They had always told her it was an awful, ugly tree, the one that hung over the Flying Cliffs. They said the wood was no good, that it would stomp her out, like the other trees around Everleen Vale. She remembered them telling her that it was old, and awful, and so, so rude. Well, she'd never been one to listen to grown-ups. She'd been walking the edge of the cliffs her whole life, and thus far, she'd not tripped a single time. A nasty oak would do her no harm.
Of course, at first, it tossed mean comments to her. It said some hateful, hateful things, but she didn't care. She just sat there and took them, day after day, asking questions. Eventually, it stopped saying such mean, ugly things, and it began to answer her instead. It told her how the Cliffs came about when a bitter mare was milked by a maid fair and sweet, but so sour was the milk it cut everything away to leave the hunks of floating rock around them. It shared the tale of when the Witch of Waer blasted the cliffs for its diamonds, but when the townspeople chased her off, she spilled them and they became the nightsky. He told her how the trees down in Everleen became so ugly, that at one time they were beautiful, but spiteful, women who were slain by menfolk who couldn't stand them and their backbiting any longer.
And the tree softened to the girl, and the girl drank of its knowledge. Eventually, it began to tell her other things, secret things. Put out a bowl of water on the night of a full moon and throw salt in it when the moon is in it to make a tonic. Wait and listen to the woodpecker tap, and tap back to it so it will show you the future. Bury a knife under your threshold, and no one can enter your home without your permission. All this and more she learned from the old tree, sitting in its shade, as the year progressed. She even put a swing on its branch, playing with the void under her, though the tree always warned her never to swing out too far.
But there was one question the tree wouldn't answer, and that was how it came to be. "You weren't here always," said the girl. "And I won't be always, so what's it matter?" the tree would shoot right back. Then it would drop an apple, and the girl would eat lunch.
As she grew older, the tree taught her more and more, and it always told her that should she ever require it, if she were in danger, she should run to the tree. It would give her aid. The girl had laughed, foolhardy and young. What could ever want to hurt her?
Yet, her knowledge frightened her family and her village. Though she could heal the sick and treated the elderly with wisdom, they feared her great power, of the things she could do with chicken blood, a raven's feather, a yew branch. They began to whisper among themselves, and the girl began to understand why they had warned her away from the wicked tree. One night, a bat alighted under the eave of her house and warned her the people were coming to get her, with rakes and fire and hoes.
So she ran to the tree in the dead of night, under the darkness of a new moon, and she fell upon its roots.
"I don't understand," she wept. "I helped them. I healed their sick. I fed them."
"People fear what they do not understand," the tree chastised, but seeing the enraged village creep closer, the oak commanded, "Climb into the swing and I shall save you, but I can only do this for you one time. Do exactly as I say."
The girl threw herself into the swing, and the tree instructed, "Swing, swing as high as you can."
Just as the townspeople drew upon the tree, it cried, "Jump!" as the girl reached the zenith of her arc.
The girl jumped into the void and, before their eyes, took on the night. Her skin exploded into feathers, colored dark as pitch, and she floated on the midnight breeze, far, far away from the town. The girl had become a crow. The oak withered in that moment, spent, and the townspeople set it alight, and it did not fight back, knowing it had told the girl all it knew.
And that is why, sometimes, if you catch a crow alone, you may hear it talk as a human does. If you do, listen carefully to what it tells you. You never know what it wisdom it may give.
