She didn't feel alone in the forest. The trees were there, and they whispered their secrets to her. At night, she slept in one of them; a huge tree with its base hollowed out by fire. She could still smell the smoke. By day she asked the bushes for their fruits, and the trees for their nuts. She preferred not to hunt, and she would never tear up a plant from the earth to eat its roots when she had food enough that she's gotten from plants that had given willingly.
She didn't know her name. The trees did not need names; they used leaf fall and starlight. She wished she could be one of them, but knew that she could not. When they talked to her, the called her The One who Asks, for she, as it seemed to them, was constantly asking for their fruit. Sometimes she remembered other trees, trees who called her something else: The One who Grows Quickly. When she thought about those trees, she wondered where she had seen and heard those trees, and she decided that it must have been at the edge of the forest.
She wasn't sure how long she had been living there. She had found a branch once, that had markings on it, thin cut lines, and as she held it, a thought came to her from nowhere-This tells how long I've been living here- but then it was gone, and she found herself wondering how the marks had been cut into the wood. It seemed to her that she had been there forever. Days and nights were all one to her. Sometimes they were marked by unordinary events- the foam-mouthed wolf charging her as she sat in her tree, the firesmoke rising up and the flames that sprouted after, hot and with a smell like that of her sleeping tree when she went to investigate, the storm with it's loud thunder and moon-colored lightning that had fried a tall tree near her sleeping tree. And the beautiful snow-white horse that had found it's way to her and her food supply, galloping off after she had fed it for a few days and given it a bath in the stream that ran by her tree.
But for these, she was happy in the forest, with the trees, and the animals when they were brave, as her companions. The horse had not been dangerous, nor had it caused fear in her, but it had made her feel strange. It had been wearing strange material when it came to her, on it's back and face, which she had taken off and thrown in the stream. But when she had held them, specifically the one that had been on the horses back, the thoughts that came from nowhere came back inside her head. This is a saddle, said the thoughts. It keeps the rider from falling off. She did not know what a rider was. She didn't like the thing, the -saddle-. It looked heavy on the horse's back, and what if a stone got underneath it and the heavy material ground it into the horse's skin? And how had she known what it was called? The word, 'saddle,' her mind couldn't have just made it up. It sounded reasonable enough at least, and if it wasn't real, what was it, what did it mean? That was perhaps the most strange of the times that hadn't been exactly like the day before.
She talked often with the trees and remembered their conversations. She did not know the kinds of the trees, and did not even know if there were different names for different kinds of trees, but she called them by names such as 'Golden leafed one' or 'Broad trunked one' in the same way that they called her The One who Asks. She most often talked to the one she called 'Needle one,' a tree who had needles instead of leaves.
/What was that being, One who Asks?/ In her mind, there was an image of the horse that had run off the day before. /As she ran off, she told me that the Walkers/- these were many beings that looked like herself /the Walkers were looking for a tree talker in the forest. The Walkers do not talk to trees. I do not know why they were looking for you, One who Asks. Have you ever seen the Walkers before? /
/No/ she replied /But maybe it is because they look like me. Perhaps they want to make a Walker forest and must get all of Walkers in the world/
/You are not a Walker, for this being, this horse, told me that they are not tree-talkers./
/The being you talked to, the one called a horse. It was wearing a-a saddle but I took it off/
/It says when the Walkers ride/-
/I do not want to talk of Walkers anymore/ For this talk were making the thoughts that came from nowhere take over and sound everywhere in her brain and she did not know what they were. Needle one said:
/Yes, you sound strange when you talk of them. But you must know of them, or have some connection to them, or you would not be uncomfortable now. You look like you are of them. You walk, but you are not a Walker. The stars say that something will happen. They know not what. They say it concerns you and the Walkers. You will have to face them sometime. I will stand by your side/
/Let us talk of-of what the birds are saying/ she said, almost desperately.
/There is a story my seed-mother told me. It says there was a tree who had many seeds. One of the seeds was taken away by the Walkers. The seed was planted and watered with water from Walker pots. It grew tall and strong. When it's seeds came, the Walkers came and planted them too, and cared for them. But when the tree grew so tall that it could talk to the stars, the Two-leggers came with a sharp object made of something called metal, which is the color of stars or of water, and used it to strike down the tree the way lightning would, but different. The same thing happened to its seed-children and theirs. The Walkers made a forest that they could cut down/
She ran away from Needle one and into her sleeping tree, but from all around her seemed to come Needle one's ancient voice saying /You must know them, or have some connection to them/ and in her mind's eye she could see the horse with it's cruel metal head pieces and it's saddle.
She almost forgot about this conversation the next day, and Needle one didn't mention it when they talked about Needle one's seed-father.
/Do you have a seed father?/ Needle one asked her.
/I do not know. Perhaps he was struck by lightning-but I do not look like you, or any tree. I am free moving./ She stopped talking then, and went to her sleeping tree, afraid that they might talk of Walkers again. That night she thought about them. /The stars never lie/ Needle one had once told her. /They cannot be wrong, and they cannot lie. Even I cannot lie when I repeat their messages to you, even though I can at other times. But I would not, of course/ Needle one had said that he had been told by the stars that something would happen involving her and Walkers. That did not mean she was a Walker. And even if she was, she was not evil. She did not take the seeds of trees and grow them and kill them. Perhaps, like the trees, some Walkers were evil and some were good.
But she was nervous, and did not talk to the trees the next day. She went in the direction she knew was towards the center of the forest. She walked as far as she could, until it was night, and then she lay down on the ground and slept. The next morning, there were Walkers there.
***
She screamed when she woke up, but not for long. She thought, How could this Walker who is much smaller than I am harm the trees, or me. Then she thought, metal, and she started screaming again, and for a long time, she did not stop. Then the Walker girl said something to her, and she was able to understand it, although it was not in the language of the trees.
"What is the matter?" said the girl. And not only did the words sound familiar to her, she knew their meaning, and she was able to answer them, although not very well at first.
"I think-" she said, "I think you strike trees down. Do you strike trees down?"
"We're just here on a picnic," said the girl, and she laughed. It was the strangest sound, and it gave her the strangest feeling when the girl laughed. "Who are you? And how come you talk funny?"
"I not Walker. I One who asks."
"What do you mean? I'm Tessa. I'm six. Are you crazy?" She knew what the words meant still, but they changed so fast- first one concept and then another, and she recognized that someone who was six was very young, a sapling still. Crazy. Was her mind broken? It was different than this Walker's, certainly. What had Needle one called it-?
"I not crazy. I Tree-talker. One who asks. Haven't talked for- long time." That wasn't true at all. She had talked just yesterday to the trees, and she had never talked in the Walker language before. But how did she know it then? Logic told her that if she knew it, she must have spoken it before. She shook her head, trying to empty it of strange.
Tess!" said a tree- no; it was a Walker, calling from far away. "Who are you talking to?"
"There's this girl here. She talks funny. Come see." Then there came two full-grown Walkers, and if they had been trees they would have been old enough to talk to the stars, but they were not trees.
"Who are you?" said the Walker who was taller, and was male, she decided. "Tess, how many times do I have to tell you not to talk to strangers?"
"Dave- doesn't she look like-" said the other Walker, the female. It was then that she decided she was scared. These were Walkers, after all. They were adult, and they could use metal. She ran back to her sleeping tree, and she found Needle one, and she said
/Needle one, there are Walkers back there, in the forest. They'll kill all the trees, they'll chop you down…/
/Calm down/ Needle one said. /The stars spoke to me last night. Those Walkers, they are different. You are not a Walker, the stars say, but your seed father is. You have- a mother, they called it, also. A female Walker. Did you see her? They're your seed parents, One who asks. The stars said- you came from the Walker forest, and you ran to here when you were a small sapling. You were a tree-talker when you lived with the Walkers too- and there are some trees they don't strike down. Instead they let them grow. The stars spoke of many more things, but the most important- you must go back with the Walkers. You must go back and live with them. And you have another name too, It is- oh yes, Allison. Your name is Allison/
***
Epilogue:
Allison walked with her family- Mom, Dad, Tessa- into the dark, leafy-green forest. It had been three years since they had found her- and they all said it was an amazing coincidence that it had been them that found her. They weren't looking for her- they hadn't been then, anyway, and hundreds of people had been. But they said, jokingly, that it was lucky: Now they didn't have to give anyone the reward for finding her. She'd never told anyone about the trees- even now, they were just going because she said she missed the place slightly, or that's what her family thought. She had never had a chance to say goodbye to the trees. First she went to the sleeping tree, and lay there a while, while she listened to the breeze that played through the branches and the birds that winged their way across the sky. And then her family had their picnic lunch, and after that she slipped off quietly to talk to Needle one. /I wish you could come back with me. But you are not a Walker. You do not walk. Whatever happens, I will not let anyone chop you down/
/As long as you keep the Walkers from chopping us down, I do not need to be back with you. And as long as you come and visit./
/I will do that. I promise it/ she said.
"I will do that. I promise it," she said