The crossing

Sage stared at her grandmother’s outstretched hand.

It didn’t shake. It didn’t falter. But Sage could see the weight behind it—like it had been held out for a very long time.

Behind her, the forest shifted. The pressure returned, thicker now, like a storm forming just behind the trees. Whatever had followed her from the clearing wasn’t hiding anymore. She could feel it watching.

Her heart pounded, but she stepped forward, and took the hand.

The moment their fingers touched, everything changed.

The wind stopped.

The forest stilled.

The sky above the pool turned pitch black.

The symbols carved into the stone circle lit up—one by one—like ancient constellations awakening for the first time in centuries. Gold. Silver. Blue.

Sage gasped, stumbling slightly, but her grandmother caught her.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s only beginning.”

Sage’s voice finally returned. “Why are you here? You disappeared three years ago. Everyone thought—”

“I did disappear,” her grandmother said. “But not in the way they think.”

She led Sage to the edge of the glowing pool and knelt beside it. Sage followed, knees pressing into the mossy stone.

“This place is old,” her grandmother continued. “Older than Elmswood. Older than the forest. It’s a door—but it only opens for a few.”

Sage’s eyes searched the sky reflected in the water. Stars shifted across its surface like ripples. “A door to where?”

“To between.”

She paused. “To what’s hidden. What’s been forgotten.”

Sage frowned. “What does that mean?”

Her grandmother’s eyes softened. “You’ve always felt it, haven’t you? That there’s more beneath things. That the wind sometimes speaks, even when it has no voice. That silence isn’t empty.”

Sage didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Her silence was an answer.

Her grandmother smiled again. “You’re like me. You hear what others don’t. See what others overlook. But this gift… it comes with danger.”

The wind surged again behind them. A low hum. A whisper—not a word, just a sound, but one that made Sage’s skin crawl.

“The thing that followed you,” her grandmother said, standing slowly. “It’s called a Watcher. It guards the thresholds. But it doesn’t serve the light.”

Sage turned, heart tightening. “It spoke to me. Said my name.”

“It always knows names,” her grandmother said. “That’s how it tries to enter. Through memory. Through trust.”

The Watcher didn’t step into the circle. It couldn’t. Sage could feel the invisible boundary holding it back.

For now.

“So what do I do?” she asked. “How do I stop it?”

Her grandmother looked down at her—proud, sad, and certain all at once.

“You don’t stop it,” she said. “You go past it. You cross over. And you find what it’s hiding.”

Sage hesitated. “But why me?”

Her grandmother placed a hand over Sage’s chest, where her heartbeat pulsed like thunder.

“Because this forest remembers you. And the moment you stepped off the path, it began to open.”

The pool behind them glowed brighter now—stars spinning faster in its depths.

“If you’re ready,” her grandmother said, “step into the water. I’ll be right behind you.”