Chapter 1

Humans! Clomping, stomping through my darling valley, plodding through my grove, sounding like a family of clumsy bears, shaking me out of my midwinter drowse. I pushed my way, sluggish and dreary, up through the frozen sap of the motley apple tree, and peered out through the bare branches. Yes, it was humans – or one human, at least, a very round male who’d taken up residence in the long-abandoned human den at the foot of the hill.

Behind the bark, hidden and safe, I watched him stomp back and forth from the wheeled building into the den. Sometimes humans came by to do something to the old den – couldn’t imagine what or why – but they usually left quickly. This one carried bins and boxes and bags laden with all sorts of human creations inside.

Once he was done, he headed for the trees, straight toward my little copse of fruit trees that dwelled on the outer edges of the woods. I snarled at the lumbering form clomping its way toward me – not that it could see me. The wind was calm today, so it took all my effort to shake my branches. An injured limb, dead, fell from the peach tree onto his shoulder.

I’d been aiming for his head.

I watched him from within the gnarled old peach tree. He waddled past my home and I followed to the farthest tree in my copse, sliding through the tangled root system from tree to tree. What was he doing out here?

The last human in these parts had died, oh, tens of winters ago, when I was just a sapling. There’d been a whole human grove that had died out. My mothertree said the saplings all moved away (as human saplings apparently liked to do) and their fathers and mothers followed when they grew dry and brittle. There wasn’t a sprout to be seen for many winters before the last human went. Only the den remained, and of them, only this one still stood.

What brought him here? I watched the human like humans watched birds. He was definitely male, no questions about it. He had fur all over, even on his face. The unwelcome human was tall as a black bear, and round as a ripe peach, with skin the same pink of the fruit’s flesh and his fur the same color as the reddish blush of its fuzzy skin.

A chickadee scouting out seeds landed on one of my branches. “Howdy sister,” it chirped. “Anything new? Anything fun? Anything to eat?” Its little feet hopped up and down the branch, tickling me.

“Stop!” I laughed through the rustling branches. It cocked its head and complied, though knowing chickadees it would likely forget I asked it to stop in a few minutes. “Bad news. Humans are back.”

It cocked its head in the other direction. “I only see the one,” it trilled. “I’ve been all over, all over, all over and only seen one human!”

The silly thing could have seen a whole family and would have forgotten by now. If it wasn’t a place to eat or lay eggs, it wasn’t worth remembering for a chickadee. “One is enough,” I hissed. My branches clattered together in the breeze, a cold, angry sound. “They’re like ants. One just means that a hundred hundred more are on the way.”

“Oh yummy,” the bird said and flapped its wings. “Anything to eat?” it asked again.

I rattled my branches again. “No, it’s winter you dolt, I don’t have anything!”

“But you could,” it insisted, hopping again. “You could, I know! I know you could!”

“It’s too cold and winter fruits take too much energy,” I rattled. With a violent shake, I shoved it away. “Now go! I don’t have to explain myself to a bird!”

It gave the bird equivalent of a derisive snort, a little dismissive twitch of its tail, and flew away. I slunk down from the branches, through the trunk, all the way down into the root ball. With the outer edges of my consciousness, I could feel the other trees in my grove. Their roots shivered with the lumbering peach-bear human’s footsteps.

I shivered too. It was the dead of winter. I should be resting quietly, not up worrying about my copse, my friends, my home.

The footsteps died away. I slunk from tree to tree, checking every twig, every dry and crackling leaf, for damage. I found none, so I looked again.

And again.

And again.

***

The peach-bear liked being outdoors, which I didn’t like at all. He began his day clomping through the woods not terribly long after sunrise. Then, he’d retreat for a few hours when the sun was at its highest. After that, he’d usually sit outside with a small fire and a pipe and a book until the shadows got too long.

He liked to bring trays of delicacies outside with him to nibble while he read. At the end of the day his shirt looked tighter and he carelessly rubbed his roundness while he read. I liked that.

I didn’t like the fire. He used logs that he'd brought with him, and gathered branches from the ground during his daily stompings, but he’d have to get more fuel sooner or later. I felt sick. I shook the dead branches out of every tree in my copse when he walked by. I bartered rhymes with the crows, and convinced them to dive at him cawing their little throats raw when he went for a walk. I summoned all my energy and produced a few withered apples for the chickadees who gleefully shit over all of his belongings. One foul load splatted in his face and I cackled so hard that my branches clapped together in applause.

None of these things worked. He merely took the dead branches and used them for his little fires. He began leaving bread out for the crows and winning their allegiance, fickle little bastards. When he got hit in the face with bird droppings, all he did was pause and clean himself off with snow before returning to his building. He must have washed more thoroughly there because when he came out for his afternoon fireside reading he wore different clothes.

The stupid crows were already waiting for him. Some friends.

Which tree would he down first? Would it be one of mine? Would it be the trees around us? Would he take a limb or chop down the whole tree?

I prayed to the earth every day that the awful human would go, just leave for good one morning and never return. Instead, he made repairs and drove to town to stock up on food and drink. He was settling in.

***

Sleet fell for days. It sank into the frozen earth, warming it just enough to freeze it more solidly. I sluggishly moved through my trees, so tired and cold that I could barely keep my spirit awake.

The crows and chickadees were nowhere to be found until it stopped. Once it did, their little shadows crossed the silver ice that covered everything in swift bursts before they retreated again to huddle up for warmth.

I wished I had another dryad to huddle with, or even a friendly faun. We’d warm each other up, whether spirit or form, but I hadn’t seen another of my kind for a long time. My mothertree hadn’t lived much longer than the human grove had.

When the sun returned, the worst happened. The human left his house, carrying an axe.

The wind was still, the sun high and the day peaceful so I could do nothing but shake my branches in terror. The ice storm had taken down any dead branches I hadn’t already thrown at him – as well as a few healthy ones, which stung like hell. My erstwhile bird friends were nowhere to be seen. My friends of the earth, the badgers and foxes and coyotes, were all asleep or traveling, searching for food. I was helpless.

The dreadful human headed for the maple a few paces from my grove. Inside my tree, spirit as I was, I had no hands to cover my eyes, no fists to clench, no stomach to churn, yet I felt and did all of that. I wouldn't watch a murder. That maple wasn’t awake in the same way me and my trees were, but it was alive and had its own gentle personality to it. It was a favorite for new parents to nest in. Its broad branches gave so many shelter in the heat of the summer. It was an artist, its autumn brights carefully chosen every year.

I’d seen my neighbors fall before, to beetle, or rot, or simply time itself, but I’d never witnessed the deliberate extinguishing of a pure life. Ice crashed off my branches as I wailed and sobbed. How could I stop this from happening?

He stood at the maple and looked it over, up, down and around, inspecting each thick, sturdy limb. He didn’t raise his axe, but tapped in the bark with his knuckles, like how humans knocked on a door.

My terror slowed to a crawl. Curiosity reared its head. What was he doing?

In a clear, loud voice that carried over the silent, icy landscape, he said, “O maple, may I have some of your wood? When I am a tree, you may have some of mine.” His round hand with five stubby twigs splayed out over the bark, and for several minutes he stood there with the attitude of listening.

My tears stopped. My branches stilled. He’d said the compact, a promise I hadn’t heard since my mothertree whispered it to me while I still dreamed in the seed. It was a fair exchange of life for life, the same that happened when a beetle feasted on a dead fisher which once feasted on the porcupine that feasted on the beetle.

Well, technically, it was on a different beetle than the first, but the exchange still worked. Life energy that moved in a constant give and take, not a take and take like I’d heard humans preferred.

Then, he took his axe and struck at the thickest, lowest limb in the tree. After a few sweaty minutes of that, he took his heavy coat off, hung it neatly on another maple branch, and pulled a saw from the bag on his back to cut the rest of the way through it.

I pushed myself to glide through the entangled roots, shoving my way into trees that didn’t belong to me at all and weren’t very happy about my intrusion, until I could touch the roots of the maple. It hummed its usual aimless song, content as ever. A little of the man’s spirit, just a crumb, was already tangled with the tree and vice versa. It was beginning to heal even while he cut.

Shocked, I retreated back to my grove and watched him work. I’d not known that humans still used compacts with us, that they knew how to exchange and heal.

I watched the peach-bear work. With his coat off, his roundness was more apparent. It was so different from the trunks I’d seen on other humans. They were smooth, or sometimes a little curvy, while his had all sorts of interesting terrain. It looked softer, and folded to hang a little over his lower branches. He had large burls where female humans often did on their chests, and a whole range of bouncing hills marked with deep valleys running down his sides. His body rippled with his vigorous movements like water, and drops of his rain gleamed like beads of dew on his forehead.

His cheeks grew as ruddy as his fur as he worked. He looked warm and very comfortable. He would be even nicer to heat up with than another dryad or even a furry faun.

Before long, the branch thumped to the ground, shaking the ice off nearby trees. He leaned against the maple for a few moments, catching his breath, drinking from a canteen. He muttered to himself, “All right. Let’s get this fucker home,” and pushed himself up with a loud grunt.

Before he returned home with the fallen limb, however, he pulled a metal can and a brush out of his bag and popped it open. I watched, fascinated, as he used the brush to paint a thin layer over the large wound in the bark. He cleaned up the edges of the wound with a small knife and brushed a little more of the stuff onto the tree.

I was mystified. The maple was content as ever. What did this do?

As soon as he stepped away to haul his spoils back to his den, I scurried up and into the maple to find out what he’d brushed on. It smelled like herbs, like medicine, and though the maple found my intrusion more than a little rude (and it was right to do so) it didn’t seem harmed at all by the cutting.

I scurried back to my grove, apologizing to each tree I passed through. I curled up in the branches of the tallest apple tree and watched the round peach-bear clomp by. He must be very strong, I thought, to drag such a long limb while carrying so much roundness.

He’d almost stepped into my copse when he caught himself. He looked up — not at me directly, but not far off either — and wagged his finger. “Not today, Satan,” he remarked cryptically and then stepped to the side, away from my grove, pulling on the fallen long heavily.

Oh dear. He made a point of avoiding contact with my trees or even putting himself in the way of, say, a falling branch.

He left the hewn limb outside, resting upright against one of the smaller buildings around his den, and retreated inside for the rest of the day. I coiled up in my roots and pondered what to do.

If he knew the old ways between tree and human, he could be a great help to my little copse of fruit trees. They were healthy, but small, and gnarled, and always a little hungry. First though, I’d need to make him welcome here, to show him that he could ally himself with my trees.

I thought so hard that my energy spiraled up through the healthiest apple tree, and a small bud began to form. That might be it! He loved to eat, I knew that much about him.. Perhaps I could tempt him with something sweet in exchange for his warmth.

**

It took me a week, using all of my energy. I had to drain the other trees a little — they’d recover before the spring came — but seven sunrises later a small but juicy looking apple dangled on the end of a branch that hung over one of the peach-bear’s favorite paths.

He’d see it, a fresh, ripe apple in February, and wouldn’t be able to resist. The thought of him eating it made me inexplicably warm. Maybe he’d sniff it first before sinking his teeth into the flesh, pressing the apple’s red skin against his ruddy lips. He’d swallow, taking the bite down his throat, through his trunk, down into all that abundant softness.

I wished I could give him a bumper crop of fresh ripe apples. I wished I knew how to transform them like humans did into pies and cakes and buttery, delicious things. I knew what he liked, and I wanted to give it all to him. I’d make him so happy.

***
He wasn’t quite as delighted as I’d hoped. “What the fuck?” he wondered aloud, staring up at the hanging apple. Then he muttered while scratching the fur of his chin, “This is some biblical shit.”

“Take it,” I whispered. We were heading towards brighter, sunnier days, the month of March, I think. The winds were strong and cold but they smelled of spring. I used their gusts and shook my branches. “It’s for you.”

Though I know he couldn’t hear me, he seemed to perceive my invitation. He lifted one soft, round branch and gripped it with his chubby twigs. The apple snapped off cleanly, a dainty pair of leaves still attached.

He shined it on his shirt and looked over it again and again before scrutinizing my grove. He took hesitant, waddling steps as he entered the little copse and stood, surrounded by my little gnarled fruit trees. Peach. Sweet red apple. Pear. Tart, soft apple streaked with green. Plum. Bright red, round apple, much like the second but firmer and more tart — this was the one I’d offered to him.

“Northern spy,” he said aloud, holding the out-of-season fruit up. “Great for baking, thank you.” He bowed lightly, the soft burl of his trunk swaying with movement. Another nod, and he sidled out of the copse and back into his house.

He took it! And thanked me too. I hugged my knees to my chest and giggled. He said it was good for something. He liked my fruit!