The hull of the plane rattled slightly when the wheels hit the runway. Inertia pulled Andy back against her slate-blue window seat as they taxied to the terminal, then shoved her foreword upon arriving there. Andy unfastened her seat belt, stood to retrieve her carry on, and entered the line of passengers as they slowly made their way into the long umbilical attached to the airport. She found the baggage claim, soon located her car rental window, and then exited the airport. After finding her car, Andy began the twenty-mile drive towards her parent's house.

Andy smiled at the familiar gray-green sage and yucca plants sprouting up along the roadside, the yucca harsh, the sage soft and delicate in comparison. She had grown up with their scents and rolled down her window to relive them again. Inhaling deeply, her eyes closed for a moment as memories from her youth flooded her senses. She found again her woods, her childhood companions. As she drove, Andy let the memories overtake her.

She had been with her father the first time she had gone to the woods behind her parent's house. After supper, he would take her along for his evening walk. She was four. The evening breeze lifted her fine, brown hair off her neck drying the light sheen of perspiration hidden there. It was a hot evening, mid-July, and the dry Colorado heat brought up the scent of dry ragweed and sage as they made their way toward the woods. The transition from the surrounding prairie landscape to the woods was welcome as cool shade enveloped them beneath the first leafy boughs. Andy watched the diamonds of light that scampered along the ground and tilted her head back to see their source. Little needles of evening sun filtered through the branches, meandering through the leaves to weave delicate filigree upon the path they walked down. The trees were taller than her father, their highest branches seemed miles away to the little awestruck girl beneath them.

"Do you know how tall these trees are Andromeda?" her father asked. Andy shook her head as her father found a seat on a nearby stone. "The tallest is one hundred feet tall, and it is the oldest one in the woods. It is almost as old as it is tall. And he is very wise, this tree. He watches over all the other trees and protects them from harm. They're like a small family and you must always respect their wisdom."

Upon returning home, Andy told her mother about the woods and drew a picture to put on the refrigerator. She insisted on accompanying her father on his evening sojourns and became very attached to the trees, especially the great big one she came to call Grandfather.

When she was old enough, Andy would go to the woods alone. She began playing imagining games with them, creating personalities for her new friends and listening to their stories of harsh winters and burning summers. She especially liked the stories they told about the birds. They made their homes high in the branches, and although Andy couldn't see them, their songs assured her of their presence. She loved talking with Grandfather, for his stories were the most wonderful. He told her of a time when the woods were full of birds and that the trees young branches sagged with the weight of the nests. The spring was a happy time for the woods, when the air was filled with the hungry chirping of just-hatched robins and sparrows and the fresh scent the blooming woods. Only when Andy had experienced it for herself the next spring did she realize just how special the woods were.

School began, and the only way Andy could get her homework done was to take it into the woods. The winters were hard, but wherever she could talk her parents into it, Andy would pile on her snow-gear and head outside to make snow angels underneath the branches of her snow-blanketed friends. Sometimes they would laugh so hard at her that the snow that covered them would tumble down onto her in a powdery rush. Andy would return their laughter and toss snowballs at their thick torsos until she heard her mother's voice calling her inside for hot cocoa.

When Andy took up an interest in writing, the first thing she did was write down all of the stories Grandfather told her and all the adventures they'd shared together. Sometimes she would read her writing back to them for their opinions and they would whisper that she had a good memory and was accurate in her accounts. Smiling, Andy would climb up into Grandfather and hug him tightly. On the third branch from the ground, in Grandfather's arms was where Andy did most of her writing. She even found herself waking up there at times when the sun was warm and the days were long. Her parents were afraid that she would tumble out one day, but Andy knew that she could trust Grandfather to protect her.

The summer after Andy's second grade year was the warmest she could remember. Her parents were full of complaints about the intense heat and they wished daily for one of the state's famous "wonder-storms", the thundershowers so powerful that often came without notice. When Andy was in the trees, she hardly felt the heat. The trees would moan about it occasionally, but they too were used to the dry summers. Three weeks into the summer came the hottest, most terrible day of the year. Andy heard the newscaster say that temperatures were record breaking. She even found it was too hot to play outdoors. So she stayed inside and wrote a little poem for Grandfather. In the midst of her writing, Andy heard her mother in the kitchen.

"Oh my God," her mother gasped, "there's a fire!"

Curiously, Andy exited her bedroom and entered the kitchen where her mother was dialing the telephone. As Andy listened to her mother's words, she glanced out the window. Smoke so black and sooty rose up from the woods, stabbed by licks of orange flame.

"Hello...there is a fire behind my house…In the field right behind Janitell Ranch…Yes, it looks out of control," Andy's mother stated, "Please, hurry!"

Andy was crying as she opened the screen door and ran to the fence at the foot of their yard. She climbed over it quickly and ran towards the trees. Her mother screamed at Andy from far behind not to go near the flames, but Andy had to save her friends. She heard the dry sage crush beneath her sneakers but it couldn't drown out the crackling of the flames ahead of her. She would run through them if she had to, she had to save Grandfather.

Andy fell, tripping in a prairie dog burrow and catching her ankle. The pain shot up through her leg. She could feel a pair of arms around her waist lifting her off the ground. Her mother hugged her daughter tightly despite Andy's kicking and screaming, which was soon out-screamed by the approaching fire engines.

Andy went to the woods with her parents the following morning to see the damage. Andy's feet sunk into the muddy, sooty ground making squishing noises as the trio approached the woods. Most of the surrounding landscape had been devoured by the hungry flames, including some of the smaller trees. Andy found that the taller trees were able to withstand the flames, suffering only a few withered leaves and felled branches. Grandfather had lost his two lower branches and received the worst damage. Andy stood in the clearing between the old trees and spun around gleefully, dancing in the black puddles and laughing. They had survived.

It took two years for the wood to begin its growth cycle again. The fire had made the news and Andy's mom had been quoted in the paper saying, "It almost took our daughter." The tiny sprigs of sage and grass were so green when they finally pushed through the ground. Andy knew that the fire had changed the other plants into food for the new plants. It made her think that the fire was good, even though it had taken Grandfather's limbs.

School was beginning to get interesting for Andy. She was making a lot of new friends and she spent the night at their houses sometimes. They laughed at her when she talked about the trees. Their conversations weren't interesting to her either; all they talked about was boys. So, Andy kept those friends at school and kept the trees for the times she wasn't at school.

During the summer before she turned fourteen, Grandfather was struck down by lightning. It happened overnight during a terrible thunderstorm. Andy remembered sitting up in her bed after hearing a deafening boom of thunder. She recovered from her shock and went back to sleep oblivious of what had occurred. When she went to the woods the next afternoon, she found Grandfather lying in two pieces on the ground. She sobbed, covering her mouth in disbelief. He was fine yesterday, she thought. I was just up in his branches a few hours ago. She was crying for hours before she realized that this was a natural act that couldn't have been stopped.

She began to sing the lullaby her father would sing to her when she was younger. Its haunting melody was the only thing she knew that was hymn-like and Grandfather needed a proper funeral. The wind picked up her song and carried it to the other trees and they looked sad, their branches dipping lower than usual. Before she left the woods, Andy picked up one of the small branches that had snapped off beneath Grandfather's immense weight and carried it home with her.

She went into the garage after telling her parents what she had found. They were quiet, not knowing how to react to the news their daughter carried with her. She found a saw and a chisel and she began to work on the branch. Slowly, carefully, she formed the limb into a bird. It was simple but she needed something to remember Grandfather by. And she had loved the birds that sang in his branches and the stories he told about them. The birds meant so much to him as well, and this was the perfect memento. That evening, Andy took her carving into her backyard and carefully placed it in the petite apple tree that grew there. It had never housed any birds, although a few would stop to taste its fruit before winging home.

"Here you are, little apple tree, something to make you big and strong. I hope it brings you many birds and many stories," Andy said with a tear-stained voice. "Good-bye, Grandfather."

The woods weren't the same after Grandfather died. Andy hardly went there unless she had an overwhelming urge. Instead, she became more interested in school and her grades. At sixteen her father began letting her go on double dates with friends, and for her first homecoming dance, he let her go alone. In history class, Patrick, the boy who sat behind her, asked if Andy wanted to go to the dance with him. She agreed and when the evening came around she had sweaty palms. She would invite him to the woods with her after the dance so they could talk.

"Here we are," she sang as they exited his car.

"Wow, cool hang out," Patrick said, walking into the clearing. There was a full moon in the sparkling sky that made the tree-leaves look like shiny green plastic.

"Do you really like it?" she asked, taking a seat on Grandfather's broken stump. Erosion from years of wind and rain had made its flat surface smooth. Patrick sat next to her and smiled.

"I do."

She returned his smile shyly and began to tell him the history of the woods. All of the stories Grandfather had told her and all of the things that had happened since she began visiting here. "They were my best friends growing up, as crazy as that sounds. It's like they have lives and personalities all their own. Of course, that may have been my over-active imagination as a kid. I mean, they don't talk to me anymore," she laughed.

"I think it's great that you appreciate nature, so many people don't. I don't think it's strange that you used to talk to trees, Andy. In fact, I like it. It makes you special."

Andy blushed, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. He smiled too and leaned in slowly towards her. A rush of heat flowed through her when their lips touched. She felt so awkward in this place that was so familiar to her. She didn't know what to do with the rest of her body. Andy placed her arms upon Patrick's shoulders; she thought that's where they should go. His hands found her hips and she could feel they were very warm through the fabric of her green party dress. She broke the embrace, remembering that she had a curfew to follow. They were on her front porch in moments, Patrick apologizing to Andy's father, begging him not to ground her for being late. She reminded herself to thank him in class on Monday.

Trips to the woods with Patrick steadily grew more intense. They began experimenting with kissing, touch, and love. Patrick had become her best friend and she trusted him with all of her secrets. Andy had wanted to take exploration slow. He had been her first kiss and her first love and she did want him to have her virginity, but she wanted it to be special. But Patrick was getting anxious.

"What has to be special about it? You love me right? I love you, so what's the problem?" he said after Andy pushed him away for the third time that evening.

"You don't understand, obviously. Love isn't all you need to make love. At least, that's not all I need," she began. "I need a special time and place. Yeah, I know it's so cliché, you've probably heard it yourself. But I'm standing by it. It won't be tonight."

Patrick stood up, walked towards his car, and opened the driver's side door. The light from inside the car shined on his jeans and lit his face from underneath, making him look strangely sinister. Andy didn't want him to go but he was being an ass-hole. What made sex so great anyway, she thought.

"I don't want to leave Andy. But if you want to go home, I'll drive you," Patrick said. He snapped his head towards the car motioning for her to come with him. Andy got up off the stump and walked over to where Patrick leaned against the car, suddenly feeling guilty.

"I didn't mean to get bitchy like that. I'm sorry, Patrick," she apologized.

"Me too," he said vaguely. Andy wasn't sure what he meant, but she ducked underneath his arm and started to crawl across the bench seat. She felt him grab hold of her ankles and pull her legs out from under her.

"Patrick," she giggled, "Stop it!"

Andy looked up and Patrick and saw his face. He looked her over with a look far from playful. He still held her ankles and he twisted her onto her back with a power she never knew he possessed. Fear broke loose inside of her and she started to kick and writhe, anything to get away from him. But he held tight, squeezing her ankles to the bone. Andy tried to reach for the door now above her head, her fingers groping for the handle. Patrick's hand hit her face with such force that Andy's vision blurred. Tears fell down onto the coarse canvas of the upholstery that covered the front seat. Andy tried to fight him, with teeth and nails she resisted him. But she soon grew tired and Patrick let a cruel laugh escape his once perfect lips as he ripped open her shirt.

He wasn't gentle like he had been in the past. Patrick had turned into the opposite of what he was an hour ago, sweet and considerate. Now, as he bruised her breasts with the force of his kneading, Andy watched everything left of reality fall away into the blackness of her mind.

Andy never returned to the woods after that night. They were the scene of her betrayal and she couldn't bear the pain that grew there. She never told anyone about the rape either, she felt too guilty. Her parents wondered why she stopped seeing Patrick so abruptly, but Andy explained that they had a difference of opinion they couldn't settle. They believed her as easily as she had spoken the lie.

When Andy graduated from high school, she didn't know what she was going to do with herself but she knew she would have to go to college. So, she applied and was accepted at UCLA at Valencia and was soon on a plane to California. While she was there, she pursued her writing much more. Her professors told her that she had a great talent and that she should try to publish something. She started small, getting a short story placed in the university's literary magazine. A local magazine followed and then she received recognition through the state of California for an editorial she submitted to the L.A. Times. Finally, she decided on a career. She wanted to teach creative writing at the college level. She received her master's degree in education and was on her way to becoming a professor at DePaul University in Illinois.

While Andy was at school, she fell in love. His name was Lucian and she had been his tutor for English. Lucian was from Greece originally, and he had moved to the United States at age twenty. His English was a little rusty, especially grammatically. So Andy took him on as a pupil in written English. She never expected it to turn into anything more than a student/teacher relationship. Lucian, on the other hand, had other plans. Andy was not ready to trust again and it took her a long time to tell him much of anything relating to herself.

"You don't trust me, Andromeda. Why is that?" he said, his voice rich with his Mediterranean accent. "What do I do to make myself untrustworthy?"

Andy shifted in her seat. They were in a coffee shop on campus after one of their late-night study sessions.

"Hey, Andy? You awake? I think you need more coffee," he laughed.

"I'm awake. It's not you, Lucian. I think you're a wonderful person. But I don't trust many men, that's just the way it is," Andy said.

"I am not other men, Andromeda. You know better than that."

"I thought I knew someone else well too, he wasn't 'other men' until he broke a trust," Andy stated, growing steadily more frustrated. "Can we stop this topic, please?"

Lucian edged on. "He really hurt you. But he is behind you now. Why do you still hang on to something that terrible?"

Andy didn't answer him. She didn't have an answer to give. Why did she hang on so tightly to that one event in time? That night had destroyed her whole outlook on life, on love and on the woods. One event had placed a rift between her and her happiness and she hadn't dared to bridge the gap.

"Trust me. Come to Greece with me this summer holiday. The sun and ocean air would do you good; maybe even blow some of the pain away. Will you try it?"

"I can't answer that now, Lucian. Will you give me a few weeks to think it over? I will be in Colorado visiting my parent's the first week after school, then flying out to Illinois on the second to set up my classes."

"Here then," Lucian took her pen and wrote something out on the back of the notebook she brought with her. "Here is my telephone number in L.A., my parent's number. You call me there when you decide." Andy said that she would and together they left the coffee shop.

As Andy turned onto her parent's street, she whisked away the tears of memory from her cheeks. She looked in her vanity mirror after she pulled into the driveway and fixed her smudged mascara. She knew her mother would panic at the sight of her daughter's tear-stained face, so she did her best to remedy her appearance and took a deep breath. She knew this trip back to the woods would help her make the decision between Lucian and her own self-preservation.

"Welcome home, Andy," her father smiled when she reached the door of the house. As she let the door close behind her, she smiled at the familiar squeak released by the bent hinge of the screen. She was home. Her father hugged and kissed her once she was inside and her mother followed.

"It's good to be back," Andy smiled.

They ate lunch together and caught up. Andy told them about Lucian and how he had asked her to join him on his voyage to Greece. Her mother was visibly impressed.

"I thought you were coming home to tell us you were a lesbian. You've been single since high school...what was his name, Patrick? I thought you had just given up on men altogether," Andy's mother laughed with relief.

"Mother!" Andy was shocked at her mother's revelation. "I'm not a lesbian, don't worry."

"So do you like this Lucian?" her father asked, calmly. He had become very serene in his later years. Andy thought that time had been very gracious to both of her parents. It had made her mother more outspoken and left her father had become rather reclusive and passive. They were perfect together and Andy felt a pang of longing in her soul. Something inside her was begging to be filled, something that had been empty for a long time.

After lunch, Andy found herself drawn to the woods. She excused herself from the table and headed to the back door. Walking across the thick carpet of green lawn, past the flower garden her mother always kept so beautifully, and the apple tree which must have grown at least six feet taller since the last time she saw it, Andy stood at the towering cedar fence which encased the backyard. She still had to climb it to see the field, even at five foot three.

But in place of the rolling sage and prairie grass laid a deep brown layer of overturned topsoil. In the loose, dark dirt she could make out sprigs of green and the splintered branches of her friends. They had been turned into mulch to fertilize whatever would be put here in the future. Andy had been away too long.

"Andromeda..." her father started to say.

"What the hell happened here?" Andy interrupted. Her voice stung with the force of a whip.

"We signed the petition, but there weren't enough people against it. They're building a new high school here because the other one is so over crowded."

"How could this have happened?" she sobbed, coming down from the fence and finding her father's open arms. There she cried, mourning her childhood friends. "When did they fall?"

"Four days ago, Andy."

She wiped her face and glanced towards the barren landscape. She knew now that she had to let go. She had to leave that part of her life, the place she had been dwelling since the rape. Now there was nothing to remember. There were no reasons left to use as excuses not to trust Lucian. No more places for her to hide. They were all destroyed four days ago, and she could not go back.

On her walk back to the house, Andy stopped to hear the wind sweep through the apple tree. Mingling with the breeze was another sound so sweet that it made her weep again. Birds, what sounded like hundreds of them, were singing from the branches above her head. She looked up into the branches and found the bird she had carved from the broken limb of Grandfather. It was hanging now; her father had drilled a hole in it and hung it from the lowest branch. Andy reached up and removed it from the limb. She would take this with her. The apple tree had grown tall and lush with the sounds of birds. Grandfather lived on in it's branches and Andy needed the carving now.

"I'm gonna call Lucian. I think we need to talk about our trip," Andy said, smiling

"Go on," her father said, "use the phone in the bedroom."

"Thanks dad," she whispered as she hugged him, "for everything you taught me." Turning around on her way back to the house, Andy waved at her father and gave one last parting glance to her woods.

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