The Small Things
by Clara Cooke

A magnolia’s wood was soft, so it found strength in evergreen foliage, and together, they grew a fortress. Their roots upturned the earth in gnarled loops, grabbing at life itself. […]

The Tree of Endless Night
by Carlotta Dale

I’m not a character in a fairy tale. I don’t live in an enchanted forest or in a gingerbread cottage in the middle of a deep, dark wood. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles. […]

Roots Gripping Bone
by Zoë Davis

“I want to be buried,” I said.

My husband glanced up from the potatoes he was peeling for lunch. A pile of grinning skin lay beneath his deft fingers. […]

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People Always Look for Each Other
by Chris Doty-Dunn

Bethany is the first to go off the path and not come back. The three had trudged for miles before it happened, single-file on the line of bare dirt and rocks that cut through the quiet of field and trees. […]

The Flora of the Dead: A Triptych
by Nastasya Parker

Once upon a time, a girl named Thea grew up in a graveyard. The graves belonged to a chapel at the root of a fell, as if the mountain had brought it forth and then recoiled. […]

The Apple Tree Woman
by Lucienne Cummings

The Apple Tree Man inhabits the oldest tree in the orchard. The Apple Tree Man scowls and waves his arms at scrumpers. The Apple Tree Man demands a yearly cider tribute…[…]

Waxcap
by Emily Hall

It was a veiled lady. Phallus indusiatus. I remembered it from the times Mama had taken me foraging. Years ago, we’d sneak out while Jerry was sleeping off his hangover and head to the woods by the old trailer. […]

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Forgetting That Trees Have Boundaries by Anne Howkins

Your dad, the dendrologist, is on a mission to change the way people think about trees. In front of an audience his arms windmill like storm-blown branches…[…]

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The Tragedy of the Commons
by Ian Johnson

It’s still the greenest place I’ve ever seen, like, Jaysus wept, and sloshed a mealy trench, a pauper’s plate – emerald/olive/pea, for pasture… […]

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Bloodroot
by Angela Joynes

On the flats along the Cold Stream among fiddleheads, violets, and trilliums, bloomed the delicate white flower Mama swore to be poison.[…]

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A Thousand Alexandrias
by 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,…[…]

The Rooting
by Claudia Monpere

When The Rooting first happens, our devices continue without us, security systems chiming they need new batteries, Siri reminding us to pick up milk. Our homes look just as they had. But soon—Maybe soon? […]