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She’d spoken aloud, and hadn’t meant to. It was just that her attention was elsewhere when the small creature caromed into her trunk. And now her hasty reaction had made him look up at her. Fairleaf closed her eyes and stood very still, as still as the tall thin copper beech that stood beside her.
Easy does it now . . . she hummed to herself as one of her limbs reached into the branches of the elm that stood on her other side. One of the Inn’s hens had escaped being cooped up earlier in the evening, choosing instead to fluff herself out in a cozy little pile of leaves where one of the elm’s branches met the trunk. A safe, and cozy little place she was sure the hen had thought. Not to be, though. Not to be.
My apologies, little mistress . . . Fairleaf murmured, her leafy fingers insinuating themselves beneath the unsuspecting chicken. With a quick, gentle nudge, the drowsing bird was pushed from the elm limb, falling in a squawking mass of feathers and flapping wings toward the prone form of the small, fallen creature below . . .
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When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown/When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town/When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West/I'll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best!
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