The Girl Inside the Fig Tree: how one story bloomed inside another
She wasn’t part of the plan.
Not at first.
Maya was writing in her journal, and I was writing Maya.
She was thinking about the house, and I was wondering how to translate the creak of floorboards into something more than wood and memory.
And that’s when she appeared.
First, as a glimpse. Then, as a whisper.
A girl.
Not a daughter.
Not a side character.
But a presence — quiet, curious, almost invisible — who began listening to the things even Maya and Tomás weren’t quite ready to hear.
The Girl Who Listened to Houses was born inside the novel A Fig Tree, Two Hearts, and the Sunlight Again.
Literally.
It’s the book Maya writes as part of her healing.
It’s the manuscript Tomás finds.
It’s what remains after loss, after rebuilding, after the courage to come back.
And somehow, it’s also more than that.
Over time, I realized The Girl wasn’t just a metaphor within the novel.
She wanted to be a book of her own.
She wanted her own windows, her own silences, her own readers.
So I listened.
And I let her speak.
—
The two stories don’t share the same characters, but they share the same house.
Or rather — two different houses that echo each other.
Maya’s house is real: made of bricks, beams, repairs.
The Girl’s house is symbolic: made of emotional rooms, questions, quiet ghosts.
But both hold unsent letters.
Both breathe memories.
And both have a fig tree outside — crooked, attentive, alive.
Maya asks in her journal:
“Is it possible for a house to listen back?”
The Girl answers in silence:
“Can silence grow roots?”
—
Some lines appear in one book and return in the other.
“I want to grow things that don’t leave.”
“Is it okay to be quiet if your heart is still loud?”
“Some goodbyes don’t need words. They just need roots that remember where they were planted.”
“I didn’t mean to forget. I was just trying to survive.”
These lines are seeds.
In one book, they are spoken.
In the other, they are felt.
—
Maybe Maya and the Girl never meet.
But one was born from the other.
And I, the author of both, continue to listen to them —
like listening to the creak of an old house,
not sure if the sound is coming from the walls or from the heart.
Maybe The Girl is who Maya might have been,
if she had learned to listen, early on.
Or maybe she’s what’s left of the Maya who once listened — and went quiet.
Maybe they both live in the same story.
Just on different floors.
—
🌿 A Fig Tree is about rebuilding.
🍃 The Girl is about listening.
And together, these two stories remind me:
sometimes we have to lose everything
to finally hear what stayed.
—
If you’ve read one,
I hope the other echoes.
And if you’re just beginning,
may you find a room of your own somewhere in these pages.
✨ Let the house be the map.
✨ Let the question be the key.
✨ And may the quiet girl not go unheard.
