“Everyone keeps talking about the Grove like it’s haunted,” I say softly. “Or cursed. But it doesn’t feel like that to me. It feels…sad. Like something waiting for something that already passed it by.”
I reach out to touch the vine again, but stop an inch shy.
Instead, I press my palm flat against the soil. It's warm.
“I’m not magical,” I murmur. “But I care about growing things. My dad taught me that. He didn’t believe in magic either, but he loved soil like it had a pulse.”
I glance toward the deeper trees.
“Is that why you didn’t come back?” I ask. “Because I don’t belong?”
A sharp breeze rushes through the clearing, stirring leaves and lifting the edge of my hair.
I freeze.
Then slowly exhale. It’s just the wind.
Probably.
I pack up the empty jar and gather the seed pouch, leaving a few loose sprinkles behind like crumbs on a trail. Just in case.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” I say quietly, standing.
And I do.
The next day. And the next.
Each time, I bring something small—mint cuttings, a little basket of worm castings, one perfect tomato from the garden. I speak softly. Sometimes I read aloud from my dad’s old journal, the one with the sketch of a tree he swore used to move when he wasn’t looking.
But Thorn doesn’t come.
No glowing eyes. No moving shadows. No presence at all.
The Grove is still.
And yet… notsilent.
The vines closest to the path continue to shift. Just subtly. Curling closer, arching toward my voice like sunflowers chasing light.
One evening, as the sky softens to peach and gold, I catch a glimmer in the far trees—just a flicker. Could be a trick of the light. Could be nothing.
Still, I smile.
“Good night,” I whisper.
No answer.
But a single leaf drifts down from the canopy, spinning slow in the air, and lands near my boot.
I take that as a maybe.
That night, sleep comes slow.
I toss in my cot, one leg tangled in the blanket, breath shallow with thoughts I can’t put words to. The woods hum behind my eyelids.
And when I finally drift under, I’m there again.
In the Grove.
