Willow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 12

Willow crouched behind a moss-covered log fifty feet from the shrine. She had been watching for three hours. The elders hadn't returned since morning prayers. No one had entered or left. The gem was still inside, pulsing with light she could see through the cracks in the cypress walls. A frog stepped into view near the shrine's entrance. He wore fishing gear and carried a worn tackle box. Behind him came four smaller frogs, each dressed in colorful vests and hats. The father frog set down his box and pointed toward the water. The children scattered to gather bait while he unpacked their rods. Willow recognized him immediately. His name had left her mind years ago, but she knew his face. He had lived in the cabin down from hers before she joined the cult. Before she gave up fishing and family and everything that wasn't devotion to the beast. The frog glanced toward the shrine, then noticed Willow behind the log. He froze. His hand moved to his chest, fingers touching something beneath his vest. He pulled out a ring made of moss stone and held it up where she could see it. Willow's breath stopped. That ring had belonged to her mother. She had given it to him the day before Willow took her oath, the day she told her family she was leaving forever. The frog walked closer, leaving his children by the water. He stopped ten feet away and set the ring on a flat stone between them. He didn't speak. He just looked at her with eyes that remembered who she used to be, then returned to his family and led them away from the shrine. Willow crawled forward and picked up the ring. The moss stone felt cold in her palm. She turned it over and saw the small fishing hook carved on the inside, the same design her mother had worn every day. Behind her, the old cabin still stood near the water's edge, its roof covered in dried reeds and fish hanging from the eaves. She had grown up in that cabin. She had learned to fish there, had carved her first hook there, had promised her mother she would stay. Then the elders came, and she broke that promise. She slipped the ring onto her finger and looked back at the shrine. The gem glowed brighter now, casting teal light across the ground. The frog had seen her watching the shrine. He knew she was still tied to the cult, still chasing the beast they worshiped. And he had given her the ring anyway, a reminder of what she had abandoned and what might still be waiting if she ever chose to walk away.