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I fished through my pockets, but only my handkerchief was the right colour. Havelock passed me his knife, and I cut a pair of ribbons from it—one for me, and one for him. “What is our grievance?” I asked him.

He smiled at me. “Whatever it might be, it’s no longer ours to bear.”

I tied my ribbon to a branch, and Havelock tied his to another, and I had to admit—I did feel lighter for it.

This time, the door to Farleigh’s church was open.

The interior was cool and dim. It looked as if there had once been some modest stained glass windows here and there, but most were grown through, and what few remained were encrusted with creeping greenery. There were small trees protruding through gaps in the stonework, their roots knotted across the cracked flagons. There were signs that the church had once been lavishly decorated—there was a tarnished eagle font, and several heavy candlesticks still bearing a fair polish—but the tattered red hangings and splintering pews told a tale of neglect. At the very heart of the church, as promised, was the Bishop.

The Bishop was the largest tree I had seen so far in Farleigh. Its sprawling roots seemed to touch every wall, and its enormous trunk had a prodigious span. In summer, its canopy, which erupted through the high church roof, must have rendered the church interior completely shaded, but right now, with the onset of autumn, the gaps in its branches let in several shafts of white light. Autumn leaves of every colour littered the floor, and the words in the Bishop’s trunk, and in its roots and high branches, were taller than me.

STALWART PATIENT FORTRESS

INDOMINABLE STRENGTH STATURE

KNOT SCAR NO NOTCH NOR SPLIT

“An inspiring sight, isn’t he?” said Father Anker. I had not noticed him, sat on one of the pews to the rear of the church. He rose, and made his way over to us. Today, he was wearing his cassock. “Farleigh went a good long while without a parson—long enough for him to grow. By the time I arrived, I hadn’t the heart to uproot him.”

“Could you, even if you wanted to?” I asked.

Anker shook his head. “He’ll outlive the building. Do you know—there are some who believe that an oak might live on forever in the right conditions.”

“You’ve done some research,” said Havelock.

“I have. In fact, I’ve done a great deal of research to try and understand Farleigh.”

I counted the pews. There were only a few left intact. “Do you have many parishioners?”

“Only a handful. I am mindful of the fact that the keeping of a parish is not the only job of its priest, however. And in this case … my efforts are certainly better put elsewhere.”

“You study the forest,” said Havelock.

Anker nodded. “Better me alone than the church, I think.”

“You fear intervention?”

“They would probably call Farleigh Forest a miracle.”

At the foot of the Bishop, it was easy to believe that the forest was a miracle.

“Would that not be the best way of introducing the forest to the world?” I asked. “Under the protection of the church?”

“I’ve asked myself the very same thing many times,” said Anker. “I think it could work. I really do. I can imagine pilgrimages to Farleigh. A church at the foot of the forest, where pilgrims might rest. We might treat the trees like holy relics—leaving them to grow in peace, while we pray beneath them.”

“Yet you have doubts,” said Havelock.

“The church has a long history of making mistakes. Which is understandable—it is an institution run by humans, who are inherently flawed. It is our flaws that make divinity possible for us. But with a place as precious as Farleigh … It would only take one ill-tempered deacon or ill-informed bishop to hurt the forest.”

I remembered seeing the bones of saints in the churches of Italy—reliquaries traded down the centuries. I could imagine the limbs of trees being treated similarly—words taken, and traded away to churches across the world. Farleigh Forest was enormous—perhaps too big to protect in the way that Anker dreamed it might be.

“The Duchess has persuaded me to be patient,” continued Anker. “She tells me that the trees aren’t going anywhere. Give it another decade—give it two—and it won’t matter. Perhaps one day in the future, I will inform the church. Until then, I will continue studying the trees, and praying on them. What do you think, gentlemen? Is Farleigh Forest a miracle?”

I had not prayed in many years. But there, before the Bishop, in that church, I did feel the urge to sit in a pew, close my eyes, and open myself to the divine. Perhaps the trees were an answer to a question I did not know how to ask.

“What if I were to furnish you with an explanation for the words?” said Havelock.

This startled me from my reverie.