Charlie flipped through the paper at the library, scanning articles and trying not to think about why Liz hadn’t returned his call. A headline fluttered by and pried his eyes open.

“Timber Poacher Felled by Trees?”

Charlie sucked in a breath and spread the paper out on the table. Another poacher had been injured while trying to take a tree out of Palalla land. It was miles away from where he’d been patrolling, but the scenario was eerily similar. The poacher claimed to have been attacked by the tree he’d attempted to cut down.

Memories of the battered bodies in the woods came flooding back. He wanted to go see the guy in the article, ask him what happened. But with his injuries, they’d had to send him up to Seattle. And without a vehicle, Charlie had no way of getting up there.

Dammit, he was tired as hell of this. Starting over like a child. No truck, no place to live, earning nowhere near what he used to pull down on construction jobs. There was more work up in Seattle, but too much risk. It’d be too easy to get back in with his old friends and his old life, strung out all the time, spending every day regretting what he’d done the day before.

And it was where he lost his daughter.

He ran his hands over his face and stood up. Even he had a limit to how much time he could spend at the library. He’d have his own space soon enough. He was set to move next week into that place above the garage Eddie’d told him about. But for now he’d just have to pull on his coat and step outside.

It was Saturday afternoon, still light outside, but a distinct chill had crept into the air. He zipped up his coat and shoved his hands into his pockets. With no particular destination in mind, he headed off in the direction with the fewest people. He didn’t look at anything really, just stared off into the distance and tried to clear his mind. Tried to stop wondering what was up with Liz, stop thinking about the Greyfox kid and how Eddie stonewalled when he asked questions about the Greyfoxes or trees. Could Eddie be protecting a family of tree poachers? He hated that his thoughts went straight to shady dealings, but what was he supposed to think with Eddie being so tight-lipped?

People aren’t always who you think they are, his mother used to tell him, but try and forgive ‘em anyway. Another one of her favorites: People have their reasons, and you shouldn’t always assume they’re bad ones. He’d be curious to know what her reasons were for this current disappearing act of hers. He hadn’t heard from her for a couple of years now.

An eagle cried overhead. Charlie watched it soar above him, coasting on the brisk wind. Such a beautiful creature, heading off to some filthy dump to scavenge for food. That’s how it was in Seattle, at least. But somehow, he had higher hopes for the eagle out here. He imagined it flying over to some tiny apartment above a garage. The big time. He let out a bitter little laugh, then looked down. The toes of his boots were wet. He’d already reached the river’s edge without realizing it.

He was about to turn around and head back home when he heard someone speaking over the rushing water. It sounded like an old woman. He spotted her under a wisp of smoke downstream, on the opposite side of the river. What was she doing out here in the cold? Her back was to him, but he could see that she was burning something near the trees.

How did she even get there? He scanned up and down the river for a dry path to the other side. He stepped half on rocks, half through the water to cross over to her. What the hell, his feet were already wet. Her chanting softened and stopped as he grew near, but she didn’t turn around. He watched her back for a moment, frigid water seeping through his socks.

“Excuse me, Grandmother,” he said quietly, so as not to startle her.

She turned, head and shoulders moving in tandem, to look at him. It was the same old woman who had almost been knocked over by the Greyfox boy. Coals smoldered in a shallow stone bowl she’d placed on a boulder in front of her. She pulled a sprig of sage from a pouch she wore around her neck and sprinkled it into the bowl. A plume of smoke rose into the air and she waved it with her hands in the direction of the trees, murmuring quiet words of prayer. When the smoke died down the old woman waved Charlie toward her.

“The trees are restless,” she said as he approached.

“Restless?” He ignored the cold pricking his toes. “Why are they restless?”

“We give them many reasons.” She sprinkled more sage into the bowl. The flames licked at the sage, and she waved the pungent smoke toward him. “You seem restless too,” she said, and offered up a few words of prayer for him.

Somehow, he thought, these old Palalla ladies always know the score.

The elder cinched up the first pouch and opened another one, from which she pulled a braided bunch of sweetgrass. She lit one end of the braid against the coals, and it smoked without flame. Then she approached the edge of the woods and walked a line in front of the trees, waving the fragrant plume of smoke along the edge of the woods. Charlie could still hear her speaking, but only recognized a few words here and there, mostly from context: kw’ałanuúsha (thank you), tiichám (earth), chiish (water). All the things his mother and grandfather and uncles had tried to get him to pay attention to.

The old woman returned to her stone bowl and used it to extinguish the braid of sweetgrass. Once she’d returned the herbs to their pouch, she picked up the bowl with a small grunt. Charlie hurried over to help her.

“Thank you,” she said, handing the bowl to him and heading toward the riverbank. He wriggled his clammy toes and looked back across the river, instantly spotting a dry path to the other side. Of course she’d known exactly where to pass.

The old woman started out across a trail of dry rocks jutting above the water. Her balance was pretty good, better than his cold, clumsy feet would allow at this point. Charlie followed her footsteps, lopsided with the heavy bowl on one arm.

He had just stepped halfway across the river when he heard the too-familiar creak of wood. He looked up at the older woman standing on the opposite shore, her face a mixture of fear and awe. The popping and cracking behind him intensified as he hopped the last couple of rocks to join her. He looked back across to the other side, where the woman had just made her offering.

Amidst a plume of dust and twigs and yellowed leaves, an alder was bending over. It wasn’t slumping over like an old tree hollowed out by disease, or crashing down like a dry stick of a tree toppling in the wind. Slowly and deliberately, booming and popping, the alder lay down like a giant preparing to sleep.

Charlie put a protective arm around the grandmother’s shoulders. His heart galloped. He should be leading her away to safety, but they were both grounded by wonder. As the dust settled, a new round of creaking and popping rang out of the forest. He scanned the stand of trees and spied another alder stirring. The old woman clutched at his coat, and he gripped her shoulders tighter. They steadied each other as a second tree made a graceful, deliberate descent to the earth. As soon as the second tree settled, a third tree felled itself, carefully lowering its trunk to the ground between its neighbors. The trees creaked and groaned into place until the only sounds left were the rush of the river and the periodic snap of a limb settling into its new position against the ground.

Charlie and the grandmother stared into the forest as the cloud of dirt and leaves subsided.

“Well, would you look at that?” the grandmother murmured.

“What was that?” He turned the old woman’s shoulders until she faced him. “Did you do that?”

Her face was flushed. “I asked them for guidance. I asked them how we can live together in peace.”

Charlie looked back across the river in disbelief, just then noticing how much the afternoon light had faded. A shiver passed through the old woman. It was too cold for her here, and he had wet feet and frozen hands. “Come on,” he said. “We should get out of the cold.”

But neither one of them moved. They both stared at the fallen trees until the old woman shivered again. Charlie gently guided her away from the river toward the warmth of town, wondering what this message could possibly mean.