Autumn came early that year.
The fields browned before harvest, and the wind carried the brittle scent of endings.
Yet in the hollow, the ash trees gleamed with silver leaves, their roots pulsing faintly as though alive.
The baker's boy—Elias by name, though few remembered it—walked that way often now.
He no longer trembled at the shadows.
The crow followed him from a distance, its cries low and rhythmic, like the toll of a far-off bell.
He carried the rusted key upon a leather cord around his neck, and though he could not say why, it warmed him each time his fingers brushed its worn edges.
Some nights, he swore it glowed faintly—like a coal refusing to die.
---
On the eve of the harvest moon, Elias woke to find his window ajar.
A faint light danced beyond the fields, weaving between the trees—the same lantern he'd seen in his dreams.
He rose without thought, barefoot, following its glow.
The grass whispered beneath him, and every step he took stirred the faint shimmer of cinders in the air.
The path led him to the hollow.
There, the lantern hung from a branch—unmoved by wind, burning with soft, gold-white fire.
Beneath it lay a circle of ash.
At its center, something waited.
A candle—tall, untouched by time, its flame steady despite the breeze.
He knew it at once.
The candle from Prudence's cell.
---
As Elias knelt, the crow landed beside him, folding its wings with solemn grace.
The firelight reflected in its eyes, turning them the color of molten silver.
"Why have you brought me here?" Elias whispered.
The air shifted.
The trees creaked like old bones.
And from within the circle, a whisper rose—soft, familiar, and full of quiet sorrow.
> "Because the flame remembers what the flesh forgets."
The candle's light flared, casting long shadows.
In its glow, a figure began to take shape—woven from smoke and memory.
Prudence Ashcroft.
She was neither ghost nor woman, but something between: her outline shifting, her hair drifting like mist in the lantern's glow. Her eyes held no judgment, only a deep, aching peace.
Elias bowed his head, tears stinging his eyes.
"I thought you were gone."
> "I was never gone," she said, her voice like water over stone.
"Only changed."
He looked up. "Why me?"
> "Because you listened."
---
The crow croaked once, low and mournful. The wind stirred, carrying the scent of ash and thyme.
Prudence reached out a hand, her fingers brushing the key that hung at his chest.
At her touch, it turned bright as molten gold, and he felt something unlock—not in the world, but within himself.
> "You will carry the flame," she said.
"Not as vengeance, but as remembrance.
The old ways are not to be feared—they are to be remembered."
The lantern's light spread outward, rippling through the forest.
Every tree seemed to breathe; every shadow turned gentle.
For a moment, Elias saw other shapes moving beyond her—women cloaked in mist and moonlight, their faces serene.
He realized then that Prudence was not alone.
She was among her kind.
---
When dawn came, the hollow was silent again.
The lantern hung empty.
The candle had burned down to nothing but a ring of warm ash.
Elias stood alone, the crow perched upon his shoulder.
In his hand, the key had cooled—but now bore a single word, newly etched into its metal:
REMEMBER.
He walked home as the first light touched the village roofs, and though he carried no flame, his shadow burned faintly upon the snow.