Speak to the tree.

  That was how the whole mess started.

  By dawn the next morning, Lili was halfway down the old path, boots damp with dew, her braid tangled with spider-lanterns that glowed in soft pulses. Grumbling

  “‘You will take the path, Lili,’” she muttered in her best gravelly Macus voice. “‘You will speak to the tree, Lili.’ I swear, if this tree has moss for ears, I’m out.”

  The forest was changing around her, subtly. At first, just a deepening of the shade, then the air gets thicker, like a breath held too long. The roots became knotted, looping over themselves in strange, deliberate patterns. Some looked like glyphs. Others pulsed faintly when she stepped too close.

  The leaves overhead had shifted color, glossy, heavy like they were soaked in memory.

  Even the birds had grown quiet.

  She paused beside a creek, its water so still it looked carved from glass. The stones within it hummed beneath her steps, gentle, mournful tones. As if singing only to themselves.

  A few yards later, she passed under an arch of thornvines, twisted into the shape of a sleeping serpent, its eyes made of amber pods that blinked once as she crossed beneath.

  The trail narrowed. The ground sloped downward. She didn’t need her compass to know she was leaving the Circle’s boundaries. Even her breath felt different now. The way it moved through her chest, like air out here, watched her every move.

  The Grove appeared. The clouds broke just enough to let sunlight filter through the canopy, fractured, golden, and sharp.

  It was… wrong. But beautiful.

  The glade was shaped like a bowl, carved by time or something older. Drifting pollen danced slowly in the air, like suspended ash. The light didn't move right; it bent, shimmered, warped. And in the center stood the tree. Lili stopped walking.

  It was the tallest living thing she had ever seen, taller than towers, taller than the wind. Its trunk was split as though it had been struck by lightning and never quite healed. The bark was the color of old blood, streaked with layers of ash and time.

  It had no leaves, no sound. She felt it watching, in her roots, the ancestral thrum of every druid who had ever pressed palm to soil and whispered to bark.

  Lili stepped forward, cautiously, crossing the grove's edge.

  “Okay, spooky,” she muttered. Standing just at the edge of the grove, “I get it. You’re old. You’re majestic. Probably cursed.”

  She shifted her satchel higher on her shoulder.

  But I brought snacks,” she added, and I’m supposed to talk to you.”

  The tree did not move, it did not groan, or shudder. Just loomed. Split down the center, red as dried blood. Watching without eyes. She sighed and stepped forward. Settled on a thick root that curved just high enough to cradle her like a seat.

  “So,” she said after a moment. “You’re the quiet type. That’s cool. I’ll do the talking.”

  She pulled out a crumbled pouch and fished out a candied nut cluster from her satchel. Biting into it with emphasis.

  “So,” She began. “There was this guy. Apprentice. Total Moss brain. I kissed him; his aura was smug. I may have, technically, lit his sandals on fire. Jury is still out.”

  She glanced at the tree. It remained deeply unimpressed.

  “Viya says I have impulse control issues,” Lili continued, “But she’s the one who enchanted her journal to sing whenever I’m mentioned…so.”

  The silence stayed steady. But it wasn't empty. It just waited. She told the tree about Viya, about Grandor, about Macus’s eyebrow, which somehow managed to express disappointment in five directions at once.

  She even offered the tree a nut cluster. The tree, predictably, declined. Time passed. She didn't notice it at first, how still the light had become. How the shadows didn't shift, how her internal sense of hours began to unravel, like a vine loosened from a trellis. The grove didn't change, but something did.

  The moss beneath her began to glow faintly, pulsing in time with… something. Then, a low vibration. A breath. And a single word, deep and green and complete of root-memory, formed in her mind.

  “Daughter.”

  It came like a touch, like a hand pressed gently to the back of her neck. Lili blinked, her mouth opened, but no sound came. For the first time in hours…she had nothing to say.

  “Uh… hi?” Lili said, voice smaller than usual.

  The tree didn’t move, but its presence thickened, a gravity pulling not toward but into. More words came. Not spoken, impressed into her bones, etched into the marrow. A truth delivered like bark cracking in spring thaw

  “Hearts that bloom too fast are often devoured. You laugh too loudly, child. That is good. The forest remembers joy.”

  Lili swallowed. Slowly, she stood, brushing her palms against her skirts out of instinct. Standing

  “You can hear me?” she asked softly.

  “We hear all who ask with a full voice. Few are foolish enough to ask with joy.”

  The Grove shimmered, light swirled. The ancient tree exhaled, branches rustling in a voice made of wind and root-song. From the split in its trunk, a curl of green light emerged, slow, spiraling, alive. It drifted towards her like smoke, but with intention, a vine chasing the sun.

  When it touched her chest, it did not burn; it simply entered, like dew into bark or moss into stone. She felt it, pulsing beneath her sternum. Soft, wild, rooted.

  It was an invitation, and she had already said yes. She didn't understand it, not entirely. But the forest had chosen her, the memory of all green things. At first, all was still. The air warmed, the moss softened. Even the silence felt less tense, more like a lullaby than a warning.

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  “Okay,” she said, cautiously triumphant. “That wasn’t so bad. Tree talks, I listen, I get a glowing plant blessing or something, Circle punishment complete.”

  She dusted off her hands, brushed the moss from her boots, and turned toward the path.

  That’s when the screaming started. A raccoon burst from the underbrush, eyes glowing vivid green, tail twice its standard size, a tangle of thorn-vines swirling around its midsection like a poorly tied sash.

  It let out a high-pitched shriek, ran three full circles around the grove, and charged directly at her satchel. Bit it once, screamed again, and then launched itself up the side of the ancient tree.

  Lili just froze. “I know that raccoon.”

  It was unmistakable, the same one that had tried to steal her herb bundle last spring. The one who had made off with an entire pouch of root fizz and refused to return it for two days.

  She blinked. “Oh no. I think I accidentally made it a druid.”

  The vines around its tail shimmered, glowing with the same green energy the tree had given her. The raccoon clung to a low branch, and it glared down at her with all the rage of a tiny, accended forest god.

  “Calm down!” she called, throwing up her hands. “I didn’t mean to promote you!”

  It shrieked louder. Then sneezed, and three mushrooms exploded from its nose and hit the trunk behind it with wet thuds.

  Lili winced. “Okay, yeah. That’s my fault.”

  Behind her, the moss patch she’d sat on began to glow again, brighter this time. Then it started to hum, but not quite; it was a literal giddle made of moss and delight.

  “Oh COME ON,” Lili groaned slowly.

  The moss swelled, pulsed, then bloomed into a face. Old and green and slightly smug.

  “You told it your jokes,” it whispered with ancient joy. “Now we remember laughter.”

  Lili backed up slowly. “Look, I appreciate the enthusiasm,” she said carefully, but I think the ritual’s over.”

  The moss replied like it was chuckling again.

  “You fed the roots with joy,” the moss crooned. “Now all that listens remembers delight.”

  She glanced up at the raccoon, still glowing, still full of magical feral rage. Then back at the moss face, then at her satchel. Which was somehow now sprouting vine sprouts from one of the side pockets. She pressed both hands to her temples.

  “Oh spirits, I made the forest weird.”

  The moss beamed. “It was already weird. You just helped it laugh again.”

  Lili sighed. Deep, long, slightly proud. “Macus is going to have such a headache.”

  A second raccoon emerged from the underbrush. Also glowing. It waved at her. Lili turned on her heel and ran. She didn’t stop until she reached the ridge above the Grove. Behind her, faint laughter drifted through the trees… slightly unhinged.

  She collapsed onto a mossy log, panting, her braid half-unraveled and her dignity in serious jeopardy. Above the canopy wayed gently, the wind carrying the smell of say and spore.

  “Okay,” she muttered, hands on her knees. “So I’m apparently the forest’s favorite comedian now. Wonderful.”

  The satchel rustled. A glowing acorn tucked inside pulsed once, soft and steady. She stared at it. And, for the first time that day, she didn’t laugh.

  Lili didn’t plan on going back.

  She spent the night halfway up an elm tree, with her cloak wrapped tight around her shoulders and a mushroom charm stuffed in each boot, just in case. The forest slept below her, well, mostly. The moss still giggled occasionally. Something hooted and burped in the dark.

  Lili pressed her back to the truck and stared through the branches. Sleep came eventually.

  Dawn broke gently, with pink light filtering through pollen-heavy branches. Leaves stirred, shadows retreated. And by morning, the absurdity of yesterday had softened into something she couldn’t shake.

  She had awakened the tree. The forest had spoken to her. And it hadn’t just been chaos for chaos’s sake. There had been a purpose.

  So, against her better judgment, and possibly Gadrunor’s direct orders, she climbed down, brushed the leaf-syrup from her braid, and returned to the Grove.

  When she reached the edge of the clearing, she paused. The ancient tree still stood. Still split. Still silent. But there, perched on a thick root, was the raccoon.

  It wore a circlet of vines now, either of its own making or courtesy of the moss, and held a stick like a scepter. It blinked slowly when it saw her. And spoke.

  “You took your time, blossom-brain.”

  Lili shrieked and nearly fell backward.

  “You talk?”

  “I channel,” the raccoon corrected, scratching its ear. “Well, something channels through me. It’s complicated. Names are weird.”

  Lili stared. “You’re Jibs. I remember you. You stole my coughroot stash last season.”

  “Incorrect. I liberated it.”

  Lili blinked. “You bit me.”

  “You hexed my den.”

  She hesitated.

  “Fair.”

  The raccoon, Jibs, hopped down from the root, landing with a leafy thunk. He padded forward, tail flicking, eyes now pulsing with a dim moss-covered glow,

  “The roots have a message,” it said. “And I’ve got the fur and vocal cords to deliver it.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Deadly.”

  She stared.

  “Why me?”

  Jibs sat back on his haunches, curling his tail around his paws like a philosopher-raccoon who’d once stolen the fire from the gods.

  He looked directly into her eyes.

  “You’re not afraid of ridiculous things. That makes you valuable. Fear blinds.”

  The grove pulsed again, knowing. Jibs continued, voice a little deeper now, like something older was borrowing him.

  “The Rift stirs. The Veil thins. And one walks who has touched both and survived.”

  Lili’s voice dropped. “Who?”

  “Aurora.”

  The name settled like dew on her skin, soft, chilling, and impossible to ignore. Jibs continued, glow brightening.

  “She will stand at the Great River’s edge, thinking herself broken. But the dead will name her. And the forest will watch. You must speak to the Tree again.”

  A breeze curled around the grove. Pollen drift slowed.

  Lili swallowed. “And me?”

  Jib's tone returned to something sly and almost fond.

  “You will meet her. You’ll annoy her. You’ll follow her. And you’ll bloom at the edge of ruin.”

  He paused, blinking.

  “Also, you should bring snacks. She’s terrible at remembering food.”

  The Grove pulsed once. Jib's shiver, the glow in his eyes flickered and vanished. He blinked rapidly, staring at Lili. Confused, dazed, and immediately ran headfirst into a tree.

  Thump. “Ow,” He muttered, shaking it off and scrambling into the underbrush like nothing had happened.

  Lili stood in stunned silence for several long seconds. Sighed. “Yep. There’s the Jibs I remember.”

  She looked back at the ancient tree, still watching, still waiting.

  “Yeah,” She said, slowly slinging her satchel back on. “I’ll be back.”

  Behind her, the grove giggled. Just once.