The Willow Tree

“Everything in life occurs in cycles. It is up to the individual to recognize the cycles in their own way of life, and either break them or bind them. It is said that a child who suffers abuse at the hands of their parents is more apt to hand down abuse to their own children. Or a child raised in poverty will give only poverty as inheritance to their children.”

-Excerpt from “The Cycles of Life"

We walked toward my old house in silence. The streets of Fallon were calmer now, touched by the cool quiet of twilight. My boots scuffed against the dirt path, each step stirring dust and old memories. The house came into view—once bright with whitewashed walls and windowsill gardens, now dulled with peeling paint and empty garden bed.

Elma lingered when she saw it, gazing at the tired shutters and the sagging roof. I didn’t stop. I led her around the back, where the wild grass climbed the gentle slope behind the cottage. We ascended in silence until the crown of the hill came into view—and there, standing tall and graceful despite its solitude, was the white willow.

Its pale branches swayed gently in the evening breeze, trailing toward the earth like ribbons of mourning silk. The bark shimmered in the moonlight, silver-gray and smooth where time had not yet scarred it. 

“This is it,” I said, my voice hushed by reverence.

Elma stopped beside me, her eyes drawn to the tree’s sweeping canopy.

“Where is this?” she asked softly.

“This is where my mother is buried.”

Her breath caught, and when I looked at her, she had a complicated look in her eyes.

“She loved this tree,” I said. I let my fingers brush a trailing branch. “She used to sit beneath it and read to me, long before things went wrong.”

I knelt down in the grass beside the stone, resting my palm gently on the soil. “When she passed, I brought her here. Buried her beneath the roots so she could become part of the thing she loved most. It’s not marked… but I could never forget where it is.”

Elma sat down beside me, silent and respectful, her gaze flicking between the grave and the tree.

“She said the willow remembers everything,” I added, smiling faintly. “Every story we told beneath it, every tear that hit the dirt, every song she hummed when she thought no one was listening.”

I pointed down the hill toward the house. “That was where we lived, when I was young. We were happy. My parents weren’t always broken. My father used to sing to us in the evenings. My mother would dance with me in the kitchen. There were flowers in the windows and fresh bread on the table.”

Then my voice dimmed. “But things changed. They started fighting more. The shouting never stopped. My mother would yell about his absence, and my father would curse her bitter words. It went on for months—long, ugly months of doors slamming and plates shattering.” I lowered my gaze. “One night my father stormed out after an argument. Didn't even pretend he was coming back. Just vanished. No note. No goodbye. He left us without so much as a word.”

Elma glanced at me, her face full of empathy.

“After that, my mother changed. She stopped singing. Stopped smiling. Most days she didn’t even leave her room. I tried to help. I read to her, cooked what I could, but it never felt like enough. I was just a child.”

I leaned back and looked up at the canopy above us, the long leaves rustling softly in the breeze like whispers from the past.

“But there were good moments too,” I said quietly. “I remember sitting under this old willow most nights with my mother. Usually, she would read all kinds of stories to me. Poetry, myths, things of that nature. That's when I started to fall in love with stories and their telling. But on clear nights, we would lay out and look at the stars. I remember the very first time I saw this sky without clouds. It was a sky like sable velvet, pricked by a thousand points of light. It's still one of the most mesmerizing views I've seen."

A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips. “And I remember reading to my father before things got bad. One evening I finally managed to read a full sentence from one of his old books without stumbling. He clapped so loud the neighbors probably heard. He lifted me up and called me his clever little bard.”

I exhaled, long and slow. “Those memories are like little stars. Dim sometimes, but never gone.”

As night deepened, the stars emerged, scattering across the sky in glittering clusters. The white willow’s silver branches reflected the starlight, as if catching pieces of the heavens in their reach.

“Did you know each star has its own story?” I asked.

“I didn’t,” Elma replied. “I’d love to hear some.”

I pointed to a bright, pulsing light in the southern sky. “That’s Meannus. The old tales say when the hero who loved the Demon Queen died, she carved that star into the heavens with her magic. It pulses in time with his heartbeat, so he’d never be truly gone.”

She smiled softly. “What a lovely story. I wonder if I’ll get a star when I die.”

“If your story’s good enough,” I said, and the edge of my lips turned up just a little.

We sat there, beneath the swaying willow and the endless sky, as I shared more stories—some from myth, some from memory. I told her of the fox who fell in love with the wind, of the witch who taught trees to sing, of the boy who read stories to his silent mother until she smiled again, if only for a moment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Elma listened, but her thoughts drifted. She thought about her own journey. Her failures. Her escape. And how, if anyone else had found her in the tavern, they might have turned her in. But Deryth—burdened as he was—had chosen to protect her without question.

He had buried his mother with his own hands, channeled his grief into music, and still had room left in his heart for kindness. She looked at him again, silhouetted against the stars and the pale curve of the willow’s branches. And she thought, If he could make something beautiful from all that pain maybe she could too.