My flesh cutting, scraping, as the jagged edges serrate my clothes, grating small chunks of me, as my body continues to fall.

My eyes sear with agony, as my teeth gnash from the excruciating pain of being flayed. Assuring myself that if it won’t heal now, it eventually will. Just as soon as I can locate an outcropping of rock, something tangible to hang onto, something to stop this downward descent. Just as soon as I can get to the fruit and make my way back to a better part of Summerland.

My body a toboggan of blood, flesh, and bone that continues to careen down the cliff, and just as I’m sure I can’t take another second, something catches—something that juts hard against my foot, stabs me in the knee, and pummels me so hard in the gut it robs me of breath before puncturing me right in the base of my neck where at the very last moment, I reach up, grab ahold of it, stop it from removing my head.

Knowing it’s my one and only chance—knowing I can’t possibly hold on to both my makeshift parachute and this strange outcropping of sorts—I close my eyes and let go.

My jacket instantly claimed by the airstream as my hands grasp in the dark, putting all of my faith in this odd and pointy protrusion I can’t even see.

My fingers circling, curling around it in a death grip, my palms scraped ragged and raw as my weight rappels me down the length of it.

Down.

Down farther still.

Down so far and so fast I can only pray it’ll end soon. Knowing that if I lose my grip I’ll be right back where I started—free-falling through black, empty space, only this time without my bag, without any tools to help me. Doing all that I can to clear such thoughts from my mind, my body jumps to a stop and I find myself dangling from this strange thing’s end.

Caught in midair, my legs flailing crazily beneath me, I grip tighter, reposition myself, using my raw and skinned knees along with this unknown thing, to pull myself up.

At first I go slowly. Very, very slowly. Reminding me of the time I had to climb up a rope in my freshman-year gym class. Back when I was just another mortal. Back when, other than being a cheerleader, I had no athletic prowess to speak of. Every inch feeling like a lesson in overcoming unbearable pain in order to put my faith in something I can’t even see. My progress measured in inches, not feet, eventually creeping close enough to the summit that I’m rewarded with a tiny spot of light—just enough to reveal exactly what it is that has saved me.

It’s a root.

A long and spindly tree root.

A long and spindly tree root that belongs to the tree—the one I’ve been searching for. I know it instinctively.

The Tree of Life has saved me.

Chapter thirty-two

The moment after I reach the top—the moment after I heave myself over the ledge and lie facedown, gasping in the dirt—I bolt upright and run like the wind.

Ignoring the searing pain that shoots through my battered legs and feet, I call upon every immortal power I have to help me find my way along the root with some semblance of speed. Sometimes stumbling, sometimes falling, but always picking myself right back up and forging ahead, knowing I need to get there before it’s too late, that I’m so far behind I’ve no time to waste.

Making do without the aid of my flashlight, figuring it’s still free-falling in the crevice along with my bag, I push my way through the fog until the trail becomes less treacherous, easier to navigate, until finally, it’s just a matter of surviving the climb, pulling myself along, and allowing my body to adjust to the ever-increasing altitude.

An ever-increasing altitude, the kind of which I’ve never experienced before.

An ever-increasing altitude that leaves me dizzy, short of breath, and that would surely require unlimited use of an oxygen tank if I were back home on the earth plane.

And before I can actually see it, I know that I’m near.

It’s in the way the darkened sky begins to glisten and glow.

It’s in the way the mist begins to vibrate and pulse.

Throbbing with an entire spectrum of colors—a rainbow of blues and pinks and oranges and deep sparkling purples—all of it shimmering with the finest flecks of silver and gold.

I hurry along the massive root, noting the way it rises and grows. Becoming taller and wider as it mixes with the other roots, tangling and overlapping into a complex system that, from what I can tell, seems to meander for miles and miles before it reaches an enormous trunk I can just now barely see.

I pause for a moment, left breathless as much from the vision that glows before me as I am from the hike. Taking in the whole glorious sight of it—the awe-inducing breadth of it—the branches that reach miles into the sky, the glistening leaves that first appear green and then gold, the vibrant aura that emanates all around it—noting the way the air has grown warmer despite the elevation that should make it anything but.

“So that’s it,” I whisper to myself, my voice trancelike, laced with wonder, so overcome by the colors, I’ve momentarily forgotten my enemies, forgotten my pain.

For the moment anyway, I’m a pioneer, a pilgrim, a founder of this glorious frontier. So filled with the wonder of what I witness before me, I’m rendered completely and totally speechless. No words could ever do it justice.

I thought the Great Halls of Learning were amazing, but this—well, I’ve never seen anything like it. Never seen anything quite so magnificent.

But my awe soon turns, and I’m on guard once again. My initial look of amazement quickly hijacked by suspicion as I glance around the area, study it closely, searching for signs of my fellow travelers.