Go! urge the dead girls, but the tree pulls my hair, branches pluck, tear my skin. Sap stings my eyes. I am almost smothered by the tree’s amber core, its dark heart, its taproot drinking minerals.
She loves you, say the dead girls. You didn’t know.
And I didn’t, but now she puts her palms on my face, looks long at the wound in my side. She and Ian offer their hands. I reach through growth rings. My hand breaks through the bark to grasp theirs, holding on tight while they pull me back into the world. The earth is soft, almost warm. Birds sing and scatter across the tin sky.
“Remember,” asks Eve, “our footprints in the mud?”
Words overlap, clutter my mouth. I can’t speak, but if I could I would say, “Eve, my friend.”