The closer she\'d gotten to the city, the more she felt that similarly to the forests she typically retreated to when morning threatened, it was alive. Not in the same way her forests were, of course, but it was remarkably similar. Where life flowed in a forest through extensive root systems, the city too had an underground system that directed the tide of energy throughout it. That\'s where their similarities ended. The energy in the city flowed in lines as straight as the tall buildings that suffocated its horizon from a centralized point. She could pick any one line that she felt and follow it directly to its source. And she had.
Her outfit, made freshly clean in a creek near the cabin she\'d taken over, was the same she\'d worn the last time she\'d been in the city; a faded black tank top, dark blue jeans with holes starting at the corners of her rear pockets and socks that covered her feet before she tucked them into hiking boots. She smelled strongly of soap, but it wouldn\'t be long before she again smelled of the wilderness. Especially considering what she was doing, now that she\'d found the origin of the lines.
She took off her socks and boots, leaving her feet bare, and climbed a tree that dwarfed all those around it. She realized it was the oak in her dream as she pulled herself onto one of its lower branches, and then scooted along, her powerfully muscular legs on either side of the limb and her hands helping propel her forward. When she came to the point where the tree bent under her weight, she leaned forward and put her ear to bark, causing her long braid to fall from her shoulder and dangle down like a black rope.
Anna could hear sap slowly moving its way upward from the roots, filtering into individual branches, then stems and finally the dark green leaves of the oak. The tree itself wasn\'t the source. It was just a tree, magnificent and large as it was. It was beneath the roots where the energy began, and where it split off into lines that went on and on, as far as the reservation, many miles away, and then even beyond that.
She closed her eyes and began humming, but the humming quickly developed into singing. In her native tongue, she sang of her wish that the spirits continue to protect the trees remaining in the heart of the city. Even though the spirits had stopped listening to her long ago, she thought she could hear them stirring in response and opened her eyes. Then she realized how wrong she\'d been.
Another had been attracted by her song.
