Hello from Maryland. Today is part 3 of our story. Start at the beginning or read Part 2 here. The finale is next Monday on Earth Day.
It’s set in the Marcellus shale fracking region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Originally the home of the Lenni-Lenape, the Munsee Lenape and the Susquehannock, whose descendants live there still. I’m interested in how we, trapped and complicit in destructive systems we hate, might find a way forward. Holding wonder, humility, and awe in the same trembling hands as our grief, fear, and anger—with love and compassion.
My plan is to send out five stories over the next five months. Subscribe, and they’ll come straight to your inbox.
In Part 2, Sam reveals that her parents have lost their court battle against the pipeline. She and Kevin remove and destroy all the survey stakes, then indulge in a fleeting moment of joy with the trees. But the stakes return, and the weight of the threat looms larger; can Sam and Kevin stop the pipeline?
Now, on with Part 3.
Part 3: Seeds of Hope
The day after the water-bottle strangers’ return, Sam is despondent. She yanks the pink ribbon off me and ties a length of blue yarn. “Oh, Ace, everything’s awful. Nana’s sick—”
I’ve missed her. Give her my love?
“And I’m grounded for seeing Kevin. They said we vandalized their property.” Tears of indignation roughen her voice. “My own parents said we know better, we should have more respect. What about this forest? They vandalized our land with their stupid sticks and ribbons!”
Not to mention the litter. I’m always amazed at how the walking people say the land belongs to them, when really it’s the other way around. That’s terrible, is all I say.
But there’s something on her heart, something she’s not saying. What is it? Tell me.
Sam is shaking now. “Ace, you’re . . . You’re . . .” She covers her face with her hands. “I can’t,” she wails.
The sun is shining emergence everywhere, but hostile cold throbs through me, stiffening every cell. Is it the red line on the map?
She nods. “Those stakes, like, a hundred-plus feet apart?” She sweeps her arms wide, as if she could hold the whole forest. “Everything between them is toast.”
Why is she talking about snacks at a time like this?
“Clearing, Ace. That’s where they’re clearing.”
Clearing is an awfully mild word for the violence of walking people cutting down tree people in their prime. I’ve had only twenty-five sugaring seasons. I’m good for at least fifty more. Or longer. I thought you could stop it.
She sinks to her knees facing me and leans her head against my trunk. “They don’t even need our permission, Ace. My parents went to court again, but the judge said it’s for the public good. Gas and money matter more than syrup and trees.”
Another, colder wave sweeps through me, from roots to buds. Like a hundred times worse than a freak spring freeze. I recall my father and brothers cut down with many seasons of life left in them, hauled away as so much firewood. My cells feel so rigid, if Sam pushed on me right now, I would snap and topple.
In my faith that she could help, I had neglected to join the chatter pulsing through our networks. I had ignored the oaks’ report of the destruction at the Sullivans. I was certain it wouldn’t spread this far. But now, I hum a distress call to the mycelia lacing my roots. The broadcast reaches the other trees faster than Sam’s racing pulse.
What about Kevin’s group on Social? I ask her.
She prods a tender shoot. “I’m grounded. I can’t talk to Kevin, can’t use the computer. I tried to explain it all, but Mom said my sass got me two more weeks.” She drapes her arms around me and weeps. “Oh, Ace, I won’t let them take you. I’ll tie myself to your trunk before I let them cut into you.”
That sends a shiver of hot-cold right through me. I feel the bite of the pink plastic ribbon, even though Sam removed it. Just then, the mycelia return a message: Seeds. Maple seeds spinning on an autumn wind and settling everywhere in the forest. Bettina on her knees, pressing seeds into fresh-turned earth. My offspring—saplings and maturing trees nearly ready to be tapped—standing patiently in her new maple wood.
Of course, yes. I send a return message out to all the trees to thank them for their wise counsel. Even Mother chimes in: “Worth a try at least.”
Sam, listen. You know how you and your nana collect our seeds every year?
“Nana can’t go anywhere. She’s sick.”
Yes, dear. I’m very sorry. Do tell her I’m eager to see her again. Listen. It’s a big year for seeds. Collect them, pick them, get them all, as many as you can.
“Okay, I guess. Then what?”
Plant them. Plant them all. Where it’s safe. Get Kevin to help you. Promise me.
“How does that help you?”
It’s hard to explain. It will, I promise.
I will never see Bettina’s physical form again, though I feel her reaching out to me from her hospital bed in the family’s living room. As the hot, humid days of summer give way to cooler nights, her heart-light dims and fades.
Sam comes to share the news. I already felt Bettina leaving, but it’s good to have someone to grieve with.
“She was sitting in her chair by the window. My mom held one hand and I held the other. She was peaceful. For hours afterwards, a yellow swallowtail visited Nana’s front garden, flitting from flower to flower. Even Mom watched.”
Remember old Matilda, my grandmother?
Sam nodded.
Matilda hadn’t given sap for two seasons. She was blown over by a storm after the sugaring, three seasons ago now. Everyone knew her root rot had been climbing into her cambium and it was only a matter of time. The suddenness was a shock, but that’s the way of things.
I miss her, but she went in her own time.
“Ace what happens after people die?”
After walking people die or tree people?
“Either. Both.”
Your people, I don’t know. Trees, we keep on. We house birds, fungus, moss, ants, termites, spiders, mice. When we tire of that, we become soil, grow new life, our voices join with new generations. Maybe it’s the same for you?
Sam is quiet. We’re both thinking of a particular blue, her grandmother’s forget-me-not eyes.
The days cool and the nights shiver, my cue to send enzymes to my leaves, all 121,475 of them that I grew this year from scratch. This dismantles my lovely green chlorophyll pigments. Won’t be needing those anymore. Time for the carotene to shine. Many’s the year Sam, and Bettina before her, collected my most spectacular red-orange leaves to press in a journal or decorate a bathroom mirror. I pull every last bit of nutrients from the leaves and, once drained, they fall. We can’t help it. It’s the way of things.
Sam enlists Kevin’s help to pluck sand-colored seed pods from my lower branches before the wind can scatter them. She even brings a stepladder to reach the higher ones. Every day, she tells me how the planting is going in Bettina’s new maple wood.
Some of your Nana’s trees will be ready to tap by the time you’re a mother.
Sam laughs at this, but there’s no happiness in it. “I’m not having kids, no way. Bring a child into this messed-up world? Not a chance. I’m not that selfish.”
I don’t understand. Reproduction is the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t know you could just . . . refuse to reproduce. How does that even work?
She laughs again, a touch of mirth peeks from behind her gloom. “You’re so odd sometimes.”
The forest is ablaze in reds, oranges, yellows, casting a wondrous gold light on everyone. The sky is a rich blue, the air crisp. And here is Sam, biting into an apple.
What’s wrong with the world, anyway? From where I stand, it’s a wonder.
“Are you serious right now? The pipeline—”
There is no pipeline, Sam.
“Are you mental? They’re gonna—”
Ah, but they aren’t here now, are they? Not today. Today is a fine, fine day.
Sam doesn’t laugh. We listen to the cardinals saying cheer cheer cheer birdie birdie. A flicker says kyeer, and a squirrel says quaa quaa quaa.
“I guess,” she says. She bites into the apple with a crunch and closes her eyes while she chews. “Man, I wish you could taste this.”
Tell me.
When sugaring season returns, the woods are busy with blue plastic tubing and pine stakes and pink ribbons and orange and white ribbons. Sam and the others have strung the tubing between us so the sap can flow continuously. Fewer buckets to haul, more efficient. The walking people do love their efficiency. I know, Mother, I know. Maples don’t judge.
Into all that bustle of sugaring, men arrive in red trucks. Sam runs to me with the news. She says they were loading chainsaws and oilcans and tools onto sleds to pull into the snow-dusted forest when her parents met them at the road “for a polite conversation.”
Sam says all this out loud in a voice ringing with happiness.
“Mom gave them a ‘Cease and Desist’ letter, like all casual, and the men read it. And the Sheriff came and they talked some more. And then! The men dragged their equipment back to the trucks. They loaded up and left. They left!”
They’re gone? For good?
“Yes!” She throws her arms out like branches and jumps in the air. What I would give to be able to jump like that just once. “‘Cease and Desist’ is lawyer talk for, You have no right to be here. Period. Done. You cannot trespass on our land.”
There’s that “our land” again, but if it spares us from cutting, let’s go with it.
Sam hugs me. It’s been a while since she’s done that. It feels good.
The walking people say sap is colorless, like water. What does that mean, really? Raindrops are colorless, yet a lake full of clear drops is blue. That’s how attractive blue is, how contagious. Water conspires with the sun to wear the sky like a skin.
But a lake is changeable, like a walking person’s heart. Like them, a lake’s surface reflects the surrounding world but conceals hidden depths. A basin of clear drops pretends to be sky, trees, clouds and light, but harbors darkness below.
The first person to charge sap with the warmth of wood-saved sunlight, did they expect it to turn, say, the blue of a summer sky? Were they surprised when instead it took on the color of sunlight itself? The color of pollen packed on a bee’s leg hairs? The color of the very fire beneath the black iron kettle?
Colorless doesn’t mean no color. It means waiting for color.
What did you think?
How was this for you? Did anything surprise you? Do you wonder what’s going to happen next? I sincerely appreciate your reading and value your feedback.
If you enjoyed this story, please restack in Notes to help others find it.
Masterful, playful use of POV invites the reader into nature's perspective. So many gems! Here's one...'Clearing is an awfully mild word for the violence of walking people cutting down tree people in their prime. I’ve had only twenty-five sugaring seasons. I’m good for at least fifty more. Or longer.'
Love love love.