The Hollow Orchard was never meant to feed Witherhollow. It was planted in the second year of settlement, a gesture of hope in a town already steeped in dread. The soil was too rich—black and wet, warm to the touch, and riddled with roots that pulsed faintly when disturbed. Elias Grin declared it sacred ground, "fertile with divine resonance," and ordered the planting of 77 trees in a spiral formation, mirroring the layout of the town and the geometry of the Spiral Doctrine.
The trees grew unnaturally fast. Saplings became towering figures in days. Their bark was slick and dark, their leaves veined with red. The fruit came early, bloated, veined, and warm. Apples that bled when bitten. Pears that whispered. Plums that pulsed like hearts. The townspeople were told to eat only during ritual feasts, and only after the Offering of Innocence had been made.
But even then, the orchard took more than it gave.
The apples bled when bitten. The pears whispered. The plums pulsed faintly, as if breathing. One season, every tree bore a fetus instead of fruit, pale, eyeless things that twitched in the moonlight. The townsfolk burned the orchard in terror. It regrew overnight, thicker, darker, and humming with unseen life.
Grin claimed the orchard was not fed by soil, but by memory. He said the trees drank sorrow, bloomed grief, and bore truth. To nourish them properly, he devised a ritual: The Offering of Innocence.
Each spring, before the first fruit appeared, the town gathered at the orchard's edge. A virgin—always young, always willing, always terrified, was chosen. She was dressed in white, crowned with thorned branches, and led to the center of the grove.
There, beneath the oldest tree, known as Mother Root, she was bled. Not killed. Not maimed. Just enough to water the roots. Her blood was poured into the soil, her tears collected and fed to the fruit. Grin claimed this act purified the harvest, sanctified the spiral, and kept the orchard from turning on them.
But the orchard always turned.
Those who ate the fruit dreamed of births that never happened. They woke with names carved into their skin, names they didn't recognize. Some spoke languages they'd never learned. Others forgot who they were entirely.
Lina Morrow was sixteen when she first entered the orchard alone.
She was quiet, curious, and drawn to the trees in a way that unsettled her family. Her mother claimed Lina could hear the orchard's hum, that she spoke to the trees in her sleep. Her father forbade her from going near it. But Lina went anyway.
She ate a single apple.
She returned home with blood on her lips and a spiral carved into her palm. She claimed she remembered things that hadn't happened, births, deaths, names she'd never heard. She spoke in a language no one understood, her voice layered and dissonant. Her eyes turned milky. Her hands bled.
She began drawing spirals in ash on the walls of her home. She stopped responding to her name. She whispered to the trees outside her window. Her family tried to restrain her. She vanished three nights later.
Her bones were found weeks later beneath Mother Root, arranged in a perfect spiral. Her heart was missing. Her mouth was filled with orchard pulp.
Elias Grin declared her the First Fruit-Bearer, a martyr of Witherhollow. Her name became part of the spring ritual. The Offering of Innocence was no longer just a sacrifice—it was a reenactment of Lina's descent.
After Lina's death, the orchard changed.
The trees grew taller. Their bark darkened. The fruit became more erratic—sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, sometimes screaming. The spiral formation of the grove began to shift, as if the orchard was rearranging itself. Paths changed. Trees moved. The center was always just out of reach.
The townspeople stopped harvesting. But the fruit still grew.
Children began to disappear. Some were found days later, curled at the base of trees, eyes open, mouths full of soil. Others were never found. Their names were whispered by the wind.
The orchard had become sentient.
After Lina Morrow's disappearance and the discovery of her spiral-arranged bones beneath Mother Root, Elias Grin declared her not lost, but ascended. He named her the First Fruit-Bearer, a title reserved for those who had "spiraled into truth." Her transformation, her consumption of the orchard's fruit, her unraveling, her final descent, was seen not as madness, but as communion.
Grin claimed that Lina had become one with the orchard, that her blood now ran through its roots, her memories bloomed in its fruit, and her soul whispered through its leaves. He said she had "fed the spiral with innocence and returned as revelation."
Her bones were exhumed and sanctified.
Grin divided Lina's remains into seven relics, each bound to a ritual and housed in a different location across Witherhollow. These relics became sacred instruments of the Spiral Doctrine, used to bless harvests, ward off spiritual decay, and commune with the veiled god.
The Spiral Skull, housed beneath the altar in the Chapel of Veiled Grace, said to whisper during sermons, echoing Grin's final chants. Used to sanctify the Offering of Innocence each spring.
The Bone Crown, fashioned from her ribs and worn by the chosen virgin during the orchard ritual.
Said to induce visions of Lina's final moments. Thorns from Mother Root woven into its frame.
The Finger Reliquary, a glass vial containing her left index finger, kept in Thorne's Hollow. Used by midwives to bless newborns. Said to twitch when a child is born marked by the spiral.
The Heart Ashes, her missing heart was never found. Grin claimed it was consumed by the god. Ashes from the soil where it should have been, kept in a silver urn.
Used to anoint those chosen for descent into the Mouth of Grace.
The Spiral Femur, carved with glyphs and used as a staff by Grin in his final sermons. Said to pulse when held. Disappeared with him or so the town believed.
The Tooth Rosary, a necklace of her teeth, worn by the Choir of the Hollow, each tooth inscribed with a spiral. Said to hum when the Choir sang.
The Eye Stone, her left eye, petrified and set into the chapel's altar. Said to reflect things that aren't there. Used to judge the purity of ritual offerings.
Lina's sanctification reshaped the Spiral Doctrine. She became a symbol of perfect descent—chosen, consumed, transformed. Her story was recited during every ritual, her relics touched, her name whispered.
Grin taught that every sacrifice must follow Lina's path: Eat the fruit. Bleed for the roots. Spiral into truth. Those who resisted were cast out. Those who embraced it were marked. The orchard grew darker. The fruit grew stronger. The spiral deepened.
Lina Morrow was no longer a girl. She was a relic. A warning. A prayer.
And the orchard still remembers her.