title: The Tree of Death
author:  Marcia Muller 
description: Marcia Muller has written many novels and short stories. She has won six Anthony Awards, a Shamus Award, and is also the recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award (their highest accolade). She lives in northern California with her husband, mystery writer Bill Pronzini.
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  **Prologue**
  
  _For I shall learn from flower and leaf_
  
  _That color every drop they hold,_
  
  _To change the lifeless wine of grief_
  
  _To living gold._
  
  —Sara Teasdale, "Alchemy"
  
  The tree woman choked on poison, the slow sap of her blood burning. Most of
  her leaves had already fallen, but those remaining blackened and shriveled
  along her back. She pulled her roots up from the deep soil, long hairy
  tendrils that flinched in the chill late autumn air.
  
  An iron fence had surrounded her trunk for years, the stink of the metal as
  familiar as any small ache. The iron scorched her as she dragged her roots
  over it. She tumbled onto the concrete sidewalk, her slow tree thoughts
  filling with pain.
  
  A human walking two little dogs stumbled against the brick wall of a building.
  A taxi screeched to a halt and blared its horn.
  
  Long branches tipped over a bottle as the tree woman scrambled to pull away
  from the metal. She stared at the dark gl