Rowan Ashwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The new trail pulled Rowan forward like a thread on a spool. Trees thinned. Light grew. He smelled smoke from a chimney and heard a dog bark far away. His village waited just past the last row of trunks. But his feet slowed at the edge. Something in his chest tugged backward, sharp and nameless, as if a hook had caught behind his ribs. He turned. A small girl stood in the shadow of a giant red mushroom cap, her dress stitched from petals, her eyes too round and too bright. She did not speak. She only watched. Rowan felt the nameless thing leave him and settle into her, quiet as a coin dropped in water. He stepped across the boundary. The forest closed behind him, and the mushroom girl stayed, holding whatever he had lost.