I rip open the window and jump out.  As my feet hit the rain slicked grass, I am off like a rocket.  I run until my breath comes in ragged gasps, and I can no longer feel my legs.  None of that could have just happened.  It must have just been my imagination.  There was no way that an envelope the size of my head had just called my brother away to the war.  I remember the sound of my mother's sobs and Edward’s blank stare as his mind tries to register what has just happened.  No, this can’t be true.  Tears start streaming down my face, and they soon become indistinguishable from the freezing rain that chills me to the core. 
As I sit, the rain continues to pour over me, until I feel as if I might drown if I stay put any longer.  I raise myself up with energy that I do not know I posses and walk over to the oak at the end of the field.  I’m not really processing where I’m going, I just know that I have to get out of the rain.  As I reach the base of the tree’s wide trunk, anger suddenly floods through my veins.  What did my family do to deserve this!  Why me?  Before I know what I am doing, I start to climb.  My body instinctively puts one arm above the other, while my mind is in shock over what has just happened.  I look up and see a mass of leaves that forms an unnatural wall that I cannot see past.  For a moment, my curiosity overpowers my grief, and I climb to discover what this wall of greenery could be hiding.
Finally, I grab the branch that would bring me level with this mysterious wall, and shove my head through the branches, getting my hair caught on the twigs.  Seeing what is on the other side of the wall, I gasp.  There is no way.  This is surely impossible.  This is indeed a wall, but it is one of many that make up a pocket in the middle of this tree.  It is like a secluded tent of leaves.  As I pull myself up to enter this “room,” I hear a snap, and, before I can do anything at all, I feel myself falling through the air.  My stomach crawls its way into my throat, and I hit the ground with a crack.  Pain shoots through my arm as lights dance before my eyes and everything goes black. 
When my eyes open again, I see a paramedic standing over me, speaking soothing words, as if that will help the pain in my arm.  As they put me on a stretcher, I look back at the tree, where, high in its branches, I know something about which nobody else knows.  As they close the doors to the ambulance, I know that this will not be the last time I will venture into the clutches of that mysterious tree.

_______________

As I climb I feel something brush against my back. I freeze picturing a large spider crawling its way into my hair.  I slowly turn around.  Just another leaf.  “Tsk, tsk Elle,” I scold myself and my imagination.  I had been climbing this tree for six years now, and never once met a spider that was bigger than the tip of my pinky.  I keep climbing, knowing that, once I reach my destination, I will find a temporary respite from the world.
Why my favorite place in the world is an ancient old oak with lots of creepy crawlies, I’ll never really know for sure.  Maybe it’s its ability to rock away my troubles in the wind, or that, no matter how many times I come, it is always the same.  One of the few things in my life that never changes. I climb up, not daring to look down as I shove my way past the prickling of branches. Almost there. I push my way through the last snarl of the brittle branches, knowing the scrapes that I receive will stay with me for days, but it is always worth it.  I smile at where a branch had been broken six years prior and never had grown back.  My thoughts turn to Edward, still fighting in the war.
Please keep him safe.
I push these thoughts to the back of my mind, knowing that I will just get more depressed if I continue to think about them.  No.  It’s just better to keep moving.  I grab the next branch and pull myself up to my destination.
My breath is stolen from my body as I find my nook among the branches. No matter how many times I come to visit, I will never get used to nature's miraculous beauty.  The sturdy limbs have become overgrown into a hidden pocket at the very top of the tree. Covered in sweet smelling mosses, it is like a tent of leaves. The floor is so matted from my many hours of pacing that I know I will never fall.  I walk through my “room” to one of the largest branches.  I look down at the pictures that I have previously pinned to this branch and pull out a folded picture from my pocket and pin it down with a tack.  I look at the young man in the picture,with his crisp military uniform and military cut hair, no hint of a smile on his face.  This man looks nothing like the Edward I remember.  My eyes take in all of the pictures and newspaper clippings pinned there, all I could find about anything related to a war of which Edward might have been a part.
Oh how I miss him.  I would give away this tree if I could just see him again.
I turn and sit in one of the corners and grab a scrapbook that Edward and I had made when I was 10.  My little kid drawings of him bring a smile to my face. He was one of the few people that could make me smile.
After several minutes, I stand, knowing that if I do not leave soon, I will be missed.  As I walk back to where I entered, I run my hands across the smooth branches that provide warmth in the winter and shade in the summer.  This place was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I shove my body through the small opening, leaving behind strands of my long blond hair that loves to get tangled in with the branches. I climb down and head home.

_______________

I jerk awake at the sound of crashing thunder.  Just a storm nothing else.  It has been raining for hours.  A rain that ponds at my window as if begging to come in.  Another boom of thunder.  Wait that isn’t thunder. It’s a knock on our door.  I go downstairs to find out who could be knocking at our door so late at night.  As I enter the kitchen I find my parents at the table talking to a man in a uniform.
A man in a uniform.  EDWARD!!
I run to my brother with a smile on my face.  Just as I am about to throw my arms around him I see that this mans eyes aren't a beautiful green like Edwards, but a harsh gray.  Why would a random stranger be in our kitchen?  My eyes dart around the room trying to make sense of what was happening.  My gaze settles on my parents’ tear streaming eyes.
Tear streaming?
My world slows down to a snails pace as I realize the reason why an army representative would come to my house so late. 
No. No, no no.  Not Edward.
I am running, past my parents, and out the door. I keep running, my feet automatically taking me to the only place that can bring me comfort.  The night is like my mood, black.  Nothing can be seen through the rain and gloom.  As I run I trip and fall into a muddy puddle.  My pajamas become soaked, and I hardly notice.  As lightning flashes I jump up and continue my sprint away from reality.  Tears and rain stream down my face and run into my mouth and ears.  As I run the only thing that I can think of is the first time that I did this.  This is not the first time that I ran because of Edward.
I hear nothing.  I see nothing.  I feel nothing.  I run.
It finally comes into view.  My tree.  The one thing in my life that stays steady.  I am at the bottom of the hill when, all of the sudden, there is a flash of lightning indistinguishable from the crack of thunder.  I taste metal and smell smoke. 
Oh no.  I can only see the remaining whites of the flash.  I race up the hill blind.  Tripping, falling.  As my sight starts to return I look to my tree and my knees fall to the wet, muddy ground.
My tree.  No.  I refuse to believe it.
My mind refuses to process that which has just taken place.  My once beautiful tree is now nothing more than charred remains smoking in the rain.  It, like my heart has been split in two.  I sit kneeling in the rain, no longer caring what happens.  The rain pelts down around me and I sit, just one person in a world of grief.