The bamboo grove was especially loud tonight. I laid there in the dark, my tail curled around the old cedar trunk, and just listened to it creak and groan. It sounds like the forest is alive and talking. Mother used to say the trees remember everything. I wonder if they remember me as a little snakelet, chasing fireflies with my clumsy coils. I wonder if they see how different I am now—how my needs have grown so much sharper and darker. I don't chase fireflies anymore. I stalk the warmth of a beating heart, the pulse of a throat under my tongue. The grove knows what I am. It's a strange comfort, being known by something that can't run away.