Day came without asking.
Not fast. Not bright. A gray breath between the trunks that said more I'm back than it was light. Bark shone with night rain, and somewhere a branch dripped like it thought it was a roof.
I opened my eyes the same moment the ground beneath the hut made its first sound. Not the voice. Only the remembering of a sound. An echo. As if it had to make sure I was still here.
I didn't get up at once. I counted first. One. Two. Four. Three. The order doesn't matter. What matters is that you start. And at some point you stop.
Outside smelled of cold moss and a trace of metal carried by the wind. Maybe the towers in the valley. Maybe just my hands.
I looked at the mask beside me and didn't take it. I didn't need it. Not now. The day was mine.
The forest had had enough yesterday. Three voices, only one ran far enough to still have radio.
I stepped out. The ground was soft but not yielding. Needles stuck to my boots as if they wanted to know whether I'd come back. The sun, or what used to be sun, hung somewhere behind the clouds and pretended it had other work.
No footsteps. No diesel. No radio.
The forest had one of its rare days: it was entirely with itself.
The little brook that isn't always there had decided to run this morning. I fetched water. It smelled of stone and something I knew from before. Snow maybe. Or teeth.
I checked the trap at the spruce bed. Nothing caught. Good. The forest had eaten enough yesterday. The wires were tight as strings. I touched one with a knuckle. It yielded like a muscle that listens.
Onward.
At the root altar I stopped. The place was quiet. No remains. No trace. The forest works fast when it wants. The stone gleamed as if it had sweated. Maybe it had.
"What now?" I asked softly.
The forest didn't answer. But an ant changed direction. That's enough.
I sat for a moment on the edge. My hands no longer trembled. My back was calm. The totem hummed only shallowly. The night had done its work.
I smelled resin. Earth. The beginning of a day that hadn't decided yet whether to be kind.
Rule Nine, I thought, without saying it aloud:
Who waits, learns to hear.
I went on. No destination. The forest dislikes destinations. Destinations make noise.
Between two firs I found a mushroom, fist-large, black at the rim, white in the center. Father would have said: don't eat. I said: keep it. You never know what you'll need.
Farther on lay an animal. A deer. Not fresh. Not old. Something had taken the throat, clean, like with a warm knife. No roots. An animal. One of the good ones. I looked and nodded. You don't give thanks. You note that the world keeps working.
I set my hand on the hide for a moment. Dry. Cold. A trace of salt. I left it. The forest will need it.
On the way back I saw something I'd missed yesterday: a scrap of cloth caught on a thorn. Olive green. Military. Old. Washed out.
I smelled it. Sweat...age ground into the weave. A hint of oil. Maybe one of the earlier searchers. Maybe one never found. Maybe one I gave to the forest.
I pocketed the cloth.
Then I made a circle around the hut. Checked boards, bark, what's supposed to be floorboards. Nothing new. Nothing wrong. Only the quiet, testing wait beneath.
"Later," I said downwards. Once. Gently. And it went quiet.
I cooked a little broth. Not a real taste. But hot. And hot makes the mouth feel part of me again.
The day was still.
Stillness is rare.
Stillness is like snow: beautiful, but it wants something.
It came while sitting. Breathing. Watching a spiderweb strung between two beams like an unfolded map.
I thought of the men.
Of the boys.
Of the group that found the circle yesterday.
They weren't the last.
They would come again. With maps. With lamps. With courage that isn't real.
I thought of the boy the forest had taken. How the roots tested him.
I thought of the big one who knew my old name.
I thought of the laughter under the ground, too short to be real.
And then I understood:
The next trap must be different.
Not only catching.
Not only killing.
Not only telling.
It must warn.
It must make the kind of fear that doesn't scream.
That whispers.
That goes into the bone and stays there and rises again when a man lies alone in a tent.
A trap that sounds like the forest itself.
I stood before I knew where.
I gathered what I needed: the cloth scrap, an old spool of wire, a piece of the radio I'd given to the root, the bones of a small animal, resin, bark, and the totem.
I searched for a place. Not too near the hut. Not too near the altar. Something between, where the forest often passes by to listen: the swath with the fallen trunk.
Perfect.
I sat and began.
Wire first. Thin. Flexible. I strung it between two roots, fine enough to see only if you know how light falls through fog.
Then the cloth. Not like a flag you notice. Like a shadow that doesn't fit. It had to move when the wind didn't blow.
Then the bones. Small. Light. I hung them on the wire so they'd touch with a faint squeal when someone comes close. Not a sound people know. A sound animals make just before they bolt.
Then resin. I rubbed it onto the bark. It smells sweet, but under it something bitter, something that closes the lungs for a beat. People sense that at once. And remember.
Then the radio. I took the plate that still thrums when I lay the totem on it. I fixed it to the trunk. Hidden. When someone passes, it will swing, and when it swings, it makes that sound that is almost a word but never becomes one.
Last: the totem.
Not as part of the trap. As stamp. As consent.
I set it beside, briefly. It vibrated. The ground vibrated back. Roots shifted under the soil as if they were finding a new direction.
"Good," I said.
"Not yet," said the forest.
So I added something unplanned.
I took a root. Not big. A thin one lying beneath the trunk. I bent it slightly. Not enough to break. Enough for it to know: I was part of this.
When someone steps into the trap… the root would move.
Not much.
Just enough to show the forest had been watching.
I stood and looked at the work. It looked like nothing. Like shadow. Like accident. Like nature.
Perfect.
Rule Ten, I thought:
A good trap doesn't betray what it does.
It betrays what you are.
I returned to the hut. The day had already narrowed. Dusk felt along the edges.
I heard the hum of the towers below. Clearer today. Not louder. Sharper. As if someone had sharpened their teeth.
I sat on the threshold. The mask beside me. The knife on my belt. My hands open.
Beneath me the voice moved.
"Not today," I said.
It fell silent. Or listened. Almost the same.
I thought of Father.
How he built traps. Not from anger. From necessity.
How he said every wire is a thought. And every snare a sentence.
I thought of myself, sitting here now. Between forest and world. Between rules I knew and rules I made.
Between my name and the sound that's left of it.
The wind turned.
In the west I heard something.
No heavy boots.
No diesel.
No radio.
Something lighter.
Too light.
A laugh.
Young.
Torn short. Uncertain.
One of those people make when they talk themselves into courage.
Still far.
But in the forest everything comes near eventually.
I picked up the mask.
I didn't stand.
I only looked toward the place the laughter came from.
"Soon," I said.
The forest nodded.
And waited.