Notes:

• This chapter is totally about the world-building, and, duh!, of course there are woman/tree hybrids here.

• I was thinking of Wicker Man or Midsommer…

• I thought for a little while about what to call the place of eternal bondage where Aradale resides. I decided to reuse the idea of a place, the Hollow Well, which I had used before. Maybe some old acquaintances will remember the Hollow Well from the yet-another, typically, overly ambitious and apparently (but, never quite) abandoned grand novel, “Key” which can still be found at keysong.blogspot.com.

• Speaking of overly ambitious and apparently (but, never quite) abandoned grand novels… Zeigh from “A Slave Woman’s Grave Keeper” thought she was a tree. And Heartless from “A Spy Rider” had a glimpse of a woman embedded in a tree. I have no idea where the origin of the woman-in-a-tree idea came from, much less, why it is erotic.