Justin Plummer's Uncomfortable Conclusions

  It was in a first week of June when the pollen of all the great oaks fell.  “It had been a cold winter;” Yew thought. “And an even colder spring.” Yew remembered the last summer after a cold spring had been worryingly hot. Or perhaps it was the summer before.  Each year that went by became harder and harder to tell apart. Yew looked down at the pollen that carpeted the ground, dirt, and grass and thought it looked like the whole of the Earth had become yellow worm corpses. The pollen’s fall had summoned all to the conclave; as had always been as such since even before Yew had learned of remembering and forgetting.  The Tree-Runners spoke first as was their right. Black ones; grey ones; red and brown ones all spoke for their nations, but the ghostly whites ones were the most regarded. The black ones were more common in the North Lands and the red ones more across the water, Yew had often recalled. The white ones lived in the trees and clearings around the great dry ...