Mara walked past the gate without touching it. The latch clicked behind her on its own. She didn't flinch. Her thoughts were heavy, not scattered like usual. She took the road that curved toward the village but stopped halfway and turned toward the woods instead.
She didn't know what she expected. There was no plan. Just motion. And the strange certainty that whatever she needed wasn't going to come from anyone else.
The crow was gone.
Branches shifted above, even though the wind wasn't strong enough to move them. The forest looked like it always had. Still, she stepped carefully, as if the ground could open beneath her.
Every sound pressed on her ears. The snap of twigs, the hush of leaves, the quiet sound of her own breathing.
Eventually she paused by an old stump. She remembered it vaguely. She'd played here as a child, or maybe dreamed she had. The bark was chipped with knife marks, some of them too clean to be old.
A symbol had been carved there. The same one. Curve. Three lines. But this one looked newer. And underneath it... something else. Smaller, nearly invisible unless the light hit just right.
A single word.
"Speak."
Mara stared at it.
She blinked once.
Then said, "Is this a joke?"
Her voice broke the silence, and it felt wrong. Still, the sound had weight. Realer than her thoughts ever felt.
She didn't mean to speak again, but it came out anyway. "Is this what you want from me? Talking to no one?"
Her voice bounced back off the trees. The echo was thin, but it existed.
She has no apparent obligation to do so, but has nothing to lose anyways.
She waited.
Nothing answered. No crow. No wind. Just that word Speak burned behind her eyes now, more than just carved into wood.
She touched the stone in her satchel.
"I'm not afraid of silence," she said. Her voice came easier this time. "But I'm tired of not being heard."
The moment she spoke, something inside her shifted. Not dramatically. But like a lock turning slightly in a door.
Somewhere behind her, something stepped.
She turned fast, but no one was there.
Her heart didn't race.
She stepped forward instead of back.
She spoke again. "You keep showing me these things. These signs. But never an answer. If you want something from me, say it."
Another step. Leaves whispered underfoot.
"I'm not going to stand around waiting. I'm here now."
A shadow moved between two trees. Slender. Fast.
She followed without hesitation.
There were markings on the trees now, faint symbols drawn in ash. They weren't random. They formed a path, and she let them guide her. The further she went, the more natural it felt to speak out loud. Like the woods were listening. Like someone wanted her to keep going.
Then, in a small clearing, she found the girl.
Not the one from the post station.
Not a girl, even.
A figure, wrapped in layers of gray and red cloth, half-kneeling over a bundle of sticks arranged in a spiral. A hand moved slowly, arranging the twigs with care. The figure looked up when Mara stepped closer.
She had no face.
No features. Just smooth skin where her eyes and mouth should have been.
But Mara didn't step back.
The figure tilted her head. Then lifted a hand. And pointed... right at Mara's satchel.
Mara reached in and pulled out the charm and the stone.
The charm fluttered as if caught in wind.
The figure lowered her hand.
Then finally, in a voice that did not come from her mouth but from somewhere behind Mara's ribs, she heard the words:
"We hear you now."
Mara took a breath.
Then, clearly, deliberately, she said, "Good."
And the woods shifted again.
The trees leaned closer.
And the clearing listened.