When Mariah saw the construction workers in front of the soon-to-be shopping center about to tear up the last sapling on the plot, she'd parked the truck and ran over, waving for them to stop. She was a gardener, she told them. She was landscaping, she had a shovel in the back of her truck, and she'd be glad to take the tree.
The workers thought themselves gentlemen, and Mariah was easy on the eyes. They let her dig up the tree and gave her burlap and a rope to bag the roots.
When she got home, she out the tree in one of the many planter pots she had, filled it with nutrient-rich soil and compost, and watered it. When that was done, she went inside, feeling accomplished.
That night, as she sat on the sofa with a mug of cocoa and her pajamas on, Mariah heard the soft sound of sobbing. She rose to her feet and crept quietly around the house, wondering where the noise could be coming from. It wasn't until she passed an open window she had forgotten to close that she realized the noise was coming from outside.
outside, sitting in on the planter where the sapling had been, was a little girl in a green dress. Her hair stuck out wildly in a thick, viney bush, and she was so small, her feet couldn't touch the ground. When Mariah shone a flashlight on the girl, she looked up, and Mariah saw that her eyes had no iris or pupil, they were just a solid, near-glowing green.
"It's too cold," said the girl, shivering and hugging herself. Her voice was weak and small. "It was cold before, but here it's worse without the ground."
"What happened to the tree?" said Mariah.
The girl looked at her, confused. "I'm right here," she said. She brushed leafy strands of vine-hair from her face. "You brought me here."
"Do you want to come inside?" Mariah said. "It's warm."
The little girl sniffed and nodded. She stepped down from the pot carefully, leaning against it like she wasn't sure how to walk properly. She held onto the pot of dirt and tugged at it, trying to pull it to the door.
"Here," said Mariah, coming down the steps. "Let me help."
She passed the girl and hefted up the pot. The girl hovered anxiously around Mariah's legs as she made her way into the house. After a quick look around the house, mariah put the pot near the glass slider door in the kitchen where the sunlight would find it in the morning. The girl climbed into the pot and sighed.
"Thank you," she said.
And with that, she stood up, raised her arms, and transformed from a spindly little girl into an even more spindly little tree.
Mariah stared at the tree in silence for a long while. Then, she said, "Good night."
She flicked off the lights, then went to bed.