Morwenna haven's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Morwenna Haven walks the forest each night with a lit candle, calling the night-name only her youngest daughter knew. Little Firefly. The candle she left burning in their old house that is now no longer there started a fire and killed three of her family. She was not home. Now she searches for their spirits among the glowing purple trees. She whispers the name again. Little Firefly. The trees lean toward her as she passes, and cold slides through her chest. She tells herself it is her children's hands. Tonight the cold finds her fast. A voice answers from the dark. "Mama-who-glows." Morwenna stops. Only her daughter said those words. Her candle shakes in her hand. The voice comes from off the pale stone path, deeper in the trees. It looked like a little ghost girl peeking out for a brief second before it darted and said, "Mama-who-glows. Come find me." She steps off the stones. Her feet sink into soft moss, green and purple in the candlelight. The voice moves as she moves. Each time she nears it, it slips farther back. She calls the private night-name. The voice only giggles and drifts away. "Closer, Mama. You look like a firefly." Her daughter used to say that. Memories flood her mind. Morwenna's throat tightens. She pushes past leaning trunks. Pale shapes peer out from behind the trees, watching her with hollow eyes. She barely sees them. She sees only the dark ahead, where the voice waits. Then she looks back. The glowing stones of the path are gone. Only black trees stand behind her. The voice laughs again, thin and wrong. It is not her daughter's laugh. It never quite was. "Come find me," it sings. "Come, come." Morwenna lifts her candle high. The wax has tipped in her grip, and spectral flame spills sideways, still burning. She once tried to snuff this flame. It would not die. She stares at it now. Her daughter called her a firefly. A firefly glows in one place so others can find it. Her daughter would not ask her to chase deeper into the dark. Her daughter would follow the light. "You are not her," Morwenna says. The voice calls sweeter. "Mama, please." Morwenna kneels. She sets the tipped candle on the moss. The flame steadies and burns bright against the trees. She does not move toward the voice. She stays with the light, as a firefly would. "I am here," she says. "If you are mine, come to me." The voice snarls. The sweetness cracks. The cold rushes past her, angry now, and the pale watchers behind the trees shrink back. The mimicking spirit shrieks once and flees into the dark. Its false calls fade to nothing. Morwenna waits by her candle. The night grows still. A new glow rises above the treetops. Pale light drifts through the branches, green and soft. Morning has come. She snuffs out her flame and turns back to where she was at a makeshift cabin next to the purple ghostly lake where ghost vale’s spirit filled forests begin.