The Pickling

She opened her eyes.

She stretched her limbs, watching the sinew stretch and groan a little. It was now a patterning of dark rich green, and quite long. She could touch leaves above her that she had looked up at with ambition when she was young enough to still have roots.

But not anymore. She lay across the coming-together point of her chosen tree, her limbs splayed almost obscenely across it. It had been almost a year since she had uprooted, but she still couldn’t get used to the freedom. She felt the cold pale sun on her top and unconsciously stretched toward it. Even if it no longer fed her, she still felt it drawing her up, sometimes even craning to reach it, like a little beech sapling. The early sun was especially like that, as there was less of it, and its heat much more precious than the afternoon sun, which even the trees dreaded a little.

Her feet reached the mossy ground long before the rest of her. She sprung back into a standing position, stretching again, admiring the way her viney limbs blended almost perfectly with the surrounding tangle. She stretched her body long, close to nine feet now, though she supposed she wouldn’t grow much taller without her roots.

She set off for the morning, humming as she loped through the tangle:

City girls, they have their french bras

Country girls, they have the sa-ame

Mountain girls just let it all hang out