A. Tree stood at the edge of the orchard, staring down the empty road. His baskets were full, packed tight with apples that wouldn't last another day in the heat. The road into Storyland was the only way through, and something had blocked it completely. He walked closer and saw it: a wall of mud and earth sprawled across both lanes. Water still dripped from the edges. Rocks jutted out like broken teeth. Behind the slide, he could make out shapes—people waiting, cars stopped. They were trapped on the other side, just as he was trapped on this one. A. Tree set down his basket and studied the faces across the gap. He could read hunger from a distance now, after years of watching. His eyes moved from person to person until they landed on a small girl standing near the front. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. She looked maybe six years old. The sight of her pulled something tight in his chest. He picked up the basket again and started toward the mudslide. The apples wouldn't wait, and neither could he. If he had to cross through the mud himself, he would. Those people needed what he had, and the girl with tears on her face would get the first apple before she even had to ask.

A. Tree stepped onto the mud. His boot sank in up to the ankle. He pulled it free with a wet sucking sound and took another step. The ground shifted beneath him. He steadied himself with the basket and kept going, eyes fixed on the girl across the gap. Halfway across, a deep groan rolled down from the hillside above. He looked up. The slope was moving. Mud slid over broken trees that had already fallen, coating their twisted branches. The whole face of the hill sagged forward like wet cloth. If it came down, it would bury the road behind him completely. The path back to his orchard would be gone. He had two choices. Turn back now and save himself, or keep going and risk losing everything. The girl was still crying on the other side. Her face was the kind of hungry he had learned to recognize years ago. Behind him, the hillside groaned again, louder this time. A sheet of mud peeled away and slumped down toward the road. A. Tree took three more steps through the mud and reached solid ground on the other side. He set the basket down and pulled out the biggest, reddest apple from the top. The girl looked up at him as he held it out to her. She took it without a word. Behind him, the hillside gave way with a sound like thunder. Mud poured across the road, swallowing the place where he had just been standing. The way home was gone, but the apple was in her hands.

A. Tree turned from the girl and saw them. Twenty people, maybe thirty. They lined the edge of the road behind her, watching him with eyes that asked the same question. He looked down at his basket. Eight apples left. Not enough. Not nearly enough. He stepped forward anyway and started handing them out. One to a man with hollow cheeks. One to a woman holding a baby. One to a boy who looked about ten. The basket emptied fast. He reached in for the last apple and saw five more people pushing closer, hands reaching. His chest tightened. This was the moment he had feared every autumn in the orchard — the moment someone went without because he hadn't brought enough. Then he felt it. A tickle in his shoulder, like something pushing through from inside. He looked down and saw a branch growing from his arm, thin and green. An apple swelled at its tip, red and perfect. He stared at it. Another branch sprouted from his other shoulder. Then one from his chest. Apples hung from all of them, big and ripe and ready. The crowd gasped, but A. Tree didn't wait. He pulled the fruit from his own limbs and kept handing them out, one after another, as fast as they grew. The basket sat empty on the wooden platform someone had dragged over for him to stand on. He didn't need it anymore. People lined up in front of him now, and he gave each one an apple grown fresh from his own body. No one would go hungry. No one would be missed. He had become exactly what they needed — a tree that could walk to where the apples were wanted most, and stay there as long as they were needed.

A. Tree kept pulling apples from his branches and handing them out. The line stretched longer now, winding down the road past the wooden platform. More people had come when they saw what he could do. He reached up and plucked another apple from his shoulder. But each apple he pulled took something with it. A small tear opened where the stem broke free, and bright green leaves fell to the ground at his feet. He looked down and saw them scattered around the platform — dozens of leaves mixed with broken twigs and stems, a carpet of what he was losing. His left shoulder ached where a branch had snapped off clean. He touched the spot and felt rough bark instead of skin. The crowd pressed closer. Hands reached from every direction, grabbing at the low-hanging fruit before he could offer it properly. Someone yanked an apple hard and a whole branch cracked, falling to the platform with three unripe apples still attached. A. Tree stumbled but steadied himself. He scanned the faces pushing forward and saw hunger, yes, but also something else — urgency that had turned greedy. They weren't waiting anymore. They were taking. He raised both arms high above his head, branches and all, pulling the remaining apples out of reach. The crowd went quiet. A. Tree spoke for the first time since the transformation, his voice rough like wind through bark. "One at a time. I'll give everyone one. But you have to let me." A woman in front nodded and stepped back. Others followed. The line reformed, slower this time, and A. Tree lowered his arms. He would keep giving, but only at a pace that wouldn't break him completely. He had learned the difference between generosity and surrender.

A. Tree handed another apple to a man with mud on his boots, then turned back toward the line. The six-year-old girl stood at the far end now, behind at least a dozen people. She had returned. His branches trembled as he spotted her — the same shy posture, the same way she hung back from the crowd. He had crossed the mudslide for her. He had promised himself he would hand her an apple before she even got close, without making her ask. But someone stepped in front of her, blocking his view completely. A wooden cart piled high with baskets of mushrooms and berries sat between them, its owner busy arranging produce while talking to the person ahead. The cart blocked the entire width of the path near an old stone monument where the line curved. A. Tree craned forward, trying to see past it, but thick hedges had grown up along both sides of the road where the crowd had trampled everything else flat. The girl was trapped back there, boxed in by the cart, the monument, and the press of bodies. He could lose sight of her again. He could miss her a second time. A. Tree stepped down from the wooden platform. His roots ached where they had pushed through his shoes, but he moved forward anyway, walking past the people waiting in line. Someone called out behind him, asking where he was going. He didn't answer. He pushed through the gap between two men and squeezed past a woman holding a sleeping baby. The cart owner looked up, startled, as A. Tree reached the wooden wheels. "I need to get through," A. Tree said. His voice came out rough. The cart owner stepped aside without a word, pulling the cart backward to clear the path. A. Tree moved past the monument and saw her standing there, pressed against the hedge, watching him with wide eyes. He reached up to his shoulder, pulled an apple free — felt the bark tear, ignored it — and held it out to her. She took it with both hands. A. Tree stayed there for a moment, breathing hard, leaves falling from his arms. Then he turned and walked back to the platform. The line waited. But this time, he had not missed her.

A. Tree stood on the platform, catching his breath. His shoulder throbbed where he had torn the apple free. The line stretched ahead of him again, patient now, faces watching and waiting. He lifted another apple from the basket at his feet and handed it forward. But someone near the back was shouting. A. Tree looked up and saw a man pointing toward the mudslide, toward the far side where the gap still gaped wide and empty. A. Tree followed the gesture and his branches went cold. Across the mud, people had gathered — twenty, maybe thirty of them, maybe more. They had stacked logs and vines into a crooked pile that reached halfway down the slope. They were building a bridge. They were going to try to cross. A. Tree stepped off the platform and moved toward the edge. The gap was fifty feet of liquid earth, too wide to jump and too deep to wade. But the crowd on the far side didn't know that. They only saw him here with apples, and they were hungry enough to risk it. He needed to stop them before someone stepped onto those logs and disappeared beneath the mud. A. Tree grabbed the tall crystal monument that stood near the road's edge — someone had placed it there weeks ago, back when the road was whole. He dragged it forward until it caught the last slant of afternoon sun. Light shot across the gap in a clean beam that swept over the far side like a signal. The people on the other side stopped moving. A. Tree waved both arms, branches creaking, and pointed down at the mud. He shook his head hard. No. Don't cross. The crowd hesitated, then someone raised a hand in return. They stepped back from the log pile. A. Tree pulled the monument away from the edge and let the light fade. His roots ached and his bark was cracked in three new places, but the far side was still. The log pile sat abandoned on the slope. He had reached them before they tried. He turned back toward his line, where faces watched him with new quiet. They had seen what he'd done. They understood now that he wasn't just handing out apples — he was keeping people alive on both sides of the mud. A. Tree walked back to the platform and picked up another apple. The line began to move again.