I wonder if she’s here, that aspect of the White Deer Woman who told me she used to listen to my stories when I sat under its branches and poured out my heart. Or if she’s not here . . . well, maybe I can call her to me through the connection we have to the tree. Because she found a way out of this world inside my head. If I call her back, maybe she can take me out of here, too.

I don’t sense her presence when I’m under the tree, but then I never sensed it when I was a kid, either. Or rather, I sensed something peaceful and comforting, but it’s what I always feel in a place like this.

I lay a hand on the trunk.

“I’m sorry about Raylene,” I say. “She was getting back at me, and you shouldn’t have had to suffer because of that.”

Sometimes it feels like that’s always going to be the way of the world. The innocent get hurt, and no one really pays any attention unless it happens right in their face and they can’t possibly ignore it. But even then they manage to forget pretty damn fast.

Why does it have to be like that? Why does wishing we could all just get along and take care of each other have to be a naive, innocent hope instead of something we could all actually work toward?

I guess I’ll never know. Because the people who do the hurting don’t care, and they’re not about to explain themselves in terms that would make any kind of sense to a normal person.

I still have my hand on the rough bark of the tree. I move closer and hug it, the bark scratchy against my cheek and catching in the tangles of my hair. I can’t possibly get my arms all around it, but it feels good to stand here, holding onto something this full of comfort.

I don’t know how long I would have stood there—looking, I’m sure, like some bad editorial cartoon of a die-hard environmentalist—but there’s a sudden crash in the branches above me. I look up and see a woman and a pony. Impossibly, a woman riding a pony has suddenly appeared in the branches above me, but I don’t get the time to puzzle it out. The woman manages to grab onto a branch, but the pony comes barreling down toward me, changing into a little man along the way.

I jump aside and he just misses me—all little man now, nothing of the pony left except that his dreadlocks are the same colour as was the pony’s mane. He lands on his feet like a cat, expelling a sharp whuft of air from between his lips, and we stare at each other. He looks as ready to bolt as I am.