The Singing Bell Tree

Milo was already busy before the trouble began. He stood on the soft, pillowed ground between the two beech trees, his moss-green scarf tucked close while he listened to the hollow wake up around him. Tobin, the slow, sturdy beetle with golden freckles on his dark shell, had asked Milo to help keep things calm while he checked the stream and the fallen log bridge. Milo wanted very much to be useful, so he watched every leaf, every pebble, every little sound.

Then the oldest tree in Mossy Lantern Hollow rang.

It did not sound like a branch cracking or a bird calling. It sounded like a bell being tapped from deep inside the trunk. A warm wind slid through the hollow, and another note followed. At once, flowers near the stream popped open like tiny surprised mouths. A spray of acorns shook loose from the roots and rolled across the soft ground. Above them, lantern bugs — glowing little insects that carry their own light — swirled up into the air in bright, twisting loops.

Milo stared. The tree was beautiful, its rings shining through the leaves in the slanted light, but the whole hollow was starting to move faster than it should. The flowers had opened too soon, the acorns were skittering everywhere, and the lantern bugs were bumping into one another like blinking stars. Tobin was still near the bridge, and Fern, the orange-and-olive newt with shiny eyes, had just peeped out from under a fern frond by the stream.

Another breeze was already coming. Milo could hear the bell-tree begin to hum again, and he had to choose quickly: follow Tobin to help steady the hollow, call to Fern before she dashed closer, or go look at the bell-tree himself to find out why it kept ringing.