Tree Girl by T. A. Barron

against the trunk of the hollow tree. And gazed at him with round eyes. “But…,” she said at last, “tree ghouls are horrid, and ugly.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I saw one, Sash. Deep in the forest. It had the scariest face.”
    Sash reached his hands up to his face and pulled at the sides of his mouth. He crossed his eyes and wagged his tongue. And he started making strange noises—a mix of snarls, snorts, and hiccups.
    “Like that?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “Be serious. The ghouls are deadly!”
    “How many times do I have to tell you? There are no ghouls. Just drumalos, like me.”
    She gazed at him, her hazel eyes full of doubt.
    Sash laid his hand on her knee. “You can be pretty thick, you know. I’ve met moles who are smarter.”
    “Say now, that’s not fair! I learned your language, didn’t I? Fast as…well, fast as a seal can sail on the waves.”
    “
Ha!
You mean fast as an owl can sail on the wind.”
    She nodded, her face suddenly serious. “If what you say is true…”
    “Anna, believe me. It’s true.”
    She studied him for a long moment. “Now I know why your words sound so much like branches swishing.”
    He peered back at her. “And there’s more for you to know. Aye, much more.”
    “Wait now! What I really want to know is why you’re
not
scary. Like you’re supposed to be.”
    He smirked. “I’m scary to my mother sometimes.”
    “No, no. I’m not joking! Aren’t tree spirits really…well,
ghouls
?”
    Sash straightened his back against the trunk. “Only if that’s what you’re expecting.”
    “You mean…”
    “Aye! Don’t you see, Anna? That’s a drumalo’s special skill. We look like whatever you most expect, or want, to see. A bear cub—or a boy.”
    “Or a ghoul!” She pursed her lips, trying to take all this in. “You can really do that?”
    “Right.”
    A fresh wind swept through the forest, tossing branches all around. Leaves and twigs and petals swirled through the honey-sweet air. For a while they just listened to the swish of boughs and the rustle of grass.
    Sash reached over and took her hand. “It’s for our own protection. This way, to a bear cub—or someone watching bear cubs—that’s what I look like. And if you’re expecting an ugly old ghoul, well, that’s what you’ll find.”
    Her heart raced just at the thought of the hideous face she’d seen in the forest. “This is all so hard to believe.”
    “Of course, we only take those shapes,” he went on, “when we’re uprooting.”
    “Uprooting?”
    “Traveling around, outside our home trees.” He flexed his leg on the bed of moss. “Me, I was born in a grove of hawthorns. At the far end of the forest, near that old willow you’ve talked about.”
    Anna started. Her eyes glowed like newborn stars. “The High Willow? You’ve been there?”
    “Grew up dancing around her roots! Aye, and swinging from her branches.” He chuckled to himself. “Riding out storms there, too. Big, howlingones! Enough to blow me and my whole family to the ocean and back.”
    She smiled. “And you have lots of family, I’ll wager. Five or six hawthorn brothers and sisters?”
    “Five or six!” he bellowed. “Why, I’ve got thousands! When you’re a drumalo, the whole
forest
is your family.”
    Anna drew a deep breath. Being a tree spirit sounded so very different from what she’d expected. From what she’d been taught. Amazing! Mayhaps the master was just mistaken? But was that really possible?
    She slid closer on the gnarled roots. “Sash, you have to tell me the truth about something.”
    “Me? I always tell the truth, you know that.”
    “Really, now.” She bowed her head toward his so their noses almost touched. “Do tree ghouls—spirits, I mean—ever harm people? Or kill them?”
    He scrunched up his nose, as if she’d asked him to bite himself. “Is that what old Crabface told you?”
    “Aye. But it’s not true, is it?”
    He made his mock scary face again,