Phone Call to the Wind

Short story by Calissa Ding featured in “Voices of the Future: Stories of Healing & Home”

On a hill by the sea, the wind carries your words to distant places.

Twelve-year-old Mari and her grandmother, Baba, shared a special place on a hill by the sea. There, they planted a cherry blossom tree together. There, Baba would close her eyes and tell stories about a home miles and years away from them.

But now Baba is gone, the stories won’t bring her back, and a storm has badly battered the tree.

Desperate to keep this connection to her grandmother, Mari sets out to fix the damage. Sooner or later, though, she must face the fact that the tree isn’t simply broken. It’s dying, fading away like Baba did. And when her grandfather discovers her, Mari must decide if healing will start with pushing on alone, or with closing her eyes… and letting herself hear another story.