Thousand: Three Hundred Twenty-Nine

a run and swings up. The next higher is offset enough to seem a step in a staircase and a third limb confirms the resemblance. She spirals around the massive trunk, its clothing of bark red and soft. Each step up is easy or not so difficult she can’t make it, adding some lunge. When the flood smacks into the tree the tree doesn’t shudder, though the waft of cold wet air dragged along behind the water brushes at Butternut and she leans into the tree to wait it out. The tree has been through this sort of thing, ages