The ancient willow tree grew right in the middle of our village... though it would more true to say the village grew right around the willow tree. After all, the willow was there first by a long shot.

Aunt Helena used to tell me stories about that tree, how she used to climb up into its boughs and whisper her secrets to it. "It was already an old tree when I was a girl," she'd say, "And those days are all but legend now."

She told me the tree had a secret of its own: It was a fairy tree, and before the village grew there, it was the heart of a Great Old Wood where elves, fauns, nymphs & sprites dwelt and danced the most joyful dances and played the sweetest music and sang the loveliest songs.

Nowadays, the willow is all that remains of that Great Old Wood. "But," says Aunt Helena, "one can still see the fairies dancing 'round it. Oh yes, for they have not gone, Child. And those with pure heart and eyes to see can still spot them ... if he be ever so watchful."

"When can you see them?" I asked her. The thought of such strange beauty was so wonderful, I thought my heart would break.

"At the witching hour," said she. "When the moon is full, watch ever so carefully, my Child. Watch with your heart as well as your eyes, and you shall see them."

And so I did. Each night of the full moon, alone in my bedroom, I sat by the window and watched and waited while the moon drifted up from the horizon and tossed her gossamer veil over the wispy bows of the Fairy Willow. I watched with my every heartbeat, my eyes hardly blinking. Sometimes I thought I saw a fairy dancing, but it was only ever the moonlight casting shimmering pools at the Fairy Willow's roots. At last, I would slip into sleep and dream of the strange and wonderful magic that my waking eyes had grown weary in longing to see.

Still, I knew Aunt Helena's words were true. The Fairy Willow was no ordinary tree. Somehow I can't explain, it seemed alive... not like other plants are alive, but truly alive, with eyes and ears and a memory. I know it will sound silly, but the Willow and I become Dear Friends.

When a baby robin fell from its nest, I took it ever so gently in hand and climbed to the Willow's crown to restore her to her fretting mother. When I returned to the ground, the Fairy Willow thanked me by revealing a hidden treasure in a nook of its roots: a glass bottle covered in years of soil. But when I wiped it clean, the glass shimmered all colours like crystal. I filled it with tiny pebbles, moss and ferns and imagined that inside that tiny terrarium was a seedling of the Great Old Forest. I kept my treasured little bottle of magic in the nook of the Fairy Willow's roots, and held it each day when I came to visit my Dear Friend.

Then, like Aunt Helena used to do, I would talk to the Fairy Willow and tell it my secret thoughts... what I imagined it must be like to have a mother and a father, for they, like the fairies, belonged only to an imaginary world that I could not reach. I could tell the Willow listened; it would sigh softly, and when the tears escaped my eyes, it's weeping tresses would brush across my cheek like a mother's hand.

One day, when I was up in the Fairy Willow's boughs, hidden away by its curtain of limbs, I heard a sound, like something in great distress. I peaked through the boughs and saw a horrible sight. A gang of village children led by the village bully, Dougy McGee, were chasing a tabby cat, clanging sticks against bin lids and heaving stones at it as if they were chasing a menacing monster and not a scrawny little stray who hadn't a friend in the world. I knew that cat. He never bothered a soul, but sometimes would come and sit on our window ledge and enjoy a puddle of sun. We put a milk dish out for the poor thing, and he would lap it up and mew gratefully.

Normally, I'd do about anything to avoid the notice the Dougy McGee and his band of Ruffians, but I had to do something to help the poor, dejected urchin before they caught up with him. When he rounded the village green, his eyes dazed with terror, I stuck my head through the curtain and called to him. "Psssst. Up here, quick!"

The tabby didn't waste a second thought before scampering up the Willow's trunk and right into my lap where he clung to my trousers with his every, desperate claw.

Dougy McGee was none too happy about losing that. When he and his Ruffians gathered around the tree and looked up to see their prey now beyond their reach tucked beneath my woollen sweater, he bore his teeth and spat on the ground.

"Oh look who it is. The other little stray. You'll pay for this, mutt. A stupid tree can't save you." he growled as he struck the palm of his hand menacingly with the stick he held in the other. Luckily, Dougy McGee was a big lad for his age, and not particularly built for tree climbing. I had only to wait, besieged in the limbs of the Fairy Willow until Aunt Helena came out to call for tea. The Ruffians dispersed like a swarm of flies swatted off a rotten apple. I climbed down with the tabby still shivering beneath my sweater. He was alright once Aunt Helena and I brought him in and gave him a dish of warm milk.

But that was only the beginning of my troubles with Dougy McGee and the Ruffians.

To be continued...