"Another way," she said, her voice almost a whisper, "is for you to make contact with a spiritual apparition."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
The spirit looked at me with that distant, weighted gaze—always as if speaking from across time, not space.
"You are already… different," she said after a pause. "Your body does not carry the same strength or weakness as those born of this world. And so, it's likely your soul does not follow its laws either."
"So what happens when a soul like mine contacts the supernatural?"
She tilted her head slightly. "It opens a door—sometimes to power, sometimes to burden. It is… alignment. Exposure. Awareness."
I nodded slowly, trying to piece her meaning together.
"So like how, in my world, people say when someone has a near-death experience, their 'third eye' opens, and they start seeing ghosts?"
A faint glimmer touched her expression.
"In your world's terms—yes."
A silence fell between us. Then she said quietly:
"Do you know why the baby in the well cannot rest?"
I shook my head.
She drew in a long, almost human breath.
"That child…" Her voice trembled faintly. "He was born not of love, but of violence—his father, a cruel man who forced himself upon a girl far too young to understand what had been done to her."
My stomach tightened.
"When I discovered the truth," she continued, "I ordered the father to be hanged. The townspeople agreed. Justice, I thought. That would be enough."
She turned her gaze to the forest beyond the well, as if remembering shadows long gone.
"But it wasn't over. The mother… broke. She was never well after the birth. The cries of her child became a torment she couldn't endure. She began to strike him. Starve him."
I said nothing. I couldn't.
"Eventually, I had no choice. I ordered her restrained. Placed in another shelter, where… she took her own life."
The spirit paused, swallowing back something that wasn't breath or grief—but something close.
"The child was taken in by an elderly woman. I watched over him. I tried. But then…"
Her glow dimmed slightly.
"The bloodshed came."
"The Pale March," I said quietly.
She nodded once.
"I tried to guide them, to protect them, but the invading army brought with them a spirit—one of the Fourth Circle. Resonating with an Awakener."
"You couldn't fight it," I murmured.
"No," she said, hollow. "I was bound. Paralyzed. I could only watch as my people burned. As my sanctuary fell."
Her voice turned to glass.
"The child… was thrown into the well. Laughed at. Used as amusement before the soldiers left him there to drown."
She looked at me—not pleading, not commanding. Just tired.
"And so he cries. Not for help. Not for revenge. But because the world never wanted him."
I swallowed hard.
"Can I… can I help him?"
She lowered her eyes.
"That is why I brought you here."
"Then… what could I even do?" I asked, my voice quieter now.
The spirit turned toward me again, her light flickering like a candle caught in a draft.
"Speak to the scholar you met," she said. "Ask her to perform a ritual of cleansing upon the well. It will open the path."
"To where?"
"To the realm of the dead," she said softly. "The place where restless spirits linger."
I swallowed.
"You want me to… go there?"
"Through my guidance," she nodded. "You are to descend—find the child, face the grief that shaped him, and offer what the world never did."
"Comfort?" I asked.
"Peace."
"That sounds…" I hesitated, clutching my arm, "...a lot easier said than done."
She didn't deny it.
"Nothing about grief is easy."
A silence passed.
And then it hit me—this dull, aching twist in my gut. Not quite pain. Not quite dread.
Just… wrongness.
Like my soul was already trying to retreat.
I placed a hand over my stomach instinctively.
"Why do I feel like this?" I muttered.
"Because part of you," she said gently, "already knows the world you must enter… was never meant for the living."
The next morning, the fog still clung to the dirt roads like regret.
I walked back toward the cabin where I last spoke to her—Callis. The scholar who spoke of dead kingdoms and impossible things as if they were facts, not legends.
She was sorting through parchments again, her fingers stained with ink, her hair tied back loosely.
"You're back early," she said without looking up.
"I need your help," I said. "Something… serious."
That made her stop.
She glanced up, studying me in silence.
"Let me guess," she said. "The spirit again?"
"Yes."
I stepped closer, lowering my voice.
"She told me there's a child's soul trapped in the well. And that I—I need to enter the realm of the dead to find him."
A long silence stretched.
"You want me," Callis said slowly, "to perform a death-channeling ritual so you can descend into the Hollow Veil and interact with a bound soul?"
"…That's a thing?"
"It's a thing we don't do." She stood, rubbing her face. "Because it's dangerous, illegal in most kingdoms, and often ends with someone screaming themselves awake or not waking at all."
"But it's possible."
"For those attuned to spirits, yes. And those… not born of this world might be even more susceptible."
She studied me again.
"You really want to do this?"
I nodded.
"There's no one else who will."
Callis sighed.
"Then we'll need a vessel. Something personal to carry your soul across."
"What kind of vessel?"
She moved to one of her many wooden drawers, rifling through dried herbs and glass phials.
"We'll use water," she said. "Drawn from the same well. It's already steeped in death. Add a drop of your blood, a written name, and a pinch of gravewort ash to anchor your presence."
"Written name?"
"Yours. Spirits respond to names. Especially when willingly offered."
"And the ash?"
"It reminds the Veil that you're just visiting."
She looked back at me, serious now.
"If you hear laughter—run. If you hear your own voice in the dark—don't answer it."
"Thanks," I said dryly.
"I'm serious, Ezekiel. This isn't a vision. It's not a dream. You'll be crossing into a place where time coils and grief breathes. Whatever pain is buried in that child may try to become your own."
I nodded.
"Still going?"
"Yes."
Callis closed the book.
"Then meet me at the well after sundown. Bring a name and the will to carry it."
Before heading to Callis, I stopped by the merchant's cart. He was chewing something that looked too dry to be edible and sorting coins with unusual enthusiasm.
"Hey," I said, clearing my throat.
"Ah, the strange boy returns!" he chirped. "Here to buy more words you don't understand?"
"Not this time. I need something… specific."
He raised a brow. "What kind?"
"Do you have… gravewort ash?"
He blinked at me.
"Planning to summon someone, or just kill your dinner with extra flair?"
"It's for a ritual."
"Of course it is. You look like the type who'd make friends with ghosts."
He reached under the cart and pulled out a small black pouch. "Here. One pinch. Don't eat it. Don't snort it. Don't ask me why I have it."
I took it carefully. "Why do you—"
"Ah ah," he wagged a finger. "Told you not to ask."
"How much?"
"For you? First one's free. But if you come back glowing or possessed, I'm charging double."
"Fair enough."
As I turned to leave, he called after me:
"If the spirit offers you a deal, say no! Or at least haggle!"
I met Callis by the well as the sun began to disappear behind the crooked hills of the Pale March.
The golden light stretched long across the clearing, staining the grass in hues of rust and amber. Birds had gone quiet. The wind stopped moving.
"You're on time," she said, setting down a small satchel beside the well. "Good. Time matters more than you think."
She unrolled a faded cloth onto the stone edge, revealing a handful of worn tools: a flask, a strip of parchment, a needle, a small black pouch—my gravewort ash—and a tarnished silver coin with a crack down its middle.
"This isn't going to feel magical," she said as she lit a stub of incense. "It's going to feel... off. Like the world's holding its breath."
"Sounds familiar," I muttered.
She handed me the strip of parchment and the needle.
"Name. Blood. Ash. Water. In that order."
I hesitated, then pricked my finger and wrote "Ezekiel" in clumsy script, smearing blood as the ink.
Callis nodded and sprinkled a pinch of the ash over the parchment. The black powder curled into the blood like smoke trying to form letters.
Then she dipped the parchment into a bowl of water she'd drawn from the well earlier.
The water hissed.
The ink and ash dissolved instantly, but the name remained—glowing faintly beneath the surface.
"Now," she said, her voice lower, "sit by the well. Breathe deep. Don't speak unless spoken to. When it comes, don't fight it."
"When what comes?"
"The threshold."
I sat beside the well. Callis placed the bowl between us.
Then she began to chant—not loudly, not theatrically. Just a string of words in a language that didn't belong to this world or mine.
The sky above dimmed faster than it should have.
The wind picked up again, but this time it whispered in a voice too soft to name.
The shadows of the trees seemed to stretch toward me.
I looked into the bowl—and saw not my reflection, but a flickering face I didn't recognize. A child. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Crying.
And then I felt it.
That awful weight again in my stomach. Like something inside me knew where I was going and wanted nothing to do with it.
I tried to look away.
Too late.
The world tilted sideways. The light bent like broken glass.
The breath in my chest left me like someone had reached in and stolen it.
Callis's voice faded as if behind a wall of water.
Then—
Silence.
Cold.
And the sound of distant crying.