‘Well, I never.....’
Goody shook her head slowly, trying to clear her vision. She rubbed at her eyes, too, but no amount of fussing would change what she saw as she stood on the step just outside the public house. There, heading toward The Green Man was the crown of a tree.
‘.....thought to see something like that again!’
Not the small, neatly leafed crown of the lady tree she’d seen in her childhood, stirring the plants to life in her Gran’s garden. Nay, this was one of the tall walkers; the sort she’d only heard tales of and never seen.....no, not for all her own walking in the woods at the foot of the hills.
Still, he hummed as the lady had done that long time ago, though in a deeper voice. Goody smiled as the memory and the reality merged, and she found that she did not fear his approach.
‘Welcome, welcome to The Green Man!’ she called out. There were others with him, and though she recognized them, they were but dim images on the periphery of her vision. So focused was she on the lordly tree.
She hobbled out slowly to where he stood, leaning on the knob of her twisted, yew walking stick as she went along. She found, as she walked, her step grew light. And her aching, bent back began to loosen of itself so that her last few steps she stood tall as her small frame allowed and carried her stick in one hand.
‘So very pleased to see one of your kind again,’ she said as she drew near him. Her words seemed to float before her, thin out.....like so much smoke in the wind.
He did not answer, but looked beyond her, a considering look on his face. She turned, wondering what it was that caught his attention so. There on the ground, a number of steps behind her, lay some crumpled form, still as death upon the snowy ground her stick beside her. Four figures gathered about the old husk, two women and two deer. And now from the Inn came others.....
Goody stepped back a pace, to take in more fully the great figure of the tall walker, the tree lord. His deep eyes had turned from the small commotion before him back to the forest from which he’d come.
‘Well, I guess I’ll see you there some time, then won’t I?’ she said, stepping around him as she headed toward the trees herself. ‘I’ve a mind to see where he walks these days,’ she went on. ‘The Green Man.’
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age..... she hummed to herself as her footsteps carried her across the snow to the forest canopy.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind how time has ticked a heaven round the stars.....
She slipped quietly beneath the dark boughs and in less than a wink, she was gone
.....