But it’s different now.
The air glows faintly green, like moonlight filtered through stained glass. The trees don’t sway—theywatch. Not menacing. Just aware. As if they remember me.
And in the center, half-shadowed by ivy and vine, someone waits.
Tall. Still.
His eyes are what I see first.
Glowing green. Gentle, not cold. Familiar in a way that makes my chest ache.
He doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t have to.
He looks at me like I belong here.
Like I’ve always belonged.
I reach out—but just as my fingers graze his, the dream unravels like petals in the wind.
I wake to silence and the lingering warmth of eyes I’ve never seen in daylight, but somehow trust completely.
The next morning, I stir my tea slower than usual.
The dream clings to me like dew—soft, persistent, impossible to ignore. Those eyes. Iknowthey weren’t imagined.
I should tell someone.
I should at least mention it to Julie. She’s warm and kind, and she’d listen without laughing. But the thought of it—of speaking his presence aloud, of reducing what I saw to words—feels wrong.
Private.
Sacred.
I picture Thorn’s face. The lines in his bark. The quiet way he stepped back rather than forward. He didn’t ask for attention. He didn’t want an audience.
And somehow, I know—he wouldn’t want more humans sniffing around his home, trying to fix or explain something they don’t understand.
I bite my lip and sip the tea, burning my tongue slightly.
No.
Not yet.
This stays between us.
Whateverthisis.
CHAPTER 6
THORN
She comes every morning now.
Small. Careful. Soft-voiced.
Clara Monroe.
