Hollifield wasn't the sort of town you'd notice on a map, but you'd remember it if you'd ever driven through, especially during the ember months, when leafy trees changed their color schemes from green to golden amber hues.

It was a town of steep-roofed houses and half-forgotten roads. Children played kickball in dirt lots till the fireflies signaled them home. The woods beyond the town pressed in on every side, thick and ever watchful.

People stayed in Hollifield. You were born there, you married someone with a last name your grandmother already knew, and you were buried up on Hilltop with a view of the trees. Or you left - but those who did manage to stray were rarely spoken of save for soft tones and unfinished sentences.

Every town has its stories. Hollifield had its legends. Some were half-truths wrapped in the prattle of barbershop talk or whispered between rocking chairs. But others felt older, rooted, the kind of stories that grew like kudzu, invasive and all-consuming.

Elowen Bram had a leather-bound notebook. The pages were thick, the kind that took pencil well and smelled faintly of dust and cedar. She carried it everywhere - not for schoolwork or doodles of hearts, but for keeping track of things.

Trivial things, mostly. The shape of a fern she liked. The way the clouds looked just before a summer storm. Songs she heard birds sing more than once. It wasn't strange, not really. Her grandmother used to say that noticing things was a kind of magic all its own.

That morning, she'd taken the long way home from school, walking past the old blackberry line and under the crooked sycamore. The sun was golden and soft, dappling through the leaves like it had been sifted through honey. She wasn't supposed to go off the trail, exactly, but she wasn't that far off either. Just? near enough to look.

That's when she saw the stones.

At first, they didn't seem like much, just a handful of mossy rocks arranged in the leaves. But something about the way they curled into a spiral made her stop. It wasn't random. It felt thoughtful, like someone had meant it to be seen.

She crouched beside the circle, brushing back a few fallen twigs, and smiled. "Hello," she whispered, as if it might be polite. She pulled out her notebook and carefully drew the shape, adding a small note in the corner: Found just past the blackberry bramble. Seven stones. Spiral.

When she stood, she noticed something else. One of the nearby trees had a tiny mark on the bark; just a swirl carved faintly into the wood. Not deep enough to hurt it, just? there. Curious.

She turned slowly in a circle, noticing more of them; spirals, each a little different, each etched with a light hand. Some were tucked near roots, others higher up where she had to tilt her head to see.

She traced one with her finger. The bark was warm from the sun, the groove smooth from age. It didn't feel fresh. Whoever had carved it had done so a long time ago, long enough that the tree had begun to take it back. A breeze passed through, light and cool. Elowen shifted her weight and looked down the slope where the trees grew closer together. The ground dipped gently, shaded, and soft with old leaves covering the ground.

No sounds, no signs, nothing that said come this way, but her body tilted in that direction anyway. Just slightly. Elowen glanced back toward the trail. Then forward again.

And then she kept walking, her notebook open and pencil in hand.

She walked without urgency, pausing now and then to jot something down - a shape of a leaf, the bend of a branch, the way one tree's roots had lifted a stone like it was offering it to the sky.

The spirals didn't follow her. Or maybe they did. She stopped trying to track them.

The air felt different here. Cooler, but not cold. It smelled of green things, old bark, and damp earth.

She crouched to sketch a cluster of mushrooms along a fallen log, then hesitated. Someone had scratched a line beside them; half a spiral, already fading into the wood. She didn't touch it. Just noted it, then moved on.

Somewhere above, a bird called once and didn't repeat itself. Elowen turned the page. She didn't write anything. Just walked until the trees opened slightly and the light changed again. It wasn't a clearing, not exactly. Just enough space to stand and not feel surrounded. She closed the notebook without meaning to, holding it loose at her side.

There was nothing remarkable here. Nothing strange.

She stayed, not out of intention but because leaving didn't occur to her.

The light filtering through the branches had softened, turning the air a pale gold. Dust, pollen, or perhaps just the sun, floated in the stillness.

She leaned against a tree without really thinking about it, the notebook resting now against her hip. One of the spirals was there, just at shoulder height. She didn't trace it this time. Just let it be.

A minute passed. Maybe more.

Then, faintly, something moved off to the left. Not a sound, not even a shape, just the sense of motion, like a shift in weight on the forest floor.

Elowen didn't tense. She didn't call out.

She just looked.

And saw nothing.

Still, she felt it again. That leaning in. That quiet attention, not pointed at her but around her, like the forest was aware she was here and had no plans to interrupt.

She let out a breath she hadn't noticed holding.

A leaf turned in the air, slow and deliberate, before landing near her boot. She didn't move. The forest didn't ask anything of her. It just let her be.

A small part of her wanted to sit. Another wanted to draw again. But she did neither. She stood still, leaning against the tree, her fingers resting on the spine of her notebook, not gripping it, not opening it.

A memory surfaced, faint, unimportant. Her mother once telling her not to linger in the woods after dusk. But this wasn't dusk. And it didn't feel like lingering.

After a while, she stepped away from the tree. Not far. Just enough to hear the crunch of leaves beneath her shoes. The sound landed softly, like it didn't want to echo. She walked to the center of the not-clearing and turned in a slow circle.

There was no center, really. But this felt close.

She tilted her head back, watching the branches sway. One moved slower than the rest, against the rhythm. Her eyes followed it, not expecting anything.

And that's when, out of her peripheral, she saw them.

A child, maybe ten paces off, half behind a tree. Still as stone. Watching her with a kind of calm curiosity, like you might study a bird on a windowsill.

They didn't run. They didn't wave.

They just stayed.

Elowen blinked; not out of disbelief, she wasn't sure disbelief had room here, but because it felt like the right thing to do. A quiet acknowledgment, like saying I see you without speaking.

The child didn't move. Bare feet, outfitted in clothes resembling bark and leaves, hair that might've been brown or gold or neither. The shadows shifted too much to tell.

She didn't wave. Didn't speak. She only tilted her head slightly, a question without pressure.

The child didn't answer, but they didn't vanish either.

That seemed like something.

Elowen adjusted her grip on the notebook. Not nervous. Not excited. Just aware.

The child's gaze flicked to it, then back to her. Subtle. If she hadn't been paying attention, she might've missed it.

Elowen opened it slowly. No sudden movements. She turned to a blank page, the pencil light in her hand.

She didn't draw the child. That felt wrong.

Instead, she sketched the curve of the branches above them, the negative space between leaves, the shape of the stillness.

When she glanced up again, the child was gone.

Not fled. Not lost. Just... elsewhere.

Elowen stared for a moment longer, then looked down at the page. She hadn't realized she'd drawn a spiral near the bottom corner.

She hadn't meant to.

But there it was.

She stared at the spiral, pencil still in hand. It was smaller than the others she'd drawn. Tighter. The lines overlapped slightly.

She tapped the eraser against the page once, then closed the notebook.

The forest was quiet again, but not the kind of quiet that asked her to leave. Just a pause - like a breath between thoughts.

She slipped the notebook into her bag and turned, not toward the trail, but farther into the trees. She didn't know what she expected - if anything - but her feet moved without needing permission.

The spirals weren't visible anymore, but something about the spacing of the trees felt familiar. She passed through a narrow gap between two trunks and stepped into a stretch of low ferns and soft moss. The air smelled deeper here. Greener.

Ahead, a round and flat stone sat slightly sunken in the earth, with a shallow dip in its center. A few more were nearby, spaced unevenly and half-swallowed by the ground.

She slowed.

From above, it might have looked like a spiral. Or the start of one.

She crouched beside the nearest stone. It was smooth beneath her fingers, as if hundreds of hands had brushed it before hers.

She didn't write. Didn't draw. Just sat.

If someone had told her this was a place to wait, she might have believed them.

So she did.

She sat cross-legged beside the stone, her hands resting loosely in her lap. The moss gave just enough under her weight, springy and cool through the fabric of her jeans. A few feet away, a beetle climbed the edge of a leaf and paused there, unmoving.

The wind shifted again. Not stronger - just changed. She looked up. The canopy wasn't thick here, but enough to dapple the light across the stones in patches, like pieces of a puzzle that didn't need solving.

Elowen's gaze drifted across the clearing - if it could be called that. There were no clean edges, borders, or signs that anyone had ever stood here purposefully. But still, it felt shaped.

Not made. Just... allowed.

She touched the stone beside her again. This time, she didn't trace anything. She just left her palm there, feeling the grit, the stillness, the way it anchored her body without holding her still.

A bird flitted overhead, quick and silent, its shadow gliding across her shoes. She didn't look up.

She didn't need to.

The feeling was back. That subtle, impossible sense that she wasn't alone. Not in a frightening way. Not even in a particularly magical way.

Just... known.

She closed her eyes for a moment, unsure if she was resting or listening. When she opened them again, a single fern frond was lying across her lap.

She hadn't heard it fall. It wasn't remarkable. But she smiled.

She reached for her notebook, fingertips brushing the spine, when a small shadow moved just ahead of her.

She looked up.

The child stood a few steps away, quiet as before, but closer now. No rustling, no warning. Just there.

They stood with one hand resting lightly against a tree, barefoot on the moss, their eyes steady on Elowen's face. Still that unreadable expression; not shy, curious, or even serious. Just? watching.

She didn't speak.

Neither did they.

The forest, for once, didn't seem to mind the stillness.

Elowen sat up a little straighter, her fingers resting gently on the closed notebook now in her lap. The fern frond had slid to the ground.

The child's gaze shifted to it, then back to her. They took a step forward. Not hesitant. Not bold. Just a single, thoughtful step.

Their voice, when it came, was quiet and even. Almost conversational.

"You followed the spirals."

Not a question.

Elowen nodded slowly, unsure if she was agreeing or confirming that she had.

The child tilted their head. "Most people don't."

She found her voice, not sharp or loud, just enough. "I didn't mean to."

The child smiled then. Barely. The corners of their mouth curled like a secret being kept on purpose.

"That's the best way."