A humming tree

He was strictly told to call it the woods or the woodland. "Forest, just does not seem the right word to describe it," Elynn said when they discussed it that morning. Now, he understood. Now that he was here, he could hear the music. "Can you hear it," she asked as looked back at him. He nodded, assuming that she was looking at him, he had his eyes shut so that he could focus on the music.

"This is it, this is place that Willaim described in his poems. This sound, its like magic, can't explain it."

"I know Ovhelio, it is like the woods have a heart beat. A heart beating like a harp string. It reminds me of the harp that my father played when we were younger." Ovelio listened again, he did recognize it. They kept walking up the path. Ovelio, not used to working another, but the regular clerical work that he did nearly all day everyday, was sweating a river, but he wanted to see wanted else Elynn was excited about. The path that they were walking up was clearly marked, and it was paved a like a road with small gray pebble stones. His shoes causing the path to ring out, but that ringing became part of the rythm of the woods. That was part of the beauty of the music, it had regular rhthm that played against his own heartbeat, but the sounds all around him seemed to only add to the mussic.

The cries of the birds, and the creaking of the tree branches, and the rush of the stream next to the hill that they were ascending all added their own music. Ovhelio sometimes seemed to hear someone playing pipes, but, no matter how he turned his head, he could not find the players. Elynn was humming the forest tune as well. "Elynn?" He said. "when did you discover this parts of the woods. I have been out to these woods a few times, but I have never found this place."

Elynn stopped walking and sat on a rock by the trail before answer. Ovelio, pleased for the break, also quickly sat down to catch his breath. "I know!" she said, "I have been wondering about that myself, but I feel like this is an older woodland. Those other trees that your brothers hunt around while you have faithfully doing your work probably grew aounrd this one, like a shield." She pointed to the closest tree. "I mean look, does that seem like the kind of tree that was on the outskirts of the woods." The tree she was pointing to was an elm, he knew this from his studies, but she was right. There were no elms of on the outer edge of the forest. There were plenty of other trees, but, Ovelio looked around to be sure, elms were everyway.

"You're right. These trees are elms, and they seem to be mostly here while the outer parts of the woods are lacking them. It is strange."

"Strange indeed," she said as she stood up and walked over to the closest tree, but these trees are even stranger. Come here." She waved him over to the tree that she leaned into to put her ear against the bark of the tree. "Listen," she whispered.

Ovelio walked over to the tree and put his ear to the tree as well. There was music coming from the tree, like it was humming.