With the end of the month looming, I doubled down and tore through my initial prompts to build out the stories I’m hoping to deliver. While I still have a trio of tales to create for my patrons (the first of which should arrive this Friday), the stories I planned to share on my blog this month already had rough drafts. With that stroke of luck, I grabbed the first seed—another picture prompt based on Magic Forest (see below). The moment I re-read the draft, the words flowed through my fingers like a current already charted.
There are places we’re warned never to enter. Often, these warnings come without explanation—just a label of danger passed down until it becomes law. The fear roots itself so deeply into everyday life that no one remembers the why—and no one dares to ask. In this tale, we walk alongside a young woman willing to risk being ostracized by bucking such a taboo. Clutching a fragile light, she enters the unknown—not for glory, but in search of something far more profound: the truth.
This isn’t a story where darkness is vanquished by brute strength. It’s about listening to the silences, honoring what’s been lost, and daring to ask the question that might unravel everything we thought we knew. At the edge of a forgotten glade—where fear has rewritten the rules—one girl follows a flickering flame and steps off the path others were too afraid to question. What awaits her isn’t danger, but a choice… one that could reshape not only her fate, but the fate of everyone too afraid to follow.
No living soul in the village entered the forest. None even dared approach the woods’ edge. The villagers’ reticence wasn’t rooted in the grim tales of death surrounding the glade alone. Instead, the rash of disappearances deepened and guided their fear.
Despite the village’s deep-seated dread, Ember stepped across the glade’s threshold with bare feet and a lantern clutched in a trembling hand. The cracked glass was chipped at the edges, and soot blackened the metal frame. Yet inside, a single flame danced. She drew in a deep breath as she closed her eyes and lifted her head, listening to every sound the forest might surrender.
Soft whispers carried on the wind rushed past her ears, and she whirled about, gasping. “Grandma, is that you?”
After a few seconds, she shook her head as her fingers tightened around the lantern’s handle. Her grandmother had vanished not too long ago. While some, including her parents, considered the elderly woman dead, Ember held onto a fragile hope. During their last night together, Ember’s grandmother had pressed the lantern into her hands, whispering words that refused to fade. Yet now Ember stood in front of the feared forest like a young sapling, bracing against the storm of her grandmother’s lingering words.
“You must ask the right question,” her grandmother had said. “The tree won’t answer questions seeking knowledge of what you desire. It will only accept a question whose answer requires your knowledge.”
Ember wasn’t sure what her grandmother had meant. But the words compelled her to shun the communal terror. Like everyone, Ember knew this place was haunted, though peering into the trees that understanding deepened. The moss hanging from the branches reminded Ember more of window curtains than aspects of wild power. But as she inched closer, the trees shifted, forming a path that solidified with every step. Soon, the forest whispered, not with a cruel voice, but one overflowing with a list of ancient aggressions.
The lantern’s flickering flame leaned forward. It didn’t burn as it should. Rather, it pulsed like a strange heartbeat. With each pulse, the flame grew brighter, and when she started treading upon the trail, its light warmed, soothing her. Minutes into her journey, something tugged the lantern forward, as if a creature had gripped it in order to guide her through the forest.
The deeper she traveled, the more the forest softened. Between steps, the forest’s hues shifted to an unnatural palette. The leaves glowed a vibrant bluish green, while the trees’ bark shimmered with a myriad of metallic hues. After several heartbeats, she noticed the forest had fallen silent. Yet larger creatures were perched upon the branches, their brilliant sapphire eyes focused upon her.
Despite the shivers threatening to drive her to her knees, Ember straightened her arm and forced herself to follow the winding path as it grew. After what seemed like hours, she emerged from the glade, finding a tiny clearing with a solitary weathered tree. A soft curtain of water cascaded to her right, feeding a small stream. With a slow breath, Ember reached out, letting the water caress her free hand as she marched toward the sentinel.
It was unlike anything she’d imagined. Its bark was the color of midnight, and the handful of luminous leaves clinging to its branches glowed like fireflies caught in amber. When her eyes fell to the roots, she discovered the pulsing golden light spilling out from the faint veins running along the inky bark. Beneath the strange tree, grass struggled to emerge from the ground, and all that did was stained white. She licked her lips as the lantern blazed, as if drawing strength from the inky tree.
Ember swallowed a sudden lump as she stepped forward. She reached out and traced the inky tree with her fingertips as her lips parted. However, instead of a question tumbling past them, a suffocating silence wrapped around her. Ember pulled her hand away from it as she looked away. What question could matter enough to ask this tree?
She thought of her parents, hollow since her grandmother’s disappearance. Then her thoughts drifted to the village, gripped by rules that no one remembered who gave them. Finally, they turned inward, coalescing around a question she couldn’t identify.
Yet it waited stoically.
Ember covered her lips. “What is it that my heart already knows, but my mind is afraid to hear?”
The wind hushed. The tree groaned, a deep and resonant creak that filled the ancient wood, making everything stir. Its canopy bent low as the leaves brushed Ember’s cheek. Between breaths, the flame leapt from the lantern and dove into the inky bark, plunging her world into darkness. Before she could react, the light from the leaves pulsed, letting her observe the strange tree.
And then… a voice wrapped around her. Yet it wasn’t spoken by any living lips. The unspoken words filled her mind, suffusing her with their meaning as the tree’s bark rippled. “Your place is not among silence and fear. Your path is to break what binds your kind. You aren’t meant to follow the ancient rules. Rather, you’re meant to rewrite them for a new beginning.”
“What of my grandmother?”
“You’ll find those who risked everything but failed in their journey as you return. Don’t tarry, for if you do, you risk the chance of fresh beginnings that you’ve risked much to secure.”
In the blink of an eye, the tree stilled, and the leaves’ lights vanished. Despite the darkness, Ember felt a warm sensation in her chest, as if something stirred within her. Opening her eyes, she saw as if there’d been light. As fresh leaves emerged from the inky bark, Ember turned toward the village, and the forest parted, revealing a new path for her to follow. Behind her, the tree stood like a silent sentinel, ready for her return, or, failing that, for the next soul brave or desperate enough to seek the opportunity to ask the right question.