Evergreen

Once upon a time, the Land of Three Rivers suffered from a drought. This land had been green and was famous for its tall pine trees but even these were now marked by poufs of brown needles now that the cooling winds of autumn had brought no more rain than had the hot, still, dry days of summer.

Those who have seen the pines of Three Rivers say that their beauty is greatest when they are crowned with the golden light of an autumn afternoon. Despite the ravages of the drought they were glorious in the light of a cool afternoon but this beauty was lost on the woman cursing her vehicle and her own carelessness.

She didn’t know how she had gotten lost on this isolated road that twisted through the forest. She certainly didn’t expect to run out of gas without a gas station or even human habitation in sight. She waited in her car for what seemed to her like a long time as the shadows deepened but no other car appeared and her phone found no signal.

She began walking along the road in the dimming light until she saw the beginning of a small gravel path going off into the woods on the right of the road. She took it for a long country driveway and thought to find a house at the end to seek aid from but the trail only narrowed and turned to dirt before vanishing completely into the forest.

It was now dark and a golden moon was just peeking its way above the trees so she quickly attempted to go back the way she had come but the path was gone. She was frightened but calmly took her small flashlight out of her purse and tried to move in the direction of the road even without the benefit of a path but, when the moon was high and white above, she was still wandering.

One of the trees near her had a branch that was just low enough for her to grab and that gave her the idea to climb up so she could see the road she was seeking. She lost the flashlight, which fell with a clatter and sputtered out. It sounded like a cannon shot in the quiet woods and she nearly lost her footing more than once but all that the perilous clamber up the tree gained her was a view of the moon-washed tops of pine trees. There was no break in the trees for road or path, house or field, only trees.

For the first time since her car broke down, she was in a true panic. She tried to climb down but found her hand not just sticky with pine resin but stuck to the branch with it. When she felt pine needles pierce her skin, she screamed. The branch wrapped itself around her and more needles went through skin and flesh. Blood dripped on the needles and branches below and the screams, unheard by human ears, ceased.

Some days later, the needles of the trees in that part of the forest glistened with morning dew. A member of the search party, which never found anything but a discarded flashlight, remarked that the trees in this part of the forest were remarkably green and lush, considering how dry it was.