And then I was in the Hummingbird Grove again, but it had gone strange, the colors wild and saturated and off, like in an old movie. Things were hazy but alive, as if everything was realer than it was supposed to be, more solid somehow. Like I was the thing the plants and flowers and birds were dreaming, like I was just a thought in the Hummingbird Grove’s mind.

The boy from last time stood before me. He was pale, and his little suit seemed dirty, like he’d been playing in it.

“This is a special place,” he said. “Not everyone can come here, you know.”

“You mean the Hummingbird Grove?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “The true Hummingbird Grove, the one others can’t see. It’s always here, tucked away beneath everything, and only certain people may find it.”

“So I’m one of the lucky ones, huh?” I said.

“I suppose, yes, you could say that.” The boy smiled strangely at me. “Would you like to see a trick?”

“Sure.”

The boy gestured toward the whirring birds. A large hummingbird flew right up to his face, hovering an inch from his nose like it wanted to ask him a question.

“Watch,” he said.

The boy extended his pointer finger. The hummingbird slowed down. It perched on his finger.

“Now you try.”

Slowly I extended my arm and stuck my finger out, and another hummingbird landed on it. I eyed a tiny one darting around a feeder while a bigger bird drank freely. I nodded at the bird, and it flew to me, landing on my arm. Another one came, perching like a pirate’s parrot on my shoulder, then two more. I whistled, and they all took off from me at once, flying in a perfect spiral formation.

The boy smiled at me, and it made me feel good, you know? He had the kind of smile that made you trust him, like he was just so happy to see you he could hardly stand it.

“But I am happy to see you, Lee,” he said.

“How do you know my name?” I said.

The boy’s blue eyes shone with a kind of inward-burning light, like stained glass with the sun streaming through it.

Then something happened. The world went dark for a moment, as if a curtain had been dropped over everything, like the sun itself had been snuffed out. I stood in darkness, deep in a forest with trees all around and no people anywhere. I could feel the woods slithering around me, awake and alive.

In front of me stood a tree, a massive oak as thick as a car, with a huge split in the middle of it, like some giant with an ax had cloven it right through the heart. Its bark seemed to swirl and move, forming a woven cross and a spinning wheel and a lantern and a dagger and the slash and stitch of runes glimmering a moment and then fading, and the leaves above shimmered in the breeze. It was a living tree, a breathing, whispering thing, and it seemed familiar, like I had seen it somewhere before.