Elm

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.



Howls would shatter that winter air, the red woods trembling in their disturbed stillness. Two every hour; a summons for the youth that old man had taken such an attachment to. Haunches were stiff with the spent morning yet the wait was unrelenting and his post at the borderline would not be interrupted by weather or creature alike. His obsidian pelt would be tugged stiffly by the winter breeze and dusted with ice. Hot breath billowing in a soft white smoke that snaked about his angular crown as parted jowls snapped slowly together; stained teeth coming to a close with a minute crack.