Anne was no longer a normal little girl anymore. Anne was a grown-up, a quirky, messy grown-up with flaws and dreams and future goals. She loved the forest, art, and especially the fantastical unknown. Her dirty blond hair had gone brown as she’d grown, and she’d chopped most of it off months before, though it still managed to be messy, knotted, and neglected. 

Anne, the summer before her junior year of college, came back to her family's old home in search of something, someone. She’d tried her best never to forget, but over the years her brain had been stuffed to bursting with mathematics and color theory and other boring, art major necessities. She only remembered glimpses. Long wooden talons, the scent of soil, firefly eyes. But she needed to remember, she needed to know if it had all been a dream. 

As she wandered down that familiar path she’d walked countless times before, she twisted and turned the iron ring about her left fourth finger anxiously. On the wide band was carved the simple figure of a firefly. She couldn’t remember where she’d gotten it, but she never could will herself to take it off. It was as much a part of her hand as her blood, tendons, and the countless smudges of ink and paint.

With each step, she reacquainted herself with every tree, fern, and patch of lichen. She remembered catching frogs there, and building faerie houses here, and climbing that tree, but who was with her? She knew she wasn’t alone. In every memory of those four years stood the shadow of a figure at her shoulder. And yet she couldn’t find their face, or even their name. As she reached the clearing and her eyes found the old, decaying treehouse, she could tell that name would be important. 

What was it? Anne knew she should remember. She’d said it countless times before. It perched like a sparrow right on the tip of her tongue. 

“Hello?” she quietly asked the open, summer air. “I know you, I know I know you…” She trailed off, realizing the bizarre nature of her actions. What if hikers heard her talking to herself like a lunatic. She inhaled deeply.

“Please, just… What’s your name? I can’t seem to remember.” Anne caught herself staring up at the dilapidated treehouse. She crept closer, half expecting it to fall on her right then and there. 

“This is stupid,” she whispered under her breath as she placed her foot on the lowest rung and heard it crackle under her weight. Yet somehow, she made it up, even with more than half of the steps long rotted away, leaving her to cling at bare bark and nails at some points along the way. She crawled into the wooden shelter, though before she could let out a sigh of relief it creaked precariously beneath her. But there she stood, rather crouched, back inside her old treehouse. 

“My castle,” she chuckled to herself. She glanced around for any sign of who she was searching for, but found nothing besides an ancient, wooden crate and…

“There’s a secret on the roof?” Anne read aloud to no one in particular. Against her better, now adult judgment, she stepped onto the ledge of the window. The whole house tilted as she did so, and this time she couldn’t help but look down at the suddenly dangerous soil far, far below. She swallowed her fear, and using her evolved height and strengthened arms, drew herself onto the roof of the treehouse.  

For a moment she stood there, frozen by the view in front of her. She could see everything, the whole world. She saw the trees swaying and laughing beneath her like a crowd and the river lacing like a snake between them. She saw the sun creep ever closer to the mountains. She saw the moon, pale as a ghost, rising over her shoulder, bringing with it the promise of night. She blinked away her awe, remembering her momentarily neglected goal.

“There’s a secret on the roof,” Anne mumbled as she looked down at the decayed wooden planks beneath her. She took a step, and they creaked threateningly. She took another. She scanned the entire roof once, twice, thrice, and just as she was about to cut her losses, she glimpsed something carved into the opposite edge of the platform. 

“Of course, it’s all the way over there.” She twirled her ring as she took another step. Crack. Another. Snap. One more. Anne could almost see whatever was etched into the weather-beaten wood. The house tilted, the forest tilted, the world tilted, and everything fell to the ground. 

**

Several years later, there was a little boy. Just your average little boy. He liked monster trucks and Spider-Man and slimy bugs, the more legs the better. His deep, brown hair was cropped close to his head, enough to show scars from various bumps and bruises he’d gained as he’d grown. He was clumsy, but had a ramped, unquenchable need for adventure. His name was Mateo, a name well suited to such an ordinary boy. 

Mateo’s father had moved him, his little brother Diego, and older sister Paula to an old, rickety house in the country after a devastating divorce with his mother earlier that summer. He’d said he wanted to give his kids the opportunity to grow up in nature, but Paula said he just didn’t have the money for anything better. 

Mateo didn’t mind, he liked his new house. He liked having the space to lay out his Legos and action figures without them getting stepped on, though the sounds of various critters skittering around the walls at night creeped him out. He’d never admit that, especially considering the night sounds scared his brother Diego so much that most nights he ended up in Mateo’s own bed. Mateo pretended to be annoyed, but he liked feeling like a superhero, valiantly defending his brother from most likely just nocturnal rodents. 

Mateo’s dad didn’t like it when he went near the woods. He said that there were bears and mountain lions that would gobble a little boy like him up in a second if given the chance. Mateo wasn’t scared though, the forest was where adventures always began in movies, and if anything dangerous came after them, he could just give it a good bonk with a nearby stick. Luckily, a month or so after moving, Mateo got his chance.

His father had left for a job interview, leaving Paula to babysit. Little did he know Paula’s version of babysitting consisted of watching teen drama on her laptop, and for the most part, drowning out her little siblings. So, Mateo, seeing such a grand opportunity, grabbed it by the horns. 

“Hey, Diego, let’s go build a fort in the woods!” Mateo less suggested and more commanded the younger boy. 

“But... but dad said we’re not supposed to go in the woods,” Diego recalled, wringing his little hands timidly. 

“Well, Dad doesn’t have to know,” Mateo said with a wide, mischievous grin. And so, with their incompetent older sister forgotten, the two boys, one of whom was not entirely willing, began their quest for the best sticks available for their tree fort. 

“Mateo, I want to go home, my arms hurt,” the younger boy whined after less than a half hour, as Mateo dropped yet another stick on the pile growing on his brother's tiny limbs. 

“We’re almost done, we just have to find the best place to start building. See look, there’s a trail over there!” Mateo pointed before scampering off, leaving his little brother to stumble after. As he wandered, Mateo grabbed a branch and whacked it against each tree he passed, listening to the different sounds they made upon impact. One was a deep thunk, another a quiet tap, and the dead ones released either a dry crunch or a hollow, echoing beat. Finally, the two boys came upon a small clearing at the heart of the forest. At its center lay broken and rotted debris from an old, forgotten structure. Mateo ran up to it without a second thought. 

“Look Diego, this is perfect! We’ll use this… this thingy as a base and build our fort on top!” Mateo nudged the wooden planks, and when they didn’t move considerably, he silently dubbed it safe. 

“But what if there’s rusty nails or something? I don’t want rabies,” Diego worried, now holding the bunch of sticks to him like a protective shield against his brother's shenanigans. 

“You get rabies from possums and raccoons and stuff, stupid.” Mateo corrected, still exploring the wreckage. He grinned in delight as he found a hole big enough for him to enter. 

“It looks like there’s a way in. You coming?” he asked his brother. Diego shook his head and held his bundle of sticks tighter. Mateo rolled his eyes and climbed inside. 

For the most part, it was dark and dense, shadows lingering inside the little wooden cavern, but the sunlight creeping through the cracks of the broken planks illuminated it well enough. Just enough for Mateo to spot something, a drawing of sorts scribbled on the floor of whatever building the ruins once were. His green eyes lit up with curiosity. 

“Mateo, hurry up. I’m hungry!” Diego called as his brother crawled from the debris. 

“One sec,” Mateo answered. “There’s supposed to be something on the roof, maybe some money or something!” he told Diego as he began climbing the unsteady planks of the broken structure. 

After a few moments, and a few close calls with rusty nails, the boy pulled himself onto the roof. It didn’t take him very long to find something odd. Growing up from a gap in the rotting wood and dead leaves was a small sapling. Its bark was snow white, freckled with black smudges and stripes. Its delicate green leaves seemed to glow as the sun shone through them. Its roots laced along the debris, as if they were the last remaining tether holding it together. And yet, none of that was what caught the young boy's eye.   

“What’s that?” Mateo asked aloud to no one in particular, as he glimpsed something flashing between the dead leaves at the base of the sapling. Crouching down, he retrieved it and held it close to his face. It was a ring, rusted and worn, but he could still see an insect of some kind carved into it. He tried to put it on, but all of his fingers remained stubbornly small in comparison, so he settled for putting it in his pocket. 

The trinket had already gotten the gears in his little mind turning. If there was a ring hidden in the leaves, maybe there would also be something MORE valuable. Something he could potentially trade in exchange for Hot Wheels. Sure enough, he did find something else. 

With one quick sweep of his arm, Mateo brushed the dry leaves away from the roots of the sapling, to reveal something rather underwhelming. It was a drawing, just a simple little doodle, of what looked like a bull skull with the antlers of a deer. The empty eye holes were surrounded by lines shooting away from them, as if they were supposed to be glowing. 

“Ma-Mateo,” Diego stuttered, his voice carrying a tone of fear Mateo didn’t notice. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming,” Mateo responded, his tone rich with disappointment. That is, until he noticed some words beneath the strange drawing. 

“Hold on,” he told his brother as he crouched down and squinted, trying his best to make out what was written in the rotting wood. 

“Mateo!” Diego shrieked, his little voice suddenly wet with tears and terror. Mateo spun around just in time to see his brother abandon the sticks he’d been relentlessly clinging to and sprint away into the forest without looking back. 

“Scaredy-cat,” Mateo muttered, looking back towards the writing. All of a sudden, a shadow covered it, which he found odd, considering it was a cloudless afternoon. Mateo felt the breath in his hair and smelled the scent of soil long before he had the courage to look up. 

The king stood before him, his eyes flashing like the sun, his talons raised, the whole forest quiet and frozen as the dead. Mateo stood frozen as well, his brain unable to process the fact that he could have been in his final moments of his too short life. Just then, something occurred to him.

“Is...is this yours?” Mateo asked, his voice shaking relentlessly as he pulled the ring from his pocket and held it up to the beast. “I-I’m sorry I took it, I d-didn’t know.” The king grabbed the tiny trinket in his gargantuan talons, and its threatening air vanished as if it had never been. It sat back on its canine haunches, its eyes dimmed, its fur settled. It cocked its head at the boy curiously. Mateo sat down as well, suddenly dizzy with relief. The king slid its massive head gently beneath the branches of the sapling, being careful not to damage it. It then lowered itself in front of the terrified boy, as if apologetic. 

“It-it’s ok,” Mateo responded. “You just, just caught me off guard, that’s all.” The boy pouted, refusing to admit he’d been frightened. He hesitantly placed a hand on the king's wooden head, stroking him like a dog. 

“You sure like that tree, don’t you?” Mateo noted the beast's odd behavior regarding the sapling. The king exhaled in reply. Its eyes, no more than tiny points of light, somehow conveyed a deep sadness. It moved its head to the side, allowing the boy to scratch the underside of its chin. In doing so, it revealed the message so long hidden on the roof of that archaic treehouse, if one could even call it that anymore. 

Mateo, while continuing to give his new friend the attention it so craved, glanced down at the barely decipherable writing, and was just able to make it out through the rot and ruin. 

Never grow up. 

“Never grow up, huh?” Mateo asked the king. “Don’t worry pal, I’m never gonna.”