the folklore of either people. Giants, as a rule, don’t enjoy stories more complicated than stepping on evil little things, and most humans get cross when one good trick doesn’t solve everything.
Also, when you’re stuck in a hole three miles below sea level, it’s pretty hard for you to tell anyone about anything. Tog’s great-grandkids had long beards before they saw sunlight again, which they were mighty pleased to witness, let me tell you.
Nobody was that eager to see the trees again though. They’d had quite enough of that shit.