The story of the forest and a girl.

Five minute read for beginning readers.

Rowen was the kind of girl who didn’t just walk through the woods โ€“ she poked around in them. Mossy logs were dissected, fallen leaves became maps for imaginary adventures, and the creek was less a body of water than an endless source of shiny, skipping stones. 

Yet, for all her exploring, something about the forest felt โ€ฆ separate. Like she was a visitor, peeking in on a world that didn’t quite include her.

One afternoon, whispers reached her earsโ€”not of wind or rustling leaves, but hushed adult voices from the porch. “…mycorrhizal networks,” said a warm, unfamiliar voice. “Trees, amazing things, they communicate…” 

Rowen pressed closer. The speaker was a woman with sun-browned skin and dirt under her nails, chatting with Rowen’s mom. Rowan’s dad said she was a botanist, Dr. Evergreen.

The rest of the conversation was lost in chores and homework, but those words clung to Rowen’s mind: Trees that talk?

That night, under the covers, the familiar forest beyond her window seemed less known, more mysterious. Did the old oak outside send messages to the pines on the hill? Was there a language Rowen was too young to hear?

Rowan sleeps while the familiar forest beyond her window seemed more mysterious

The next day, while searching for the perfect, flat stone, she spotted something peculiar: a tangle of roots looping into the ground, almost like a doorway. Curiosity prickled her more than fear. Kneeling down, she peered into the darkness beneath the roots, seeing only damp earth and shadows.

Rowan peers into a tangle of roots in the story of the forest.

“Hello?” she whispered, feeling faintly ridiculous.

“Well, hello to you too,” came a warm voice from above. Startled, Rowen jerked back, then saw the womanโ€”the botanistโ€”who had been talking with her mother, crouched by an enormous oak nearby.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman said, “I’m Dr. Evergreen. You seem to be quite the explorer.”

Rowen blinked. This was the woman who knew about trees communicating. The hum that lingered in this spot grew strongerโ€”was it Rowen’s excitement or something coming from the forest itself?

That hum stayed with her. Rowen’s fascination with the forest grew into an all-consuming passion as the weeks passed. The root doorway was her favorite spot. She’d sit, eyes closed, feeling the pulse in the soil, the rhythmic way branches swayed, like fingers tracing patterns only they could see. It wasn’t scary, but too vast to understand, like trying to hold a whole lake in your hands.

Rowen sat cross-legged on the forest floor, a blade of grass twirling between her fingers. As the trees swayed above her, gently rustling in the breeze, the forest seemed alive with an energy she couldn’t quite grasp. Rowen sighed, frustrated by the unanswered questions that lingered in her mind.

Rowen sat cross-legged on the forest floor

Suddenly, she thought about how some trees seemed to lean towards each other, their roots intertwining like old friends holding hands. Could the trees be communicating beneath the soil, hidden from view?

That afternoon, Rowen ventured deeper into the woods than usual. Following a hunch more than a plan, she saw  Dr. Evergreen again, this time carefully examining a patch of tiny mushrooms near a tree stump.

“I was hoping to find you,” Rowen blurted out, then explained her questions about trees and their secret language. Dr. Evergreen didn’t laugh. Instead, she showed Rowen pictures of thread-like fungi and explained the ‘wood wide web,’ a network connecting trees at the roots.

Rowan learns more about trees from Dr Evergreen

“And they share things,” Dr. Evergreen explained, “Nutrients, warnings… some big, old trees, we call them ‘mother trees,’ even help the younger ones survive.”

It clicked. Rowan had felt the vast humming presenceโ€”not just connection but community. Dr. Evergreen also showed Rowen how to track roots from tree to tree, almost like following hidden wires.

The next morning, back at her favorite spot, Rowan sensed a low and insistent buzzing. Minutes later, fat drops plopped onto her outstretched handsโ€”rain! The buzzing wasn’t magic; it was the trees sensing, knowing something she hadn’t.

That realization changed everything. The world was more expansive than Rowan had ever imagined, her small life a thread woven into something mighty and ancient.

The forest didn’t call her by name, but it breathed with her, around her, and that strange sense of ‘otherness’ in the woods was replaced by the simple truth of belonging.

Rowan felt like she was a visitor, peeking in on a world that didn't quite include her

As Rowen stood among the trees, she felt a sense of connection. The forest was pulling her into its timeless rhythm. Rowan felt she belonged and was part of the forest’s grand, hidden world.

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