Tree
A few days after the moonberry night, Linden awoke to the sound of wind rustling through the forest
canopy-not the usual kind of breeze, but one that whispered.
It was soft and fluttery, like a voice made of wind and memory. It drifted in through the window of his
stump-home and tickled the tips of his pointed ears.
“Come find me…”
Linden sat up in his bed of thistledown and blinked. “Did someone say something?” he murmured.
He sipped the last of his rosehip tea, packed a satchel with fresh honeycakes, and set off into the
dappled morning light. Something-or someone-was calling to him, and he was too curious not to
follow.
As he passed the brook, he met Pip the owlet swooping low over the water.
“I heard it too,” Pip said, landing on a mossy rock. “The whisper in the wind. It said to go north.”
“And that’s where the Old Grove is,” said Linden thoughtfully.
No one had visited the Old Grove in a long time. It was said that the trees there were ancient and
wise-so old, in fact, they only spoke once in a hundred summers.Linden’s Magical Summer
By the time they reached the edge of the grove, Thistle had joined them, carrying a small satchel o
