I live in a tree

Trigger warnings: none of the violence is explicit, but it's themed around the murder of a child.

I live in a tree. My tree is big and strong, and its roots claw the earth like an eagle's. They go down, down, down, wrapping around rocks, and mud, and a secret.

Our little secret, he said.

My tree doesn't bear fruit, but its leaves fall every autumn. Looking at it helps me know what month it is. Not with exactitude, perhaps, but I'm sure it tries its best. It's not really its fault that the summer heat lasts longer every year.

December used to be my favourite time of the year, because I got Christmas presents, and we had huge dinners with fancy food we didn't get to eat any other time, like shrimp, or those little pies with the thick crust and the sweet lemon filling. On Christmas Eve, we would drive to my grandparents house to wait for Santa. All of my aunts and uncles would be there, and they'd bring my cousins along. I didn't like singing carols, because none of us could really carry a tune and the sound we made together was something truly awful. Oh, but I did love the games. Like the one in which we pretended to be reindeers, and dad would be Santa, and he'd have to trap us all to make us pull the sleigh, or the one in which we climbed on top of each other to try and reach the fireplace.

That was in my other life, though. The life before the tree.

It's easier to think about that life on spring days, when the sound of birds dance around the forest, carried through the trees by the same air currents that transport pollen from flower to flower. In spring, when the violets and buttercups are blooming, and butterflies and ladybugs decorate the trunk of my tree, I can remember the good bits. They make me smile.

I don't like the winter anymore. Not since he stole it. Winter leaves the forest bare, until there's nothing to do but think about the secret. Then, the rot creeps up from under the snow, grabbing and pulling and biting until I can barely move.

I don't get many visitors. Human visitors, at least. Squirrels and toads are fun for a while, but they don't enjoy talking as much as I do. Mom told me once that, when you're wishing for something you can't have, the best way to fix it is to want something different. So when the loneliness threatens to choke me, I close my eyes as hard as I can, and wish for a rainbow.

Being alone isn't the worst part. In the other life, I often played in these woods on my own. No, the worst days are the ones when I forget. The days when i can't recall my name or the face of my second grade teacher, or if I ever had a hamster. His face, however, I never forget, nor the strong smell of alcohol coming out of his mouth when he pushed it against mine. The rasping texture of his beard. His fingers sinking into the skin of my arms.

My tree is strong, yes, but it can be a little scary, because it's gnarly and twisted and very old. It stands on the left side of a clearing that I used to think was beautiful. I guess, when you've seen it enough, anything can become ugly, even the pinecones, the ivy, the river stones. In a way, it's a comfort, knowing that any place I ended up in would have felt ugly after a while.

Sometimes I have bad thoughts. Ironically, they come on the best days. In the summer, more often than not. Summers are not meant to be spent alone. If he had brought any other children here, maybe I would have a friend to look for tadpoles with in the little stream at the end of the clearing, and we could stare at the stars together, and tell stories. Like a forever sleepover. Secrets weight less when they're shared.

I don't really mean that, of course. There is a reason sleepovers end. Like dad used to say, cruelty is a choice, and I have to choose to be good. Good like dad was, not like him. Never like him.

Nights on the tree are actually pretty amazing. As it turns out, there are lots of things that awake when humans are sleep. In the other life, I had never seen an owl up close, only pictures. Their eyes are enormous, and, when they blink, they look more like animatronics than real birds. Besides, crickets don't scare of me now, so I get to see their tiny little hairs rubbing against each other when they chirp.

Sometimes I wonder if he's still alive. At first I believed I would know when he died. It terrified me, thinking that we were connected, that he would seek me out. I guess that fear was my way of holding on to the other life. I don't feel it anymore. In my tree, no one can touch me. Not even him.

And when it finally happens, he will have a grave, and fresh cut flowers that are as dead as he is, and he'll lay in a cemetery made of stone with the other dead things.

There is this saying, "count your lucky stars". I don't know if my stars are lucky, but it might be a good thing yet, that he buried me here. This way, my rotting corpse feeds the grass, making it green, shiny, alive. My bones are part of the foundation of the forest. I just wish he could have waited until I was bigger, because soon I'll be completely spent, and I won't be any use to my tree.

Even so, even if i don't get a tombstone with my name on it, even if my family doesn't have a place to cry, even if the only gift I can give is my frail little body, in a way, I am alive.

And I live in a tree.