Gifts from the Trees

From myths and the crackle-candy of fairy tales, I was taught to fear night. Once a rain shower shimmered between slats on a roof during the darkest hour, soaked her nightclothes. Two months later, she finds out she has a peach growing inside her and gets locked in a trunk, dumped into the sea. Or perhaps you walk by a pond at twilight and hear a heavy shuffling behind you, so you turn around and the largest swan you’ve ever seen looks you in the eye and down at your breast and back into your eyes again. No blinking. And the swan lunges forward and nips at your collarbone.