Jeannie Marschall
Dew twinkles on the low shrubs that swell from the meadows and crest into the outermost trees of the ancient forest. Wind ruffles their branches: it slips into the dawn between the trunks, plays with fern and woodland herb, tickles bugs and centipedes on their way across hills of lush moss. Birds warble their tiny glee at the new day among fresh leaf-tips.
Below, soaked in a thunderstorm’s blessing, the soil teems with the rich fervor of summer and a trillion lives that digest, hunt, play, call and share and gossip. Fungi link and sneak, these vendors and dealers in water and whispers; and the trunks of the tallest, oldest trees hum with the echoes of everyone. Their ink is sugared blood: the sun now showers their crowns in living gold, and the ancient giants breathe in.
Their every second is a million moments: they feel the roll of the seasons, the trot of boars and slink of lichen; relish squirrel-scratch, know each anthill by its weave and every rock by its ponderous tang, witness every cracking seed and skeleton trunk. They know, they remember: shepherds through fire, floodings, searing droughts, splintering winters. They are the network’s living chronicle, the pooled wisdom of ten thousand years, made wood. For every hardship the forest has ever seen, they have a plan.
They do not know the wail of chainsaws nor the taste of exhaust fumes; they mull it over as the souls around them scramble; they have no chance to write it in their rings.
Jeannie said about her title and story: Old trees do really chronicle events (& develop long-term survival strategies for the forest as a whole from those, from what we are discovering). Yet we cut old-growth forests down without blinking & endanger our own chances for the future (climate strategy no. 2 right after “burn no more fossil fuels” is “leave old growth alooooone”) Plus, lots of potential miracle substances are still hiding in those forests. Lots of knowledge, in sum. So cutting or burning them, to me, feels like burning a thousand Libraries of Alexandria
Jeannie Marschall (she/her/any) is a European garden hag who reads, writes, and forages as much as possible. The results can be found in various pantries & bookcases, thanks to Tenebrous Press, Flash Fiction Online, Snowflake Mag, or Small Wonders. Longer works—predominantly folklore-themed & queer—are simmering in the cauldron (ETA 2026).
Connect with Jeannie
Read more from Jeannie:
Pulp Press – ‘Shells of the Lost’
Small Wonders – ‘The Stars Play Tug-of-War Sometimes’
Here on Trash Cat Lit –The Tell-Tale Tail
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