Andrew Durkin

a music manifesto

Decomposition

Bibi is a twelve-year-old mixed-race girl who lives in rural Oregon with her grandmother and her black cat, Eek (Ekaterina). Bibi has no contact with her parents, who vanished without a trace six months earlier.During a storm, magic bees bring a message from Bibi's missing mother, Nan, urging Bibi to fight her hylophobia-a crippling, deep-seated fear of trees-and climb an enchanted ash tree on their property. Bibi complies, and the tree takes her and Eek across the cosmos, dropping them into Falanthrow Forest, on another planet. Here, the trees are dead-leafless, black, immersed in mist-worsening Bibi's hylophobia. In the forest, Bibi befriends Corineus, an elk calf, as three Trolliclawians-giant white lions-attack them, capturing Eek in the process. Bibi and Corineus escape to a clearing, where he lives with his sister, Yega-Woo, and three other calves. It is protected by a ring of living trees whose pollen is poisonous to Trolliclawians.In the clearing, Bibi's hylophobia fades, but her worry for Nan and Eek grows. Corineus tells Bibi that Nan is an Arbor Guardian-a witch who can bring dead trees back to life and rescue the elk herd trapped in the forest. After receiving a clue about Nan's location in the forest, the calves and Bibi set off to find her, despite Bibi's hylophobia. Narrowly surviving another lion attack, Bibi falls into a hylophobic coma, and Corineus must take her to the surrounding mountains to recover.Meanwhile, Eek, still with the lions, discovers that Nan, whose power is weakening, has tricked the big felines into a temporary retreat in order to keep the elk safe. Desperate, Eek reunites Bibi and Nan before the arrival of Bibi's father, Bjorn, who is unsuccessfully fighting his own battle against the scourge that killed the Falanthrow trees. Bibi also discovers that she was born to be an Arbor Guardian like her mother: her hylophobia was a spell Nan cast to "protect" her from that fate. Feeling betrayed but determined, Bibi must accept her own power to save Nan's and revive the Falanthrow trees, restoring the cosmos's natural cycle of life and death.

Andrew Durkin

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