“Excuse me,” peeped a voice.
Arnold jumped, and his notebook slipped, splayed across the ground. He snatched it up and shook off the dust. “What do you want?” he snapped.
The girl’s shy smile drained away. She was no older than ten, with faded jean overalls whose knees were stained with dirt. A drip of a nose sat between oversized eyes.
“There’s supposed to be windmills nearby. Do you know where they are?”
“You don’t see I’m in the middle of something?” He flicked his pencil to the notebook.
“Sorry.” She trudged off, footsteps dragging long and slow. A single brown braid hung halfway down her back, twigs and small leaves caught in the folds.
The braid swayed back and forth, and he felt the faintest twang of remorse. “Over there.” He stabbed his pencil towards a pair of hunched-over trees, crooked limbs grappled together. “Walk for ten minutes, you’ll find the windmills.”
She flashed a smile and darted away. Crunching footsteps filled the forest. He glowered, then returned to his sketch of the gnarled tree before him.
Or so he tried. But long after she left, the sound of the swish-swing-swish of her braid filled his ears.
The following day he perched on the same stump, drawing the same tree in the same notebook with a slightly smaller pencil. A thin gauze of clouds covered the sun and created a web of fading shadows along the base of the tree. An added complication to the drawing, but Arnold was up for the challenge. A new facet through which he could perhaps remember his daughter. He sketched, and soon the sounds, tastes, and scents of the forest faded; all that filled him was the vision of the hunched-over tree with tilted limbs.
A blue blur materialized beside him.
She wore the same dirty overalls and propped a shovel against her shoulder. “That’s a very pretty drawing.”
“Thank you.” Arnold swallowed. Even the shy intonation of her voice was familiar.
Wind fluttered the page and he shivered.
“Digging for buried treasure?” he said. He paled, clenched his jaw. The world balanced on the tip of his pencil and he knew nothing of how it would tilt.
She laughed, and he relaxed.
“I’m digging for giants,” she said.
“Giants?” He smirked, and it felt unfamiliar on his face. It had been a while.
“Giants live under the hills of windmills.” She spoke the words with complete confidence. “I’m finding them so they can reach up into the sky and grant me a wish.”
“Naturally. And what would you wish for?”
Her smile halted. “One of the last stories my dad ever told me was about giants.”
“Oh.” His mouth dried, his voice weakened. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Luna.”
“Like the moon?”
Luna beamed. “My dad said that, too!” Her head tilted back to his notebook and she stuck out a little finger. “Can I see your drawing from yesterday?”
He flipped back a page, tilted the notebook towards her.
The shovel thudded to the ground. Luna fell to her knees, crawled beside the stump and draped her head over the notebook. “Can I hold it?”
He clenched up, every fiber a bow strung tight—then released. “Careful, okay?”
“Mhm,” she said and took it—and to his delight, she was careful. She lingered by the pages for many seconds, studying in silence. Her fingers were cautious not to smudge, the pages turned with deliberateness. After a few quiet minutes with Arnold looking over her, she handed it to him and looked up. “Why do you draw the same tree?”
The question startled him. He hesitated, then said, “I’m trying to find what memories are still in it.”
“But it’s dead. A living tree would have happier memories.”
“What do you know about my memories?” Arnold snatched the notebook. With a gruff voice, he said, “They’re plenty fine.”
Luna looked stunned. “Sorry.” She fiddled with her hands. “I didn’t mean—”
Arnold waved his hand, crooked as the branches above. “Go dig up your wishes. For whatever that’ll bring you.”
She glared at him, her knuckles popped white. “What do you know about giants’ wishes?” she said.
“I used to be a father.”
Confusion swept her face. She snatched the shovel and fled.
He scowled into his notebook, stole a glance at the swish of her braid, still filled with leaves and twigs. He returned to work on his drawing.
Or so he tried. Minutes passed, and his hands still trembled and his shoulders sagged and he set the notebook down and looked at the tree.
All the limbs leaned to the side save for a lone branch, broken in half. The edge had worn down from when his daughter fell, but the memories remained sharp. He did not really believe that his tree drawings would remove the bad and bring the good memories back, but a tenuous link was still a link. There were worse vices than filling notebooks with the hopes of reliving happier times.
The thought calmed him. Slow as the loops of a wind-stirred leaf, Arnold lulled himself back to his art. His pencil returned to the page once more and touched up the finer details. Though the clouds shifted, the image of the shadows remained clear in his head.
A hauntingly familiar wail tore through the forest, and an image flashed through his head of his daughter’s pallid face stained red. His joints struggled as he stood and ran for the distant sounds. Sobs led him to Luna curled on the ground, shoulders shaking.
He hobbled to his knee but couldn’t see any blood. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“The windmill owner got mad at me for digging in his field. Told me there were no giants, so I couldn’t wish my parents back…”
“Are you hurt?” Arnold said.
“Um.” The question surprised her. “I dropped my shovel on my foot when I was running. Not broken, I don’t think.” She stretched it out. Dirt caked the edge of her tattered shoe. “I guess I need to get the shovel back,” she murmured.
Adrenaline fled, and tiredness set in. He rose, his legs trembling with the effort, and he trudged off.
“Wait,” she said.
He peered over his shoulder.
“What he said about the giants,” she said. “Was he telling the truth?”
Far away sat a notebook on a lone tree stump. Farther away, still, sat a small room in a small home, filled with similar notebooks accumulated over the years. A tenuous link, at best.
Her hopes, her heart sat as a precious autumn leaf of gold in his hands.
“You said it best,” he said, softly. “What do I know about giants?” He shuffled away without waiting for a reply, didn’t want to know how his words were received. Whether he’d prolonged her false hopes or crushed them, he could not say, nor did he know which was worse.
After a few minutes, he reached his notebook and turned to the tree. He grimaced. A living tree would have happier memories. He walked for another ten minutes before he reached the edge of the forest and laughed.
He couldn’t help it—Luna had shoveled quite a mess. Long arms of the windmills swung in lazy arcs. The hill sweeping around them looked like a pockmarked face with all the dug-up clumps. Though someone had come around and upturned grassy segments over the brown, it still looked atrocious. Proper punishment for a cruel land owner who would dash out her fantastical hopes.
Arnold’s smile melted away as he wondered what his own punishment might be for ignoring her.
He walked to the foot of the hill and took the abandoned shovel. The handle was spray-painted orange, with a taped-on label that read, Orin Farms. He used the shovel as a staff on his walk back through the woods.
He strolled through the forest the following day, notebook in hand. He did not know where the forest might take him, but it was time to find livelier trees to draw.
Luna sat on the stump in her faded blue overalls. She held out a note and said, “Did you write this? It was attached to the shovel left by Uncle Orin’s.”
Thanks for stopping by! We think you left something behind.
—The (still-pretty-sleepy) Giants
A warmth blanketed him and a hint of a smile danced on his lips. “I’m no giant.”
“But it’s your paper and pencil.”
“They borrowed it from me.” He shrugged. “I guess they don’t have much to write with.”
“You said you didn’t know where the giants were.” Luna scowled.
Arnold lowered himself gracelessly. She was half a head taller, seated on the stump.
“You know, I’ve not been so honest with you.”
“Was it what the farmer said?” Her eyes widened and she paled. “Are giants…”
“Banish the thought! Giants are most certainly real…but I’m afraid they can’t make the wishes you’re thinking of come true.”
Luna stared into her lap and tilted her head away from him.
“But they can do many other things. They can deliver notes.” He tapped his notebook. “They’re so tall that they can reach all the way to the heavens and send along anything you want to write to your parents.”
Her eyes lit up. “Will my parents write back?”
He was slow to answer, chose his words with care. “They will, but not in the form of letters. A gust of wind, the tickle of a leaf on your cheek.”
Luna frowned. “Oh.”
“It might not seem like a whole lot,” he said. “But if you do it right, it’s more than you realize.”
“Is that what the dead tree drawings are for you? Writing to your parents?”
“To my daughter…or so I thought. But now I realize I’ve been doing it wrong for quite a few years.” His pain came and went as a cloud passed over the sun. “But I’m ready to figure out the right way. And better yet.” He smiled at Luna. “At last, I think I’ve learned to read the messages sent my way. Now come. I’ll show you my mailbox, where you can put anything you want the giants to deliver to your parents. And if you’d like, I can even show you how to draw so you can send them pictures, too.”
She stood and took his hand. “Can we draw living trees?”
“Of course.”
As they walked, he stole glances at those soft fingers curled around his own. A light touch, like his daughter’s once was … not that it mattered, for the connection with Luna was different—and in that way, his daughter could remain with him forever.
Down the forest, a single leaf twirled into the air, landed on the stump, then flew off with another gust of wind.
