The Spirits of the Plum Tree

It happened in the backyard, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and late spring heat. You climbed the old plum tree, its jagged branches scratching white lines onto your arms, trying to retrieve your stuck soccer ball.

One moment you were tense, fingers gripping the bark, and the next—a sharp crack shattered the silence. The branch snapped. You fell backward, chest up, falling straight toward the sharp, rusty teeth of the garden fork your father had left upturned in the grass.

But you didn't hit the iron. Something pushed you mid-air. Not a shove, but a precise, impossibly strong pull. You crashed onto the soft, wet grass instead.