I was nineteen when everything started happening, but that's not where my story begins. I was born in Plantersville, a town about one hundred miles away from anything that was deemed important. My father owned a farm that he got from his father, who got it from his father, who had it passed down from his father and so on and so forth. By the time I was nine my five sisters had already grown and left, but most everyone in Plantersville does that at some point. In a farm community business isn't exactly booming since everyone can live off of their own establishment, and my family was no different. The real money came from the textile mills, but I had no motivation to be stuck in a hot sticky mill all day.

No, my place was in the grass, collecting eggs and drawing out milk from our cows' plump utters. It was hard work, but it sure beat being cooped up somewhere all day in the heat and sweatified factories for textiles. Back then things were simpler and that's just how I liked it. Why, I'd never even been to the cities and had only seen them on post cards and in books. Everyone else ooed and aaahed over their shining structures, but they seemed dangerous to me. No, much too high for my liking: anything that could reach higher than a tree was just too untrustworthy in my opinion.

My parents named me Lily. Mother says it's because it's her favorite flower, father says it's because it was what mother's room was filled with after I'd been born. Whatever the reason I always liked it just the same. Ironically enough we never grew any normal lilies on our farm, not even in the luxury gardens. Our gardens were marvelous: filled with catalillies, dogalillies, tiger lilies, chrysanthemum pearls, roses, violets, and right in the middle of each one was a lazily swaying Truffula tree. Each one was a different color, and when the sun was setting it was hard to tell where the trees ended and the sky began.

The gardens were beautiful, but the trees were always my favorite. Evergreens were pretty too and always made me think of Christmas when I inhaled their scent, but they were always outshined by the Truffulas. At that age I'd shimmy up them and plop right down in the middle of their tufts and let myself disappear for as long as my parents could stand it. Sometimes, on warmer nights, they'd let me sleep there all through the night, and on those nights I always had the deepest rest.

I was eleven years old when my parents decided that living in Plantersville had become more work than it was worth, and despite my begging and pleading, I along with everything else we owned aside from the house was packed up and ready to be moved. My feet planted firmly in the ground, stubborn as the roots of all of the plants that I'd be leaving behind. I didn't want to leave; I liked my life here and didn't want to throw it all away for some city in the concrete and steel. Give me dirt and grass any day. They promised that we'd start a farm there, make twice as much as we could ever make here, even more, but I didn't care about money. I may have only been eleven then, but I knew what I wanted and this move wasn't it.

As the last of our belongings was secured to one of the wagons, I quickly shimmied up one of our Truffula trees one more time. Who knew the next time I'd be able to have my very own to lay in? Neither one of them stopped me and I'm thankful that they let me laze in the embrace of those silky tufts for an hour. They told me the reason why was because they had things to be busied with in the mean time, but I knew that they'd miss the gardens as much as I would and that a part of them probably had their own urges to snuggle into the welcoming Truffula tops.

"Lily! Come on now, it's time to go, the livestock is getting restless!"

My lips pulled in, biting back tears before they could continue falling. I wiggled my arms into the tufts, giving back what I hoped was as comforting an embrace as the Truffula was able to give me. My fingers wrapped around something hard and smooth and I pulled my arm out, looking down at the thick seed in my palm. They usually fell all around the trunks and at the first of each month we'd go out and plant them. There were still some of our little Truffulas growing now; hopefully nature would take care of them from here. Not wanting to leave anything else behind, I pushed the seed into my pocket, rubbed a tuft against my cheek one last time, and slid back down the trunk.

There was no scolding for dallying today and my mother rested her hand on my shoulder and led me to the wagon she'd be leading. Father was leading the wagons of animals and mother had the job of leading our personal things. After I'd nestled into my seat I looked up at her just as she took the reins and pulled away from our home,

"Mama, do you think we'll be able to have a tree?"

Her lips smiled, but I took note that her eyes never left the dirt road ahead of us,

"Well maybe pumpkin, if we have room."

If we have room? If we have roooom? How could we not have any room, we always had room, acres and acres of room. I was disliking this new place more and more. It was a good two days before we'd even made it to the city that I'd be forced to call home and I'd woken with a start. The moon was high in the sky, big and bright and full, it had to be at least past midnight by now. Father was speaking in hushed tones to mother as they started to unbuckle the lengths and lengths of straps around our furniture. They must have been trying not to wake me, but I was awake now and sitting up on one arm.

Though the moon was big enough, the stars were more difficult to try and spot. I wasn't used to this many lights and kept wondering how anyone here could ever manage falling asleep. This was where we were supposed to live? There was land, but not nearly as much as we'd had and certainly no endless fields. To call it a farm would be to name it that by technicality only, and as I looked around I was able to see that we were the only farm around. The nearest house was a little ways from us, but their land was clearly marked off with fences. It was more like we were an extra appendage to the town than a true part of it…like a growth, or a mutation. How were we ever supposed to fit in here?

The tension that had been building in my chest eased a tiny bit when I saw them: trees, lots and lots of trees around the town, and even some within it. There weren't as many as I was used to, but I hadn't even expected to see a single one. Pictures of cities always showcased their buildings and transportation; there was hardly ever mention of their plant life. Maybe this place wouldn't be too bad. Maybe.

"Oh, Lily you're awake. I'm sorry pumpkin, I thought we were quiet enough for you to slee-"

"Mama! There's trees, lots of trees, can we plant one?"

Her apologetic smile for waking me began to falter. That was more of an answer than I needed and before I could hear her condemning words, I pushed up and out of my seat. The ground here wasn't nearly as soft: the roads weren't dirt, they were graveled, here at least. Maybe it'd be different in town. For now I wanted to see what this house was like.

It wasn't bigger than our old home like I expected it to be, if anything it seemed smaller by two rooms. Good thing none of my sisters still lived with us or some of us would be doubling up. Other than the smaller size it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Its walls were smoother and newer than ours, but I liked the old wood and weather smoothed stones of our other house. This place hardly looked lived in and I half wondered if it had been recently built. How long had my parents been planning moving here? Could they have been having it built for a few months? A year? I didn't like thinking about it.

I moved around the wagon towards my father and gently pulled on the tail of his vest and clasped my hands behind my back when he looked down at me with a tired smile,

"Papa, can I go inside?"

Without a word he nodded and held out a small silver key towards me. I took it eagerly, surprised by how small and fragile it felt.

"Be careful sweet pea, there's still some work that needs finished on the inside."

I nodded absently and moved to the door hurriedly. I was just itching to see what this place looked like on the inside, or what my room would be like. With a quick turn of the key and an even quicker turn of the doorknob I was inside. It smelled like paint and freshly shaven wood. The walls were completely bare and even though I knew that it wasn't being lived in, I shuddered at how very absent it all seemed. If we for some reason weren't the first to live here then the last people had been wiped out completely. There wasn't even a scratch to be seen or a marking on the door frame to show how much people had grown over the years.

Being careful like he'd told me to be, I carefully moved into the house, watching where I stepped. It was dark but there was more than enough moonlight pouring through the naked windows to light my way. The kitchen was in the back and it seemed like it was the biggest room in the house. Good, a small kitchen was just…weird. Through the house and to the right was a hall, and that one led to another hall that went left and right. There were three rooms: two bedrooms and a bathroom. Wow…my sisters and I would have had to do a lot more than double up; all of us would have been in one room. Not fun, and for once I was selfishly thankful that I was the only one left here. Hopefully mother and father wouldn't want any more children after me or else room would go down more and more, especially if it turned out to be a boy.

I stopped at what would most likely end up being my room and let my eyes slowly sweep over the blank white walls. With a little paint and time I could have it looking like home quickly. We could do this; we could make this place more like home. My head nodded once in reassurance and I rested my hands on my hips in determination. Footsteps padded quietly behind me and I felt my mother's hand on my shoulder,

"It's empty now, but it'll turn around. And see? You have the room all to yourself without worrying about anything your sisters would have wanted kept in it; you can do whatever you want. Maybe even paint some of those trees you wanted, hmm?"

It'd make the room much more splendid, but it wouldn't be the same as a real tree. The seed in my pocket felt much heavier now, as if I'd brought something with us that I shouldn't have. With the vegetables that we'd need to use the space on our land for, I knew there'd be no room for a tree, much less a garden. Still, I nodded and looked up at her with a small smile,

"It'll be pretty."

And it would be pretty. Maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to expand one day and I'd have a chance to plant something from home. That's what would make it perfect.