Anna DeLuna lay on her back staring up into the many twisting and crisscrossing branches of the tree. Its trunk rose out of the ground just behind her head and she watched the many insects that crawled up and down along its bark. From time to time, as she lay particularly still, the squirrels would scurry around her to reach the walnuts that littered the ground. A few of them even raced passed her, up the tree, and into a yawning knothole. Perhaps they had a nest in there, or maybe they only used it to store their collection of nuts.

   A gentle breeze blew through the canopy above and the low and constant rustle of leaves was punctuated here and there by the drop of yet another walnut. If she laid there long enough, she figured she would eventually be hit by a falling nut but so far she’d been unscathed.

   Beyond the leafy canopy she caught glimpses of blue skies and white clouds as they paraded ever so slowly by and the sun continued to climb as the day moved imperceptibly from morning into afternoon.

   She rolled her eyes downward until she was looking at her feet. There was a thin layer of mud and dust around the edges of her shoes from her short hike across the yard earlier that day. Further on, Anna could see the small grove of trees that grew in her backyard between her home and where she now lay. She’d spent the first little while that morning climbing in those trees and trying to catch the little frog she’d found in the puddle at the center of the grove.

   But it was walnut season and the ripe nuts were the perfect snack after tree climbing and frog chasing. At first she had been satisfied with the nuts she could gather from the ground but after finding one too many nuts whose husks were full of worms she lost her appetite. Perhaps the walnuts that were still clinging to their branches were less wormy. In either case it didn’t matter, she didn’t want walnuts now anyway. Perhaps she’d ask her mom or dad later.

   How long would she be able to lie there before her parents came looking for her? Did she even want them to come looking for her? On the one hand she loved this place, loved lying beneath these trees, and it was with her parents that she had first come here and learned to enjoy this simple pleasure. But on the other hand, her parents arrival now would only mean an end to her time beneath the trees. In some corner of her mind she hoped that she would be able to convince them to stay there with her, to lie with her there once more. In that fantasy they were somehow able to stay there forever, always on the edge of Autumn, the Sun always in that transition between seasons.

   Anna closed her eyes and focused on the feel of the grass beneath her, how the individual blades felt bent and poking against the skin on her arms and neck. She followed with her mind the path of the tree roots beneath her back. With surprise she noticed that there were a couple of walnuts beneath her legs and she hoped their husks wouldn’t leave a stain on her pants. Her hands were long since stained a dark brown from the half dozen or so husks that she’d peeled off.

   She never wanted to forget this place, this time, where she could play in these trees and chase frogs and eat walnuts. She didn’t want to lose these things. She’d told her parents this, of course, but they just shrugged and shook their heads. The last time she’d protested, shortly before she went climbing in the grove of trees that morning, her mother had finally lost her patience with her.

   “It’s your own fault we have to move, Anna!” She’d scolded her. “We warned you and warned you, and gave you how many second chances? But you went too far and so after tonight we’re leaving.”

   Anna rolled over onto her side; the root was beginning to dig too deeply into her back to still be comfortable. Only one more night here. She’d never see these trees again. Never get to watch the silly squirrel’s storing their walnuts. Never get to see her friends again.

   It was her friends that had gotten her in trouble in the first place. Or more accurately, Anna had gotten in trouble because her parents found out about her friends. She should have known her parents would find out. In retrospect her plans seemed rather foolish and her attempts to conceal her friendships were rather obvious. Anna suspected that her parents had known for some time but had been willing to turn a blind eye as long as Anna was careful about at least following the more important rules of not getting too attached to anyone.

   How could she not have grown attached, though? Friendships were all about attachment and, as much as she loved her parents, there was something entirely different about having a friend to play with instead of always having to play with her parents or by herself.

   Soft footfalls sounded from behind Anna and she knew it was her dad, coming to get her.

   “Sun’s going down in an hour or so,” her dad spoke softly to her once he reached her. He didn’t rush her, though, and he sat down beside her beneath the walnut tree. “Mom’s got dinner ready,” he said casually, as though it was just another ordinary day. “Steak and eggs, just the way you like them.”

   Anna glanced back at him and made a face. “Mom never makes them how I like them,” she murmured.

   “Well,” her dad sighed, “when I checked on them right before I came out here, your steak was still quite red and your eggs were still very runny.”

   “You’re just saying that to get me to come in,” Anna pouted. “Mom said she’d never make my steak and eggs the way I like it. She said it was gross. You both did.”

   “I think that, just for today, we can make an exception for you.”

   Anna rolled over and finally faced her dad. “You mean it?” She asked. Her parents were always overcooking her food and it was a frequent point of contention between them.

   “I mean it,” her dad responded with a grin. “Though if we don’t hurry, mom might try to cook them a little longer.”

   “No,” Anna cried out, though she knew her dad was only teasing her.

   They both got to their feet and Anna climbed up onto her dad’s back. He didn’t complain and he bounced her up and down as he walked back towards their house.

   “I’m going to miss these trees,” her dad remarked as they entered the grove. He was careful to step around the mud that Anna had played in earlier and he wound his way through the trees, sometimes taking a turn here and there as though wanting to be sure he passed by as many of the trees as he could on their way through.

   “Dad?” Anna began and a weight she’d been carrying all day seemed to fill her, preventing her from saying the words that had been bottled up inside of her.

   “What’s up?” her dad prompted when she didn’t go on.

   “Do we really have to leave?”

   Her dad stopped walking and turned his head back so he could see her face.

   “You know we have to move,” he told her. “You broke the rules.”

   “It’s a stupid rule!”

   “Hey!” Her dad silenced her and his gaze was stern. “Our rules keep you safe, and they keep others safe. If we stayed here much longer, it would only be a matter of time before someone got hurt.”

   “I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Anna stated.

   “You can’t guarantee that,” her dad reminded her. “Not until you learn to control yourself.”

   “I can control myself.”

   Her dad laughed and resumed his walk back towards the house. His laugh wasn’t harsh, neither was it unkind, but it hurt her feelings all the same.

   “I can,” she declared angrily. “I can shift on my own now.”

   Her dad stopped walking as though he’d hit a wall. Anna hadn’t meant to admit to this fact just yet. She wasn’t suppose to even be trying to shift on her own yet, and especially not without her parents there to supervise.

   Slowly and purposefully, her dad lowered her down to the ground and then knelt to face her so they were looking at one another, eye to eye.

   “Susana’s mom brought you home yesterday to tell us that you and Susana had been fighting,” he stated as though putting pieces of a puzzle together. “She said she heard Susana start shouting for you to stop, and when she went to see what was the matter, Susana was holding her arm and screaming that you’d attacked her but that Susana was too upset to go into any details about what exactly had happened.”

   Anna’s dad held her by the shoulders and asked, almost pleadingly, “Did you shift and bite your friend?”

   Anna couldn’t look her dad in the eyes and she instead stared down at the ground. She dug her toes into the soft earth and wished she hadn’t said anything to him. Now she was going to be in even more trouble. Maybe even Susana would get in trouble now, even though it wasn’t her fault. But still there was that faint hope, the hope that had lead her to biting her friend in the first place, that warmed her insides and made her think that perhaps there was a chance that she wouldn’t have to say goodbye to her friend after all.

   “Did you bite your friend!” Her dad demanded and he gave her a slight shake to bring her attention back to him.

   “Yes,” Anna replied and she smiled triumphantly as she finally met his gaze. “So now she’ll have to come with us, right?”

   To her dismay, Anna’s dad shut his eyes and pursed his lips. He only did that when he was really angry.

   “Anna,” he said through clenched teeth, “tonight is the full moon!”

   “I know,” Anna said, though her excitement was significantly diminished at seeing her dad so upset. “Susana will shift tonight and–

   “No, Anna, she won’t shift tonight,” her dad whispered as his anger melted away and was replaced with such a deep sorrow that it shocked Anna into utter silence. “She’s going to die tonight.”

   “WHAT?”

   “You bit her too near the full moon,” he explained, “Her body won’t have enough time to adjust so when she tries to shift tonight…

   Dread and horror tore the last remnants of hope out of her and Anna collapsed into her dad’s arms.

   “I didn’t mean it!” She bawled into his shoulder. “Can’t you fix it? I don’t want her to die!”

   Her dad patted her on the back and stroked her hair while she cried. She knew there was nothing that could be done. If there had been, her dad would already be doing it. Instead he sat there with her in the grove until she ran out of tears.

   “Why do we have our rules?” he asked her when she finally looked back up into his face.

   “To keep us safe from others,” she said, and then added with newfound understanding, “and to protect others from us.”

   Her dad nodded and he scooped her up in his arms.

   “Come on,” he said, “I think we’ll need to be leaving sooner than we originally anticipated.”