It began with a cough.
Dry, shallow—more like a reflex than illness.
But something came up.
Not phlegm.
Not blood.
Something small. Hard.
When I spit it into my hand, I nearly screamed.
A splinter.
No bigger than a matchstick.
Dark. Wet.
Throbbing in my palm like it had its own pulse.
---
My throat itched for hours after that.
No fever. No infection.
Just the sensation that something was crawling upward.
---
I told Clara.
She just nodded.
> "It's starting."
> "What's starting?"
> "The seal."
She didn't elaborate.
She didn't have to.
Because I already knew what she meant.
The book had said:
> "The mouth that must close."
---
Later that night, I tried to speak aloud.
To say Noah's name.
Only air came out.
Like my tongue had forgotten how to move.
---
I stood in front of the mirror and tried again.
This time, just a whisper.
But it came out backward.
The syllables folded over each other, strangled.
> "A…o…n—"
I tried again.
Blood ran from my nose.
---
I collapsed to the floor.
And in the silence, I could hear the pages turning again.
In the living room.
Where Clara was waiting with the book in her lap.
She was humming now.
Not the three notes.
Something else.
A lullaby.
One I hadn't heard since I was a child.
One my mother used to sing.
---
"Sleep beneath the bark, my blood
Where roots will keep you fed.
Ashes in your open eyes
And flame inside your head…"
---
I crawled into the hallway.
My voice gone.
My chest aching.
My tongue starting to swell.
And in the hallway mirror—I saw them.
Stitches.
Thin black threads appearing in the corners of my mouth.
Tightening.
Pulling.
---
I ripped at them—nothing there.
Not to the touch.
Only in reflection.
The book was closing me from the inside out.
---
Clara appeared behind me.
She helped me up, gently. Calm.
> "You don't have to speak anymore."
> "It hurts."
> "I know. That's the point."
---
I tried to write.
My hand wouldn't move right.
Every time I tried to form letters—my fingers twitched.
And the spiral came out instead.
Again and again.
---
Clara knelt and whispered into my ear:
> "The tree speaks in spirals, not in lines."
> "We've been trying to read her like a book."
> "But she's not a book."
> "She's a prayer."
---
She helped me to the living room.
The furniture was gone.
The fireplace was lit.
And the spiral was now carved into the floor — deep, wide, with ashes packed into its grooves.
Clara stepped inside it.
Held the book.
Then looked at me with eyes that were hers, and not.
---
> "I need to name it now."
> "Before it wakes again."
---
I wanted to scream: Name what?
But my mouth wouldn't open.
My jaw locked.
The stitches were real now. I could feel them.
Tugging. Tightening.
Binding my lips shut with unseen thread.
I reached for Clara's hand.
She kissed my forehead.
> "I know, Mom. You want to stop me."
> "But it's already written."
---
She opened the book to the last page.
Blank.
But the ink was waiting.
It dripped from her fingers now—black, warm, and alive.
She touched the page.
And began to write.
> "My name is Clara Ashcroft.
I take the root.
I take the flame.
I seal the bloodline with silence.
I offer the mother's voice,
and inherit the name she buried."
---
As the ink bled, the flames in the fireplace grew.
The spiral on the floor began to glow.
And the house—
Sang.
A low, droning hum.
As if every wall had become a throat.
As if the house was remembering its purpose.
---
I fell to my knees.
My lips sealed.
My voice gone.
And yet I felt everything:
The grief of Eleanor
The screaming of Jonas
The fire of Noah
The burial of my own name
All converging.
All inside her.
Clara.
The book's final author.
---
She looked down at me.
> "It's done."
---
The light in the room dimmed.
The spiral turned to ash.
The book closed on its own.
And for the first time since the tree split—
Silence.
True.
Complete.
Peaceful.