That’s where the magic started for me, I guess. Not in a book, because I didn’t know what I was creating from its pages. I thought I was only taking comfort from those fairy tales and Wentworth’s illustrations, not creating a walking, talking version of Mattie, full of hurt and pain.

That tree and Raylene are the only good things I remember from Hillbilly Holler. In the World As It Is, one’s burned down, and the other tried to kill me before we made our peace. But maybe it’ll be different here. Maybe, even with everything else that’s so awful here, the tree will at least be here.

I circle around through the woods because the tree’s in the fields behind the house, and I don’t want anybody to see me making my way toward it. It was always a private place before and maybe my enemies don’t know about it.

I’m in a curious state of mind as I walk, weaving my way through the underbrush. I start at every sound, my nerves all a-twitch. Anticipation’s running high that I’m going to see the tree again. But I’m also dreading that it’ll be like it was the last time I saw it: nothing more than a charred ruin of a stump. Overgrown. Dead. Gone.

When I finally get to the field where the old tree stands, I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. It’s still here, as big as ever. I thought it might be smaller than I remembered, the way the things from your past usually seem, but it’s still huge. It’d take three or four of me to touch hands reaching around the base of its trunk, and the canopy has an enormous spread, bigger than any of the oversized infill housing that started to appear in Lower Crowsea during the mid-nineties. They’d jam these monster homes onto a tiny lot with no regard for the look of the neighbourhood.

But the neighbourhood here is just fine. That old oak. The apple trees at the other end of the field, growing up out of a mess of thorny thickets. The field itself, grasses and weeds swaying in the light breeze that’s coming from the woods behind me.

I take the time to study the edge of the forest surrounding the field, longer still to check out the second field that runs up to the back of the old house. I can’t see anybody. And I can’t stop grinning as I walk slowly through the tall grass and weeds to where the tree’s waiting for me.