chapter 84

In Which Our Hero Encounters a Most Unusual Tree

Jackson had already seen some pretty odd places in the tree, but this field was unlike any other. He stepped carefully, the ends of the grass tickling his fingers, arms, and legs. The smell reminded him of warm, baked bread with a touch of cinnamon and ginger. The sun was bright above his head, filling him with such a coziness that he simply could not stop smiling.

As he walked, he felt a tingling in his legs. An energy surged through him, and there was just one word in his mind: run. So he took a breath and ran.

His muscles were strong and made him fast. He ran as quickly as he could, his arms pumping with each stride. He felt the grasses brush against his bare skin, tickling him. He ran faster and faster. He spread his arms out like he’d just won a race and kept running. He felt like he could run forever.

As Jackson weaved back and forth through the grasses, making his own path, he noticed something glistening and glittering up ahead. It looked like … a shimmering tree? He laughed. A tree within a tree. He ran toward it.

As he ran, the tree came into focus, but that trick of the light—the shimmering look of the leaves—didn’t change as he drew closer. And then, before he knew it, he was standing right in front of the tree. If he hadn’t been so transfixed, Jackson would have noticed that his legs weren’t tired at all. And that he wasn’t even breathing hard. But Jackson couldn’t think about anything but the tree.

The tree had thick bark, very much like a silver maple (Acer saccharinum), but with deep grooves like a black walnut (Julgans nigra L). The bark was brownish-grayish-blondish with black squiggles and the branches whorled like a white pine (Pinus strobus L.) (which in itself was ridiculous because this was clearly a deciduous tree). (Whorled means growing around in a circle and deciduous means that a tree loses its leaves in the winter. And you thought you weren’t going to learn anything in this book!) But this tree didn’t have leaves. Something else dangled on the branches.

Jackson stepped a bit closer. The silence was almost deafening. It was as if a hush had gone all over the world — as though this were a very special, secret place.

The tree shimmered with the most fantastic colors. Dazzling rainbows made of ten different kinds of reds, eleven yellows, fifteen greens, sixty-eight purples, thirty-two blues, and four oranges. As Jackson stepped even closer, he realized that the branches of the tree were filled not with leaves, but with little bits of colored glass, tied on delicately with fine copper wire. The tree began to tinkle, its colors rippling together, casting a rainbow so bright Jackson almost had to close his eyes. The tinkling stopped, and a bright amber piece of glass materialized right before Jackson’s face. There seemed to be little scratches etched on it. He looked at the other pieces of glass. They all had little etchings on them too.

Some of the pieces of glass had hieroglyphics on them, some had Chinese writing on them, some had Russian writing on them, some had French writing on them, and some had … oh! An English one!

On a piece of yellow glass, someone had etched in tiny, messy printing the words:

I pray my sister will get better.

Jackson’s brow furrowed. He looked at a piece of electric blue glass and read:

I pray my dad will get a job soon.

Were these all … prayers? Jackson swallowed. What was this place? And what was this tree? He kept reading:

Please help me find my cat, Sneakers.

Thank you for helping me find my teddy bear.

Thank you for the rains. Our vegetables
are finally growing.

I pray for a baby.

I pray for my mom’s cancer to go away.

I pray we can sell our house soon.

I pray for a friend to play with at school.

I pray my dad won’t die.

Jackson gasped. Was this … a prayer tree? He heard a snort and then some laughter. Jackson looked up.