Tonight,
You get to fall asleep in a cozy treehouse high in the branches of a tree so big.
It holds every world at once.
Where a squirrel who carries every good night across the stars is waiting to show you that even the smallest things belong.
Hello,
My dear friend.
It's Jacob.
And I'm really glad you're here.
Before we start climbing,
I want you to hear this.
You've done enough for today.
Truly,
It is enough.
So pull the blanket up close and let the room go dim around you.
There's a ladder waiting tonight.
And it goes a lot higher than it should.
Arlo had the top bunk.
Which made him the one closest to the ceiling.
And on nights when he couldn't sleep.
He liked to lie there and count the glow-in-the-dark stars someone had stuck up there long before his family had moved in.
There were 31.
He'd counted them so many times he didn't need to look anymore.
That night,
There was something new on the windowsill.
An acorn,
Small and round in its cap.
Glowing a soft blue,
Like the last bit of sky after sunset.
Arlo climbed down to get it.
It was warm in his palm.
And it hummed faintly.
The way a seashell hums when you hold it to your ear.
And when he climbed back up the ladder with it held close,
The ladder didn't stop at the bunk.
It kept going.
Past the mattress.
Past the paper stars.
Straight up through the ceiling as if the ceiling had only been a cloud.
Arlo kept climbing,
Rung after rung.
Until the rungs turned into knots of smooth gray bark.
And he pulled himself up onto a branch as wide as a road.
There was no ground below him.
And no sky above.
There was only the tree.
It went up and down and out further than he could see.
Its branches reaching off in every direction.
And all around it were stars.
These stars move.
They swirled in great drifting clouds of violet and rose and deep sea green.
Turning the way cream turns in a cup of tea.
And the whole tree shone faintly in their light.
Moss grew thick along the branch.
Soft and springy under his bare feet.
Lizards with lit up spots along their backs rested on the bark.
Glowing like coals someone had just blown on.
Silver spiders hung their webs between the twigs.
And every strand caught the starlight.
A moth drifted past his face on wide,
Dusty wings,
Pale gold and shining.
Than another.
And Arlo turned to watch them go.
That's when he saw the treehouse.
It was built right into the trunk.
A whole village of it.
With round doors and crooked windows and rope bridges swaying from one platform to the next.
There were tiny workbenches.
A kettle on a hook.
And a sign over one door that said,
In curly letters,
Wipe your paws.
Oh good,
You're here.
Your lay.
You're all so early.
It's very hard to tell time out here.
But you'll get used to it.
A squirrel came pouring out of a knot hole above his head.
Ran a full circle around the branch.
And stopped right in front of Arlo's nose.
Her coat was the color of autumn leaves.
Her ears were tufted at the tips.
And her eyes were very bright and very,
Very old.
Bramble.
Said the squirrel.
And bowed so low her tail flopped over her head.
Keeper of the Tree.
Runner of errands.
Builder of nothing.
The dwarves made all this.
They're off visiting cousins.
Lovely people.
Terrible singers.
Is that it?
Let me see.
Arlo opened his hands.
The acorn glowed.
For the first time,
Bramble held completely still.
Ah,
" she said,
Much more softly.
That's a good night.
She explained as she led him across a rope bridge.
Talking so fast it was like listening to a stream.
Every world grew on this tree,
" she said.
Each branch reached out to a different place.
And every night.
All across all of them.
People said goodnight.
Mothers to babies.
Old friends on the phone.
Someone whispering it to a sleepy dog.
And all those good nights came here.
To the tree.
And somebody had to carry each one to where it was going.
That's me.
Said Bramble.
Up and down,
All night.
Every night.
Forever.
I love it.
Come on,
This one's going down.
They went down by a stair that wound round and around the outside of the trunk.
And as they win.
Arlo looked out along the branches they passed.
One reached away into a world of snow.
Where lit houses sat deep in white hills.
Another dipped toward a world that was nothing but ocean.
Green waves rolling under two moons.
A third led to a place full of floating lanterns.
Thousands of them.
Rising into a soft orange evening.
Bramble leaned out at each one to sniff the air and wave.
The farther down they went.
The wider the trunk became.
Until Arlo could hardly tell it was curved at all.
He'd never felt so small.
He said so out loud,
Without really meaning to.
Of course you do.
Said Bramble cheerfully.
Everybody does out here.
It's a very big tree.
And then they reached the roots.
They spread out below like rivers seen from a mountaintop.
Enormous and twisting.
Lit gold from somewhere deep inside.
And curled among them.
As long as the roots themselves.
Was a dragon.
It was all.
Older even than Bramble.
Its scales were deep green,
Going silver at the edges.
Like moss with frost on it.
And its long body wound in loops through the roots.
So it was hard to say where the dragon ended and the tree began.
Its eyes were the warm amber of honey held up to a window.
And it was humming.
A low,
Slow sound so deep that Arlo felt it in his ribs.
And wherever the dragon's breath touched the roots.
They glowed a little brighter and grew a little more.
Evening,
Mars.
Bramble called.
The great head turned.
And the amber eyes found Arlo and rested on him.
Kind and unhurried.
A small one.
The dragon said.
In a voice like a cello.
Good.
The roots like small ones.
Arlo sat beside Bramble on a ledge of bark.
After a while,
He asked what he'd been wondering since the first branch.
Are you really just a squirrel?
Bramble's whiskers twitched.
I can be anything I like.
Anything at all.
I tried being a great big eagle once,
Up at the top.
Couldn't fit through a single door.
I tried being a whale.
Lovely voice.
Nowhere to put it.
I've been a mountain.
I've been a moth.
She shrugged.
Then I tried this.
And small fits everywhere.
Small gets to go down every branch and through every door.
And visit every world there is.
I picked small on purpose.
Arlo looked down at the acorn in his hands.
And it seemed to glow warmer.
Whose good night is it?
He asked.
Bramble Smile.
And her old eyes crinkled.
Yours,
I think.
Somebody sent it a long way to find you.
Somebody who thinks you matter more than you know.
She nodded down at the root.
Plant it.
That's where the good ones go.
They help hold the whole tree up.
So Arlo knelt.
Found a soft hollow between two roots.
And pressed the acorn into the warm earth.
Moss leaned down and breathed over it.
One long humming breath.
And the blue glow sank into the gold and spread.
Out along the route and up into the trunk.
Until for a moment,
High above them.
The whole tree shimmered.
Arlo felt it go all through him too.
Small.
And part of something enormous.
And exactly where he was meant to be.
Bramble carried him up again on her back.
He didn't remember deciding to let her.
One moment he was climbing.
And the next,
His cheek was resting in her warm fur.
And the stairs went round and round.
And the lantern slid past like drowsy golden fish.
She tucked him into a hammock of woven moss in one of the round rooms of the treehouse.
With a window full of turning stars.
The lizards dimmed one by one along the sill.
The moth settled in the rafters and folded their wings.
And far below.
The dragon kept humming.
And the hum came up through the whole tree and into the hammock.
Slow and steady,
Like a heartbeat.
Good night,
Arlo.
Said Bramble from the doorway.
And off it went.
That good night.
Along the branches and down the long trunk to the roots.
Where it's settled in beside his own.
And helped hold everything up while the small boy in the treehouse slept.
