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《羽毛树》#奇幻 At the end of the long bone road, which outside the city of Mira’s Regret narrows and becomes a kind of ghastly boardwalk that stretches west across the ashlands, stood the feather tree. 在米拉之悔城外，那条长骨路逐渐变窄，变成一条向西横跨灰烬之地的可怖栈道，那里立着那棵羽毛树。 By KJ Kabza Issue #435, June 26, 2025

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At the end of the long bone road, which outside the city of Mira’s Regret narrows and becomes a kind of ghastly boardwalk that stretches west across the ashlands, stood the feather tree. 在米拉之悔城外，那条长骨路逐渐变窄，变成一条向西横跨灰烬之地的可怖栈道，那里立着那棵羽毛树。

The boardwalk, contrary to popular belief, is not ten miles long. It merely feels that way. And the crossroads that it melts into, that muddy north-south track that marks the end (or beginning) of the last reliable ground, is not in fact the domain of thieves and ghosts, because in such a dead and bitter country, there are no passersby for these to prey upon. 这条栈道，与普遍认知相反，并非十英里长。它只是给人这种感觉。而它消融的那个十字路口，那条标记着最后可靠土地（或开始）的泥泞南北小径，实际上并非盗贼和鬼魂的地盘，因为在这样一个死寂而苦涩的国家，没有路人可以供它们捕食。

The only draw near the tree was the thing itself. A modest skeleton in the biting winter, come spring its branch tips blushed red and the buds emerged: white spines, tightly furled, that gradually unspooled in the cold rain, until, stiffening in the faint summer warmth like the wings of a butterfly, the tree’s feathers took shape. 树旁唯一引人注目的便是树本身。严冬里它只是一副朴素的骨架，待到春天，枝头泛起红色，蓓蕾绽放：白刺般紧紧卷曲的花苞，在冷雨中逐渐舒展，直到在微弱的夏日暖意中变得僵硬，如同蝴蝶的翅膀，树上的羽毛终于成型。

The feather tree itself was not remarkable. There are several to be seen in Mira’s Regret, planted as ordinary street trees, beneath which paupers collect the dropped autumnal plumage of pigeon and sparrow and crow to sell to pillow-stuffers and millenaries. It was this particular feather tree’s survival that spooked Mira’s wisefolk. It must have been cursed, because ordinary feather trees were not known to grow near the dead, but this one continued to thrive at the end of a whole monument constructed of them, and it was the only living thing within miles of the blighted crossroads, gnats and worms included. 这棵羽毛树本身并不起眼。在米拉的悔恨之地，可以看到几棵这样的树，被种作普通的街道树木，树下贫民们收集鸽子、麻雀和乌鸦掉落的秋季羽毛，卖给填充枕头的商人和百万富翁。正是这棵羽毛树的存活，让米拉的智者们感到不安。它一定被诅咒了，因为普通的羽毛树从不生长在死者附近，但这棵树却在一座完全由羽毛树构成的纪念碑顶端继续繁茂生长，它是方圆数英里内唯一有生命的东西，连蚊子和蛆虫都不例外。

This remained so until the year its springtime buds unspooled not into single feathers but misshapen, twitching wings. 这种情况一直持续到那年，它的春季花苞没有舒展成羽毛，而是变成了畸形、抽搐的翅膀。

The feather tree had one longtime admirer: an old, old man named Loory, the oldest of Mira’s wisefolk. When Loory was a child (so very long ago that the memories from that time were a silvered, floating dream), the ashlands were a marshy river valley, and the long bone road had yet to be harvested from corpses not yet made. Birds had lived in the marsh, Loory remembered; little wrens and flycatchers and long-legged cranes that moodily picked their way among the cattails. Loory had played at the marsh’s edges, plunging bare feet into frigid mud, while other children shrieked and yellow warblers spattered the weak blue sky overhead. 羽毛树有一位长久以来的仰慕者：一位名叫罗里，是米拉最年长的智者。当罗里还是个孩子时（那已经是极其遥远的过去，那时的记忆如同泛着银光的浮梦），灰烬之地还是一片沼泽般的河谷，而那长长的骨路尚未从尚未成尸的尸体中收获。罗里记得，鸟儿曾生活在沼泽里；小小的知更鸟和捕蝇鸟，以及那些忧郁地在芦苇丛中踱步的长腿鹤。罗里曾在沼泽的边缘玩耍，赤脚踩入冰冷的泥泞中，而其他孩子尖叫着，黄莺在头顶的浅蓝色天空上溅落。

The feather tree was large even then, large enough to be seen across the marsh. Loory always headed toward it. Such a towering wonder that crowned this whole landscape of wonders must surely be, up close, the ultimate pleasure to investigate but also the ultimate taboo. Because whoever was minding the children that day (so very long ago—had it been an aunt? A babysitter? Who were the other children?) would shout Loory’s name, splashing through the reeds, until firm cold hands grabbed him under the armpits and hoisted him out of the muck. And as Loory was stubbornly carried east, he would watch the still-unexplored feather tree and reach for those distant boughs that waved at him to come back. 羽毛树在当时已经很大了，大到足以跨越整个沼泽地。洛瑞总是朝着它前进。如此高耸的奇迹，冠冕堂皇地统治着这片奇迹之地，必定是近距离观察的终极乐趣，但也是终极禁忌。因为那天照看孩子的那个人（那么久以前了——是阿姨吗？是保姆吗？还有其他孩子吗？）会大喊洛瑞的名字，踩着芦苇涉水而来，直到冰冷坚定的双手抓住他的腋下，把他从泥泞中拉出来。而洛瑞被固执地往东带时，他会望着那棵尚未探索的羽毛树，伸手去够那些向他招手让他回去的远处的枝条。

Then came the war. Some nights, the sky turned orange, and Loory lay awake listening to marching footsteps, splitting doors, and women screaming. There had been one night when his parents placed him in a tipped-over barrel and nailed shut the lid, and one morning when Loory kicked the lid off and emerged into a city that held more dead than living. Things became very different after that, and Loory forgot about the feather tree. 接着是战争。有些夜晚，天空会变成橙色，洛瑞会醒着躺着，听着行军的脚步声、门板被劈开的声响和女人的尖叫。有一个夜晚，他的父母把他放进一个倒置的木桶里，把盖子钉上，有一个早晨，洛瑞踢开了盖子，出现在一个死人多于活人的城市里。从那以后，事情变得非常不同了，洛瑞忘记了羽毛树。

He did not remember it again until he became a man at fourteen and the orphanage released him. As he stood at the western edge of Mira’s Regret (which had been called something different, before the war—but he could not remember what, and other adults would not speak its name), pondering where he should go in this wide and lonely world, he spotted something astonishing: his old favorite mystery on the horizon, still alive, its boughs still waving at him to come. 直到他十四岁成年，孤儿院释放了他，他才再次记起这件事。当他站在米拉的悔恨之地的西边（在战争之前，这里被称为不同的名字——但他记不清是什么，其他成年人也不愿提起它的名字），思索着在这个广阔而孤独的世界里该去哪里时，他看到了一件令人惊叹的事：他过去最爱的谜团在地平线上，依然鲜活，枝条仍在向他招手，邀请他前来。

The stink of the mud and the laughter of the other children and the spattering of yellow warblers all came back, and as Loory’s heart squeezed in longing for sweeter times (and the promise of sweet satisfaction just out of reach—but not out of reach now), his feet took him to the long bone road. It was even more ghastly then, newly laid as it was, and Loory did not like to feel its ridges and lumps (so deceptively like ordinary cobbles) beneath his soles or ponder the irony that the only way now to this long-dreamed-of destination was paved in violence, or that this bitter fact was likely nothing but coincidence and the road had simply been built toward the only landmark visible. 泥泞的气味、其他孩子的笑声、还有黄莺的溅落声都回来了，洛瑞的心因渴望更美好的时光而紧缩（而且甜美的满足感似乎遥不可及——但现在却触手可及），他的脚步将他引向那长长的骨路。那时它更加可怕，因为它是新铺设的，洛瑞不喜欢感觉到脚底下的凸起和肿块（它们如此像普通的鹅卵石），也不愿思考这样一个讽刺的事实：现在到达这个长久梦想的目的地的唯一方式是用暴力铺就的，或者这个苦涩的事实很可能只是巧合，这条道路只是被建向了唯一可见的地标。

When Loory reached the feather tree that first time and, at last, beheld it closely (bending his entire awareness around this last echo of the landscape that used to be), he felt his heart tighten as if it would never beat again. He had been expecting a tree of the usual sparrow or pigeon feathers, albeit simply a very large one, but here stood story upon towering story of life: tremendous feathers from great blue herons, dusky red feathers from cardinals, shaggy tail fathers from sandhill cranes, black cormorant feathers with green-blue iridescence, and countless thicket-colored feathers of unknown provenance. And the tiny feathers of ordinary flycatchers and wrens, and all over, feathers with an edge of warbler-bright yellow. 当罗里第一次来到那棵羽毛树下，终于得以近距离观赏（将全部心神都围绕在这片曾经风景的最后一个回响上），他感到心脏紧缩，仿佛再也不会跳动。他原本以为会是一棵由寻常麻雀或鸽子羽毛组成的树，尽管只是非常巨大的一棵，但这里却矗立着层层叠叠的生命故事：来自巨大蓝鹭的巨大羽毛，来自红鸟的暗红色羽毛，来自沙丘鹤的蓬松尾羽，来自黑鸢的带有绿蓝色虹彩的羽毛，以及无数来源不明的灌木丛色羽毛。还有普通翠鸟和知更鸟的微小羽毛，到处都是边缘泛着黄莺般明亮的黄色的羽毛。

Loory embraced the tree’s trunk. He placed his cheek against the smooth cold bark and closed his eyes. The marsh was still here. 罗里拥抱了树干。他将脸颊贴在光滑冰冷的树皮上，闭上了眼睛。沼泽地还在这里。

Then Loory turned around and walked back east, back to the still-broken streets of Mira’s Regret. The wide and lonely world could wait. 然后罗里转身向东走去，回到米拉悔恨的依旧破败的街道。广阔而孤独的世界可以等待。

Loory told the people in the city about the panoply of feathers on the feather tree. But many of them already knew, and those who knew did not care. “So what?” the people said. “So what if the feather tree grows feathers it shouldn’t? It figures. That tree is cursed.” 洛瑞向城里的人讲述了羽毛树上的羽毛华美景象。但许多人已经知道，而知道的人也不在乎。“那又怎样？”人们说。“那又怎样？羽毛树长出它不该长的羽毛？这很正常。那棵树是 cursed 的。”

Didn’t its composition seem special to anyone else? Didn’t its existence fill anyone else with... wonder, or gratitude, or hope, or...? 难道它的构成对其他人来说不特别吗？难道它的存在没有让其他人感到……惊奇，或感激，或希望，或……？

“Hope? Those bastards who ransacked the city happened to miss one useless tree when they blighted the entire marsh otherwise. Why would anyone feel hope, looking at that horrible reminder of everything we don’t have anymore?” “希望？那些洗劫城市的混蛋在毁掉整个沼泽时，偏偏漏掉了一棵无用的树。看着那个可怕提醒我们已失去的一切的象征，谁会感到希望呢？”

The years unspooled and stiffened. Loory made his living as a maker of clay vessels (with the faint memory of marshland mud on his hands as he worked, reshaping earth into something beautiful and new), and his skills and reputation spread. Traders from towns further east and north came looking for Loory’s pots. He became wealthy, bought a house, married a kind woman, and raised children. 岁月流逝，变得僵硬。洛里靠制作陶器谋生（工作时，他手上残留着沼泽泥土的微弱记忆，将泥土重塑成美丽而崭新的东西），他的技艺和声誉得以传播。来自更东边和更北边城镇的商人们开始寻找洛里的陶器。他变得富有，买了一栋房子，娶了一位善良的女人，并养育了孩子。

Throughout, Loory still visited the feather tree, whose feathers miraculously but faithfully unfurled year after year. In his younger years, eager to confirm each marvel, he climbed it, searching for (and finding) feathers from birds he’d forgotten he’d once recognized: banded feathers from spotted sandpipers, brown-dotted feathers from sora, white-edged gray feathers from green herons. In his middle years, understanding the tree’s power of grace, Loory rested his face against the bark and whispered secrets and worries, and he picked up its feathers that had fallen on the long bone road to use as brushes for his paints and glazes. And in old age—after his wife had passed away and he became old enough to be inducted into the council of wisefolk, and his daughter and son had passed away too—he merely stood by the tree, and looked up at the wind in the branches, and was reminded (still, even now) of the smell of growing things from long ago and said, “Thank you.” 纵观始终，罗里仍会去拜访那棵羽毛树，它的羽毛奇迹般却又忠实地年复一年地舒展。在他年轻时，急于确认每一处奇迹，他爬上树，寻找（并找到）那些他曾认出却已遗忘的鸟的羽毛：有斑点的鹬的带环羽毛，有棕色斑点的鸻的羽毛，以及绿鹭边缘泛白的灰色羽毛。在他中年时，理解了树的恩典之力，罗里把脸贴在树皮上，低语秘密和忧虑，并捡起落在长骨路上的羽毛，用作他的颜料和釉料的画笔。而在老年时——在他妻子去世后，年岁已足够被选入智者议会，他的女儿和儿子也相继离世后——他只是站在树旁，仰望着枝头的风，被提醒（至今仍被提醒）起很久以前生长事物的气味，说道：“谢谢你。”

By now, Loory had only one son left, who was but one month away from being inducted into the council of wisefolk himself. Beaupre, as Loory’s wife had named him, was as kind-hearted as she had been and had begun going with Loory to visit the feather tree when the rest of their family had passed. Beaupre always listened intently to Loory’s old stories of the marshland and Mira’s Regret, the city-that-used-to-be-called-something-else, and he never said, “So what?” 此时，洛瑞只剩下一个儿子了，他即将在一个月后加入智者议会。洛瑞的妻子给他取名贝奥普雷，他心地善良，如同母亲一般，当其他家人都已离世后，便开始和洛瑞一同前往访问羽毛树。贝奥普雷总是聚精会神地听着洛瑞讲述关于沼泽地的古老故事和米拉的悔恨——那个曾经被称为其他名字的城市，他从未说过“那又怎样？”

Indeed, on the mid-spring day that Loory and Beaupre visited the feather tree and did not find merely single feathers sprouting from the buds, when Loory said, “I think... I think these are entire wings,” Beaupre did not say, “So what?” and instead cocked his head and asked, “What does it mean?” 确实，在洛里和博普雷访问羽毛树的那天，春中时节，他们没有发现仅仅是羽毛从花苞中长出，当洛里说，“我想……我想这些是整只翅膀，”博普雷没有说“那又怎样？”，而是歪着头问道，“这意味着什么？”

Loory moved to stand beneath the lowest branch, stepping around several that had broken off and fallen during a winter storm, and looked up. The new-sprouted wings were not misshapen, as he had first thought; just very small, and twitching in the way a baby creature moves, unsure of what it is and what it means to be alive. 洛瑞移动到最低的树枝下，绕过几根在冬风暴中断裂掉落的树枝，抬头望去。新长出的翅膀并没有像他最初想象的那样畸形；只是非常小，像幼小生物一样抽动着，对自身和生存的意义感到迷茫。

What a pleasure, Lorry marveled, for his old friend the feather tree to offer, so unexpectedly, a new frontier of memory to explore. “I don’t know.” 真令人欣喜，洛瑞感叹道，他那老朋友羽毛树竟如此出乎意料地，为他提供了一个探索新记忆领域的机会。“我不知道。”

In a month’s time, Beaupre joined the council of wisefolk. Though he chose not to sell his home and move into the communal council quarters quite yet, he visited the complex to at least see Loory every day, whether the wisefolk had affairs of state to attend to or no. 一个月后，比奥普雷加入了智者议会。尽管他选择暂时不卖掉自己的家搬进议会公共宿舍，但他每天都会去那个复杂的地方，至少能每天见到洛瑞，无论智者们是否需要处理国事。

Each visit, Loory watched Beaupre talk to a different wisefolk about the feather tree. “It’s growing wings this year—honest-to-earth wings. Not just feathers.” Or, “I’ve been going to the feather tree on the other end of the ashlands each season with my father for over a decade, and it’s never done anything like this.” Or, “I’m searching the library for any books we have that talk about feather trees, but as far as I can tell, nobody knows what it means for a feather tree to grow wings.” 每次拜访，洛瑞都看着比奥普雷和不同的智者谈论羽毛树。“今年它长出了翅膀——实实在在的翅膀，不只是羽毛。”或者，“我超过十年都在白蜡林另一端的羽毛树下和父亲一起度过每个季节，它从未做过这样的事。”或者，“我正在图书馆寻找任何谈论羽毛树的书籍，但据我所知，没人知道羽毛树长出翅膀意味着什么。”

But this was only met with “And?” Or: “That’s very peculiar, I grant you, and maybe even interesting, but how does this affect the affairs of Mira’s Regret?” Or: “So what?” 但这些都只换来“然后呢？”或者：“我承认这很奇特，甚至可能有趣，但这如何影响米拉的悔恨事务？”或者：“那又怎样？”

“I never understood it either,” Loory admitted to Beaupre, as they rested on a bench and admired the central yard of the cloister. A soft drizzle fell on the three feather trees that grew there, their dripping foliage a perfect color-match for the complex’s stone. Below them, living pigeons mumbled and strutted over fallen litter colored precisely like themselves. “How do people forget how to feel?” “我也一直不明白，”洛瑞向博普雷承认，当他们坐在长椅上，欣赏修道院中央的庭院时。柔和的细雨落在那里生长的三棵羽毛树上，滴落的枝叶与建筑群的石头完美匹配。树下，活着的鸽子咕咕叫着，在色彩与自己完全相同的落叶上踱步。“人们怎么会忘记如何感受？”

“It’s not that.” “不是那样。”

“Isn’t it?” “难道不是吗？”

“We’re witnessing an unprecedented change,” said Beaupre. “Why does nobody care what the ashlands feather tree is becoming? Why does nobody care what it is?” “我们正见证着前所未有的变化，”比普雷说。“为什么没有人关心灰烬之地羽毛树的变成什么？为什么没有人关心它是什么？”

A wisefolk passing by their bench stopped and shook her head at the pair of them. “Why is anything the way it is? You may as well ask what causes all the different shapes of lightning, or why some fish can sing while others can’t, or why every culture in the world believes in butterflies when nobody has ever collected an actual specimen.” 一个路过的智者坐在他们的长椅旁停了下来，对着他们俩摇了摇头。“为什么任何事会是这样？你不如去问是什么导致了所有不同形状的闪电，或者为什么有些鱼会唱歌而有些不会，或者为什么世界上每个文化都相信蝴蝶，尽管从来没有人收集到过真正的标本。”

Beaupre shook his own head. “Where is your spirit of inquiry? Aren’t we supposed to be wisefolk?” 比普雷摇了摇头。“你哪里还有探究的精神？我们不是应该做智者吗？”

“We are wisefolk,” said the woman. “And part of wisdom is knowing what questions really matter and what’s a waste of time and effort.” “我们是智者，”那女人说。“智慧的一部分就是知道哪些问题真正重要，哪些是浪费时间精力。”

As Beaupre slumped, and as the woman tut-tutted away, Loory placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “I sometimes wonder if part of wisdom is also knowing that other people are going to do—and believe—as they will.” 当比普尔颓然倒下，而那女人发出嗒嗒的轻叹时，罗里将手放在儿子的肩膀上，说道：“我有时会想，智慧的一部分或许也在于知道其他人会做——并且相信——他们所做的事。”

“Isn’t that the same as giving up hope?” “这不就是放弃希望吗？”

Loory thought about this. It was not the same, exactly, because hope was not a single, stone-fired thing (when once broken, never the same) but a thing like a marshland, made of uncountable pieces of intertwined yet separate life that could live or die or struggle along somewhere in between, and a few dead fish did not a ruined river valley make. But perhaps this wasn’t worth explaining. Or perhaps Beaupre, too, was forgetting how to feel. 罗里思考着这一点。这并不完全相同，因为希望并非一件单一、坚硬如石的东西（一旦破碎，便永不相同），而是一片沼泽，由无数相互交织却又独立的生命碎片组成，这些碎片可以在某个地方活着、死去或挣扎着生存，几条死鱼并不能构成一个荒废的河谷。但也许这并不值得解释。或者比普尔也忘记了如何感受。

A sluggish breeze pushed through the drizzle, distracting Loory with its mildness. In distant other places, where the marshland hadn’t been burned away, the last of the tadpole-tails would be disappearing on new frogs, and on a hundred floating nests, the brooding coots would shift with awareness as the first of their eggs began to hatch. The children who lived near such a place would be taken to its edge to play, and right now, another small boy would be standing ankle-deep in muck at a frigid marshland’s edge, looking up, open-jawed, at the birds that soared and soared. 一阵迟缓的风穿过细雨，其轻柔让罗里分心。在遥远的地方，那些未被烧毁的沼泽地，蝌蚪尾巴的最后一群正消失在新青蛙身上，在一百个漂浮的巢中，孵卵的鹈鹕会随着第一批蛋开始孵化而警觉地移动。住在这样的地方的孩子会被带到边缘玩耍，此刻，另一个小男孩正站在冰冷的沼泽地边缘，深及脚踝的泥泞中，张着嘴仰望着翱翔的鸟儿。

“Ah.” Loory sighed. “Feel that? The cold is gone. Summer has arrived.” “啊。”罗里叹息道。“感觉到了吗？寒冷消失了。夏天到来了。”

When Loory next visited the feather tree with Beaupre, the wings had begun to fledge. Fuzzy down now lay interspersed with delicate primaries. Loory discerned the beginnings of colors and patterns: bars of black, tints of brown, speckles of white. 当罗里再次和博普雷一起去看羽毛树时，翅膀已经开始长硬。毛茸茸的绒毛与细嫩的初级飞羽交织在一起。罗里察觉到色彩和图案的雏形：黑色的条纹，棕色的色调，白色的斑点。

“Now what?” Beaupre wondered. “Are they just going to keep growing?” “现在怎么办？”比尤普想。“他们还要继续长下去吗？”

“I couldn’t say.” Loory bent over and grabbed the end of the largest fallen branch. “我说不好。”罗里弯下腰，抓起最大那根掉落的树枝的末端。

“What are you doing?” “你在做什么？”

Loory pulled. His heels squelched into the sodden earth. The branch was too heavy. “Making a ladder. Help me drag this branch and place it up against the trunk. I want to climb it and get a better look.” 罗里用力拉。他的脚跟踩在湿软的土地上发出泥泞的声响。树枝太重了。“我在做梯子。帮我把这根树枝拖过来，靠在树干上。我想爬上去看得更清楚。”

Beaupre obliged. Breathing hard, they dragged and pushed the branch up the side of the tree until the base of it lay tightly nestled in the fork from which the first living branch grew. 比奥普回应道。他气喘吁吁地拖拽着树枝，将它推向树干一侧，直到它的根部紧紧嵌在第一根活树枝生长的分叉处。

Loory gave the positioned branch a firm shake. “That’s good and stuck, I think.” 洛里用力摇晃了一下已放置好的树枝。“我觉得它很稳固。”

Beaupre wiped his brow. “Be careful as you climb. I’d hate to see you fall.” 比奥普擦了擦额头。“爬的时候小心一点。我可不想看到你摔下来。”

“Oh, I’d just fall in the mud.” “哦，我只会摔进泥里。”

Beaupre noticed something beyond Loory, to the north. “Why, look. Someone’s coming.” 比奥普注意到洛里以北的某个地方。“看哪，有人来了。”

Loory turned. Along the muddy track, moving south, came a man leading a mule on a rope. The legs of both were covered in mud. The animal bore several awkward bundles on its back but seemed to be in good spirits; the man, judging by his curses, less so. 洛里转过身。沿着泥泞的小路，向南走来一个男人，用绳子牵着一只骡子。它们的腿上都沾满了泥。骡子背上驮着几个笨重的包裹，但看起来精神不错；而那个男人，从他的咒骂声中判断，则不然。

“Hello, friend!” Beaupre called. “你好，朋友！”比尤普喊道。

The man kept walking. “Hello,” he panted, when he got close enough. He jerked his muddy chin at the long bone road. “That the shortcut to Mira’s Regret?” 那男人继续走着。当他走近时，气喘吁吁地说：“你好。”他猛地朝那条长骨路扬起满是泥泞的下巴。“那是去米拉之悔的近路吗？”

“Is it,” said Beaupre. “We hail from there. I’m Beaupre Longsmythe the Wise, and this is my father, Loory Longsmythe the Wise.” “是的，”比普雷说。“我们就是从那里来的。我是比普雷·朗斯米斯，智者，这是我父亲，罗里·朗斯米斯，智者。”

“Great.” The muddy track brought mule and man closer, beneath the feather tree’s canopy. Above them, thousands of juvenile wings stretched and fluttered experimentally, but the man led his mule on without looking up. “Sorry. Can’t talk. Late. Spent ages loading the mule after the cart got stuck miles ago in this drat-wasted mud.” He stepped onto the long bone road and made a face at the femurs below his muddy boots. “This path is something, isn’t it? Well, does the job. See you.” “太好了。”泥泞的小路让骡子和男人越来越近，在羽毛树的树冠下。上方，成千上万的对幼鸟翅膀试探性地伸展和扇动，但男人没有抬头，继续领着他的骡子前进。“抱歉。不能说话。晚了。车早就卡在这该死的泥泞中，我花了好几个小时才把骡子装好。”他踏上了长骨路，对着他泥泞的靴子下方的股骨做鬼脸。“这条路真不一般，不是吗？不过，够用。再见。”

Loory did not reply. Beaupre called, “Wait! You’re a trader, aren’t you? How far do your routes take you? Have you ever seen a feather tree anywhere that grew wings?” 洛瑞没有回答。博普雷喊道：“等等！你是商人，对吧？你的路线有多远？你见过任何长出翅膀的羽毛树吗？”

“No,” called the man over his shoulder without stopping. “不，”那人头也不回地叫道。

Beaupre pointed up. “Well, this one has!” 比普雷抬头看。“喏，这棵树有！”

The man finally glanced at the branches, his eyes flicking over a few of the wings as if taking note of pebbles scattered within a puddle. “So what?” 那人终于瞥了一眼树枝，目光扫过几片羽毛，仿佛在泥潭中拾起几颗石子。“那又怎样？”

Beaupre gaped after him. “But...” He kept pointing, as if the man somehow hadn’t realized that this was the tree under discussion. “But...” 比普雷目瞪口呆地望着他的背影。“但是……”他不停地指着，仿佛那人没意识到他们正在讨论这棵树。“但是……”

The tragedy of such profound indifference in the face of such wonder blossomed into the absurd, and Loory laughed so hard that the last of his strength left him. As the unheeding man and his mule clomped away over the ashlands, Loory wiped tears from his eyes and said, “If I try to climb that ladder now, I’ll fall in the mud for certain. Shall we try again next week? Let’s rest awhile before we head back.” 面对如此奇景却表现出如此深重的冷漠，这种悲剧最终演变成了荒诞，洛里笑得如此厉害，以至于最后一丝力气也消失了。当那个不顾一切的男人和他的骡子踩着灰烬地远去时，洛里擦去眼中的泪水，说道：“我现在要是去爬那座梯子，肯定会摔进泥里。我们下周再试试？我们回去前先休息一会儿吧。”

In one week’s time, Loory walked west with Beaupre through fog so thick the bone road and surrounding ashlands faded into white scarcely a dozen paces ahead. Though its chill felt unpleasant, its presence did not trouble Loory. It was not possible to get lost in such a fog here, with the long bone road being both obvious and straight, and anyway, such weather erased the outside world and helped him imagine that he inhabited another. 一周后，洛里和博普雷一起向西走去，雾气如此浓重，以至于骨路和周围的灰烬地在前方十多步之外就几乎变成了白色。尽管这寒意让人感觉不舒服，但它并没有困扰洛里。在这种浓雾中不可能迷路，因为长长的骨路既明显又笔直，而且，这种天气抹去了外界，帮助他想象自己居住在另一个世界。

When the feather tree finally emerged from the mist, Loory received a surprise. Sodden down carpeted the earth around the tree, clinging to the ground like fallen petals stuck to the dirt after a heavy rain. Some of the down lay clumped together in waterlogged piles, and Loory pictured what it all must have looked like when dry: delicate, fluffy snowdrifts, the faintest breeze rolling them over themselves until they disintegrated and scattered. 当羽毛树终于从雾气中显现时，罗莉得到了一个惊喜。湿透的绒毛铺满了树周围的地面，像暴雨过后沾在泥土里的落花一样紧紧贴着地面。有些绒毛在水浸的堆里纠缠在一起，罗莉想象着它们干燥时的样子：精致、蓬松的雪堆，微风轻轻吹过，让它们翻滚着，直到碎裂、散开。

Above the carpet of down, the wings of the feather tree opened, stretched, flapped, folded, and re-opened again. When they flapped, the branches they sprung from creaked and lifted up, rattling themselves and shaking loose dead sticks to the down-covered mud. A few malformed wings that hadn’t survived to maturity lay broken and scattered on the mud, too. 在绒毛地毯之上，羽毛树的翅膀展开、伸展、拍打、折叠，再次重新张开。当它们拍打时，它们所生长的树枝发出吱嘎声并抬起，发出哗啦哗啦的声响，将枯枝摇落到覆盖着绒毛的泥土上。一些未能成熟存活下来的畸形翅膀也躺在泥土上，破碎而散落。

“Look at that,” breathed Beaupre. He admired the feather tree’s enlarged and shifting silhouette. “I think they’ve all fledged.” “看那，”比普雷轻声说道。他欣赏羽毛树扩大而变化的轮廓。“我想它们都已经长出了翅膀。”

Loory felt a corresponding restless within himself—a shifting, a re-opening, of places that felt both predestined and newly made. “They have, haven’t they?” He set a hand upon the fallen branch that they had propped against the trunk as a ladder, its bark damp and slick beneath his palm, and peered up. All the myriad feathers that the tree had ever unfurled, Loory had first seen as a small boy—floating in marsh water, abandoned in thickets, pushed over grassy weeds by a wet wind. But had Loory ever gotten close enough to the long-gone birds that had borne them to see such plumage on living wings? He couldn’t remember. “I need to go closer. I need to see.” 洛里感到自己内心也相应地变得焦躁不安——一种地方在既感觉命中注定又感觉新生的变化、重新展开。 “是的，不是吗？”他将手放在他们作为梯子靠在树干上的那根断枝上，其树皮在他的掌心下湿滑，向上望去。洛里小时候第一次看到这棵树曾经展开过的无数羽毛——漂浮在沼泽水中，被遗弃在密林中，被湿风推过草丛中的杂草。但是洛里是否曾经足够接近那些早已消失的、曾承载这些羽毛的鸟儿，在活着的翅膀上看到这样的羽毛？他记不清了。“我需要靠近一些。我需要看看。”

“Be careful. It’ll be slippery.” “小心。会滑的。”

Loory climbed. At the top of the branch, he pulled himself up into the tree proper and kept going, with the tree’s peculiar foliage thickening and pressing in upon him as he climbed, until he reached a sturdy and central fork he hadn’t seen up close in decades but knew as well as his departed wife’s face. Around him hung a womb of feathers. “Hello, old friend,” he whispered. “Guess who’s back?” Loory set his face against the bark, damp even in here, and closed his eyes. 洛里爬着。在树枝顶端，他把自己拉进真正的树干里，继续向上爬，随着爬升，树独特的枝叶越来越茂密，紧紧地挤压着他，直到他到达一个坚实而居中的分叉口，这个分叉口他几十年没近距离见过，却像熟悉已故妻子的脸一样熟悉。周围挂着一个羽毛的子宫。“你好，老朋友，”他低语道。“猜猜谁回来了？”洛里把脸靠在树皮上，这里甚至湿润，他闭上了眼睛。

“What do you see?” called Beaupre from below. “你看到了什么？”贝普雷从下面喊道。

The back of Loory’s hand brushed something soft, and when he looked, a little flycatchers’s wing flapped in protest against his knuckles. The wing lay in a gorgeous, mixed bouquet of them—from those of redwing blackbirds, swamp sparrows, common yellowthroats, and more, a swirl of gray-brown and dusky colors—all closing and opening and straining and re-settling. 洛瑞的手背拂过某样柔软的东西，当他看过去时，一只小知更鸟的翅膀正拍打着他的指关节，表示抗议。那翅膀躺在一只华丽而混杂的花束中——有红翅黑鸟、沼泽雀、普通黄喉鸟的翅膀，还有更多，灰褐色和昏暗的色调交织在一起，忽而闭合，忽而张开，挣扎着，重新安放。

Loory shivered. A sweeping cloud of mourning and hope and recognition and longing encompassed him, a feeling that would have made his child self cry and made his adult self ache. All these wings were so beautiful; so close. Had something like this happened to him before, or was it all new? 洛瑞打了个寒颤。一股悲伤、希望、认出和渴望的云雾将他包围，这种感觉会让他的孩童时期哭泣，也会让他的成年时期疼痛。这些翅膀如此美丽；如此接近。这以前发生过类似的事情吗，还是说这一切都是全新的？

“Never mind,” called Beaupre. “I’m coming up, too. I want to see for myself.” Loory listened to Beaupre climb and his wondering inhalation as he settled in the branches beside him. “Why, the wings... I’ve seen all these. In the drawings in the library, from before the war.” “别管了，”贝普雷喊道。“我也要上来了。我想亲眼看看。”洛瑞听着贝普雷攀爬的声音，以及他落在旁边树枝上时好奇的吸气声。“为什么，这些翅膀……我以前都见过。在图书馆里的画册里，战争之前。”

Loory’s eyes stung. He blinked away wetness. Before the war was now, inside this feathered world, but he whispered, “Yes. They’re wings from every bird for which I’ve ever seen a feather. Perhaps every kind of bird that ever lived in this place.” 洛瑞的眼睛刺痛了。他眨掉了湿润。战争之前就是现在，在这个羽毛的世界里，但他低语道，“是的。它们是我见过每一种鸟的翅膀。也许是我生活过的地方曾经存在过的每一种鸟的翅膀。”

“But we still don’t know what it means.” “但是，我们仍然不知道这意味着什么。”

Loory closed his eyes again and reached until flapping feathers brushed the backs of his fingers. He imagined next summer. Would those buds unfurl not into mere wings but entire birds? When next autumn came, would the tree drop them? If yellow warblers were to spatter across this sky once more, how would they feed and survive without the marsh? 洛里再次闭上眼睛，伸手直到扑扇的羽毛拂过他的指尖。他想象着下一个夏天。那些蓓蕾会绽放出翅膀，而不是仅仅变成翅膀吗？当下一个秋天到来时，这棵树会落下它们吗？如果黄莺再次在这片天空中飞溅，它们没有沼泽如何生存和觅食？

Abruptly, all the wings closed. The feather tree sagged beneath their quiet weight, and slices of foggy daylight reached the heart of the tree. For a heartbeat, stillness filled the canopy, and Loory stopped breathing out of respect. 突然，所有的翅膀都合上了。羽毛树在它们安静的重量下垂落，雾蒙蒙的日光穿透到了树的中心。一刹那间，寂静充满了树冠，洛里停止了呼吸，以示敬意。

Then every wing opened. 然后，每一片翅膀都打开了。

The susurrus was a downpour, and every feather against its neighbor a rebounding drop of rain. The branches of the feather tree groaned as thousands of new-fledged wings pumped in joyful motion, pulling them up. More dead sticks shook loose. Daylight bounced into view in rippling, blurred windows at the branches’ fingertips. 沙沙声像一场倾盆大雨，每一片羽毛对着邻居就像一滴回弹的雨水。羽毛树的枝条发出呻吟，成千上万的新羽翅膀欢快地摆动，将它们向上拉起。更多的枯枝摇落下来。日光在树枝指尖的模糊窗口中跳跃着映入眼帘。

Twigs rained upon Beaupre’s head, and he rose a fearful hand against the possibility of something larger. “I think we had better get off!” 细枝落在比普雷的头上，他恐惧地抬起一只手，以防发生更糟的事情。“我们最好还是离开吧！”

“Why?” Loory shouted back. “为什么？”洛瑞喊道。

A stupendous rumbling emerged from below. The sticky carpet of fallen down parted. Long, twisting roots laboriously reached up from the barely solid ground, dropping clods of earth and root balls of long-past things. 从下方传来巨大的轰鸣声。粘稠的、覆盖着落叶的地毯分开了。长长的、扭曲的根须费力地从几乎坚实的地面上伸出来，掉下泥土块和早已被遗忘的根球。

A stick bounced off Beaupre’s shoulder, plummeted to the ground, and was pushed aside by a reaching root. “I really think we should leave now!” 一根树枝弹落在比普雷的肩膀上，坠落到地面，被伸出的根须推到一旁。“我真的很想我们现在就离开！”

Like the tentacles of a tremendous octopus, the roots dug themselves out. The sodden ground below the feather tree dissolved into a mess of mud and feathers and newly excavated roots, each pushing or pulling to encourage the freedom of its neighbors. 像一只巨大章鱼的触手，根须挖了出来。羽毛树下的泥泞地面溶解成泥浆和羽毛的混乱，以及新挖掘出来的根须，每一根都在推或拉，鼓励着邻居们的自由。

The trunk in Loory’s arms shivered. 洛瑞手臂中的树干颤抖起来。

With an astonishing rich squelch, the feather tree pulled itself up and out of a deep, deep hole. Beaupre shouted in surprise, and they both clung all the harder as its creaking, clumsy roots propelled it west a few paces, out of the hole and onto the muddy north-south track. “Where is it—it’s going somewhere!” 羽毛树发出惊人的、黏稠的声响，自己拔地而起，从深深的坑洞中挣脱出来。博普雷惊讶地喊叫着，他们两人更加用力地抓住它，随着它吱嘎作响、笨拙的根系向西挪动了几步，离开了坑洞，来到了泥泞的南北小径上。“它在哪儿——它要去某个地方！”

Loory’s ladder, that fallen branch they had been so careful to wedge so tightly, jostled loose and dropped to the earth. It snapped into pieces below a locomoting root, which gathered with its brethren around the base of the feather tree in a tight, expectant crouch. 洛瑞的梯子，那根他们费尽心思楔得那么紧的断枝，突然松动掉落到了地上。它碎裂在移动的树根之下，而那树根与它的同伴们一起，在羽毛树根部蜷缩成紧密而充满期待的姿态。

The tree groaned with tension. 这棵树因紧张而发出呻吟。

“Father! We have to jump down! I don’t think we’re going to get another chance!” “父亲！我们必须跳下去！我想我们再没有机会了！”

Loory looked east, toward the blurry windows of feather-softened daylight. It was so easy to imagine Mira’s Regret, that city-with-another-but-forgotten name, on the horizon; so easy to imagine that sad and lonely road that stretched over the miles-long grave that had long defined the shape of Loory’s world. As he imagined that valley of stone and ash, the mourning and hope and recognition and longing around him tightened and tightened, until it was not a cloud but an eggshell: both predestined and newly made, protective to the point of constricting. 洛瑞向东望去，朝着羽毛般柔软的日光照耀下模糊的窗户。想象着米拉的遗憾，那个有着被遗忘之名的城市，在地平线上是如此容易；想象着那条悲伤而孤独的道路，它横跨在绵延数英里的坟墓之上，长期以来定义了洛瑞世界的形状。当他想象着那片石与灰的峡谷时，周围的哀悼、希望、认出和渴望不断收紧，直到它不再是一片云，而是一个蛋壳：既注定又刚刚形成，保护到几乎令人窒息。

But within this womb, it was also easy to imagine something different: that when this surrounding whiteness finally broke, the stone and ash would be transmuted to water and mud, and thickets of reeds would once again be waiting, in which green frogs twanged and fireflies winked in the dark. 但在这个子宫里，也很容易想象到不同的事物：当这片周围的白光最终破晓时，石与灰会转化为水和泥，茂密的芦苇丛将再次等待，其中青蛙发出绿色的声音，萤火虫在黑暗中闪烁。

After all, there were wings now. And those wings were ready to fly home. 毕竟，现在有翅膀了。而且这些翅膀已经准备好飞回家。

Loory said to Beaupre, “So we won’t jump down. So what?” 洛瑞对比阿普雷说：“所以我们不会跳下去。那又怎样？”

The tree leaped skyward. Its roots folded tightly below it, as an osprey clenches its toes as it soars, and its two-dozen-thousand wings erupted into full flight. Beaupre cried out, then whooped, like a child discovering that he’s playing a game. He squeezed the trunk and kicked his toes into it with abandon, and the last thing that Loory saw before cloud filled his eyes was Beaupre laughing. “Now I can’t even see!” 那棵树腾空而起。它的根紧紧缠绕在下方，就像鱼鹰展翅高飞时紧紧抓住树枝，它的两万三千翅膀完全展开，翱翔于天际。比阿普雷尖叫起来，然后欢快地欢呼，就像一个孩子发现自己在玩游戏。他紧紧抱住树干，肆意地用脚跟踢着它，当云雾遮蔽了他的视线时，洛瑞最后看到的比阿普雷正笑着。“现在我都看不见了！”

Loory laughed too. “Neither can I!” 洛瑞也笑了。“我也不能！”

The fog finally broke. The feathered-blurred windows of daylight became a strong and beautiful blue, and they soared above a whole marshland of fat and fluffy cloud-tops. 雾终于散了。羽毛模糊的白天窗户变成了一种强烈而美丽的蓝色，它们翱翔在一片饱满而蓬松的云顶沼泽之上。

And as the feather tree flew on, toward wherever it was that it was going, below its roots a yellow warbler flew by. 随着羽毛树继续飞翔，飞向它要去的地方，树根下方，一只黄莺飞过。