What if you could rewrite the past? Would it be too late?

This adventure started on the October, 15th when a bunch of horror buffs invited me to share a poem on their Twitter account. Here it is:
 

Floating over foul waters

Strangely still morning

The mist was tainted with blood

Her bones frozen with bane

More a tanka than a haiku, this started the novel opposite whose title evolved to The last tree on earth, originally a speculative fiction on the theme of climate change. As the theme developed, the story became denser and more ominous than the poem with characters dying by the droves, all because they couldn't decipher the witch's prophecy.
It became a quest for meaning whose philosophical ramifications mirror the bleak landscape overcast by clouds of ash where the witch lives.
Several months later, it's finally clear what the prophecy means. Unless you listen to the Book of Nature, you will die.

David Mar