A warm wind rushed through the forest, stirring the trees and rousing the old thing that slept beneath them. His robes were blue as robin eggs, his eyes as dark as dusk; his face was brown as oaken bark, and marked with many furrows of its like. He rose, a slow and creaking motion, and stood, a bent and crooked thing. On his feet—if they could be called that—were no boots. The bare appendages more closely resembled hands; their gnarled digits splayed and lengthened, gripping at the forest floor. His hands themselves, no less odd, grew twisted fingers, long as branches, that swept over his face, rubbing away the sleep and dew.

He turned to the tree behind him and ran his spindly fingers down its bark. “Good morrow, David,” he said, his voice creaking and groaning like an old rocking chair. Then he stepped forward – each movement as slow and deliberate – to run his hands along another tree. 

“Good leaves this summer… good leaves, William.” From tree to tree the old thing moved, greeting and rubbing each, nodding and humming, as if in answer to something, until this something set a deep frown upon his face and stopped his wandering.

“People?” he asked, as if uncertain of the word itself. “But why?” He narrowed his eyes, listening. “I’ll be careful.” 

The old thing moved on, muttering to himself the way a ship does at sea. “Deep roots drink deep… deep hearts and secrets keep… Still souls watch still… Still trees the forest fill.” As he rambled, he reached into the folds of his cloak and withdrew seeds, tossing them here and there until he reached the edge of the woods, where rooted himself, and would go no further. There he reached again into his robes and pulled out a handful of seeds with propeller-like projections. He held them to his face, took a deep breath that never seemed to end, until at last it did with a mighty gust of air, and the wind answered, bearing the seeds high and away as the old thing smiled.  

Later, when the light had fallen, the old thing sat with his back against a tree, peering through the spaces in the canopy at a dark sea of flickering lights. “What are they?” he asked, his voice low with wonder. 

The crickets sang softly from the shadows. 

“I thought you might know.” He settled down further, stretching his legs and interlacing his branchlike fingers behind his hooded head. “I think they’re fireflies. They strayed too far, so the sky stole them.” 

The cry of an owl cut into the night, and the old thing started. 

“What did she say?” A moment passed, then another. “Well, she can hunt where it’s quieter then!” 

The owl fluttered from her perch, her agitated cries fading away in her flight. The old thing shook his head and closed his eyes.

#####

When next he opened his eyes, a new day had come, and sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling him in dancing shadows. As his twisted fingers rubbed the sleep from his eyes, an unfamiliar shape came into focus before him. A young girl stood in a simple frock and frayed apron. Grass stains smudged the fabric near her knees, and her nails were caked with dirt. A pair of boots, overlarge for her feet, were cracked and battered, gaping at the seams. 

She smiled down at him and gave a cheery greeting. “Good morning!” Her hair was a mop of bronze, glinting in the morning sun, and a white kerchief was haphazardly stuffed into an apron pocket

“Good morrow,” he smiled back, half asleep. 

“What are you doing on the ground?”

“Oh, well I–” Suddenly his eyes went wide in realization, and he scrambled to his feet with a croaking yelp. The little girl laughed, and the old thing stumbled away, putting the tree between them and clinging to it with his eyes tightly shut. For a while he stayed that way, and when at last he cautiously opened one eye, he found the little girl beside him, smiling, and so he quickly closed it again.

“What’s wrong, sir?” she asked. 

“You shouldn’t be here!”

“But I like it here. Mommy told me to pick flowers, so I did, but then I saw some prettier ones off the trail, and mommy says not to go off the trail, but I never saw flowers like that and–”

The old thing released his grip on the tree, a look of horror on his face. “You’ve been… picking flowers… from the ground?”

“Yeah, see?” she said, proudly pulling a handful of battered flowers from an apron pocket and presenting them.

“Where are their roots!?” the words sucked into him as a gasp.

“I don’t need those,” she answered matter-of-factly. 

“Well they need them! Give them here!” he said, reaching for the flowers, but the little girl deftly pulled away, cramming them back into an apron pocket. 

“No, you can’t have them; they’re for mommy. What’s wrong with your hands, sir?”

The old thing looked down at his hands for a moment, furrowing his brow. “Wrong?” His former urgency was gone, as if forgotten.

“Why are they so long?” she asked, holding up her own hand.

He looked back and forth between his hands and hers for a moment. “Why are yours so stubby?” he said at last, tapping her outstretched hand with a twisted finger. 

The little girl’s eyes widened as she glanced at her hand. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you study on that elsewhere… away from here.”

“Will you be ok out here all alone?”

“Alone? There are hundreds of trees.” His face furrowed deeper with the realization that he’d been drawn into conversation again.“You hush now. I’ll take you back to the edge.”

He set out at once, striding along as quickly as he could, which was not in the least bit quick, and the little girl followed along behind him, crunching noisily over fallen branches and leaves. 

“Why don’t you make any sound when you walk, sir? Is it because you have crazy feet?”

“I do not have crazy feet. And mind your step; you’re crushing the poor weeds,” he said without looking back.

“But nobody likes weeds.”

“I like them!” his deep voice struck out like a thundercrack, and the little girl gasped as the birds fled from their boughs. 

Now the old thing turned to her and sighed. “If you promise not to talk anymore, I’ll carry you the rest of the way.” The little girl nodded vigorously, and he turned and knelt as she clambered atop his shoulders, gripping his pale blue cowl. Though his movements were as slow as ever, he seemed to carry the child without effort.

“We don’t make any sound!” she exclaimed, delightedly, and the old thing winced.

“Do you remember your promise?”

“Oh… we don’t make any sound,” she whispered, and he heaved a grumbling sigh. 

“What’s your name, sir?”

“My name?” His face twisted in perplexion.

“What people call you.”

“People…” 

“Is it Crazy Feet?”

“No!”

“Well, what is it then?” she whispered, stifling a giggle.

“I… I don’t recall.”

“That’s ok,” she said, forgoing whispers and smiles for a solemn, consoling tone. “Papaw forgets things sometimes too, cause he’s really old. How old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you married?”

“What’s married?”

“It’s when a man and a woman love each other very much, and they have a wedding, and she wears a white dress, and there’s a cake, and–”

“Lord, no!”

“Maybe you were married, but you forgot.”

“I… fine.” 

“And your wife is waiting for you, a beautiful spirit of the forest, and she cries each night because you don’t remember her.” The old thing stopped abruptly, took a breath as if to say something, then sighed and kept moving. 

The little girl prattled on happily as they moved until she felt the grip of overlong fingers around her shoulders. He lifted her from his back and placed her on the forest floor at the edge of the forest, then, still holding her shoulders, leaned close. “Don’t you come back now, ya hear?” he grumbled.

“Okay,” she chirped.

“You must promise.”

“Okay,” she answered without a moment’s thought, and the old thing scowled 

“Promises are sacred things. You break them at your peril.” His voice was stern as stone.

“I cross my heart and hope to die,” she said, placing her hand gravely over her heart.

“No! Do not make that promise!”

“It’s just a saying!” she grinned.

“Mind your words. Words have power.”

The little girl made a pinching motion near one corner of her mouth and swept her hand across to the other corner, then turned and skipped clumsily away in her overlarge boots.

Hours later, the old thing sat cross legged among the trees. “She was just there when I woke up; I don’t know where she came from!” 

There was a brief pause, then he continued. “Picked some flowers, trampled some weeds, nothing else.” 

Another pause.  

“More of them? When? Why?” The next interval of silence twisted the old thing’s face into terror. “That can’t be…” he said, his voice barely a whisper. 

#####

Days later, the old thing stooped over a thorny bush, lightly tracing one of its roses with his spindly finger. “No one’s going to hurt you, Bethany. I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding.”

“Who are you talking to, sir?” A small voice sounded from behind, startling him so that he jerked back, slicing his finger on the thorns. A drop of amber blood beaded on the wound, too thick to flow. Behind him stood the little girl, her apron even dirtier.

“Wha–what? How… how did you find me!?” he sputtered.

“I heard you talking, silly. But I don’t see anyone else.”

“Never you mind that! You run on out of here!” He said, taking her by the shoulders and turning her around.

“Do you have imaginary friends?”

“No.” He began to push her along, but then remembered something. “Girl… you’re not thinking on hurting the trees, are you?”

“Why would I do that?

“Why would anyone?”

“Why do you like trees so much?” He stiffened as she asked this. “They can’t do anything.”

“Trees can do plenty, and they know plenty… plenty more than me and you.”

“They can’t play tag.”

“And what is tag?”

No sooner had he asked this than the little girl tapped him on the arm, shouting, “Tag, you’re it!” and dashed away into the forest.

“Come back here!” The old thing shouted, but the little girl just ducked away behind a tree. “Don’t you step on anything!” Then he sighed and bowed his head. A moment later he tilted his head, listening, and a smile spread across his furrowed face as he set out. When his spindly fingers reached around a tree and grabbed her arm, she squealed.

“How did you find me so fast?”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re supposed to run now; you better hurry!” she said, trying to push him away.

“Why would I do that?” 

“So that I can catch you!” She continued to push him.

“And why would you do that?” Though his hand lay near his hip, his fingers scratched his chin thoughtfully. 

“So you can catch me! But you have to say ‘tag, you’re it!’ or it doesn’t count.”

“I’m taking you back to the edge of the woods.”

“Pleeeeeeease! Just once and I won’t ever come back again; I promise,” she smiled.

“You don’t keep your promises.”

“I cross my heart and hope to die!”

“What did I tell you about that?” Though he stood some feet away, his accusatory gesture put his finger just in front of the girl’s face.

“Words have power,” she recited in a dismissive singsong, rolling her eyes. 

“That’s right. Don’t speak on death, lest you wake him.”

For a moment the girl’s eyes widened as she considered this. “What words should I use then? For a promise?”

“A promise must be enough without other words. That is its power.”

“I-I-I-I-I p-r-r-o-o-o-o-m-i-s-e,” she said, giving great emphasis to every sound in the words.

The old thing sighed and shook his head. “I’ll hide this once.” She clapped excitedly upon hearing this.

“I’ll give you a head start, since you’re really old and might have a heart attack,” she said, turning her back and counting. 

“One, two, three, four, five…“ 

Hearing nothing, she turned back around. 

“You’re supposed to–“ 

But the old thing was gone. 

Her eyes went wide and she began to search. But after some time, the little girl began to tire of the game. 

“Ok, you can come out now… I give up!” she shouted to the forest, but no reply came that she could hear. “I said I give up; you win!” she shouted again.

Her eyes slowly widened in the silence, darting here and there, and for a moment she felt as though the weight of many eyes was upon her. Then the floor of the forest began to shift and rise, a mass of leaves and sticks and dirt that towered over her. The great mass trembled violently, like a dog drying off, and the cloak of forest colors fell away. There stood the old thing, smiling down at the little girl, whose mouth fell agape.

“How did you do that?” she asked in awe.

“I played your game. Now you must keep your promise.” So saying, he turned to leave her, but she called out.

“But sir, can’t you carry me? You wouldn’t want me to step on anything.” She smiled slyly, and the old thing sighed and knelt.

This time as he carried her, he was the one to ask the questions. “Does anyone else know about this place? Your mother? Your father?” 

“No, it’s my secret. They only know that I like to go to the woods and play with my friend.” He froze in his tracks.

“You told them about me?” 

“They don’t believe me. They think you’re my imaginary friend. Daddy says no one ever lived in these woods, and they were so old they didn’t have a name.”

“These woods hold many names.”

“Daddy said he’s going to help make the woods safe for children to play.” Again the old thing stopped walking. This time he set the little girl down and stooped to look into her eyes.

“What did you say? What does that mean?” His dusky eyes swept back and forth between hers.

“He said they’re dangerous and they need to be taken care of so houses could be built where children can play.” 

The old thing’s face warped with fear, and he stood quickly. “Oh, no…” He tilted his head, as if listening to something for a moment. “You must stop him.”

“I don’t think I can. Daddy’s really excited about the ‘new project.’” Then she puffed up, broadening her shoulders, donning a stern expression, and speaking in a much deeper voice as she recited, “It’s gonna provide jobs and help the economy.’’

“Nonsense babble! No good ever came from harming trees,” he said, forcefully. Then again he cocked his head, closing his eyes in focus for a moment, listening. After a time, he nodded and spoke.  “Could you take me to your father? Maybe I could help him understand.” 

“Sure!” The little girl said, her face lighting up with a smile. “Then they’ll know you’re real, and you can have supper with us.” She took him by the hand and began to pull him along. “Come on, it’s not far.” 

#####

Soon enough they had reached the edge of the forest, and the old thing stopped allowing himself to be led. “What’s wrong, sir?” she said, trying to pull him along.

“Just… give me a moment,” he said, warily eyeing the open sky.  The noonday sun sailed through wide seas of unbroken blue. No more canopies would veil its light.  At length he allowed himself to be led again and soon found that his feet gripped fewer and fewer leaves and sticks, until they gripped only grass. Then, cresting a hill, he gazed upon a sight that froze him, a settlement of man. Seeing this, he crossed his arms so that his sleeves swallowed his spindly fingers, concealing them. The steps he took from then on were so small that his strange feet never emerged from his robes. His face he cast down, hidden within his hood from the passersby whose murmurs he did not hear. What he heard instead, to which the others were deaf, contorted his face in horror.

He tried to ignore it, to keep his eyes on the stones of the road, but eventually he did look up, and he saw at last that he stood surrounded by the mangled corpses of trees. Their limbs had been hacked from them, their bark flayed. Their trunks, laid bare, were bled of sap, and hacked, and hewn, and painted, and stacked so that the old thing might not have recognized them if he could not hear them. 

Some of the dead were pressed into the earth in rows of white. They stood in formation, encircling a greater heap of the dead to which the little girl led the old thing, pulling him by his sleeve. 

“This is where I live!” Her merry words sounded as if miles away. 

She skipped clumsily ahead and pressed upon the great wall of death so that a part of it swung inward, revealing a hollow interior. “Come on!” She gestured for him to follow, but he stood rooted to the stones, trembling. The little girl approached him and grabbed his arm through its sleeve. “Don’t be scared,” she cooed. 

“I can’t.” The old thing’s face was drained of color, like long-dead wood. “Nothing… grows.” His creaking voice came as a whisper.

For a moment, the girl’s face knit in concern, then she brightened. “We have a flower on the table. Come see!” 

Hearing this, the old thing perked up a bit and tentatively allowed himself to be led again. He winced and sucked air in through his teeth as his feet gripped at the flattened trunks that ran along the ground inside. No sunlight fell through the canopy of corpses overhead, nor did any wind play among the dead, for all the cracks and spaces were packed with clay and moss. The air was still as the grave. 

The little girl led him further into this grave, to a room where the dead had been intricately carved into various shapes. Four chairs surrounded a wooden table, upon which stood a clay pot holding a wilting flower. 

“See? You like flowers. You talk to it while I go get daddy,” she said before bounding away.

The old thing slowly approached the pot, peering over its edge, his face falling as he looked inside. The roots of the flower had been cut. Its stem strained to draw in water from the shallow pool in which it rested. Glancing about to ensure he was alone, he withdrew one of his elongated hands from his sleeves and gently touched the flower, knitting his brow in troubled concentration.

“Shh… shh,” he said. 

A deep voice sounded from another room, startling the old thing, who quickly tucked his hand into his sleeve and turned about. After a muffled exchange between the deep voice and the girl’s, heavy footsteps began to approach. The old thing took a deep breath and gathered himself. 

A large man entered the room with a round, red face and bushy beard. His woolen shirt was speckled with the dust of the dead. “What have we here?” the large man said, scanning the old thing up and down with narrowed eyes. “Some sort of monk?”

“It’s Crazy Feet, daddy! I told you he was real!”

“Why don’t you run along, sprout? Go get mommy and tell her your friend is here—she’s out back.” The voice and face of the large man were soft and subdued as he spoke to the little girl, who hurried to find her mother, but as he turned back to the old thing, his jaw set. His narrowed eyes scanned over the deep furrows of the old thing’s face with a mixture of perplexity and distrust. 

“I don’t know who you are,” the large man began, “but you’d best stay away from my daughter.”

“Your daughter comes to the forest. She follows me!” the old thing said urgently. “I have asked her to stay away twice now.” 

Ben started at the old thing’s deep, croaking voice, tilting his head knitting his brow for a moment. “And what are you doing in those woods? They’re uninhabited.”

“They are not. Hundreds live there. Thousands. More.”

Again, the large man regarded the old thing for time, the suspicion in his round, red face deepening. “You’re confused. This here is west as any have settled.” A stubby red finger pointed to the floor as he said this.  

The old thing sighed, resisting the urge to knead his brow with his fingers. “You must not harm the forest.”

“Harm the forest?” The words came with a subdued laugh.

“I have been told that people will come to harm the forest.”

“You can’t harm what isn’t people.”

The old thing’s eyes widened in shock. “You don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand. We’re thriving here, growing. More homes are needed, so more trees must be felled.” 

“Why can you not dig your homes into the hills, as you once did?”

“As we once did? My grandfather’s father lived this way, in the damp and dirt. That’s no place to raise children.”

“But how many must die so you may live?”  

Ben’s narrow eyes narrowed further. “It’s time for you to leave. If you come back here, if you speak to my daughter again, you’ll regret it.”

“I am trying to help you,” the old thing pleaded.

“You should help yourself. I don’t want to hurt you… but I will.” 

The large man squared up with the old thing, who sighed and bowed his head. “So be it,” he croaked. Then, with many small steps, through the whispers of onlookers, he put the great monument of death that was the settlement of man behind him. 

#####

The sun and moon and stars wheeled across the sky, and the old thing stood silently in a clearing in the woods. His feet dug into the mud of a creek bed whose waters lapped at his robes, and his hands and face were turned up to the morning sun, smiling with eyes closed. That smile faded as the sound of snapping sticks and crunching leaves approached. 

“You break more than branches coming here,” the old thing said as the little girl came into view. 

She looked at the ground, saying nothing, and he turned to leave. “Wait!” she cried out. “They’re coming!”

“I know it.”

“Daddy will be cross with me, but I had to tell you!”

“He’s just trying to protect you. He’s right, you ought not be here… none of you.”

“The flower you talked to grew roots. They came out of the pot, all over the table.” She regarded the old thing with wide eyes as she spoke. “Mommy tried to move it and her arm got hurt. She said she hurt it gardening, but I saw. It was the roots.” The old thing stepped out of the creek and toward the girl, who looked at his feet fearfully. “Did you tell the flower to hurt mommy?”

“No. Sometimes, when things grow, they do harm. It can’t be helped. I’ve tried.” He looked westward as he spoke. 

“But I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Her wide eyes brimmed with worry.

The old thing sighed and stooped before the girl, placing his enormous hand on her shoulder, which she regarded with concern. “Promise me that you will leave this place and not return.” She nodded gravely. 

“What will you do though?”

“By day’s end, I will be safe under new trees.”

“You promise?” 

“I do.”

The little girl hugged the old thing tightly around his neck, and he closed his hand around her torso, hugging her back with the length of his fingers alone. Then she left him. 

With each hour, the sun wheeled higher in the sky, and the shadows shrank away. When the group of men approached the treeline, they cast no shadows at all. They carried axes, saws, and shovels, and behind them came oxen pulling carts. All together, more than one hundred men stood against the forest, and each of them watched, squinting their eyes, as a lone figure emerged from the trees. He drew in a breath that seemed to never end, until it burst out of him as words, and the wind answered.

“Hear me and come no further!” his voice rolled across the field like thunder, and the men exchanged glances, clamoring amongst themselves and pressing their caps to their heads, lest the wind take them. 

The large man with the red face stepped forward first. “Stand aside, you old fool!” he shouted. The rest of the team, seeing this, followed. As they drew closer, the old thing held up his strange hands, which brought them again to a halt, clamoring.

“Please!” The old thing pulled back his hood, and wisps of silver threads spilled from his head like corn silk. “You can still go home…” The clamoring rose among the men, who gestured at the old thing’s hands.

The red-faced man turned to the others. “You hear that, boys? We can all just go home!” He said with a smile. The men exchanged fearful glances, but said nothing. Then the red-faced man’s smile faded. “I guess we won’t need to get paid then, either.” A murmurous discontent began to spread among the crowd. “That’s alright, we can just say Crazy Feet told us to go home. And hell, when we can’t afford our homes, we can just live in holes in the hills.” The murmuring grew, and the red-faced man’s smile with it as he turned back to the old thing. “You’d best run along now, before you get hurt.” So saying, the red-faced man strode forward, brushing against the old thing forcefully, sending him sprawling to the ground. 

The men marched behind their leader, giving the old thing a wide berth, but not looking at him, as they closed in on the trees. With a sickening crack, an axe bit deep into rough bark, and the old thing cried out, covering his ears. More blows followed, biting through bark and trunk, and the old thing curled into fetal position, clasping his great hands around his head. The grunts and shouts of labor echoed through the trees, and suddenly the old thing began to seize. His body convulsed as the rain of blows fell against the forest—his eyes rolled back into his head and frothy sap trickled from his mouth.

“No!” A small voice squealed, and the little girl came running. She knelt at the old thing’s side and placed a hand on his brow.

“Sprout! Stay away from him!” the red-faced man shouted, striding toward his daughter.

“You’re hurting him!” the little girl shouted back. 

Then a voice cried out among the men, a plea for help. His foot was snared by roots. Several men struggled to pull their fellow free, but even their combined strength could not break the grasp of the forest. 

The red-faced man was oblivious to the growing struggle. He snatched up the little girl, deaf to her protests, and carried her away from the old thing.  

The snared worker was now a man-shaped mass of roots, writhing in panic as the others scrambled back in terror.

“You know better than to come out here!” the red-faced man, scolded.

“You can’t hurt the trees—it hurts him!” the little girl wailed. “He can talk to them! He talked to the flower!”

“Hush now, child.” 

“Help! Help!” More cries rang out, more roots burst forth, snaring more men. 

The red-faced man set his daughter on one of the carts hitched to the oxen. “Why don’t you look after Ol’ Ben for now?” he said, patting the ox on the back. “I’ll come check on you in just a minute.” Though he spoke softly, his brow was knit and his head tilted at the shouting that was coming from the men. When he turned back to see the source of the commotion, he broke into a run. Half of the men were smothered in roots. Some tried to free those that had been snared, hacking with knives or axes, but the roots regrew as quickly as they were severed, constricting like enraged serpents. 

A tangle of roots caught the red-faced man midstride, and the little girl began to scream. But her screams were soon drowned by those of the snared men. The roots squeezed tighter, burrowing deep into mouths and noses and throats so that screams were strangled into sopping moans. The men’s arms were lifted, as if clawing for the heavens to save them, then snapping and twisting and stretching into hideous proportions.

Then came a great popping sound, like a fresh log on a fire, the splitting of wood rising from every man, overwhelming their voices. The little girl leapt from the cart and ran to her father, who could not reach for her, as his arms were forced upward. She clawed at the roots that bound him, desperately trying to pull him free. She heard his ribs breaking and his lungs gurgling as they filled with sap. And then her father stood utterly still, as did a hundred other men, now silent. With the struggle ended, the roots fell away of their own accord, unveiling a hundred young trees whose trunks bore marks like screaming faces.

Her wailing abated as she touched the tree that stood where her father once did with trembling hands. Movement drew her terror-stricken eyes from the tree. Languid and halting, the old thing rose from the grass to stand at his full height, much taller than the girl had ever seen him, a tree in the guise of man. He donned his pale blue hood, covering the wisps of corn silk, and took a step toward the girl, who lurched back with a gasp.

“You may go.” He took another halting step forward, his fingers raking through the leaves on the forest floor, and the girl fell as she stumbled backward. “But if you return…” He raised one of his enormous hands to point at the tree that once was her father. 

“Please!” she sobbed. “Bring him back!”

“No.” His furrowed face was expressionless.  “I will watch over him. I watch over them all.”

The old thing took another step closer, and the girl shrieked and scrambled upright, bolting away through the fields. He turned to the tree that was the red-faced man and ran his spindly fingers over the mark of the screaming face.  

“Shh…. shh… stop screaming. Rejoice that none need die so you may live.” He moved to another tree, rubbing its trunk, then another, slowly, ponderously. He went to the oxen, who had watched the roots do their work with indifference, and unhitched them from their carts. Then he moved on, deeper into the woods, muttering to himself the way an old house does in the wind. “Deep roots drink deep… deep hearts and secrets keep… Still souls watch still… Still trees the forest fill.”