The trees were shorter than I remembered them and the forest sparser, light filtering easily down through the canopy to dapple the moss on the ground with yellow and green. Birds sang where before there were gunshots. The wind through the leaves sounded like quiet sighing rather than the screaming that filled my mind and the branches swayed peacefully. Things had changed.
As insects buzzed lazily through the bracken something small rustled by my feet. The boy at my side smiled. He was whistling like a bird, his blue eyes sparkling under the sunshine. I watched him in awe for a moment as he twisted and moulded his lips ever so slightly to imitate the song of a blackbird and the sweet trill of finches. As he whistled a songbird called back, and he smiled again.
I love the smell of the forest. It was an autumn smell, wet and muddy but fresh and lush and green. Like damp leaves. Like animals and birds. Like the musk of the bracken and the wet earth underfoot. Every now and then I caught the scent of an autumn flower still blooming, so sweet I could almost taste it.
Phil and I weren't talking, but we didn't need to. We just enjoyed each other's company as someone to walk beside in perfect time. Our feet sunk ever so slightly into the moss and leaves each time we stepped. It was soft and springy, with the occasional crunch of a twig. I let my fingers trail across the tops of the brackens – but warily, keeping a watch for nettles or thorns.
A tangle of vines and ivy fell across the path and we ducked through, the leaves catching my hair and brushing my face.
I love the feel of the forest. The leaves which can be soft or waxy or sharp or delicate. Luscious or decaying. Green or red or orange or brown. The forest floor under my trainers. The crisp air on my face. The soft down of feathers or fur caught on a stray branch and fluttering in the wind. The feeling it creates inside of you. The forest is alive, all round me things are moving - things are growing and living and so am I; part of the forest, if only for a while. I remember taking walks like this with my parents many years ago. I stopped wanting to go, throwing a tantrum whenever they tried to make me leave my play station. But when I was there I always shut up. My dad would look for deer with me and help me find climbing trees while my mum pointed out all the flowers and the toadstools and picked out all the different birds from their song. It was only then, as I walked with Phil, that I realised how much I missed those walks. The walks I had grown out of through laziness but had seemingly grown back into. I made a resolution to take my parents into the woods when they came up at the end of the year for all the formalities. Maybe we'd find some deer, and maybe not.
*
Phil led the way. We picked a winding and leisurely path through the trees, not paying much attention, but I knew Phil would find the way home. Behind my head a bird screamed and launched itself into the sky with a beating of heavy wings.
"I think that was a woodpecker." Phil murmured.
I nodded as I watched it go, colourful plumage flashing through the trees.
"We're getting nearer the river. Do you remember? The first time I took you in here? We've been walking a long time."
"Really? How long?" I frowned, looking at my watch. "I didn't even realise. Time doesn't seem to pass in here. At least, not in the same way."
"I don't actually know, really." Phil confessed.
I watched a rabbit nibbling on the grass that sprouted up in the middle of the path ahead of us. It watched back, warily, as it chewed.
"I remember. Of course I do. I didn't realise we were all the way over there though."
As we took another step forwards the rabbit finally gave up, bounding into the undergrowth with the flash of its bobbing white tail.
"It's a big forest, but it's long and thin. It doesn't take too long to get from one side to the other." Phil held a sprig of ivy out of the path so that I could walk through. As we rounded the corner and fought our way through the brambles we stopped together, staring.
"It's tempting isn't it?" I said quietly.
We'd come to a clearing in the trees where a fallen oak had taken down two smaller birches with it. The resulting pile up was alive with plants and flowers, weaving their way between the branches and matting together at one end to form a veil of soft green specked with white. The oak was hollow and so big you could easily stand inside it, and the resulting scene was like something from a fairytale.
"To just give up on life and spend the rest of your days in here. I reckon we could live in that tree, the hollow one – it almost looks like a house already. It's so beautiful. It must have been very old."
Phil just nodded and I could tell he'd had the same thoughts.
"Let's go look inside." He left my side with a running jump, easily clearing the smallest of the birches.
I followed after with a laugh, catching my foot on a branch and tumbling down to the ground. The moss was soft so I just rolled, green plants gentle against my red face. The tendril of a fern tickled my nose and I snorted, pulling myself back up with a huff.
Phil was perched on the edge of the oak, doubled over with laughter, legs swinging.
"You made it look so easy." I sighed.
"You're supposed to be the graceful one," He raised an eyebrow. "I haven't done any sports in four years!"
"I'm fine on flat ground." I grumbled. "I just trip over things. I'm naturally clumsy, I can't help it if it's genetic!"
"Butterfingers." Phil teased.
"Shut up." I picked my way carefully over the undergrowth and the criss-cross of branches to join him at the opening of the great tree.
"Hmm." I frowned. "There's a lot of bugs in there."
"I counted three spiders already." Phil grinned.
I cringed. "Maybe not so homely. The outside is nice though."
"I like it here." Phil said. His legs were swinging over the edge of the tree trunk and his pale face was turned to the sky. "There are lots of birds."
I pulled myself up beside him and listened. Somewhere to the left a wood pigeon was cooing, the mournful sound peaceful and breathy. Closer by something smaller and all together shriller trilled incessantly. A warbler warbled. A green finch answered from a branch just a few metres in front of me. A sound as if someone was blowing across the top of a bottle drifted down towards me and I could see Phil's lips move beside me.
"Bittern."
I smiled.
"How do you know?"
"I just do, I guess. I don't know why it matters, knowing the name. It's not like you're ever going to have to introduce yourself. But it's nice."
"It is." I agreed. "It's like you've taken notice of the nature. And that's nice. Not enough people do."
Phil lay back on the wood. It was soft and worn smooth as if hundreds before us had done the same, yet easily strong enough to support us both. I joined him, and we stared through the leaves at the clouds.
"Do you think they care?" Phil asked.
"What?"
"The trees. Do you think they care that most people can't tell what's coniferous and what's hardwood? That barely anyone knows their names? That one day someone might chop them down to make way for a supermarket or make them into paper or just because their roots are messing up the road a little bit? Do you think they care that one day something that stood tall and majestic above them all for hundreds of years could end up as loo roll?"
I snorted. "Well, I don't think they really think anything." My expression softened. "But I think the forest as a whole cares. I think it would care if this tree ended up as a Justin Beiber notebook. Because it was worth so much to so many animals and plants and bugs for so long and suddenly it's, well degraded I guess. Everything in this forest feels safe, as long as there are no humans around. It's like a big balloon of security."
"Yeah I get that feeling too." Phil sighed. "I wonder how long this forest will last before it's chopped down to build an extension for college or a new sports hall or something."
"Is it even owned by Bradfield?" I asked. "I thought we saw a private property sign near the river."
"That's a good point actually." Phil frowned.
"Hey. Don't worry. I don't think it'll be going any time soon."
"I know." Phil's eyes were closed now. "But it's a metaphor for lots of things. Like how you work so hard all your life but you could just die one day, you know. Like Jake and Gabes. Or Jakob. The things they were doing were dangerous but none of them thought they were going to die. They thought they were gonna set their alarm and go to bed and go into college the next day and eat lunch and do their homework and wear a tie and carry on working. But towards what? The future? Is it worth spending your whole life unhappy and overworked because you want a good future, or would it be better to make the most of what you have and take each day as it comes? Because you never know how long you have left. Like, a rogue lion escaped from the zoo could burst out of those trees right now and maul us to death. And then everything we've done would be pointless. It wouldn't have mattered that I screwed up my art because I'd be dead. I would better have spent my time dropping out of school and working for charity and skydiving and having fun and stuff. I'd have made more of an impact that way. Because this way we're investing so much in a future we don't know will ever come. Or maybe we'll mess it up, break a leg and fail all my A levels because I was in hospital. Then you wouldn't get into university so you'd have to leave and go work in McDonald's and suddenly all that work was for nothing, you might as well have dropped out of school and never have had to do an exam and have all that stress. You could have been the first person to climb Everest with your hands tied or something in that time."
The birds sang. Something rustled in the undergrowth, and all was silent for a moment.
"You're working for the dream, though." I mused. "It's like when you buy a lottery ticket, you know you won't win but you're paying for the dream. You're paying for one week of fantasies. It's the same principle, you know you're not going to live forever but you want to set yourself up for eternity, just in case. To give you the best possible chance of a perfect infinity. And for the dream. The dream of whatever job you want or whatever house you want and all that. How many kids you want. Where you're going to take them on holiday. If you don't do all that work and just live each day as it comes you're living without responsibility and you can't ever have that dream, not unless you have some sort of super master plan."
Phil's body was warm next to mine. A stray strand of messy black hair tickled my face and I breathed in his scent mixed in with the woody, musky aroma of the oak. A bird flew overhead, silhouetted black against the sky and singing as it passed. Clouds swept across the sky. They formed shapes as they moved, breaking apart and reforming into wisps and spirals and great fluffy lumps. And I lay with my best friend in the world and mused in the quiet tranquillity of the woodland.
*
"But it all comes back to the original point, the fundamental need to make a difference on the world. To leave a mark. It's like animals with their scent sprays and stuff. But for us it's more emotional and philosophical I guess." Phil frowned.
"It's a battle though," I said. "The inbuilt selfishness we all have verses that, desire I guess. Because we want to be rich and successful but we also want to do good and we want to be remembered. Some people decide they need to get rich first before they can possibly do any good and others try and live each day, putting the making a mark stuff first. But it's a lot harder for them because they don't have the money to do all the things they want to do."
Phil was pulling a small twig apart with his fingers, twisting and shredding and snapping absentmindedly.
"Which is more important though, you or the world? Most people agree they'd die to save like a big group of people even if they were strangers. You're too harsh on humanity. We have good hearts underneath all the rubbish stuff. I think we do care, really. We do think changing the world is the most important thing, we just have different ways of going about it. And some people never actually get round to doing all the things they wanted to because life is short and stuff gets in the way and it's a lot harder than it seems. You can change the world without doing anything drastic. I think everyone changes the world, even if it's just a tiny bit. It's like they say, you can't change the whole world but you can change it for one person. And that's completely unselfish you know, because you're not expecting anything in return. And you probably don't even know you're doing it. But you are making a difference; you did your part, you made your mark, you won't be forgotten. You lived a life worth living even if it doesn't feel like that."
"Yeah but that's what I mean," I said, rolling over on my side to gaze at Phil's profile outlined against the sky. "Most people die feeling unfulfilled and that life's really too fucking short. Because they haven't done all the things they wanted to and they don't feel like they've made a difference, at least not enough. It's never enough. I bet even Ghandi and Martin Luther King and all of them felt like they still had a long way to go. There's always more you want to change, it's never going to be perfect and you'll never feel like you've done enough. That's why people are selfish a lot of the time, because the task is just too huge to even comprehend so they worry about the little things like their jobs and their relationships and their houses and cars and everything first. Most people just get their heads round it by ignoring the crazy cosmic stuff, it's like how you know the universe is huge and we're spinning around and hurtling through space and gravity and black holes and life and light but we chose to ignore it. Because our brains are too small to take it in. We just ignore it and live on our flat little world with our menial and tedious little worries and dramas because we'd probably go completely crazy if we tried to understand it all and take it all in all the time."
"Yes but that's exactly what I'm saying." Phil stared at the sky and I stared at him. "We can't change the whole wide world – we can barely even comprehend it. But we can do our tiny little menial things in the hope of changing one person's world. We can help, in our petty little lives and dramas. There are some things we don't need to ignore – we're offered the chance to make a difference and this time it's not too big. It might be bigger than anything else in our little lives and it might be scary but we can do it. We can try. And while you may think it's nothing, it's better than nothing. If that makes sense. That's just how I see it anyway, I don't want to live my life without ever trying because the little things I can do aren't nearly big enough. They're little sure, but they're not nothing. They can make a big difference on someone. Like, I don't know. That story of the person who left the note that said 'if someone smiles at me today I won't jump' and he jumped and that's just so sad. Like, it takes nothing at all to smile but people just can't be bothered because they don't think it will make a difference. For that person it did. It was their whole world, literally. You never know when something you're going to do will make a difference and a lot of the time you'll never find out if it did or not, but that's okay because it's better than doing nothing and just sitting in your house all sad because you don't think you can do anything. I'll always try to help, even if I don't think I can."
We lay in silence for a moment. I didn't know how long we'd been here, but the trees were slightly less green than before and Phil's features harder to make out. The sun was falling in the sky and the wind had a chill edge to it that hadn't been there this morning. Dusk was gathering with a cool quietness. The birds flew silently now overhead in formation as they headed home to roost. The day time animals were settling down and the night life was yet to stir. Twilight was coming; in shades of purple and blue and grey. I pulled my coat up tighter around my neck and shuffled a little closer to Phil. He leant his head into my neck and I was glad of the warmth.
"I had a chance to help," I murmured. "But I ran away. I just left that world because he let me go, and I thought it was the right thing to do. Because I didn't belong there. Because I was lost and alone and doing more damage than good and I just wanted to forget it all and go back to complaining about the comforts of my old life."
Phil looked up at me, his blue eyes sparkling in the last of the light. "Are you talking about Knuckles?" He said quietly.
I just nodded, biting my lip, and he lowered his face again into the warmth of my neck, his cold nose sending shivers down my spine.
"He let you go because he wanted to help." Phil said, his voice muffled. I could feel his lips moving against my skin and his warm breath tickled my neck, but not unpleasantly.
"I know." I sighed.
"It's okay, you don't need to feel guilty. He understands now, he doesn't hate you so much anymore. I mean, he's not exactly your biggest fan. But he gets you. I told him it was you who took me to London last week so that he wouldn't bitch about you so much." Phil grinned.
I blinked.
"What?! When did you talk to him? What's going on? He left college!" I tried to use my surprise to hide the guilt that had sprung up inside of me with a ferociousness to envy an angry lion at his words. Hadn't I promised to take him out on dates and start being a proper boyfriend and giving him all the love and attention he deserves? And yet, it was Phil who had taken me out on the super-special-amazing-romantic date. I hadn't even bought him chocolates.
Phil couldn't see my tortured expression, his cold fingers snaking their way in between my own across my chest.
"I- please don't be angry with me, I couldn't just leave. So much was my fault and I was involved, I had to try and make things right." He stared unhappily down at our feet tangled for warmth at the other end of the log.
"I don't understand." I said. "What's been going on?"
"I've been trying to help." Phil sighed. "It's like I was just saying, I can't make things okay for them but I can't not do anything. It's Ellie really, Knuckles and I have been hiding her from her dad. Knuckles is a good guy. He's fucked up but he cares a lot, and he will do whatever he can to try and make the world a bit better for the people he cares about. He feels he owes it to Jake but I think he'd do it anyway, that's just what he's like. Once he's aware of the thing he feels responsible, because you know, if you know about a thing but you don't do anything about it then it's sort of your fault if something goes wrong. That's why he's okay with you now, because you really didn't know about most of it.
"Anyway. Knuckles has called up all his favours from all the hard guys on his estate to protect Ellie now her mum's in hospital. But he has to go to work now he's dropped out of college so I've been going down in free periods just to talk to Ellie so she doesn't get really lonely. And to get food and stuff for her because she's too scared to leave the flat we've put her in, she's being like her mum was and we're really scared she's gonna end up in hospital too. We just want to get her Dad out of the picture really so she can get better without being so scared all the time. It would be easy, we could get him locked up on all sorts of different charges.
"But it's more complicated than that. I mean, to make sure he actually went to jail rather than just a community order or bail or whatever we'd have to tell them about the abuse. And then Ellie would be brought in and she'd end up in a home and she wouldn't be okay. She really wouldn't. And we need to get her to go back to school before social services start digging but she won't go, she won't even go to the shops with me because she's scared one of her Dad's mates will see her. It's hard you know, it's like you said. We don't know what to do and we're just not doing enough because it's not working and it's not really helping and everything could still go so wrong. We might be able to get him locked up on a drugs bust but then they'd do loads of research on him and realise Ellie's missing." Phil slipped an arm around my waist and I pulled him closer, resting my chin on his head.
"I don't know what to do, Dan," he sighed. "She wouldn't last one day in a kid's home. But we can't do anything without the authorities finding out. Even if we do manage to get her back at school, her Dad might find her there. Or her teachers will see how bad she is and call social services themselves or worse still call her Dad. We can't hide her forever. And if they find out we were looking after her we might get in trouble too. It's hard Dan. I just don't know what the right thing to do is."
My arms were around him and I held him close. There was only one thing of which I was certain. Running away had been the wrong thing to do. I was pathetic and a coward, I had jumped at Knuckles' offer of freedom and tried to escape the responsibility that had been thrown upon me as soon as I'd found out, it was just like Phil said. Only I didn't try and help. I fled because I'm weak. But Phil was right again, I had a chance to put things right. To try and do something to help and maybe it would work out and maybe it wouldn't but at least I'd tried.
I gave Phil a squeeze.
"I don't know either. But I'm going to help."
"Huh? No, Dan you're out of this now. You're free – you don't have to worry about it anymore. It's way too dangerous, if you got a criminal record your life would be ruined." Phil propped himself up on an elbow to look earnestly into my eyes.
"In the least cheesy way possible, my life's with you at the moment. Regardless of anything else. Fuck, if you're in prison then I'd want to be there too."
"It doesn't quite work like that," Phil grinned. "I don't think you get to chose."
"I know but I mean it, I really do. I love you. I really love you like properly, but even if I didn't I'd still want to help because it's the right thing to do. I felt awful about running away and just forgetting it like that, it's not something I can ignore and I want to try and help. You know, to make a difference." I stared back, trying to convey the seriousness in my mind.
"What brought this on?" Phil grinned, still blushing from the love proclamation.
"I don't know," I lied, "I don't say it enough. But I love you. I love with all my heart. Honestly I do Phil, you're like no one else."
Phil tried to roll his eyes but the huge grin across his face ruined it a little.
"I love you too, silly. Lots and lots. But are you sure about this? It's not something you can get out of – I wouldn't throw that kind of, freedom of responsibility away easily."
"I'm sure." I said, determined. "I want to help. I feel awful for Ellie. No one deserves to go through that."
"Kay." Phil said, laying back down at my side again. "You can come with me tomorrow, Knuckles will be there. He'll probably be mean to you so like, don't take it personally okay? He finds it really hard. You know, spending time with me after... everything that happened. Having you there won't help, so maybe try not to be too affectionate and stuff, okay? Just to make it better for him. I still feel awful. But I think he knew it would never have worked with us, he just didn't want to never have tried."
I nodded as I joined him, curling up against his warm body. Our breath was starting to come out as white fog in front of our faces and my toes were probably turning blue. Twilight was around us. The trees cast long shadows on the ground and the sun had almost set somewhere behind the hills. Different birds were calling now and I distinctly caught the doleful hoot of an owl. The creatures that rustled in the bushes were slower and softer and a kind of muffled peace had settled on the clearing where we lay in silence atop a fallen tree amidst a circle of undergrowth. As I listened I could just make out the trickle of a stream in the distance.
I stared out at the blackened valley floor, the cascading hillocks and the peach tinted horizon. Closer at hand I watched a tiny spider struggle to weave a web between the cracks by my head with a nervous fascination. Time passed here, but it wasn't measured by clocks and timetables and dinner time and breakfast. It was measured in fading light and sleeping birds. By the stars that were just starting to push their way through the darkening clouds and the pale moon that had risen next to Phil's head when I wasn't looking. Time passed with running water and crawling bugs and flower buds that opened and closed. It passed with dew drops and night time frosts. It was like a whole new world. It wouldn't take much to change this world, just a couple of trucks and some concrete. I sort of wished this was the world that mattered because the outside one was hideously scary and endlessly out of my depth. But at some point I would have to grow up and learn to grasp it with both hands, and this was as good a time as any.
*
"How long have you been looking after Ellie?" I asked. The dusk was beginning to fade into night time and silence had settled around us bar the rustling of wind in the trees.
"Since Jake died." Phil shrugged.
I frowned.
"I think that's the difference between us." There was no need to speak loudly, in the half light my voice carried with the wind. "You're a good person. You don't think about yourself or anything like that you just think 'that's not okay, I need to help'. You care a lot and so do I I'm just not a strong person. I'm weak, you know. It's not just confidence it's like, I don't know how to say it. But I need people. I depend on people to be okay, I don't trust myself. So when it comes to other people I never know what to do and I always think I'm going to mess things up and make it worse you know? My first thought is never 'how can I help them' it's 'oh god that's so sad.' Whereas with you, helping people and caring for them is literally inbuilt in you – you don't even think you just do. It's your nature, you can't watch suffering and you're always looking for ways to help even if has nothing to do with you.
"I don't just mean this, but like when we're watching the telly – remember that David Attenborough documentary? The one with the ducks? And he was explaining how the eggs get abandoned and I was just like aww that's so sad and the next time I saw ducks I thought about it but I didn't actually do anything. And then I came up to the dorm after lunch and there you were just sitting there with those tiny little eggs under your desk lamp. Like, you did that. You found out about something and automatically went out to the river to see if there were any you could help and it just never would have crossed my mind.
"Sure, if I'd stumbled across them I probably would have picked them up and taken them to the RSPCA or something but I never would have gone out looking. And you were just there with fucking duck eggs all cuddled up on your lap to keep them warm while you tried to get that lamp to work. I don't know, Phil. I don't know how you do it, how you stay so strong all the time. You just wade right into all this messed up shit to help a girl you don't even know without even thinking about it and I love you, okay."
Phil took my face between his hands. "Dan. Firstly I love you, of course I do. And secondly you're not weak – not even slightly. Aren't you forgetting something? You walked into that estate in the middle of the night all by yourself fully expecting to be brutally beaten to death in order to spare me a relatively small amount of shit. You're strong and selfless, just in different ways. I don't think I could have done that. Mainly because I'm not as stupid as you but that's beside the point."
I rolled my eyes, trying to pull my head from his hands but he held me tight, leaning in slowly to press his cold lips to mine. His nose was going slowly from pink to red and it was like an icicle against my cheek. As he pulled away I touched it gently with my finger and he wrinkled his face up.
"You look like a hamster." I giggled.
"Your nose is cold." He said.
"So's yours!"
"It's getting dark. We might get lost on the way back, I'm not really sure where we are."
"You have a general idea though, right?" I raised my eyebrows.
"Ish."
"That's good enough for me. Can we stay a little longer? It's nice here."
"It really is getting cold though."
"Why don't we go inside the tree and huddle? It'll be warmer in there."
"What about the bugs?"
"They'll all be sleeping by now."
"Do bugs even sleep?"
"They have to, don't they? It's one of the seven signs of life."
"So they're all curled up in their little bug beds with hot chocolate."
"Exactly. Come on, let's go. Bugs don't matter if you don't know they're there. It's like how in London you're never more than 6m from a rat, but as long as you're not actually aware of them you don't mind."
"Rats are fine. There's nothing wrong with rats, I used to have a pet rat after all my hamsters died."
"You disgust me, Philip."
"They're actually very clean."
"They carry diseases."
"It was one time."
"It was the fucking plague, Phil."
"Not their fault."
"Half the population died."
"Was it really half though?"
"I don't know. Shut up. Let's go sit in a tree."
Phil chuckled as he led the way, parting the veil of green vines to stoop through the entrance. I followed, blinking in the darkness.
"I literally can't see anything." I mumbled, my voice echoing around the hollow wood.
"Good. That means you won't see the giant tarantula you're about to sit on then." Phil Pulled me down beside him.
"Shut up."
"Or the snake that just slithered past your ankle."
"Fuck. Do you think there are actually snakes in here?" I said, my voice panicked.
"Probably. There's loads of snakes in the woods, people just don't realise. They think all the snakes live in Australia. But we get loads of adders and stuff."
"Aren't adders poisonous though, right?"
"Only a little. I mean, you only might die, if you get to hospital in time they can usually save you."
"Thanks, Phil. You're doing a great job."
"Love you."
"Love you too. I hate you, though."
"That's my line!"
"Not when you're the one being mean."
"Not mean, just facts."
"Scary facts."
"Are you scared?"
"No." (I wasn't fooling Phil.)
"Oh Dan. Come here, I'm sorry, it's okay. As long as you make plenty of noise the adders stay out of your way – it's just when you step on them that they get angry. Anyway they won't be in here, they'll be out looking for prey."
Phil's arms were warm and comforting around me and I cursed myself silently for being such an idiot.
"I'm not really scared. Just suddenly worried. Fine now though. You're warm. Also I was right, it's a lot warmer in here."
"That's all the snakes keeping it warm."
"Fuck you. Snakes are cold blooded anyway – ha!"
"Bears aren't though."
"No bears in England."
"There's badgers though."
"Badgers are cuddly."
"Not when they're angry. Did you hear about that woman who got mauled to death by a badger in- OW!"
Darkness descended on the clearing. In the trees a startled deer dropped the leaf she was munching on in surprise as a black log in the middle of the undergrowth suddenly started squealing. As the squeals subsided new noises started that were even more alarming than the last. It sounded wet and incredibly inappropriate for a peaceful forest dwelling oak. The deer shook her head in disgust and resumed her munching.
She was just preparing to head off in search of a better tree for dinner when the silence was broken once more by a feral scream.
"THERE'S A FUCKING LEECH ON MY-"