They found her notes in the shed three days after she disappeared. Stacked neatly beneath a jar of magnolia seeds, the final page read:

“I wish to become a great tree, shading all beings.”

The locals weren’t surprised. Dr. Elara Myles had always been a bit eccentric since she left her post at the university to live alone at the forest’s edge. Some said she talked to her plants. Others swore they saw her walking barefoot in midwinter.

They sent a ranger to her cabin when she didn’t show up for her weekly supply run. Her boots were by the door, soup still warm on the stove, but no trace of her. No footprints in the snow. Just an impression on the grass behind her house, like something had taken root.

Then came the sapling. It grew in silence. No one planted it. The soil hadn’t been disturbed. But there it stood, just days after her disappearance: pale green leaves shaped like hearts, a trunk with faint, vein-like carvings that mirrored the lines of Elara’s palms.

By spring, it was ten feet tall. By autumn, twenty.

Animals began congregating beneath it—rabbits, deer, even a black bear that napped without fear. The homeless drifted to its shade, claiming dreams under its branches were more vivid, more real than waking life. A woman who’d lost her daughter said she heard her voice while resting there. A man who hadn’t spoken in a year began reciting Latin names for mosses.

The town tried to ignore it. But then came the land developers.

They called it a hazard. “Rapid biological anomaly,” they said. “Unstable root system.” They brought machines, permits, and polite men with clipboards.

In the morning, they came to cut it down, and the tree bloomed for the first time, not with flowers but with glowing seedpods shaped like eyes.

The crew didn’t last the hour. One fell to his knees in tears; another ran screaming into the trees. By sunset, they were gone.

No one approaches the tree now, but people still come. They sit at the edge, quiet and reverent. Children leave drawings. Elders murmur prayers. And when the wind is just right, you can hear a voice in the rustling leaves.

Soft. Joyful. Rooted.

“I am shade. Rest here.”

The End