A Poison Tree: A Tree of Life Novel

By M. C. Wilkinson

Alabaster must find where she fits in to the city’s new dynamics after the rebellion of the Clones took the lives of so many and nearly took hers. She is called upon to help rebuild by her mother Eliana, who is now running the city. Alabaster can’t help but feeling like a puppet again as she struggles to find her own identity.
Then there’s the problem of Cameron. He is being held by Eliana and the new Clone leaders for murder. The only reason he hasn’t been executed like so many others is Alabaster’s denied attachment to him.
Alabaster starts having dreams from another life that may hold the key to all her problems, or will they lock her fate to this path of destruction?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796078435

M. C. Wilkinson

M. C. Wilkinson grew up in Colorado with a view of the majestic Rocky Mountains from her bedroom window. She moved to Idaho her last year of high school. During an adventurous Fourth of July trip, she met the love of her life on the highway playing leapfrog, and it's been a joyride ever since. Two children and many dreams later, she woke up and started writing the first book in A Tree of Life series, When the Bough Breaks, on her cellphone.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

T he air was heavy from the smoke, making it difficult to breathe. The fires were working their way closer. The woman’s lungs fought hard to expand. They longed to be filled with the oxygen-rich air, but with each breath, they were deprived of their utmost desire. Her lungs thirsted for more oxygen before they even expelled the last breath. There was a rattling sound from her chest when she inhaled, but it couldn’t be heard over the roar of wind and fire. The forceful gales ripped at the woman’s deep blue shawl that was wrapped tightly around her neck and shoulders, and it pulled at her long brown hair, whipping it like a cat-o’-nine-tails. The wind threw ash in her desperate gray eyes, causing momentary blindness.

The woman lost her balance when the ground trembled from a massive explosion nearby. She struggled desperately to reach the safety of a concrete bunker in sight between the harsh gusts of debris. She fought to find the stamina to proceed but failed. She knew it was only twenty feet more, but she couldn’t find the energy. She fell to her knees and curled into a fetal position with her arms around her head to protect it from the relentless wind bearing down on her.

The woman jumped with a squeak of surprise when two strong arms wrapped around her, which sent an electrifying warmth through to her soul. Her silvery eyes looked up to meet the warm caramel eyes of a man—not just any man but the man whom she loved more than anything else in this lifeless world. A deep connection of passion and longing passed between the two. The man shrouded the woman’s body protectively from the flesh-eating winds with his thick canvas jacket, which was once a muted green but had grown dark and black with grime. He held the blue fabric of the shawl over the woman’s nose and eyes to protect them from the chaos swirling around them. He would be her eyes. She trusted him with not only her fate but that of the future as well.

They just reached the bunker when the heavy iron door was opened from within by another man. His dark brown eyes squinted from the biting winds while he waved the other two in. The tall, slender man fought the wind in a tug-of-war to pull the door shut behind the couple. The vicious wind tried to remove the slender man’s dirty patchwork clothing. The caramel-eyed man came to his aid after setting the exhausted woman on a bench, where she trembled relentlessly. The wind still proved too powerful for the combined force of the two men, and they strained against the force.

Another man, significantly larger than the other two, entered the room. His massive feet thudded on the concrete floor as he quickly ran to aid the other two men. He shouldered his way in between the men and found the handle of the door. His enormous hand enveloped the handle with white knuckles. Together, the two men were unable to overpower the wind’s efforts, but this single man was built for the task. The heavy door slammed with a resounding boom. The angry winds beat audibly on the solid iron exterior of the bunker with the persistence of a toddler throwing a tantrum.

The three men smiled at one another while they brushed dust and ash from their dirty, tattered clothing. The man with caramel eyes and dark skin returned his attention to the woman, who sat trembling from exhaustion. He pulled her dark blue shawl up to cover her porcelain-smooth shoulders while he wrapped her into his arms securely. She tucked her face into his chest, and the mere contact with him made her trembling stop.

The second slender man shook the sand gifted by the wind out of his short brown hair with a haughty laugh. He threw a playful punch at the larger man, who was bent over with his hands on his knees. Thanks for the help, Dante, but Laramie and I had it covered.

The large man’s blue eyes were piercing as his smile spread across his face, brightening the room with its glow. I’ll have to remember that next time you’re on the verge of filling the entire entrance with sand. I know you’ve always wanted a beach home, Alexander.

The two men laughed as they playfully began to wrestle. Alexander wouldn’t stand a chance in a real fight against the giant-like build of Dante. Laramie and the brown-haired woman sat cuddled together, oblivious to their surroundings because of their infatuation with each other. They were all too preoccupied to notice when a beautiful woman entered through an interior door. The woman’s hazel eyes reflected the fiery reds and oranges of her hair. Reddish brown freckles covered her skin in the elegance of a jungle leopard queen. What the hell is going on in here? she exclaimed with fire in more than her hair.

I don’t know what you’re referring to, Whinny, Dante said with a face of innocence as he released Alexander, who fell to the ground with a loud thunk when he failed to regain balance. Laramie and the brown-haired woman were not fazed by the noise because their lips were pressed firmly together in an attempt to merge.

The redhead walked straight toward Dante with the smooth prowess of a panther. The top of her fiery head was a foot below Dante’s chin, but it would be interesting to see which one would dominate the other. The redhead stopped, standing with only inches separating their bodies, before she looked up into his swimming eyes. Dante glared down at her with the innocence of a weasel. The woman’s stern face betrayed a sly smile. Dante squatted low enough to run his arms around her to grasp her overly ample rear. He easily lifted her until she was above his eye level, and he had to look up at her. Whinny’s sly smile grew, curling one corner higher than the other. Dante lowered her enough to connect his lips to hers.

Don’t worry about me, guys. I’m fine. Alexander pulled himself up off the dirt-covered concrete. I’ll just go back to work in the lab … alone … all by myself. Feeling ignored, he left the lovebirds, exiting through the door the redhead emerged from.

The brunette woman pulled away from Laramie. We probably should head back to the lab. There’s a lot of work to be done. The conditions out there are getting worse. This bunker won’t hold up much longer.

Just another ten minutes? Laramie implored. His forehead rested against the brunette’s while she turned her head back and forth in a negative response; their eyes never separated. The two stood and held hands as they followed Alexander.

Dante and Whinny didn’t seem to notice their abandonment, or they didn’t care. Before completely exiting, Laramie threw an abandoned shoe at the couple. Without pulling away from Whinny, Dante caught the shoe before it hit its intended target, his head. Come on, you two, the human species won’t wait to be saved. There’s work to be done, Laramie called while the brunette tugged on his arm.

CHAPTER 1

I lie staring at the ceiling with my back on the cot in my bland small bedroom while wearing a faded blue nightgown that has worn thin with age. There are no windows, but a look at my clock tells me the sun is not yet awake. I should go to sleep because I have yet to succeed at the task tonight. I have been lying here since lights-out hours ago and have thought about everything but sleep. My eyes are heavy, but I refuse to close them. Closing them only replaces the vision of this cold room with ones far brighter and more violent.

I give up the attempt to find peace and decide to go visit Cameron. I pull my sleep-deprived body off the bed and sit there for a moment, feeling like I’ve got a hundred pounds added to me when, in fact, I only have an extra ten so far from the baby growing inside. My stomach is firm from the slight bulge of my expanding womb. The nightgown doesn’t provide much warmth, and neither does the sheet on my bed. The chilled air pricks my skin and causes goose bumps to rise on my arms. I may be imagining it, but when I exhale, I can see my breath.

I’m beyond the throes of morning sickness, but I still feel queasy from the motion of sitting up. My bare feet involuntarily jump when they hit the icy concrete bedroom floor. I pull them up and tuck them under my legs and cover myself as best as possible with the flimsy sheet. I find myself missing the luxury of the sterile linoleum floor of the dwelling I have been raised in before my world has fallen apart. It has been bland, but at least it has never been icy like this concrete. My clone dwelling has been one of several hundred, or perhaps several thousand, identical units. I’ve never known the actual number of clone dwellings, nor have I known the number of clones in the city before the rebellion. There’s a lot I haven’t known and still don’t know. I don’t know how many clones and people have lost their lives on the night of the rebellion. I don’t know why I miss the minimalist quality of my old home, but it has been the only home I have ever known.

I quickly stop my train of thought to remind myself I have chosen this. I have chosen to remain living within the rebel compound bunker with a small handful of others. However, the others haven’t chosen to remain here. Some have been honored with the task of guard duty, while the others are forced to remain under lock and key. The prisoners are subjected to the kindly beatings from those guards as regularly as the three square meals a day they don’t receive. Food supplies have been running dangerously low recently because clones are no longer doing their essential functions. It has only been a month, but there are a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of clones who think they are entitled to more than three nutritionally balanced meals a day like we have once been given. They may have been bland, but no one has gone hungry.

With my limited knowledge, I know there has been a whole division of clones charged with making the food to be sent through the city’s conveyor system to everyone in the city. I have been in the food facility once. It has been the night of the rebellion, and after only a few hours, it has already been a backed-up mess. Since the clones of the food facility haven’t been working, the food hasn’t been sent through the citywide conveyor system. The food that everyone is indulging in is whatever has been stored in warehouses for emergencies or raided from homes the people have once lived in. I remember how much food has been stored in Cameron’s house in the cold box he calls a refrigerator. I imagine all the other homes have an equal overabundance that has now been raided since the rebellion.

The guards of the compound are taking most of the food sent for the prisoners and eating it themselves. The prisoners are graced with whatever scraps are left over. Cameron is one of those lucky prisoners, along with many other people. The guards have been picked from clones within the rebel faction after the fall of our city. They have been lower members of the rebellion and those who have a wicked taste for causing, and relishing in, the suffering of others. These guards are also clones who are prone to disrupt any attempts to rebuild the city and reinstate a new government because of that same thirst for anarchy. So the new city leader—Eliana, a.k.a. my mother, a cold son of a bitch—has decided to send them to tend to the people who have somehow managed to stay alive, for now, through the chaos of the bloody revolt of the rebels and clones. Eliana has offered me an amazing mansion within the city that has been repossessed from a member of the former society of the people, but I have turned it down for this cold cement box with a cot, a small, two-drawer dresser, and my memories.

On the upside, I’m closer to the prison within the rebel compound and closer to Cameron, who now tentatively sits in limbo. He and the other remaining members of the elite class of people and any clones who have chosen to stand with them are essentially sitting on death’s doorstep, awaiting their trial and inevitable execution for crimes against the clones. Whether any of the accusations are accurate is questionable at best. Cameron is locked away because he is accused of killing a clone, which he has done, twice in fact, but it has been in self-defense both times. I’m the only one who knows about the first clone he has killed, but there have been several witnesses for the second.

The prisoners kept here are an overflow of the ones in the city prison. There has been no need for a large prison within the city because the crime rate has been low to nonexistent, that is, before everything has fallen apart. It seems as if a person is removed weekly—removed permanently, that is. I haven’t been to one yet, but I hear the executions are something of a spectacle. I have overheard the guards laughing about the old man killed last week because he has begged for mercy before a lever has been pulled, and he has free-fallen through a trapdoor until caught by a rope tied around his neck. They say the man’s neck hasn’t broken like most of them do, and he has flopped around for a minute or two, wetting himself in the process. I have left the mockery when the guards have all done their own impression of the man, each more dramatic than the last. I could hear their boastful laughter from several hallways away. My eyes prickle with tears from the memory of those heartless guards, and I bite my lip to stop it from trembling.

The main reason Cameron still lives is his medical training. Some clones, like me, have been trained in the medical field as nurses, but I don’t have the knowledge or skills of a doctor. That’s where the clones’ dilemma with Cameron comes into play. He is a highly skilled doctor who, before the rebellion, has been renowned throughout the city. He is still renowned, but now it is because he has killed a clone during the rebellion. The clones now want to see his head roll for the crime, but on the other side of that argument, he has saved many other clones, myself included, since then. To add to the dilemma, Cameron is also the father of my unborn baby. Eliana won’t risk executing Cameron because she knows I’ll no longer stay silent and out of her way if she does.

Clones have been created by the people as the laborers of the city. Each clone has been specifically created at a genetic level for a single essential function—nurses, bus drivers, janitors, and other positions thought of as lesser for one of the people to be tasked with. There are only five different genetic base types of the clones, so the majority of us look identical. Once clones have lost their usefulness, they are removed from society. There have been other reasons a clone is removed, such as breaking any of the six rules for a clone.

No clone shall be named.

No clone shall wear adornment.

No clone shall own any possessions.

No clone shall harm any of the people.

No clone shall fraternize with another.

No clone shall ever say no to one of the people.

The last rule has made all the preceding rules a gray area. Not all the clones have been dissatisfied with their life of servitude and the strict laws they have been forced to adhere. The majority of us have lived each day as we have been designed and followed those laws. The violent revolution has been started by the rebels headed by a power-hungry clone who calls himself Anton. After trying to shoot me, he has been brutally beaten by a massive police clone whom everyone calls Rhino. Anton no longer exists; I don’t mourn his demise in the least. He has been the one who has instigated the riot that has led to massive chaos and anarchy throughout the city—a single merciless bloody nightmare of a night. He might have killed me when he’s shot at me if the bullet hasn’t connected with my best friend, Boston, who has dived in front of the projectile. Boston has died in my arms from that courageously stupid act.

As far as I know, Rhino has never been imprisoned or punished for killing Anton; but then again, I don’t even know if Rhino has survived that night. I know many, if not all, of the other police clones have died. Many other clones and people have died that night, including me. I have been stabbed by a clone who has been trying to kill Cameron and accidentally stabbed me when I’ve tried to break it up. The only reason I am living and breathing is Cameron. He has brought me back after my heart has stopped.

For whatever reason I can’t fathom, the clones adore me and attribute their freedom to me. They know Cameron is the father of the child within my womb, and though I deny it, they know I love him. I smile and look down at my steadily growing belly. There is a defined bump that I can see and feel, but it’s still probably too small for others to notice if they aren’t looking. Many clones have placed me on a pedestal because of my miraculous conception. Clones aren’t capable of reproduction. They are all sterilized at birth. What they don’t know is I haven’t been created like the rest of them. Hell, I haven’t known I haven’t been created like the rest of them until I’ve been coerced by Eliana to enter the ranks of the rebels after I’ve attacked one of the people who has been trying to rape me. I have been forced to escape or face removal from society.

Right now, I am playing my part in supporting Eliana and the newly appointed clone officials. At least I’m not getting in their way, which appeases them enough to leave me be. Eliana knows if they remove Cameron, they risk my commitment to their revolution and thus the commitment of the masses. The control they hold on the city now is fragile at best. I don’t like to be Eliana’s pawn, but I know if I slip one toe out of place, Cameron’s heart will cease to beat. So unfortunately, I must deny my evident love for Cameron in hopes of proving to Eliana and the clone officials that I am loyal to their cause, even if I’m not. They see any clone who loves one of the people as a brainwashed puppet and a threat to the recreation of the city. So I resist the urge to run to Cameron’s cell and into his arms daily. I hold on to the hope that I will be reunited with Cameron as a reward if I just do as I’m told. I have heard rumors of reversing the roles so the people are forced to be the pets and slaves of the clones, but I could only hope Cameron makes it that far.

I can no longer ignore the deep pull to see Cameron—to touch his face, run my fingers through his golden hair, fall into the depths of his sea-green eyes. I grab a set of worn jeans from where I have left them in a heap at the end of my cot last night. I pull them on without leaving my bed, no point in putting my cold feet on the frozen floor. I take the mostly clean white T-shirt I have worn yesterday and pull it under my nightgown. After removing my arms from the nightgown, I get them situated in the T-shirt to quickly swap them. I’ve gotten pretty good at this. I don’t want any bare skin exposed to the cold longer than necessary.

The shirt has a few stains on it. The laundry system hasn’t gotten back up to speed yet, so I’ve been spot-washing my clothes with a bar of soap in the sink. I pull the hem of the shirt to stretch it over my slightly bulging belly; my fingers graze the two-inch cut in my abdomen. It’s finally healing over and is now only a small scab encircled in a pink scar tissue. It serves as a reminder of my death and what has been lost that night a month ago. It has been a miracle that the baby has survived.

I am startled when Aggie shuffles in her sleep. She is cuddled in a heap of blankets on the floor in the corner of my room. There is only about a foot from my cot to the beginning of the heap. That’s one of the reasons I only have a flimsy sheet. I want to make sure she is warm enough. The poor thing has been struggling with nightmares from that night too. Luckily, she hasn’t been in the city, but she has watched the horrors on the many surveillance cameras spread across the city. In fact, she has probably witnessed more atrocities than I could ever imagine in the worst of my nightmares.

Aggie is like a little sister to me. She is my clone type, so we have identical steel-gray eyes, porcelain-white skin, and flowing rivers of brown hair. But her eyes are still filled with the wonder of a child, and mine are full of the fear and worries of one who has seen too much. Also, her hair currently doesn’t flow because she refuses to let me brush it. It is rarely more than a tangled bird’s nest. She is a younger version of myself, around eight years old so about half my age.

For the people, sixteen is rather young, but a clone develops mentally faster than someone without genetic manipulation. The people need clones to be capable of joining the workforce as soon as possible. Age is only a guesstimate with clones because we haven’t been