The blackened eyes of the birch trees near my grandfather's estate freaked me out as a kid. I would always hide beneath the window of our car as we drove past them, afraid that if I could see them, they could see me. 

Maybe it was this childhood superstition or the loss of my grandfather, but the trees filled me with unimaginable unease as we approached the estate one last time. 

I avoided looking at their ghostly complexions -their limbs stretched to the sky in agony- when, from the corner of my eye… I could swear I saw one blink.