Read Online Tree Girl by T. A. Barron - Free Book Online Page B

pocketful of radishes—and scurried out the door.
    She paused just long enough to step over to Old Burl, who stood as always by the cottage. She drank in the smell one more time, and patted the fir’s rough bark. Then, without looking back, she plunged into the woods.
    Sash met her at the glade. The boy reached up to tickle Eagle, who was riding on her shoulder—and got nipped in return. With a laugh, he started off, Anna at his side. They walked fast, bare feet slapping on the leaves and lichens. Not fast enough, though! Anna broke into a run, jumping over the rocks and broken branches on the ground. Sash padded along beside her.
    Soon I’ll be there
, she said to herself. She might even learn, before this day was out, what really happened at the High Willow. To herself. And to her mother—whose face she couldn’t remember, but whose songs still held her heart.
    The sun’s rays poked through the trees, wavering like branches of light. Anna and Sash ran across parades of toadstools and beds of blue-green moss. And oh, the aromas! She smelled the mustiness of wood turning to soil, the sweetness of resins warmed by the sun, the tanginess of rillberrieswashed by a stream. And more, too—so many smells, she couldn’t even start to name them all.
    “Slow down, Anna.” Sash, running by her side, tapped her shoulder. “You’ll be all tired out before we’re halfway to the ridge.”
    Anna just shook her head. Her steps were getting more choppy, but she tried to run even faster. “We’ve got to make it,” she panted, “all the way…there and back…by tomorrow night.”
    “We’ll make it.”
    “But not if—” She tried to leap over a broken branch, but caught her foot and crashed to the ground. She rolled into some ferns.
    Sash bent over her. He pushed aside the ferns, not bothering to hide his smirk. “Ready to walk now?”
    “No, you old barnacle!” She stood and pulled some leaves out of her hair. And then pulled Eagle out of the tangle of brush where he’d landed. “But I will, I guess.” She elbowed Sash. “So long as you’re sure we can make it.”
    “I’m sure. That is, if you’ll quit taking naps in the ferns.”
    They set off again. Into the trees theyplunged—trees with more shapes and sizes and colors than Anna had ever dreamed possible. So many different kinds! Even their shadows were different: tall and poky for pines, soft and round for rowans, dark and patchy for hawthorns.
    How could she have ever thought of the forest as a single thing? It seemed that way from the shore, all right. But no, it was really more like a village—a village of trees. And everyone who lived there was as different from the others as Old Burl was from the silver beech at the glade.
    There stood an ash tree, holding a family of raccoons with star-bright eyes. And there—a young elm, swaying gracefully as they strode past. It didn’t just carry its leaves, but wore them, as a dancer would wear a shimmering gown. Beyond stood a spruce tree, its trunk stooped and bent, its branches sweeping the ground. And over there, an ancient oak, spreading great arms over the saplings that grew at its roots.
    What path they followed, Anna couldn’t tell. If there was a path at all! Sash seemed to see one, though. Or at least to sense where they were going.
    In time, Anna started to notice other things.Branches, on every side, that snapped and creaked and groaned. Leaves that rustled like someone’s raspy breath. And cries, strange and haunting, that echoed through the trees.
    Hard as she tried, she couldn’t forget the master’s stories. Couldn’t stop wondering what the spirits of all these trees were doing. Aye, right now!
    They passed through a thick grove of evergreens. Suddenly she caught sight of something moving beside them. A shadow! One that looked like a tree—but strode with long, floppy steps. She whirled around and peered into the dark mass of trunks, roots, and branches.
    Nothing.
    She rubbed her chin.