Chapter Text
Pine, spruce, aspen, birch, all green and budding, growing, reaching. Winter lingers long into spring, the nip of cold creeping in through a slit in the window, in the dark, before the sun. Yet the days are warm enough for jeans and a cardigan, light filtering through the branches, turning dark shadows into brilliant colours. Here, amid soft moss and sloping rock and crooked tree, all is quiet, but for birds and wind and the rustle her boots make on the ground. Here, she could be home.
The birch is the same green, light and supple, as in her childhood forest; the pine as sturdy, the green of its needles as deep. The song of the blackbird is the same, and the rhythmic drumming of the great spotted woodpecker. The forest encloses her in its vibrant and sheltering embrace, familiar and safe. Here, there are no hostile looks or strange accents, no echoing footsteps on the hard stone floor.
The bark feels rough under her cheek, the trunk teeming with barely discernible life. Her skin tingles, blood rushing. No one has touched her with keen intent for so long, only with careless, indifferent hands. Steering and prodding, come here and go there. Eat, sleep, exercise. Be happy. It’s not a prison, yet there is a gate and doors that lock and a tacit silent understanding not to go beyond the garden, but she has never been very good at staying in the beaten path.
Here, in the green, she can wait forever, almost home.
Here, beneath the ancient tree, she can listen to the blackbird and dream.