The forest was a perfect history of the town. The founding mothers (who the fathers were we cannot say) each planted a tree for themselves in the centre of a field, in the form of a circle. They planted a tree for each of their children on the occasions of their births, which in time formed a second circle. And later there grew a third circle for their children, and a fourth for theirs, and so on, until today, until tomorrow.

A child’s tree is planted in sight of their mother’s (as far as space allows) and in this way, for any person alive today, you can follow their motherly line all the way back to the centre, all the way back to the beginning.

When someone dies, the roots of the tree are poisoned. The bark is stripped from its bones, and their likeness carved into the dead wood beneath. Likewise, when a living person’s tree dies, they are poisoned. The flesh is stripped from their bones and their skeleton is arranged outside their home in the form of a tree.

It is said if you walk in the woods on a fog-thick night you can speak to every one.

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Notes:

1. Written October 2014