Poppy’s earliest memory is of the tree in the wide clearing behind her home. It was tall and meandering like it couldn’t figure out which way to grow. Tall thick branches intertwined with thin wiry branches to form an impenetrable maze that made it a safe place for all manner of creatures. Poppy called it her Heart Tree. She felt like its spirit matched her own; wild, free and complex.

When she would sit under Heart Tree protected from the sunlight which burned her tender translucent skin if she stood outside of Heart Trees protection for too long, she would hatch grandiose schemes that seemed like the most precious and important things in her world. Held on her fragile chest vibrating with the beat of her heart and grasped in her tiny hands like jewels. She made these schemes and dreams real, and formed them out of the sap of Heart Tree.

In the mornings she would rise from a dreamless sleep. She never dreamed, if anyone around her thought this was odd they never told her. It was as acceptable as the bright hot sun in the sky or the silver shining moon at night. She would make water, clean her lithe limbs and tiny body with the clean dew that was funneled into a large wooden bowl on the nightstand.

The dew was cold and refreshing and smelled like the promise of spring, even in the deepest winter.  Poppy brushed her sharp, strong teeth with a spearmint leaf wrapped around the tip of a gum tree twig and splash a little essence of lavender from a small glass bottle that was given to her by her mother, and rushed down the winding stairs to the bustling kitchen off to the right of the bottom of the stairs.

Poppy lived with her mother Freesia, and her father Sorrel. Her sister Lily was a tiny, pale almost translucent creature that Poppy tried each day to wish out of existence. It wasn’t out of hatred, for Poppy inexplicably loved her sister, more out of annoyance. Annoyance that Lily was always the center of attention. Always being fussed over by anyone who encountered her. When it was announced Lily was born, the house was bustling with the activity of the well-wishers who brought birthing gifts to the home.

The visitors would gather around the cradle, making cooing sounds and laughing at Lily’s incoherent gurgling. Exclamations of ‘Beautiful!’, “Perfection!”, “Such Eyes!” would follow each encounter, which only served to exasperate Poppy even more. Retreating to her small room, Poppy would fiddle with twigs and balls of opaque sap, waiting for the commotion to die down.

Poppy simply was not the center of attention, and in her young mind, that was the greatest crime she could think of. As she sat down with her family at the hearth table, she was overwhelmed by a profound sense of happiness. She knew the shade of Heart Tree would protect her family, and always be there. Unchanging, unwavering, and eternal. 

Poppy was eight years old.