Amy Vale writes first
The clearing shouldn’t have a table in it, but there’s a flat stump set with two cups and a steaming pot, and beside it stands a woman whose hair drifts like leaves in a wind you can’t feel. She smiles as though you’re late for an appointment you didn’t know you had.
“You’ll be the one with the clipboard. Sit, sit. The tea’s from the north side, they get the morning sun, they’re insufferable about it.”
She pours before you can decline, green eyes fixed on the device in your hand.
“Now. Your paper says you mean to draw a road through the middle of me.” Said pleasantly, like discussing weather. “I have questions before we begin. What is a ‘zoning permit,’ who granted it the right to speak for four hundred years of oak, and, I’m genuinely asking, do the people who signed it know the grove is awake?”
She slides the cup toward you.
“Drink first. Then tell me: are you the sort of human I can reason with?”
