In the beginning, Melinda is utterly quiet when it comes to speaking to people, and she can’t express the things she wants because she doesn’t use her voice, like a tree. She locked everyone and everything outside of her little own solemn world and never spoke to anyone only if she had to. Melinda watches everything around her but doesn’t do anything, she stands there alone:
The air swirls with sawdust. Sap oozes from the open sores on the trunk. He is killing the tree. He’ll only leave the stump. The tree is dying. There’s nothing to do or say. We watch in silence as the tree crashes piece by piece to the damp ground. (Anderson, pg 187)
Melinda refers to herself as this