The Crossroads

Have you ever seen a face hidden in the bark of a tree and known that the man trapped inside wanted to hurt you?

That’s what Zack Jennings had always wanted to ask his father, but he never did, because he was afraid his dad would think he was just letting his imagination run wild again.

Except this time Zack was pretty certain he had seen a man’s face hidden inside this huge gnarly tree over in the small park ringing the American Museum of Natural History.

Other kids might’ve seen lumpy bumps and knotholes. Zack saw angry eyes and a snarling mouth.

But Zack never did ask his father. Instead, he asked Mrs. Donna Schlampp, the librarian at his school, if she thought reincarnation extended to plants as well as animals. Could people come back as a tree or just as cows or some kind of bug? Mrs. Schlampp (who had a graduate degree in comparative theology but never got to use it except at dinner parties) said that, yes, some religions believed tormented souls could become trapped inside the elements of nature—most especially trees.

So according to one adult who’d been to college, the oak in the park could, indeed, have an anguished soul trapped beneath its bark.

Thanks a bunch, Mrs. Schlampp.

Fortunately, Zack and his dad were leaving New York City pretty soon. They were moving up to Connecticut right after his dad got married again.

That tree in the park? It wasn’t coming with them.

But maybe Mrs. Schlampp could go visit it from time to time.