We learn in House Key that it doesn’t take much for trees to come down around here. I think it was the overnight winds this Monday that brought the one in the picture crashing across our road — a tree big enough to block us in. Trees like this appear in House Key along with other characters as early as page one:
There was little trace of the fierce winds that accompanied the hard rain the day before, aside from broken branches off the ash sentries that lined either side of the lane. Limbs lay scattered along the driveway like battle spears waiting to ambush unsuspecting vehicles.
Later, when another tree comes down in Chapter 23: Crossroads we learn that life is about to change:
Monday was a mess. Still no power. By now we had emptied all the reserve water tanks… the tree had effectively blocked us in. Or kept the rest of the world out. Our phone batteries had died long ago…
We are also reminded throughout the novel that trees have special powers. Chapter 26: Lowest Bid and later Chapter 30: Country Road, for example, offer subtle reminders that trees in House Key are sentries, guardians of the present as well the spirits of the past that have inhabited the world they define within their perimeter.
But Chapter 29: Land Owners offers greater insight into the majestic purpose — and even personality — of trees:
Monday’s indigo sky was a blue so deep it wanted to be black. Not yet nightfall, the sky was electric behind the vivid green of the trees. The landscape was luminous, and the trees, submissive, respectfully showed the underside of their leaves. Their auras glowed incandescent against the minatory backdrop of the sky.
The wind bent boughs to the ground. The older, weaker ones may have been chosen among its forest of peers to render homage. They would pay tribute to the irate gods, to appease their thunderous wrath and bring gentle, healing rain to the fields and mountain.
Santi heard big branches and old trees snap. There would be a lot to do in the morning. He and the neighbors would meet on the gravel road when the storm had passed, ready with chain saws and tractors. Together, they’d clear the inevitable debris of fallen trees.
And then, the next event he anticipated happened: The power went out. A great tree must have brought down an overhead line in the heavy winds, as if in sacrificial tribute.
The fallen tree across our road yesterday reminded me of how the passage above marks a critical turning point in the novel. A lot changes, and we eventually learn how our protagonist, Jordan, gets DuBois (‘from the woods’ in French) as a fitting last name…
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