The Sleeping Tree Lina — Story 05

Lina had walked this way a hundred times before. It was her secret path, a winding trail that led to a sun-dappled clearing perfect for quiet thinking. She knew its every landmark by heart. She passed the cluster of scarlet-capped mushrooms that hummed with a low, contented thrum when you gently touched their tops. She skipped past the large, flat stone with a perfectly round hole worn through its centre, a hole that, if you peeked through it at just the right angle, made the world look like it was giving you a conspiratorial wink. But today, where the path should have opened into the clearing, something new was there.

A tree. It was a word too small for what stood before her. This was a titan, a giant from a forgotten age. Its trunk was immense, wider than her house, with bark of a pale, luminous silver that seemed to drink the sunlight. Its colossal branches didn’t just reach for the sky; they curled and twisted back in on themselves, wrapping around the main trunk like ancient arms hugging a profound secret. It was an impossible presence. It shouldn’t have fit in the narrow space between the sheer cliffs. Yesterday, this space had been empty.

But it was there now. And it was sleeping.

She could feel it in a way she couldn’t explain. The entire forest seemed to be holding its breath around the great tree. It breathed, but not with air. It was a slow, deep inhalation and exhalation of time itself. Patches of thick, velvety moss on its trunk pulsed with a slow, rhythmic light, like a great, slumbering heart. From one of the lower branches, a thick, woody vine curved down, its end swaying gently back and forth in the completely still air.

Drawn by a curiosity that was stronger than her caution, Lina stepped closer. The ground at its base was soft, carpeted in a moss that muffled her footsteps. “Hello?” she whispered, the sound swallowed immediately by the tree’s immense presence.

The tree said nothing, but the air around it changed. It thickened, growing warm and heavy, like stepping into a sun-heated pool of water. Her own thoughts, usually quick and darting, felt slower, calmer, as if they too were being lulled toward sleep. A single leaf, shaped like an open hand and the colour of pale gold, detached from a high branch. It didn’t flutter or spin; it descended in a slow, deliberate spiral and landed perfectly in her outstretched palm. It was warm to the touch.

A whisper brushed against her ear, clear as a chime, though it made no sound. Don’t wake it. Not yet.

Lina spun around, startled. There was no one there. The whisper grass was still; the winking stone was silent. Then the feeling came again, but this time it bloomed from inside her own chest, a thought that was not her own. Dreaming.

With a sense of reverence, Lina placed her hand flat against the silver trunk. The bark was smooth as worn stone, and a deep, low thrum passed from it into her palm, up her arm, and settled in her heart. It wasn’t a sound; it was a memory.

The world around her dissolved. She saw a forest, but it was younger, wilder. At the base of this very same tree, a small child was curled, weeping. It was a girl, dressed in a simple tunic with a cloak of stitched-together rabbit pelts draped over her small, shaking shoulders. Her face was smudged with dirt and tears, and her eyes, when she looked up, were dark and wide like chips of obsidian reflecting the stars. Lina felt the child’s raw fear, her utter loneliness. But she also felt the tree’s presence wrap around the girl like a protective embrace, its silent strength a promise of sanctuary. It was not Lina’s memory. It was someone else’s, someone from long, long before her time.

Lina blinked, and the vision faded, leaving her standing in the quiet sunlight, her hand still pressed against the ancient bark. But now she understood. The tree wasn’t just sleeping. It was a guardian. It was a library of whispers, a sanctuary for forgotten feelings. It was holding on—to stories, to dreams, to lost children who needed a safe place to rest. It kept them safe within its great, slumbering heart.

She slid down to sit at the base of the tree, her back resting against the solid trunk. She didn’t speak. She didn’t sing. She just listened, offering her quiet presence as a gift.

After a long while, as she sat in the deep, peaceful silence, her own memories began to rise to the surface, bubbling up like springs. They were tiny, precious things she hadn’t thought of in years: the feeling of pure joy as she laughed, head thrown back, in a sudden summer downpour; the sharp, metallic taste of her favourite silver spoon that she’d dropped and lost in the tall grass; the strange sense of freedom when her shoe got stuck in the mud and she decided to leave it behind, pretending it was the start of a grand adventure.

The tree seemed to remember them with her. It didn’t judge or question. It simply held them, adding her small, important stories to its vast, dreaming collection. It didn’t ask for anything. It only wanted company in its long, slow vigil.

Lina rested against its bark until the light began to shift, the sun slanting low and turning the sky to a soft, rose-gold. A sense of peace settled over her, deep and profound. She stood, brushing the moss from her clothes, and placed her palm on the trunk one last time. “Sleep well,” she whispered.

The tree didn’t answer with a voice or a vision. But at her feet, right where she had been sitting, a single flower pushed its way up through the moss. It unfurled its petals in a matter of seconds—a bloom of the deepest, most velvety blue, with a dusting of silver pollen at its centre that glowed with a soft light of its own. It was a flower she had never seen before, a gift from a dream.

Later that night, her mum noticed the impossible flower tucked carefully into Lina’s hair as she read a book.

“My goodness, where did you find that?” Mum asked, her voice full of wonder.

Lina looked up, her eyes still holding the deep peace of the forest. “In a dream,” she said simply.

Her mum paused, tilting her head. “A waking dream?”

Lina smiled, a slow, serene smile that held the memory of ancient silver bark and a thrumming heartbeat. “The best kind.”