Caleb stopped mid-step. Davis tripped over him, sending them both sprawling. They had been running, cat and boy, following a trail only Caleb could see.

"What?" snapped Davis, rolling over.

Caleb looked at him, all of his spiky little ginger hairs standing on end. He hissed at the air, circled around sniffing the ground. He looked more like a dog than a cat. Then he stopped, looked at Davis with his head tilted.

"What? Which way do we go?"

The cat sat.

"The trail is gone."

"Gone where? We don't have time for this, cat!"

"We can find anything, anywhere in this kingdom. Time's up. She is no longer here."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"She has left the kingdom or she has died. We are...lost."

_______________________________

Amy was five when Miriam first met her. She wore a pretty red dress that had big white polka dots on it. Her hair was a lovely rich shade of brown, not dull like Miriam's. She was tanned from a vacation to France they had had recently.

Miriam had never left the country. She stood in the doorway, way cuter than Miriam had been at her age. Noreen was standing behind her, a forced grin on her face and a protective hand on Amy's shoulder. Miriam sneered at that hand. It wasn't like she was going to hurt the kid.

Miriam was thirteen and hadn't wanted to go. She had only met her father three times in her life, two of which had been in the last year. His wife had made it clear through the looks and her disdainful sniff every time she saw Miriam that she didn't like her, that she was an intruder in their otherwise perfect family.

Jackie wasn't allowed in the house. Noreen had been firm on that point, even though Jackie had never been anything but nice to her. When she dropped Miriam off, she gave Noreen a big smile and a wave and told her that she had a lovely house, called Amy darling.

Noreen responded with a nod but openly looked at Jackie's clothes and eyebrow piercing with disgust.

"Mum, don't go," Miriam had told her mother in the car. "I don't want to go in there. She hates me too."

"Don't be silly, sweetie. Noreen will love you," Jackie said, biting her lip at the lie. "She just needs time to get used to you."

Jackie gave her a kiss, barely managing to stop her eyes filling up with tears and gave her a playful shove towards the house. Miriam didn't approach that other family until she waved her mother around the corner and out of sight. She turned and got the same up-and-down treatment as her mother.

"Isn't that jumper a little small for her?" Noreen asked Miriam's dad, not caring that Miriam could hear her.

Miriam knew without being told that her father had had to fight for her to be allowed talk to him and her sister. Not that she wanted to talk to him or get to know a five-year-old. She was fine with it just being her and her mum.

Why were they suddenly deciding that they wanted to meddle after years of pretending that she didn't exist?

Jackie had sat her down and told her that her dad was a very stubborn man. That he wanted to see her and told Jackie that he would get the courts involved if she tried to keep him from Miriam. So Miriam went to lunch with him twice.

The first time she told him that she didn't want to see or talk to him. He said that that was just her mother talking, that she had poisoned Miriam against him. It wasn't.

It was the little girl who had invited him to every one of her birthday parties for ten years, who had sent letter after letter without ever getting a response. It was the little girl he had refused to take care of when Jackie broke her leg when Miriam was six. Miriam had stayed with her great aunt. He hadn't even called to see what had happened his daughter during those weeks. For all he knew, she had been put in foster care.

She didn't say that at the time, though she should have and in the following years she did every time he tried to complain about her mother or tell her what to do. At the time she had just sat back, glared at him and refused to eat the pasta he had ordered without even checking to see if she liked it.

Miriam struggled to remember that she was only there for three hours and walked towards them.

She said a barely audible 'hello'.

Amy didn't bother with hello. Miriam would later learn, that (to Noreen's constant annoyance) she never did.

"Which is better, elephants or horses?"

"Elephants," Miriam said instantly. "Especially in India where people ride them."

Amy nodded, as though Miriam's opinion was indeed correct.

"Are Lego's for boys or girls?"

"I don't know, but I like them anyway."

Amy shook off Noreen's hand and ran over to Miriam and gave her a big hug. She smiled a big, bright smile.

"You'll do," she said.

________________________________________

Miriam stumbled through into the forest, her eyes searching for the red dress. She scratched at her neck as she walked on. She had seen her go this way, she was sure of it. She tripped over a root and saved herself from falling by a steadying arm on one of the trees.

Were trees meant to be this cold? Miriam looked at it again. No, it wasn't wood. It was stone, sandstone shaped into a reminder of a tree. Even the roots that twisted under and over the ground were stone. But she had seen leaves; she had seen green.

Twinkling green glass hung delicately from each branch, so well made Miriam could see darker blue veins running through them. A few had fallen, were shattered and littered the ground with broken glass.

Amy's skin would be shredded by it if she fell. Miriam shook her head and looked around. There was no sign of the little girl amongst the trees.

Miriam blew out a few breaths and looked around, trying to decide which way to go. Amy shouldn't be here. She was just a little girl, lost and alone.

Ichabod came into her mind, that charming smile hiding a monster who stole little girls.

Had she mentioned Amy?

How had he known about her?

Miriam's chest tightened.

Where was Echo? Miriam looked around, hoping to get the girl to help her find Amy.

Echo would help. She would like Amy. They could play together. But Echo was nowhere to be seen. Miriam was alone in a forest of fake trees.

Miriam pulled at her hair. She still didn't know which way to go. What if she went the wrong way and never found Amy? If Ichabod turned up right now she'd go anywhere with him if he just brought Amy home.

A metal scream filled the air around her, coming from somewhere way too close. Miriam instinctively took back. Something smashed, making her startle. She could climb a tree, hide up in the glass leaves.

What if Amy had gone that way?

Sudden dizziness made black spots appear in her eyes and almost blind her and made her legs almost too weak to keep her standing upright.

"Amy!" she screamed, no longer caring at all about being heard. Some things were more important. "AMY!"

"Hush," said a voice to her side. Miriam twisted so fast she hurt her ankle.

A girl wearing a red polka dot dress walked out of the trees. Not Amy. In fact, not a little girl at all. A small woman, slender and dark.

She had dark skin, the colour of an oak tree. Her lips and eyes with the colour of moss. But her hair. Before Miriam had thought it was chestnut, but that was only part true. At the roots, it was a pale green, and grew to a dark green, before turning golden and orange and red and every other in-between. Colours of autumn.

It was growing as Miriam watched, growing from the root and clumping at the tip to form the shape of leaves, which fell and dissolved before they hit the floor. Now that Miriam was looking, her dress wasn't even red, it was the colours of acorns and peaches.

"Who are you?" Miriam asked.

The woman didn't answer. She walked towards Miriam, a reassuring smile on her face. Miriam didn't trust reassuring. She took a step back. The woman stopped, blinked at Miriam, as though she blinking was new to her. She took another step.

"Stop," said Miriam.

"There is no need to be scared. You are safe here. I will keep you safe."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because this is your home."

"No, it isn't."

The beauty laughed, a sound as lovely as the tinkling glass leaves.

"You will live here. Be happy here. Then in return, when you are done, you shall go to my tree."

"When I'm done?"

"When your years are used up. You will go to my tree and give it nutrition so it may live."

"You're going to kill me to feed a tree?"

She laughed again. Miriam wished she didn't enjoy the sound of it so much, it was calming her down when she wanted to be alert.

"No, silly one. You will live until old. Until you are done. I will provide food, water and happiness. This will be home."

"So I'm just a prisoner until then?"

The woman frowned, looked deeply troubled.

"My poor tree. It is my last tree. I am last here too. We are lonely and sad but we have each other. I will not allow my tree to run out like the others."

She placed a hand on the stone sadly.

"Each of these I loved. Each died because there was no light, no water. I tried hard to help, but I am small. I almost died too. So each one I remake, to show others how pretty they were when fully alive."

Miriam glanced at the trees, each individual leaf more beautiful than anything made from glass she had ever seen, each trunk loving engraved with knots and lines that made the bark almost live-like. Her mother would love to see these, to paint them.

"They are very pretty," Miriam told the woman.

"Very almost as nice as they were. But not really. All of them were friends. All of them I miss. I am last. But I am not alone. My tree, tree which made me as fruit, still lives."

"So this tree is your mother?"

"Mother? No, too small a word. You will stay. Some day you will see the tree, see how pretty a real tree is."

"I've seen plenty of real trees," Miriam told her.

The girl blinked at her again. It seemed a very unnatural thing for her to do.

"I'm not from here," Miriam explained. "Where I'm from there are millions of trees. My dad even had a tree in his back garden, a willow. I'd like to go home and see it again."

"Willow? We had almost forgotten Willow and her sullen leaves."

The woman was interested. Miriam hoped she could use that.

"You could come too," Miriam ventured, not really sure what she was offering. "You could see all kinds of trees."

The woman bit her lip and shook her head.

"This is sad for you. But you will stay here. So will I. I will not leave the last tree. We will talk again when you settle. I will tell you my name."

"Wait. I have a mother. I have a sister. That's why I am here, I thought I saw her in here."

"That was me. I trick you into coming. But you will forgive me in time. It is much better in here than out there."

"Wait!"

But the tree woman was gone, she blew away in tiny bits on the wind.