"This tree is four hundred and twelve years old," said Dr. Sato, pressing her hand against the bark.
Her daughter, Miya, looked up at the great trunk rising into the canopy.
"How do you know?"
"The rings. Every year of its life is recorded inside." She traced her hand along a fallen section nearby. "This narrow one — a drought year. Wide ones — good years with plenty of rain. This dark line — a fire came close, but not close enough."
Miya counted the rings. It was a long count.
"It was alive before our country had its current borders," said Dr. Sato. "Before your grandmother's grandmother was born."
Miya looked at the tree differently.
"Can it feel us?"
Her mother paused. "There's evidence that trees sense and respond to their environments in ways we don't fully understand. They communicate through root networks. They respond to injury. Whether that's feeling, in a way we'd recognise—" she shrugged, honestly. "We don't know yet."
Miya pressed her own hand against the bark.
"I hope it can," she said.
The wind moved through the canopy above. A long slow sigh.
Dr. Sato smiled.