Tree with eagle and serpents design

The ash is still standing above Hólm farm, though Father says the wind has lifted two roots on the north side since the autumn gales. You will remember the eagle that sits in its crown. It has taken a lamb from the lower pasture twice this spring and nobody has dared to climb after it. The serpents below are worse. They lie coiled among the roots, and when the thaw softens the earth you can hear them shifting. The old women say they are always chewing, always wanting the tree to fall. Ragna's boy swears he saw a red squirrel run down the trunk with something in its mouth that was not a nut. He says it climbs to the eagle, whispers, then comes down to the serpents and whispers back. I told him squirrels do not carry words, but he would not be talked out of it.

I have been carrying words myself, though not to the eagle. Mother asked me to tell you that you are not to come home before midsummer, whatever the steward says about the debt. Do not argue with her in your reply. Just stay where you are.

I went up to the ash last night with a lantern to look at the split root. The bark was cold and wet, and somewhere under my feet something moved, slow and patient, as if it were weighing me. I stood there longer than I meant to. When I came down, the squirrel was sitting on the gatepost watching me, and it did not run.