The morning air was crisp, carrying the scent of damp soil and baked bread from nearby homes. Asoka moved through the fields, her hands calloused from tending the plow and stacking grain. The sun had barely risen, but already she felt the day's weight pressing against her shoulders. The shop would need attention, the animals fed, and the garden weeded before noon.
Yet something made her pause. A flicker at the edge of her vision, a movement in the corner of the orchard she had passed a thousand times. She blinked, sure it was a trick of light. But the feeling remained—the sense that the world was watching, quietly, and that it was not entirely human.
She shook her head. Focus, she told herself. Work comes first, as always.
Eliza appeared mid-morning, carrying a basket of herbs and flowers, cheeks flushed from a brisk walk. Her presence, as usual, brought a spark of light into the long, laborious day. She hummed softly as she worked, brushing aside fallen leaves and stacking baskets with effortless grace.
"You're early," Asoka said, smiling despite herself.
Eliza shrugged. "Some of us like to start before the world wakes." She paused, tilting her head toward the distant treeline. "Even if the world isn't awake, I think the forest is."
Asoka frowned. "What do you mean?"
Eliza only smiled, mischievous and mysterious. "Just… keep your eyes open."
They worked together, raking the garden, tending the livestock, and carrying baskets back toward the shop. Laughter spilled occasionally between them—Eliza knocking over a small pot of soil and spilling herbs everywhere, Asoka cursing softly before both ended up giggling. For a moment, the day felt like any other, ordinary and safe.
But as they neared the edge of the orchard, Asoka's gaze caught something she could not explain. A stone statue stood where she had never noticed it before, half-hidden by ivy and moss. Its form was of a woman, hands folded in some solemn gesture, face serene but impossible to read. She frowned. She had walked these paths every day, and yet the statue was new—or perhaps it had never been noticed.
Eliza noticed her pause and stepped closer. "Ah," she said softly, as though greeting an old friend. "You see it too."
Asoka blinked. "It wasn't there yesterday."
Eliza shook her head. "Perhaps it was always here. Perhaps you were too busy to notice. Statues have a way of hiding in plain sight." She bent to brush the ivy from its base, revealing faint carvings along its feet—symbols that twisted like roots and wind.
Asoka shivered despite the sun. The carvings seemed alive, curling and uncurling under her gaze. "What… what are these?"
Eliza studied them carefully, fingertips tracing the lines. "Old. Very old. Some say they speak to each other when no one is looking. Others say they remember things we've forgotten." She looked up at Asoka with a twinkle in her eye. "Or perhaps they just like to watch humans fumble about their business."
Asoka laughed nervously, though unease lingered in her chest. There was something about the statue, something quietly demanding attention. She could almost hear a whisper, faint and fleeting, like a voice carried on the wind.
Eliza noticed her reaction. "Do you hear it?" she asked, voice low.
Asoka shook her head, though the hairs on her arms were rising. "I… no. Perhaps it's the wind."
"Perhaps," Eliza said, though she did not sound convinced.
They returned to the shop, baskets heavier and arms tired. Inside, the ordinary rhythms of work—stacking jars, sweeping floors, feeding animals—offered a small refuge from the unease outside. Yet even as she arranged the shelves, Asoka's mind wandered back to the statue, to the whispering trees, and to the odd sense that some part of her world was moving without her permission.
Later, after the last customer had left and the animals were fed, Asoka sat on the doorstep, looking down the path toward the hills. The air shimmered with evening heat, and the forest beyond seemed darker, older, somehow more alive.
Eliza sat beside her, basket set aside. "It's funny," she said, "how we go about our days thinking we're in control. We sweep the floors, feed the animals, sell the goods… and yet, sometimes, things watch back."
Asoka glanced at her. "Do you mean the forest?"
Eliza shrugged. "And the statues. And the wind. And whatever else is too clever to be seen directly." She nudged a small stone with her foot, and it rolled quietly along the path. "It's always around, even when we ignore it."
Asoka felt a chill. She wanted to laugh at the exaggeration, at the whimsical way Eliza made the invisible feel tangible, but her mind wouldn't let her.
There was truth there, some faint and unsettling truth she could not name.
The conversation shifted, slowly, to lighter things—plans for the garden, how to repair the fence, what to do with leftover grain. Eliza spoke with easy humor, making Asoka laugh more than she had in days. Yet beneath the laughter, the awareness lingered. She could not shake the feeling that someone—or something—was paying attention to her small life.
Night fell, and the settlement settled into quiet. The church bells tolled from the distant tower, but beyond the stone walls and tidy streets, the forest murmured. Asoka lay in her bed, listening to the wind, to the distant calls of animals, and to the faint rustling she could not identify.
Somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, the statue returned to her thoughts. Its serene face, its folded hands, its hidden carvings—they whispered of secrets she did not yet understand. And yet, for the first time, she felt a strange comfort. The forest, the statues, the wind—they were not immediately dangerous. They were observers, reminders that the world was larger than her shop, her chores, and even her dreams.
Eliza's voice echoed softly in her memory: "It's always around, even when we ignore it."
Asoka smiled faintly. Perhaps tomorrow she would return to the orchard. Perhaps she would study the statue more carefully. Perhaps she would speak to it, if only to see whether the world noticed her back.
Sleep came slowly, filled with glimpses of stone figures, rustling leaves, and laughter—not quite human, but not unkind. And when she finally drifted away, the last thought she held was a quiet, stubborn hope: that even in a world full of watchers, of whispers, and of unseen things, there might still be room for her curiosity, her laughter, and her small, determined life.