“Peek-a-boo!”

As Emma’s peal of laughter filled the sun-dappled air, her parents, Tracy and Eric, turned from the picnic table towards the sound of their daughter’s voice.

Tracy gasped.

Their daughter stood before an ancient, sun-kissed tree, slowly covering and uncovering her eyes playing the age-old game with—

“What is that?” Eric asked, his voice thick with wonder, his eyes filling with tears as the ghost of a memory of simpler times filled his mind —a younger time when every thing in the world was seen as whimsical, fanciful—when a tree was never just a tree…