No matter how hard I looked at the tree, I had trouble taking yet another step forward. I kept coming back to the thought that my fate, nay, the entire tribe and Elsa, Yvonne, and Skylar's fate lay in the hands of this wizened old man who believed he could speak to trees! There was just no speaking to trees in my book. Well, I knew that you could talk to them, but who really believed that these trees, devoid of mouths or any voice boxes, could talk back?
Try as I might, I could not see why the tree was the vaunted totem of the Inferno tribe. Of course, it did look as though it were on fire. Its leaves were a scarlet brighter than any other leaves I had seen before, even in autumn when the maple leaves turned red before lightening into yellow and falling to the ground in hues of brown. Asi
