The silence of the night was thick, broken only by the rustle of wind-kissed leaves. Elliot lay wide awake in the small shelter they'd repaired beside the greenhouse, eyes tracing the wooden ceiling. Something had been wrong with the soil these past few days—too damp, too soft, and sometimes... it pulsed. Lyra said it was nothing. That the land sometimes shifted after a long season. But even she sounded unsure.
He turned his head slightly. Lyra sat near the center of the greenhouse, her eyes closed, fingers gently pressed against the dirt floor. She'd been meditating again—"listening," she said, though Elliot never asked to what.
The strange growth from Chapter 23—the one found near the pumpkin rows—had been removed, burned under careful supervision. But a shadow lingered. The plants in that area hadn't been the same. The corn whispered too often, the beans curled toward the wrong light. And worst of all, the sentiblooms refused to open.
That night, Elliot heard it again.
A hum.
Not the hum of wind or insects. Not even the soft resonance of Glowshrooms in chorus. This was deep—like pressure inside his ears. It came from beneath the roots, as if something old and waiting had stirred awake.
He got up and quietly left the shelter. Lyra didn't open her eyes, but her voice followed him anyway.
"Don't go far."
"I won't," he murmured back, not looking over his shoulder.
Outside, the darkness clung to the trees like a curtain. A low mist hugged the garden's edge, veiling the path toward the old orchard. It was colder there—always had been since the Stillfall. He wrapped his coat tighter and walked until he reached the fence they'd repaired last week.
That's when he saw it again.
A small patch of dirt pulsing slowly, like it was breathing.
Elliot crouched and pressed a hand against the soil.
It was warm.
Too warm.
His breath caught as something moved under his palm—slithering—then vanished deeper. He leapt back and stumbled over the fence. A low groan rose from beneath, a sound too deep to be natural. Something wasn't just living in the soil.
Something was listening back.
The next morning, Lyra examined the patch. Her face remained unreadable, but her hand never left the scythe she carried on her back. They marked the area and decided to widen the perimeter. She asked the Glowshrooms to stay close. Asked the Hearthroots to dig deeper.
"Whatever it is," she said softly to Elliot, "it's part of the land. But not of it."
"Is it dangerous?"
She didn't answer right away. "It might be curious," she finally said. "And that's worse. Curiosity grows."
That day, the soil remained quiet. But by nightfall, the mist had returned, thicker than before.
And the ground began to whisper names no one had spoken in years.