”Little deer?” ”Little Deer?” ”…Seed?” The trees asked to the body that dangled, dripping blood and still smoking from its burns. The body dropped from its branch into a lower set with a great crunch of leaves. It made no sound, no twitch, no grunt of pain. The leaves brushed against his cheeks.
They were no warmer than the leaves themselves.
”Oh…” The forest fell silent.
And so they began the slow, tree-timed task of bringing him home. They passed his body, with as much delicacy as they could manage, from branch to branch. He was a sort of idea, like a word they passed along to make a chorus of sound. The body moved as if carried on an aimless river. Like a river, they carried the body down to the source: not to the ocean, but to the great Oak who was grandmother to them all. Like a river, the path of the body began to carry things in its currents: an acorn, a pinecone, a green leaf, a flower, a small bird’s nest, whatever a tree could offer up.
Because they knew what he was, in spite of themselves. They knew how an animal might tend its dead, and had but one of the options open to them. And so they carried him to the oak, who looked at the broken body, with the leaves of the trees sticking to its blood and small branches caught in its antlers and the great holes of its wounds, and heaved a hefty sigh.
”Poor sugar…Always wanting to be better…You were fine. You were...” The branches broke into meaningless quivering.
”You were so sweet.”
And she lowered, inch by inch, a branch to stroke the figure.
