The island had eyes. Jude could not understand what he was seeing. Beyond the little room, beyond the window, the darkness had opened into something impossibly vast.
The island floated in the middle of it, surrounded by a silver sea that had no horizon. Its mountains, rivers, forests and wooden houses were visible from above, but they were not arranged as Jude remembered them.
The northern mountain stood at the centre.
The eastern river flowed around it in a perfect circle.
The western meadow stretched towards a forest that seemed to continue beneath the sea.
And the village was not on the island's surface.
It was growing from the roots of an enormous tree.
The tree extended beneath the entire island, its branches forming the ground, its roots reaching into the silver darkness. The houses were attached to its branches. The walkways were its smaller veins. The river was flowing through a hollow inside its trunk.
The island was not sitting upon the tree.
It was the tree.
