Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (top ebook reader TXT) 📕

they stay shut. Bracing himself against the tiled floor, Adam presses both palms against the doors, and with a great, splintering crash, they smash inwards, the remains of the barred lock twisted and broken. There is a great cheer, and all the people of the Pride party flow around Adam and into the bright chamber with the tree at its centre. With them comes the music, the speakers and DJ dragged into the room, so that the great dancing noise trembles the leaves of the fake foliage at the edges.

The party is in full swing. It surrounds Eden’s cherry tree.

Instead of trying to control the party, the tired and overwhelmed guards give up. Some stand hesitantly at the edges, along with tourists snapping pictures, but Adam spots one among the people, dancing, his white shirt stained with glitter. Managing to keep his feet, Adam slowly advances on the tree. He notices movement up on the high balcony, and there is Magpie, carrying a silver cannon. Magpie aims the cannon over the room and it spurts silver confetti in a shower. There is a cheer so loud that it almost drowns out the music, as confetti shimmers and drifts and fills the air, fluttering like the petals of the tree.

There is no stopping the party now.

“The tree, Adam!” Magpie’s voice is barely audible.

Stepping over the railing, Adam presses his hands against Eden’s cherry tree. The rush of familiarity makes him dizzy, makes the room whirl around him. Dropping to his knees, he shakes his head to clear it, and then runs his hands over the black gratings covering the roots. There is running water beneath the grating, and an enormous clump of earth, kept permanently damp by it. They must have dug deep into the floor to be able to house the tree in here. Throwing back the bolts keeping the mesh in place, he pulls the gratings away and fully reveals the mass of earthen roots there; those roots, like tremendous worms, buried in a huge clump of muddy soil. The roots are a huge network, bigger still than the branches of the cherry tree, and as Adam buries his fingers in the mud, he is almost overcome by a great wave of memories.

The voices bring him back.

There is a megaphone, crackling louder still than the rhythm of the party, and through it Magpie is chanting: “Raise the tree! Raise the tree!” And caught up in the chant is the party, the voices of those celebrating rising along with his. Maybe they understand what Magpie is trying to do, or maybe they are simply going with the flow, but it doesn’t matter. Crouching on one knee, Adam can feel the force of their combined voices urging him on; urging him to take hold of the strongest knots of roots at the base of the tree; urging him to grip tight. And with his shoulders straining, and his back straining, and his neck straining, and his legs straining, he hauls.

The tree slowly ascends, gratings falling aside, clumps of loose earth crumbling from its exposed roots.

“Raise the tree!” continues the chant. “Raise the tree!”

His every muscle burning, Adam rises to his feet, holding the tree high.

The cheering reaches a crescendo, vibrating through him and clattering at the thick metal gratings, but Adam knows he can’t hold the tree for much longer. The weight of it is too much; he can barely keep his grip, and his muscles are shaking with the effort of staying upright. Pink petals and silver pieces of confetti drift around him.

Hands reach out to help.

The crowds converge, and all come together to carry the tree. The pride parade takes hold of the cherry tree’s roots, and its trunk, and its branches, and all together they keep it aloft. The tree rolls around, so that it rests at an angle across Adam’s shoulder, and his view is entirely engulfed by its branches; all those branches, bursting with pink petals and red cherries like jewels; all those branches with hands gently holding them and taking the weight of them. Together, they hold the tree high.

There is more chanting, more instructions led by Magpie, but Adam can no longer hear them. He is buoyed along by the crowds. He takes one shaky first step, and then another, gaining slow momentum. The crowds don’t walk with him – instead, they remain around him and pass the tree among them as Adam walks, their hands and combined strength keeping it aloft across his shoulder. Slowly, so slowly, with the rhythm of the celebration running through him, Adam walks. Beyond the gratings he goes, and over the tiles of the Jewel chamber, and through the hallway, and into the storage space, Adam retains his momentum – one step at a time, taking the tree from the Academy.

Everyone is caught up in the movement. The cheering is loud in his ears.

With Eden’s cherry tree over his shoulder, Adam walks out of the Royal Academy of Arts and into the bright light of day.

* * *

The crowds seem to have swelled. The noise rises and falls like the crashing of ocean waves against a cliff, and everyone is moved along helplessly, caught up in the currents swirling around the parade. With Eden’s cherry tree over his shoulder, Adam is buoyed further along; hands of every shade reach out to help him carry it, one hard step at a time, inevitably deeper into the mass of people. Yet Adam doesn’t stumble. The heat running through him is immense, as if the heart in his chest is a furnace and his veins are a network of pipes, delivering white-hot blood to every part of him.

There is the parade, ahead, barely visible through the great branches of the tree, and all the blossom and crystalline cherries in between. And among the buses brimming with people, and the dancers each dancing to different songs, and the lovers marching hand in hand, there are floats, and the back of the nearest