Mikaela is writing a bunch of short stories for 13 Days 13 Shorts this year! To check out more stuff from Mikaela, visit www.mikaelamiyamoto.com note from Mikaela: I've started posting videos of me reading the stories on TikTok and you might start to catch some extra clues to the overarching storyline! You can check them out here:  https://www.tiktok.com/@kaelamiyamoto?_t=ZP-90wjbC3IF8J&_r=1 I decided to venture out into the garden to try and calm my nerves from the last few

stories written in the bark  There is a house in the neighborhood that I pass on my way to the nursery. The yard teems with beauty, a garden of life. And in the center of it all sits a twisted tree with a twisted face.  What stories could that tree tell? What has it seen, to make itself so sad? What has pulled at its roots? Or is it simply the crow’s feet of a life well-lived? It is strangely beautiful, that twisted tree with its twisted face. I like to think of it as the gua