Free The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

me.”
    â€œIs there really a man in there?” asked Bokky, the oldest boy, who was only six.
    â€œYes,” said Father. “I believe there is. Because why else would a great oak like this bother to make the shape of a man in its bark? Trees have no reason to lie to us. Does a sycamore pretend to be a hickory? Does a walnut pretend to be a willow?”
    â€œBut how could he live?” asked Immo.
    â€œWho says he’s alive?” challenged Bokky.
    â€œWell what’s the point of having a dead man in there, then?”
    â€œI’ve heard two stories about that,” said Father. “One is that this man is the one who invented fire and burned the first tree. The treemages couldn’t stop others from learning the secret and burning wood, but the trees took their vengeance by holding the man inside the heart of the wood.”
    â€œWhat’s the other story?” demanded the children.
    â€œThat he was a hunted man, and a great king sought him to kill him because he had dared to love his daughter. He was slain against this great tree, and his blood soaked into the roots, and in pity the oak opened its heart to him and brought him back to life. The king’s daughter came here every year in those days, in a great procession up the valley, and here she wept beside the tree, and inside the bark he heard her, until at last she grew old and died. It broke the heart of the man in the tree, and that’s when he turned his back on the world. He still lives, but he sees and hears nothing, because his love is dead and gone, and he still lives on inside the tree that saved him.”
    Eko brushed a tear from her eye, and Immo jeered at her, but Father held up a hand. “Never mock a tender heart,” he said.
    Abashed, Immo rolled her eyes but said no more against Eko and her tear.
    â€œIsn’t the bark getting thinner over him now?” asked Bokky.
    â€œIt might be,” said Father. “But it might just seem that way because he’s so far above us.”
    â€œWhat if he comes out of the tree while we’re here?” asked Bokky.
    â€œThen we’ll greet him,” said Eko, “and ask him which of the stories is true.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t dare talk to him,” said Bokky.
    â€œI think she might,” said Father, “because your sister is a brave one.”
    â€œShe wouldn’t jump across the runnel in the north glen,” said Bokky.
    â€œIt doesn’t take bravery to do every foolish dare that someone puts to you,” said Father. “Only stupidity.”
    They all laughed at Bokky for that, because he had taken the dare and Father had to climb down and get him where he dangled from a branch over the runnel far below. Half the village men were in on that rescue, holding the rope that held Father, and then dragging them up together.
    That night they slept without blankets, the night was so warm. The moon was high and in the middle of the night, Eko awoke and looked at the oak and for a moment did not realize what she was seeing. She thought it was a snake in the tree, and she glanced around quickly to make sure that none of the children was too near. Only when she was sure that the snake couldn’t drop onto anybody did she look again and realize, through her sleepy eyes, that it was not a snake at all. It was an arm, an elbow and arm, and the palm of the hand was pressing against the bark, pushing inward as if the man were trying to pull himself out of the tree.
    Which is what he was doing. Only the arm looked smaller than it should have, and as the shoulder emerged, as the body turned sideways, Eko could see that it was a slender boy, not a man’s body at all. Taller than Bokky, but no thicker, no more manly.
    I should wake someone else to see this thing, she thought.
    But she couldn’t bring herself to make a sound or even move to poke somebody. What if she frightened the man. What if he did this every night