I was twelve when I became a tree.
Mother prepared me for the blood, for my stomach to turn, for my body to change, but that isn’t what happened. Not exactly. It started with an itch at my elbow.
Stop itching, Mother told me. You’re a lady. Be a lady!
The itch continued, until out from it sprouted a protrusion, dark and prickly. Sticklike. Go to sleep, I told myself. Looking out the window, into the night, a tree waved at me. I waved back.
The sprouting intensified. Like a pox, dotting my skin. The pain was too much, I couldn’t look. Eat your dinner, Mother said. You’ve got to get a good night’s sleep, she flipped through her magazine, before your party tomorrow.
No party, I moaned, spooning soup into my mouth. Each swallow was an effort. Every blink an undertaking.
Enough with the moping, said Mother.
My eyes widened when they saw it. The glimpse of green. Around my wrist, like a bangle––leaf blooms.
Look, Mother! I waved the green in the air.
Eat, Mother said, not looking up.
I made my way to my room, lugging my arms behind me. They hardly fit in my bed, so long had they stretched. So thick had they become. Scratchy, too. But the smell was divine, a forest for my nostrils.
The sun climbed the sky and the girls arrived together, tumbling out of a minivan driven by the most capable mother. I’ll be back to get them in a few hours time, she said. My mother nodded.
I’m hungry, said one of the girls. Where’s Maddy? said another.
I have her present, see?
Why wasn’t she in school? Is she ill?
Are we going to get ill? worried the girl with the capable mother.
Surprise! I burst into the entryway, my arm branches outstretched.
Mother sighed. I told you to put on the dress I laid out. With the lace!
My arms wouldn’t fit, I said, flapping them about.
I’ll heat up the pizza, Mother said, disappearing herself.
Look, I said to the girls. They stared, faces blank, hands clutching gift bags.
Oh, one of the girls said finally.
So you are ill.
I’m not, I flapped my branches. The leaf blooms had multiplied in the night. I was practically a bushel, a tree. I’m a tree, I announced.
But I got you a bracelet, one of the girls said.
You can dangle it from her, suggested another.
Isn’t this the most spectacular thing you’ve ever seen? I asked them, but I wasn’t sure anymore. I wasn’t sure I liked my arms so leafy, so conspicuous.
Should we bury her? a girl asked.
That makes sense, said another.
Roots need to adhere.
She needs soil.
She has a backyard.
The girls got excited and my excitement returned. We slipped out the backdoor, and they started to dig. Ripping out the flower patch, tearing up grass. My legs sank in. Deeper, the girls insisted. Down to my torso, they lowered me. Packed me in tight.
Happy birthday. They dropped their gift bags beneath me, like I was a christmas tree. Sun beamed, and the girls gathered in my shade, resting against my bark.
How did this happen? they asked one another. Is she going to be happy, they murmured, as a tree?
I tried to tell them I was blooming, didn’t they understand? A girl tree in bloom? But when I opened my mouth, there was no sound. Only seeds, spilling out of me.
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Skyler Melnick is currently a Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow, with an MFA from Columbia University. She writes about ghost girls, guillotines, and women falling from the sky. Her work appears in Fairy Tale Review, swamp pink, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere, with support from Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.