Chapter 1

My life was the Patriarch, a giant sequoia on the Redwood Creek Estate. For centuries, I, Elara, watched the Harrison family. They said an ancestor saved my tree, saved me, from a great fire. So, I watched, guided them subtly.

James Harrison III, the heir, used to understand. He' d visit the Patriarch, his eyes full of respect. He even spoke to me, the quiet caretaker, with a gentleness that warmed my ancient core. He knew if the Patriarch died, I would die. He spent fortunes on its care, on arborists.

Then Brenda Van Doren arrived. His fiancée. She saw the redwoods not as life, but as lumber, or obstacles. Her vision was "modernization," all glass and steel, no soul.

During a party, a low branch of the Patriarch scratched Brenda' s arm. A tiny scratch.

Her face twisted.

James, her shadow, her echo, turned to the tree. His face, once soft with reverence, was hard.

"It' s an eyesore," Brenda said, dabbing her arm. "And dangerous. It needs to go for the new spa."

"James, no," I whispered, stepping forward. "The tree is life. My life."

He looked at me, a stranger. "Elara, don't be superstitious. It' s just a tree."

His words were cold. He turned to his foreman. "Cut it down."

The chainsaws screamed the next morning. Each bite into the wood was a bite into me. I felt the steel teeth rip through bark, through ancient rings, through my own essence.

The Patriarch groaned, a sound that echoed in my bones.

Then, the final crack, the earth-shattering fall.

My strength left me in a rush. I collapsed to the forest floor, the scent of raw, bleeding wood filling my senses. My skin tightened, my vision blurred. I felt centuries drain away in moments.

James walked over, Brenda on his arm. He looked down at me, crumpled and weak.

"See, Elara?" he said, a slight amusement in his tone. "Just a tree."

He scoffed at my visible pain. "Don't worry. I'll plant a whole new grove if it makes you happy."

Brenda laughed, a sharp, unpleasant sound.

I tried to speak, to tell him the enormity of what he' d done, but only a rasp escaped. My connection to the world, to life, was fraying with every dying fiber of the Patriarch.

I gathered what little strength remained. I had to reach Mrs. Abigail Harrison, James' s grandmother. She knew the old tales. She respected me.

I found her in the main house, in her sunroom, surrounded by wilting flowers. Even they seemed to sense the wrongness.

"Mrs. Harrison," I rasped, my voice thin as old paper. I leaned heavily on the doorframe.

She looked up, her eyes widening in shock at my appearance. "Elara! My dear, what' s happened to you?"

"James," I said, each word an effort. "He cut down the Patriarch."

Her hand flew to her mouth. "No. He wouldn't."

"He did," I confirmed. "My pact with your family... it is broken. The protection I offered this land, this family... it is gone."