I rounded the corner of the path, trailing a tarp of yellow leaves and two tweens, thinking about how this seventy-five degree day was perhaps it, perhaps the last perfect day of autumn.

And I saw this.

I dropped the tarp, and the three of us stared at it without saying anything for a few seconds. We'd been in the woods before, but not this deep. The neighbor asked us to go deeper so the leaves wouldn't blow back in his yard.

It is the perfect tree in every way. It has sturdy, low branches for climbing, hedge apples for decor and obsession and thorns for an element of danger. The girls named it Hedgepoint.

They stayed in the woods for four hours. I'd long since hung up my rake and washed my car and was reading a book when it was finally time to go get them.

When I was growing up, we used to play Narnia in the thicket next to my parents' house. There was a special fallen tree and a lane and a creek with a bridge over it. Every child needs a perfect tree in her life, and now my girl has one. I'm relieved, as the age for properly respecting a tree like Hedgepoint has nearly passed her by.

I'm not sure I'd ever really seen a hedge apple before I moved to Kansas City, but I read these trees were planted to prevent soil erosion after the Great Depression.

Whereas I played Narnia, they played Boxcar Children. It doesn't matter. Doesn't every child pretend to live in the woods without parents at some point?

The most amazing tree ever in the history of the earth.