Within a few years of it being established, the Tree Keepers decided to lock Richmond Park between dusk and dawn, for the Trees of Richmond Park were known to hunt at night.
By day they sunned themselves and smiled, and seemed contented with their well rooted existence, but they hunted at night. So, although hemmed in and tagged by curious men, after sundown the Trees of Richmond Park hunted freely in packs within the Park’s walls:
Oak was the largest tribe (slow but relentless), then Beech (clever in coordinated assaults) with hangers on, Hawthorn (quick on flat ground), Blackthorn (vicious in attack), Birch (a graceful, brutal warrior) and Hornbeam (clumsy, but tolerated for their tough temperament).
The Trees of Richmond Park prided themselves on their stealth; slothful in appearance, apparently careless of the game around them, but they hunted at night. They granted a place for the birds to nest, yes, that’s true, they lulled them into a false sense of safe space and even allowed them to nurture their young. This replenished their stock, their lively larder, but - they hunted at night. The slower, tastier, ground nesting birds were the easiest prey - the grey partridge, the reed bunting, stonechat and meadow pipit all succumbed - their brittle bones breaking easily against a well-placed low swing of a gnarly bough. The swifter raptors repeatedly evaded the hunt and gloried in their survival and so the Trees of Richmond Park grew to tolerate their lack of veneration. Not so for the rabbits and squirrels of Bone Copse who were far too foolish to grasp the danger they danced with and they assumed too late that their burrow-nests were impervious to a delving nocturn root, to a dawning yawning crevice - to population cull.
There was talk of young deer disappearing within the Queen’s Saw Pit Plantation, but nothing was ever proven. Rumour also had it that the trees were responsible for an occasional missing child down in Gibbet Wood where a bad-tempered Blackthorn resided. That was hushed up and the parents were persuaded by the generous Crown compensation scheme which had been established and maintained for these and similar incidents. However, it remained true (at least in the main) that the Trees of Richmond Park hunted at night. It was in the dark that they pinned their prey. It was in the damp dark that they ****** their fill and nurtured their own, silently, stealthily filling every branch with their hungry young. They regularly sent their emissaries to claim yet more of the dark, with scant regard for the territories claimed or boundaries drawn, by come-lately, day creatures. And so they established outposts outside the curfewed walls, securing first rights on any and all nutrients further abroad.
Yes, the trees of Richmond Park chiefly hunted at night. And as apex predator, they have gone unchallenged. They have out-hunted, out-delved, out-witted, out-seeded, out-lived all contenders and they still occupy the dead of hunted night.
But, Billy, they are still known to take the occasional child to feed their offspring. And that is why it was not a good idea to uproot that sapling. - Stay close, and let’s get back to the car.
more like a short story in the end
