“There was no doubt that the tree before us was the tree; it could have stepped from the tales into the forest. It was centered in an oddly round clearing, as if the other trees had all felt inclined to back away, and was towering but skeletal, its trunk only a little wider than I was and its many, many branches arching and tangling overhead, like a small person propping up a tremendous, many-layered umbrella.
But the strangest thing about the tree was its foliage. There were leaves of summer-green mixed in with the fire and gold of autumn; tidy buds just opening their pink mouths, and, here and there, red fruits dangling in clusters, heavy with ripeness. These fruits could not be easily identified; they were roughly the size of apples, but furred like peaches.”