Roots

The forest is cold, cold enough that all the sensible creatures are burrowed away or firmly rooted in the ground with coats of snow to keep their branches out of the wind. So much for being a half intelligent human, I suppose, because I didn’t even remember a jacket. Just the thin sweater and jeans I had on when I woke up and the thick rubber boots I pulled on when I ran out of the cabin.

I should really be colder. Frostbit, even.

I trudge forward, dragging last night’s three feet of snow along on my pants. I’ve never seen trees grow so tall, it must be the air. It blows past my ears in swift gusts that smell like cold water and pine needles. Not even a whiff of gas, or sewage, or sweat.

When I stop to catch my breath, I can hear the wind singing in the branches, a long hollow whistle that brushes through the arms of one of the trees next to me. I can hear the same song running through me, blowing through my sleeves and into my hair that’s now stiff and infused with needles.

It’s hard to explain, but the sound of it is happy, joyful, loving, as if the forest was a tight family or one harmonious instrument. Something that is perfect, and it calls to me, telling me to join in and be perfect and loved.

And I want to go.

To join in, let my roots sink into the ground and join them in the stars, but their song worries me. Nick ran off in the middle of the night, and after what he’d seen I can’t blame him. But of all the places for him to run off in, this is the most dangerous. It’s too perfect. Too many fellow trees. Too pure a dirt. Too friendly. Too… tempting.

I stop for a second, letting my feet sink into the snow.

He’d be happy here. If he was going to root anywhere in the world, this would be the place I’d pick for him. Maybe… Maybe if I stay too… Maybe we’re close enough… Maybe we could spend our lives together, like our parents would have wanted, maybe we’d live forever up here, stretching our branches out in the fresh snow.

I begin to drag my feet through the snow again.

If nothing else, I have to find him, so we can root closely.

It’s slow to start again, because my legs are already stiff from the wait, and my roots have dug through my boots. But maybe that’s okay. I’d worn them for months just to make sure I wouldn’t root, along with the thick coat and the tight braid in my hair that kept any unconscious transformations hidden. I’d kept up appearances around humans, but now? My legs are already grabbing the ground with every step, and my braid had obviously exploded into the stiff green needles that I’d worried about for months. I can see the tough bark working its way across my arms, and feel the stiffness working its way into my core. And the song…

The song…

It calls to me…

I stop and listen, feeling the wind run across my face. It’s like everything I’d ever needed. Like, I’ve always had water, and sunlight, and dirt, but this is something more. Something I needed more than anything else, and I can’t explain it. I can’t explain it, but I could root here. I could be here. Forever. And nowhere else. As long as it was here.

“Ella!” Sophie yells from behind me, and I can hear her feet struggling against the snow.

I turn, ripping the roots from the ground. “Sophie?”

“Ella…” she puffs, finally settling her feet into the snow next to me. “Ella. I’m so glad I found you.” She grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me into hug.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. She was also under dressed, wearing only the jeans and sweater she had on last night, both of which had soaked through. I liked that sweater too, it was the one the lumberjack had given her when he’d found us in these woods. The one she was wearing when we fell asleep in front of the fireplace last night, trying not to think about what the cabin was made of and what that meant. The one she’d worn before everything had gone to shit.

“You’ll freeze.” I pull my feet onto the snow again, and pull her closer into my arms.

“Won’t you?” she shivers, and holds me tighter. Like I’m warm. Like I have any warmth to give like this.

“We don’t both have to.”

She lifts her head from my shoulder, her lips just inches away from mine. They brush my cheeks with warm puffs of air. “That’s why I’m here, Ella. We found Nick.”

My skin must have gotten even more barky because she hugs me again.

Nick couldn’t not think about the cabin, or the lumberjack, or the fire. He couldn’t not feel the sadness in the song and the deadness in the cabin floors. He’d even told me last night what he’d heard in the wind.

“The trees lost a brother today.” He’d told me, “They need another.”

“It’s not like we have a sapling on hand, Nick.” I’d whispered over Sophie, who was asleep on the floor next to me, wrapped in a cocoon of at least three blankets. “Besides, you saw the trees outside. There’s pinecones everywhere.”

“You don’t understand!” he’d whispered, tugging at his hair before it turned into needles suddenly.

“Nick. Calm down.” I’d told him.

He sighed, letting his needly hair relax into its normal brown.

“The trees here are fine,” I whispered. “It’s one guy with an axe, it’s not like home.”

“You’re right.” He took a deep breath and started walking back to the bedroom he was sleeping in. “You’re right.”

That night he’d rooted, filling the forest with this happy song again. And I knew that when I’d ran out.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “He’s tall. Pine tree. Good thick trunk already.”

My tears feel like sap, rolling down my face and into her hair. I hope she doesn’t mind. It’s the same color anyway. And she’s warm, like a human needs to be and like I want to be. And soft. And strong, holding my ribs so hard that I’m afraid that I might grow around her if I stand here too long.

If Nick saw us like this, he would say that thing he always said. “This gives a new meaning to ‘tree-hugger.’” And then he’d laugh until Sophie let go of my hand, blushing so hard that she couldn’t speak. God, he was a jerk.

But he was my jerk. The only one I’d had when our parents rooted. The only one who would tell me it was okay, when it wasn’t. The only one I’ll ever have if I stay here.

I pull my roots out of the ground and, as I shift, I see her face, her tears already freezing to her eyelashes. It makes me feel more human, just looking at her, feeling sadness like she does.

She was human. So very, very human.

“How far?” I sniff.

“Not this far.” She laughed, it was short and awkward. Nothing is funny except how cold and sad we are. “You would have seen him if you’d gone the right way.”

I nod, and look down as I pull my feet up again, but there’s no snow left to stand on here. The roots had dug through it all. She nods at them, as if acknowledging what they are, and what they can do to me if I let them.

She’d never seen me grow this far, only my pine needle hair and the spots of bark on my shoulders. She’d never seen my roots. Maybe Nick’s before he ran out, but never mine. Did that make me stronger or weaker? Or just more attached to humans than the earth? I don’t know, but seeing them must have scared her.

“Let’s keep moving.” I tell her, holding her hand as we walk through our old tacks.

I felt the cold on my skin as the bark recedes with the roots, but it still doesn’t matter