Ada awakens in a dark, dank room. Water drips into a puddle somewhere in the room. The sounds of the drops ripple through her skull. Her upper body feels like a boulder as she tries to press up from the floor. There is grass between her fingers. Her nails sink into soft dirt. The smell churns her stomach.

A door creaks behind her and dim light seeps into the room. Her eyes fall on tattered cloth filled with holes. Her head turns to look behind her, but her eyes won’t tear away from the form before her. There is a human shape under the cloth. Bony legs and sharp edges under the cloth where hips should be. She resists the urge to see who is walking up behind her and focuses on the form in the darkness.

She looks up where the dress hangs loosely around a woman's shoulders. Her shoulders are gaunt. Her spine stretches out the skin. Matted hair piles up on both sides of her neck. The woman is shriveled. The muscle appears sucked off the bone and the woman's skin seems shrink-wrapped to her skeleton. The woman’s hands cling to the trunk of a tree.

The footsteps stop behind Ada, but she can’t peel her eyes off of the woman in the ragged dress. The woman has her head turned to the side. Her mouth and her eyes are locked wide open as if she died in a scream of horror. Her cheeks are paper thin, and all of her skin appears grey.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Malachai says.

Ada snaps her head to look up at the old man. Two other figures stand behind him in the dark with their hoods on.

“This tree has been growing for six hundred years.” Malachai walks over to the tree and runs a hand over the rough bark. Ada looks up at the low-lying branches of the tree. Three-pedaled leaves blanket the underside of the branches and grey fruits dangle from their midst. Malachai follows her eyes to one of the fruits and plucks it from the tree. He plucks the grey plum-sized fruit and takes a bite. Dark nectar washes down both sides of his chin.

He holds out his other hand to her and she feels an invisible force wrap around her. The pressure is cold and firm. He takes another bite, and the pressure begins to choke her, to crush her. The force lifts her up from the ground and she gasps for breath. His companions take knives from the sleeves of their cloaks and start walking toward her. She kicks her feet and writhes against the phantom power, but it is like a great snake has wrapped around her.

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She watches in terror as they draw closer with their long knives held out. She can’t escape. She can’t breathe. She is sure her ribs are breaking. Tears form in the corners of her eyes and streak down her cheeks. All she can manage is a whimper. Then they brush past her and stop at the tree. She stops kicking. They take their knives and carve off chunks of bark revealing the wood beneath. Sap oozes down. Then they turn back to her.

Her hands raise against her wishes and her palms flip up. She stretches with her toes desperate to touch earth. She tries to scream but with every effort the phantom coils tighter. She is about to pass out when they carve a deep line in both of her palms with their sharp blades. The pain jolts down her spine and fresh tears pour down her cheeks.

They grab her wrists and pull her floating toward the tree. No! She screams in her mind. She can’t fathom what they are doing but she just wants all of this to stop. As she nears the tree, she looks at the woman again and sees that she is not clinging to the tree, the bark has grown over the woman’s hands. They place Ada’s palms on the bare wood of the tree, and she feels it cling to her.

Another woman catches her eyes on the other side of the tree. Then more shoved into the corners of the room. Skeletons pile up against a far wall. The pressure around Ada drops away and her feet touch the floor.

Malachai drops the pit of the fruit into the lap of the dead woman. Ada grimaces. She tries to pull away from the tree, but it holds onto her. She can feel it plead with her spirit. She can feel the spirit of the tree calling to her. Begging her not to abandon it. Her hands are fastened firm to the wood but now it is not Malachai. It is the tree itself.

Malachai draws a blade of his own from his sleeve and leans in to look at her terrified green eyes. Then he plunges the tip of the blade into the trunk. Ada Screams. She feels the pain the tree feels. She feels it in the pit of her stomach as if he had plunged the hot blade into her gut. Then she feels the healing light pouring out from her, through her hands into the tree.

Malachai pulls the blade free and watches as the bark heals shut. Already tender bark begins to grow where the wood is bare around her hands. The grey fruits start to grow larger until they look as if they will burst from their skins.

Malachai’s companions grab cloth buckets and begin to harvest the fruit greedily. They pluck one after another and toss them into the buckets. Malachai grins, his rotting teeth covered in the dark red nectar from the fruit.

Ada retches. Her mind whirs. Her legs give out and she hangs from her hands. “Please, Malachai. Let me go.” He seemed so feeble before, she had pitied him. Now he seems so sinister. It feels as if her heart might explode from terror.

Soon the fruit is harvested, and the men leave. Malachai stands in the door for several moments and she pleads with her eyes and her whimpers. Then he slams the door shut and leaves her in the darkness again.