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service tree.  Aucuparia, is from avis “a bird” and capere “to catch”.  Lydia Harsden hoped never to see what the magical tree could catch, although she imagined it wasn’t a bird.
     
    She attempted, on days like this, not to be superstitious or paranoid or both.  But it was difficult.  She stuck with the facts in her mind.  The bright red edible berries were something birds wanted to eat and bird catchers used them as a way to catch birds.  Yes, that sounded reasonable.  Rowan berries as bait.  Nothing more.  The berries were not poisonous, they could be eaten by humans, although very tart, until cooked.
     
    Distinguished British botanist, John Lindley, in his 1828 “Introduction to Botany”, described how fruits like rowan berries, were best eaten when cooked, such as persimmons.
     
    She ran her hand across the bark again and up to the berries.  They looked sweet.  She couldn’t imagine anything so blood red, so vivid in color, being anything sweet.  Dare she try one?  She had never.  She was just about to pluck the berry when one of the men called out to her.
     
    Sweaty, dirty and a bit hunched over, the man in the orange jumpsuit, pointed to the tree, “Are you sure you want it here?” He asked.
     
    “Yes,” she replied, quite certain, “Is there a problem?”
     
    The man motioned her over.  Hesitantly, she headed in his direction.  She tightened onto her waist purse.  She was given a gun for her protection, even though the prisoner’s feet were chained together.
     
    It was indeed a strange.  She could have used a more suitable crew but she understood, these silent men were the only ones available for the job.  If they only knew.
     
    He pointed to the ground, “Can’t dig here,” he said.
     
    The cement object embedded in the ground was something she hadn’t planned for. 
     
    The headstone was old and weathered and had sunk completely into the ground.  She hadn’t planned on that.  She scribbled into her notebook and drew in another rowan tree.
     
    “Don’t dig there.  You understand?”
     
    “Yeah, I got it,” the man answered.
     
    She ran back to the empty truck and instructed the man who brought in the trees.
     
    “We need another,” she told him, “right away get another rowan.”
     
    The rowan tree was also known as mountain ash, because of its pinnate, feathery, leaves.  It grows on high slopes.  It isn’t an ash tree but rather a member of the rose family.  It was once thought to be some kind of pear tree, as its white flowers resembled pear blossoms.
     
    The men continued digging and planting.  The whispers continued too.  They were on lease and uneasy.  They didn’t like the job.  They sure as heck didn’t like the location.  And the one woman that could give those answers was as silent as the trees.
     
    Lydia sympathized with the men.  It was pointless not letting them in on the secret. They deserved to know the reason they were planting the rowan trees on that particular plot of land.  But if she told them, surely pandemonium would break out.  But how much longer could she keep it from them?
     
    She felt compelled to treat all life with human dignity.  Even though she spent the majority of her life with non-human specimens, she held her fellow man in the highest regard.   She was clever and lovely but wore her heart too heavy on her sleeve.  The silence in the open air endangered them all.  Didn’t they have a right to know?  Weren’t they worthy of a choice themselves?  Did what the state have to say about them really matter anymore?  They weren’t killers just felons, white collar criminals.  They were like her, flawed but beyond redemption in the eyes of society.  In their work with her, they would pay their dues.  They would pay without knowing.  She didn’t want them paying with their lives.  She had chosen this life.  They hadn’t.
     
    The rowan tree was growing on her, its knowledge and history,