Serena Hollow's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The mist pulled Serena deeper into Hollowdeep until the ground rose and the trail split in two. She stopped where the fog thinned. Two plants stood there, one on each branch of the fork. Both had the dark leaves and silver-veined stems she now knew. Both breathed pale blue-green mist from white blossoms. And both bore the carved symbol her mother had cut into their stems years ago. Serena knelt between them. She pressed her fingers to one carving, then the other. Both plants pulled at her, faint and steady, each toward a different dark stretch of trees. She could not follow both. One path led where her mother had gone. The other led nowhere, or worse. If she guessed wrong, she would lose the trail for good. The owl landed on a root above her. Its silver-blue eyes fixed on the plants, but it did not fly ahead. It waited. Even the bird would not choose for her. A low shape leaned out of the fog nearby. An old hut sat among the trees, its thatch roof soft with moss, its timber door carved with the same curling roots she wore at her throat. Serena rose and pushed the door open. Dried herbs hung from the beams. Someone had lived here once and studied these woods. She carried a blossom from each plant inside and set them on the worn table. She watched them in the dim light. The first blossom's mist rose and thinned and faded fast. The second blossom's mist did not fade. It curled low across the table, gathered, and drifted always toward the same wall, the same door, the same direction beyond it. The trail her mother laid meant to pull a traveler forward without stopping. Only one plant did that. Serena lifted her mother's pendant. She held the crystal near each blossom. Near the fading one, the mist inside the crystal lay still. Near the steady one, the mist inside the crystal turned and swirled, matching the pull. The pendant knew its own trail. It answered the true marker. She took the steady blossom and left the other on the table. Outside, she walked to the right-hand plant, the one whose mist had never faded. She pressed her palm to its carved stem. The pull rose up her arm, sure and strong, dragging her toward the darker woods beyond the fork. "This one," she whispered. The owl dropped from the root and flew ahead down the right branch. Serena followed. The trail narrowed within a dozen steps. The trees grew closer and the fog stood thicker than any she had walked. Then her boot struck something hard in the soil. She bent and dug it free. A silver anklet lay in her hand, etched with small warding marks, sized for a woman's ankle. Her mother had worn it into these woods. And she had left it behind.