She brought the journal downstairs, spreading it open on the dining table as the rain tapped gently on the windows. The sketches fascinated her the crooked pine tree she had passed countless times, the stone bridge that arched over the creek outside town, the winding trails she had walked since childhood.
But the map went further, deeper into the forest than she had ever ventured. Toward that cliff she only knew from a distance, where locals said children should never wander. The cliff of accidents, they called it.
Lena traced the lines with her finger, almost entranced. The words on the page echoed in her mind: The door lies beyond the vines.
"What are you doing with that?"
Her grandmother's voice startled her so violently she nearly knocked the journal off the table. Standing in the doorway, her grandmother's face was pale, her usually warm eyes sharp and unsettled. She walked closer, her gaze fixed on the open book.
"Where did you find it?" she demanded, her tone unlike any Lena had heard before.
"In the attic," Lena admitted softly. "It was locked in a box. What is it, Grandma?"
Her grandmother's eyes darkened. For a long moment, silence stretched between them. Then, with a voice almost trembling, she said, "Burn it. Burn it at once. And forget what you saw."
Lena froze. "Burn it? But why?"
"Because," her grandmother whispered, her hand hovering over the journal but not touching it, "some doors, once opened, cannot be closed. I learned that the hard way. I won't let you make the same mistake."
Her words should have ended it. They should have closed the matter, frightened Lena into obedience. But Lena noticed something else in her grandmother's eyes, something that betrayed her fear: a glimmer. A flicker of longing, of wonder, as if part of her still wished she could return to whatever the journal led to.
That night, Lena lay in bed with the journal hidden under her pillow. Sleep did not come easily. She kept thinking about the map, the cryptic message, and the way her grandmother's voice had trembled.
Fear and curiosity wrestled inside her. But deep down, Lena already knew which would win.