Tree Girl by T. A. Barron Read Free Book Online Page B

the ground.
    Anna jumped off the boulder and stepped over to his side. He brushed some bark off his furry chest and gazed up at her, green eyes aglow.
    “Thanks, Anna.”
    “Oh,” she replied casually, “I’d do that for any old bear. Even one crazy enough to dare the ghouls.”
    He laughed, the same rippling laugh she had heard so many times before. But this time it sounded a bit different—lighter, somehow, and the voice a little higher. His laughter lifted into the surrounding trees, whose branches rustled and creaked along with him.
    “How’s this feeling?” She gently pulled a spiderweb off the hurt limb.
    The cub straightened his leg and let the paw sink into a thick tuft of moss. “Just needs some rest, that’s all.”
    “Which won’t be easy for you.”
    Eagle hopped closer on a root and chirped in agreement.
    The young bear pushed his nose at Anna. “No, but I can take care of myself. Always have.” He cocked his head. “Until…just now.”
    He reached his forepaw toward her face. Lightly he touched her cheek, so lightly that he seemed to have no claws at all. “You’re the crazy one, you know,” he said, his voice sounding higher again. “But that’s the way I like…a friend.”
    Puddles formed in Anna’s eyes. For a moment, in her clouded vision, he looked less like a bear than a sandy-haired boy. A boy who had called her
friend.
    She reached up to touch the paw on her cheek. What she felt, though, was not a paw—but a hand. A hand with fingers like her own.
    She shrieked and pulled away. Furiously, she blinked, trying to clear her vision. Nothing changed. The bear cub before her was now, indeed, a boy.
    He wore little over his walnut brown skin: loose leggings made of woven strips of bark, and a band of scarlet leaves around one wrist. His bare chestand arms bore dozens of scrapes, bruises, and scars. Gone was all the fur, though his sandy hair looked just as unruly. Only his wild, magical eyes, as green as the forest itself, hadn’t changed.
    The boy watched her, a mysterious gleam in those eyes. “So what do you see?”
    “A boy! You’re a boy!” She shook her head in disbelief. “How…?”
    “I’m still Sash,” he said calmly.
    Anna couldn’t stop shaking her head. “But who
are
you, really?”
    With his good wing, Eagle tapped the boy’s knee, as if demanding an answer.
    Sash’s gaze never wavered. “Guess.”
    “Just tell me!”
    “No, guess.” He grinned with all the mischief of a cub—but the face of a boy.
    She drew a deep breath. “Well…you’re
not
a bear.”
    He nodded. “Right so far.” He picked up a llyrberry that had dropped into the grass, flicked it into the air, and caught it on his tongue. “Though I like the way they eat.”
    “And eat and eat.”
    “Right again.” He folded his arms on his chest. “Come on, now. I thought you had a brain! Can’t you do any better?”
    She growled at him, sounding like a bear herself. “Well, I just don’t know. You’re not a bear, and you’re not a regular boy. Aye, that’s certain! What
are
you, then?”
    He just kept grinning.
    Anna’s brow furrowed. “Oh, come on. Give me a hint, at least.”
    Sash pursed his lips. “All right, all right. I guess you could say I’m, well…closer to Old Burl.”
    “Old Burl?” She stared at him, now thoroughly confused. “He’s back at the beach! And we’re out here, by the glade. You’re no closer than I am, and you know it.”
    “Not like that, Anna.” His eyes sparkled.
    “Closer
in spirit.
”
    She gasped. And her mouth opened as wide as an oyster. “You don’t mean…you’re not saying…”
    He leaned nearer. “What?”
    She blew a long, slow breath. “You’re not really…”
    “I am! A tree spirit.”
    She just stood there, dumbfounded.
    “What my people call a
drumalo.
” He bent his injured leg, winced, then put it back down on the moss. “And what some might call a tree ghoul.”
    Anna felt suddenly wobbly. She sat down, her back