Free Tree Girl by T. A. Barron Page B

swirling and gusting through the forest. Needles and twigs and leaves filled the air. Everywhere, saplings stomped their roots to the rhythm, while older spirits swayed to each and every note, rowing the air with their branches. And Anna could feel the beat pulsing in her bones.
    Someone grabbed Anna’s wrist. Sash! He pulled her right into the revelry, whirling her around the rowan. Hands held tight, they jumped and spun and kicked their legs high. Anna threw back her head and laughed—aye, just for the thrill of it all.
    “Oh, Sash…” She leaped over the shaggy head of a cedar who had sat down to rest. “I love this, I do!”
    “Not bad!” he crowed. “With some more practice, you could almost keep up with me.”
    “Then let’s practice all the time!” She smiled as they twirled past a family of elms who were spinningin unison. Here she was, dancing with the very creatures she’d thought were ghouls! “Sash, this is the best day of my life.”
    “Just wait till tomorrow,” he shouted. “When we go up to the willow together. And when you find out—”
    “Wait,” she interrupted suddenly. Her dancing slowed. “I’ve been thinking. I want to go up there alone.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. Something tells me it’s better that way, just me and the willow. I’m not sure why—just that it’s better.”
    He shook his sandy locks. “Well, all right. But you won’t have nearly as much fun without me.”
    “Aye, that’s true.” She squeezed his hands. “That’s always true.”
    Just then someone dropped a wreath of white berries on her brow. She let go of Sash and spun around to see who had done it.
    Before her stood a gnarled old fellow with a crooked grin. He wore a floppy hat studded with cones. And as he bowed stiffly to Anna, she caught a familiar smell, both tart and sweet.
    “Burl!” She threw her arms around the neck of her old friend.
    He wrapped his own leathery arms around her, and they started dancing a bouncy sort of jig. “Now there, me girl!
Hoho, hoho.
Methought you might not know me.”
    “Oh, Burl. I’d always know you!”
    He shook his head to the thumping beat, spraying some cones from his hat. “’Tis good to see you so free, me girl.”
    She whirled herself around, and danced all the faster.
    Sash tapped her shoulder. He bowed to Old Burl, then pulled Anna into a new freewheeling frenzy. Her bare feet flew above the ground, hardly touching before they flew again.
    Like all the others, they romped long into the night. Sometimes they danced as a pair, and sometimes as part of a long, twisting vine that wound its way among the trees. And sometimes Anna just danced alone, twirling herself around and around in the light of the rising moon.
    And when, at last, the festivities ended, she continued to dance in her dreams.

Chapter 15
    S TILL SWAYING IN HER DREAMS , Anna woke up.
    She lay on the bed of moss beneath the rowan. The tree’s branches and bark looked normal—no sign that anything unusual had happened. Oh, but she knew better! Twigs and cones jabbed at her back, and crushed berries stuck to her hair. She bent her legs. So sore…
    Yet she could only smile. What a night she’d known! Stiffly, she sat up and rubbed the bottoms of her feet. Black they were, black as charcoal. And splotched with sap. She pulled a sprig of fern from between her toes, which tickled.
    Anna gazed at the sun-shafted woods around her. Leaves, bark, and broken branches lay everywhere, as if a powerful wind had shaken the forest. But she knew well that this had been caused by something much stronger than wind. High Hallow Eve!
    And she, herself, had been there.
    So had Sash—though she couldn’t see him anywhere now. She thought of their flying dance, legs kicking high, and her smile broadened.
And I’ll dance with him again, I will.
    She turned toward the higher ground up the slope.
But first…the High Willow. I’m going there now. At last.
    She jumped up, despite her sore thighs and