They started coming to the house in the fall. At first, it just seemed like a couple of weirdos, looking for a place to do drugs. Bleary-eyed and slightly incoherent, they all asked me the same thing: Could I please direct them to the tree. Not a tree. The tree.

I had been living on my own at the edge of Whitaker Forest for over forty years, but damned if I knew what or even where the tree was.

"The forest is full of trees," I would say, striking a match to light the tobacco in my pipe. "Just go for a walk down the trail."

They would stare at me blankly, and after a few awkward moments of silence, would turn and head round back to the trail.

After a while I stopped answering the door when I saw them through the peephole.

Sirens were wailing down Seventh Avenue, but inside our fourth-floor studio apartment, the only sound was my husband Mike's ragged breathing. He sat across from me at our small laminate kitchen table, shivering despite the summer heat radiating from the asphalt outside.

His cheeks were flushed crimson, and sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead. Every few minutes he rubbed at his wedding ring as if it irritated him. I thought it was just the flu – some nasty bug that was going around on the subway.

Beneath the fluorescent light, his untouched pasta slowly cooled.

After a while he stood up, blew his nose, and mumbled something. I couldn't really make out what he said, but it sounded something like: "The Tree needs sustenance."

I called out after him, but he just looked at me with a vacant stare, seemingly unable to remember having said anything.

That night I felt him toss and turn in the bed next to me. The mattress beneath us practically vibrated with his shivering. I reached out to him, but he batted my arms away and grunted. I lay awake staring at the neon light bleeding through our blinds, counting his breaths until I drifted off.

When I woke up the next morning, Mike was gone.

Kyle's fingernails clawed into the oak tree's bark. Flakes and crumbs of broken outer bark fell to the base of the trunk. The ragged image of a tree was vaguely taking shape inside the inner bark layer, outlined by bloodied fingerprints.

He needed to help the others – so they wouldn't get lost.

The sun dipped behind the highest branches. Once satisfied with his handiwork, Kyle stumbled deeper into the forest. The official forest trail was already far behind him. Beads of sweat trickled down his temples.

He tripped over a fallen oak branch, sending him face-first into the rough forest floor. But he climbed back to his feet, holding on to a mossy rock for support. A raven flapped its wings in the canopy above him. A few leaves cascaded around him.

His breathing was heavy. His legs leaden. He'd been walking since daybreak. Yet he knew he couldn't stop now.

He was getting closer. He could feel it.

Small twigs snapped and dried-up leaves crumbled under the soles of Ranger Johnson's leather hiking boots. An environmental scientist had reported an invasive species that might already have spread beyond the Redding River to Whitaker Forest. He scanned the forest for unfamiliar flowers, leaves, or seed heads – anything that seemed out of place.

Johnson was taking a photo of a crude drawing that had been scraped into the bark of an oak tree, when a flash of red among the green undergrowth caught his eye. A shred of a flannel shirt clung to a bush a few yards away. There had been an uptick in visitors to the park, but they weren't supposed to go off-trail.

Just as Johnson crouched to inspect the piece of cloth, he heard a hissing sound.

Faint.

Foreign.

In all his years as a ranger, he had never heard anything like it.

He pushed himself up from his haunches and felt a little dizzy. A cool breeze blew over him, carrying something delicate with it. At first Johnson thought it was a spiderweb, but when he swiped his hand over his face, little white specks dotted his fingers and palm of his right hand. The tiny dots looked like snowflakes that never melted, or like small fragments of dandelion seed heads.

Sssssh…

The hissing sound returned.

Louder this time.

It sounded like it was coming from beyond a rocky ridge a few yards away.

A sour-sweet, rotting smell drifted from beyond the ridge.

Johnson wiped his hand against the side of his trousers to remove the white specks and stepped toward the ridge.

Another breath of wind stirred through the trees. A pale cloud of seed heads rose from behind the ridge and drifted toward him. As it blew over him, Johnson waved his hand in front of his face.

The acrid smell was getting stronger.

He climbed over the ridge.

A loose rock shifted beneath his boot, but he steadied himself and hauled up to the top.

He peered over the edge.

Beyond the ridge was a clearing. In the middle of that clearing was a gigantic oak tree. Its trunk must have measured ten feet in diameter. Some of its weathered, mossy branches leaned downward, almost touching the forest floor.

But that was not what caught Johnson's immediate attention.

The middle of the trunk had fissured open. Inside the gaping hole, white spores billowed out at regular intervals, almost as if the tree was steadily exhaling shallow breaths of mist.

Below, between the exposed knotted tree roots the soil at the base of the tree was alive with movement. Beetles scurried over and under rotted leaves. Butterflies, gnats, and flies fluttered and buzzed about.

Pieces of torn clothing dotted the clearing around the tree.

They lay among the leaves at the base of the tree. Their bodies, limp and twisted, half buried in the rich soil. The tree roots curled over and around them, cradling their spent bodies.

-END-

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