In the heart of the valley, where the mist clung to the hills like a soft grey blanket each morning, stood the last ancient forest of Elderwood. It was not a large forest, but it was old. Its trees were giants, their bark like the wrinkled skin of wise old men, their branches arms raised in silent supplication to the sky.
Among them stood Grandfather Oak, the oldest of them all. His roots delved deep into the memory of the earth, and his highest leaves whispered secrets to the stars. He had seen seasons turn for centuries, had felt the first footsteps of mankind, light and curious, and now the heavy, constant tread of their machines.
The forest knew a change was coming. The birds brought news from the outer world—tales of flat, grey fields where forests once stood, of strange, straight rivers that smelled of poison, of the great, buzzing hives of humans that grew larger every year.
A young sapling, a slender maple named Ember, trembled one evening as a new, foul wind carried the scent of smoke and metal. “Grandfather,” she whispered, her leaves shivering, “the air tastes wrong. What is happening?”
Grandfather Oak’s leaves rustled with a sound like a gentle sigh. “They are coming closer, little one. They do not listen as we do. They hear only their own thoughts.”
Trees are the world’s greatest listeners. They hear the sorrow in the slow drip of rain after a storm, the joy in the chitter of a squirrel’s chase, the love song of the wind as it combs through their leaves. They listen to the heart of the world beat. But humans, the trees had learned, had forgotten how to listen.
Days later, the noise began. A terrible, grating roar that drowned out the birdsong
