I found the tree. After all this time, I wasn't sure what I was going to find, but this wasn't what I was expecting. It's a Sycamore tree that's growing on a hummock on the other side of the wetlands. But there's something weird going on. I'm sure that it's the right tree, it looks exactly like I remembered. But there's no sign of any cave behind the roots. At first it looked like there was, because there is some space there and it's partially in shadow. But that turned out to be an illusion. There's just the dirt bank behind them.
Cassie has been telling me that the willow tree moving and my losing time must have just been my imagination. Well, maybe. I wanted to convince myself that I really had seen all that. I can remember it so clearly: that's got to mean I really saw it, right? I can't go around doubting my memory all the time.
But this new wrinkle has made me do just that. Maybe I could have imagined the willow, but I was definitely in the cave. I have a pretty good idea of its exact shape and size, and there's no way that I could have somehow dreamed up that part. But it's not there. The tree is exactly like I remember it, but without any opening behind its roots.
This has made me rethink a lot of things. I thought that finding the tree would be the thing I needed to convince myself that I'm not a hopeless dreamer, but I've been feeling out of sorts since I found it again. Am I going crazy? I don't even know what that would feel like, from the inside. I think I feel the same. I feel like me, anyway, the same old boring, misfit me.
I feel all alone sometimes, even when I'm with people. At least I have Cassie. She doesn't believe me, but she sticks by me anyway. That's nice to have in a friend. I haven't told anyone else at school about all this. My mother has no idea, of course. I had another fight with her today, about clothes this time. I was tempted to tell her that I was going mad, but I think she would have said that I was just plain old mad. She'd be right, too.
Still, I have to wonder. If I could have been mistaken about the whole tree thing, what else am I wrong about. Maybe I really am going crazy and just can't tell.
