he dawn light filtered through the twisted branches of the bone orchard, casting long shadows that seemed to reach toward Eleanor as she knelt in the damp grass. The crown of roots embedded in her skull pulsed with a slow, steady rhythm, its tendrils having woven themselves into her very bones during the night. She could feel them moving beneath her skin, whispering fragments of forgotten lives in voices that buzzed like flies against a windowpane. The morning air carried the metallic tang of freshly turned earth and something darker beneath - the coppery scent of old blood that never quite faded from this place.
Eleanor pressed her palm flat against the ground, feeling the unnatural warmth that radiated from the soil. The earth here was alive in ways that defied understanding, its heartbeat syncing with the pulse in her temples. When she closed her eyes, she could see them - the countless children whose bones had nourished this cursed ground, their faces flashing behind her eyelids like candle flames guttering in the wind. The crow watched her from a nearby fencepost, its beady eyes reflecting the rising sun in pinpricks of molten gold.
Mira arrived as the first proper rays of sunlight crested the horizon, her small feet bare and muddy from the run through dew-soaked fields. The baker's daughter looked like a ghost in her thin nightgown, the fabric clinging to her skinny frame as she panted from exertion. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes, which had taken on an unsettling sheen since receiving the root-mark. She clutched a fistful of crumpled papers in one hand, the ink bleeding through where her sweat had dampened them.
"They're coming," Mira gasped, her chest heaving. She thrust the papers at Eleanor, who smoothed them out to reveal crude drawings of the bone chapel, each rendered in shaky charcoal strokes. "The whole village. Farmer Hale saw the lights last night and told the priest. They think we're... they're calling it devil's work."
Eleanor studied the drawings, her fingers tracing the childish depiction of Thomas's thorn-wrapped corpse standing sentinel by the chapel doors. The roots in her skull twitched, sending a sharp pain lancing behind her eyes. She could feel the orchard stirring around them, the roses turning their blood-dark faces toward the approaching threat. The largest bloom near her knee let out a soft, mewling sound as its petals trembled.
"Help me up," Eleanor said, extending her left hand. Mira hesitated before taking it, her small fingers flinching at the unnatural texture of Eleanor's skin. Overnight, the roots had changed more than just her mind - her left arm had stiffened, the flesh hardening into bark-like ridges that cracked when she moved. Thorns pushed through her cuticles as she flexed her fingers, each one glistening with a clear, viscous fluid that smelled faintly of rotting roses.
Together they walked to the meadow's edge, where the first villagers were already gathering. Farmer Hale stood at the front, his pitchfork held like a weapon, the tines catching the morning light. Behind him clustered the butcher, the miller's sons, and a handful of field hands, their faces drawn tight with fear and something uglier beneath. The women hung back, their shawls pulled tight around their shoulders, but Eleanor saw the way their eyes darted toward the bone chapel, drawn to it despite their terror.
"Stay behind me," Eleanor murmured to Mira, but the girl shook her head, stepping forward with a courage that belied her years.
"It's just remembering, Papa," Mira called out to the butcher, who stood red-faced and sweating despite the morning chill. His cleaver hung from his belt, the edge gleaming with fresh oil. "There's no devil here. Just the truth."
The butcher's hand went to his weapon, and the orchard reacted before Eleanor could draw breath. Vines lashed out from the undergrowth, wrapping around his wrist with a wet snap. The man screamed as the thorns bit deep, his blood spattering the grass in dark arcs. Where each drop hit the earth, the soil convulsed, letting out a sound that wasn't a sound so much as a vibration in the bones - the land recognizing one of its tormentors.
Eleanor moved without thinking. She crossed the space between them in three long strides and pressed her thorned fingers to the butcher's forehead. The contact sparked a vision that tore through them both - a younger version of the butcher kneeling in the Blackwood kitchens, his hands shaking as he sharpened knives under Lord Richard's watchful eye. The muffled whimpers from the locked pantry. The way the lord's hand had come down on his shoulder, heavy with unspoken threat. "The meat must be tenderized," Richard had said, his voice slick with false kindness. "You understand."
The butcher collapsed, retching into the grass. "I didn't know!" he gasped between heaves. "I thought they were just... just..."
"Lamb?" Eleanor finished for him, her voice colder than the winter ground. Around them, the other villagers recoiled as roots snaked toward their feet, tasting their fear. The midwife was the first to break, falling to her knees with a sob that seemed to come from the very depths of her being.
"Now you choose," Eleanor said, spreading her arms wide. The morning light caught the thorns protruding from her skin, turning each tip into a tiny beacon. "Remember with us, or leave this place forever. But know this - the forgetting ends today."
As the sun climbed higher, seventeen adults crossed into the orchard, their steps faltering but determined. The bravest - the midwife, the tailor's widow, two field hands whose names Eleanor had never learned - approached the bone chapel, their breath coming in short, sharp gasps as they took in its grotesque beauty. The structure hummed with latent energy, its ribcage arches vibrating in a wind that didn't touch the surrounding grass.
Inside, the air smelled of damp stone and something sweetly rotten. The midwife was the first to notice the Wall of Names - thousands of teeth embedded in the curved ribs, each one inscribed with a child's name in delicate script. Her fingers trembled as she reached out, tracing the tiny grooves of a molar marked "Lissa." When she turned to Eleanor, her eyes were bright with horrified understanding.
"They were here?" the midwife whispered. "All this time? In the village?"
Eleanor didn't need to answer. The chalice made from Jacob's skullcap sat waiting on the thorn pulpit, filled to the brim with dark liquid that shimmered with memories. The midwife drank first, her body convulsing as the visions took hold - cellars converted into holding pens, the old mill's grinding stones stained unnatural colors, the butcher's special sausages served at every Blackwood masquerade.
"Oh God," she gasped, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on her face. "Oh dear God."
Mira took the woman's shaking hands and began to sing - a lullaby Eleanor recognized from her own childhood, though she couldn't remember where she'd learned it. The other children joined in, their voices rising like smoke through the chapel's bone rafters. As the hymn swelled, the structure itself began to resonate, the tooth-embedded ribs humming in harmony.
By dusk, the first transformations began. The tailor's widow cried out as rosebuds pushed through her tear ducts, the delicate petals unfurling to brush her cheeks. A field hand stared in mute horror as his fingernails darkened and hardened into protective thorns. The midwife's silver hair turned black and glossy as crow feathers, the strands twisting themselves into intricate braids without her bidding.
Eleanor watched as Mira carefully pruned the widow's facial blooms, the girl's small fingers deft despite their trembling. "Does it hurt?" Mira asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
The widow laughed, the sound wet and broken. "Less than forgetting did."
Outside, the remaining villagers had built a bonfire, though not to attack. One by one, they threw their Blackwood-contracted belongings into the flames - invitations with the lord's wax seal, genealogies proving shared bloodlines, the butcher's prized set of carving knives. The fire burned unnatural colors as it consumed the relics, turning first green, then violet, then a deep, arterial red.
The crow circled overhead, its shadow merging with the rising smoke. When Eleanor raised her thorned hand, the bird landed with unusual gentleness, its claws careful against her ruined skin.
"They'll need you soon," it rasped, its voice like dry leaves scraping against stone. "Beyond the meadow."
A sudden gust of wind scattered the fire's ashes, revealing hundreds of tiny teeth among the embers. The children scrambled to collect them, pressing each one to their foreheads where they stuck like gruesome jewels. Mira held up a molar inscribed with a single word: "Remember."
As night fell, the bone chapel's glow intensified, casting long shadows that moved independently of their owners. And in the distance, barely audible beneath the children's singing, came a new sound - the rhythmic snip-snip of shears moving through unseen roses.
The gardener was waking.