“Maybe the heron could fly up and get some branches.” Though Kate knew the delicate heron could never get as many as they needed.

It almost felt like the forest was waiting for something from them. Kate guessed it made sense—here she was, just showing up like this, expecting to collect armloads of wood for free. Maybe it wanted something back.

That was fair. But what? What would a forest want?

“All right,” she said quietly. “Hi, forest. We’re looking for firewood to make our train go. Want to trade? What can we give you?”

The fishing cat cocked her head. “Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody!” Kate blushed. She didn’t want to admit she was talking to a forest.

But she kept going in her head. We really don’t mind, she thought. We’re happy to pay. We’d be grateful.

And then it was the oddest thing, because a thought appeared in her head:

Are you sure?

It was a thought, but it wasn’t her thought. It came in a voice that felt old, and very gentle, and very strong. And not alone, but like many voices speaking in unison.

It was the forest. She knew it.

I’m sure, she thought.

And that was that. It started as soon as she thought it.

The bottoms of her feet tingled. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it gave her an uncontrollable urge to take off her shoes. And not just her shoes but her socks, too: Suddenly she was craving the feeling of prickly, loamy soil under her feet.

So she took them off. Tom was doing the same thing. The second her bare soles touched the ground, she curled her toes right into it. And the really weird thing was, her toes kept on going.

They were getting longer. They stretched and pushed down into the cold dirt, like when you bury your feet in the sand at the beach, but much, much more. She felt them going deeper and deeper into the dirt.

At the same time her legs were getting longer, and her arms. She was getting taller, growing so fast that the ground zoomed down away from her.

It should have been scary, but for some reason it just wasn’t. It actually felt kind of amazing. Kate threw her suddenly huge arms wide, and as she did they stiffened, and her fingers spread and multiplied and then burst gloriously into twigs and foliage. She grew up, up, up, and it was like she was stretching her back after a long sleep. She was turning into a tree.