Joy barely made it back to her cottage before sunrise. The sky was still a deep blue, stars dissolving as dawn crept over the hills. She sat at her desk, the leaf The Watcher had given her resting on an open page of her notebook.
It hadn't faded.
The symbol etched into its delicate surface still glowed, pulsing faintly like a living thing. She sketched it carefully—curved lines spiraling around a central eye, almost like a seed surrounded by wind.
She didn't know what it meant. But it felt familiar. Like something buried deep inside her had finally surfaced.
James arrived not long after, knocking softly before letting himself in.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
Joy shook her head. "I saw it again. The Watcher. But this time… it was real. Not a vision. It gave me this."
She showed him the leaf.
James stared, expression unreadable. "That's a marking of passage. I've only seen it in one other place—my grandfather's journal. It means the forest has claimed you."
"Claimed me?" she echoed, not sure whether to be honored or afraid.
"It means you're part of its memory now. And part of its future."
He sat across from her and opened the journal again. Together, they compared symbols—hers wasn't exactly like the others, but there were connections: shared strokes, mirrored shapes, repeated spirals. It wasn't just a mark.
It was a message.
James tapped a page. "This one here—my grandfather wrote it meant 'veil' or 'boundary.' This one means 'root' or 'origin.' Yours combines them."
Joy looked at her leaf again, heart racing. "A root through the veil."
James nodded slowly. "Which means there's still something hidden. And the forest is telling you where to look."
They packed supplies and set out before midday. Joy led this time, guided not by a path, but by feeling. The trees no longer felt like strangers. They shifted for her—branches parting, shadows thinning, light guiding her feet like breadcrumbs.
After nearly an hour of walking, they came to a place Joy had never seen before.
A grove.
Perfectly circular, surrounded by birch trees with pale white trunks. In the center stood a massive stone, smooth as glass, etched with hundreds of overlapping symbols. Some were faded, some sharp. One glowed faintly.
The same as the one on her leaf.
James drew a slow breath. "This is a Memory Stone. They say the forest poured its oldest truths into these when the world first began to forget."
Joy stepped forward, touching the stone.
Instantly, her vision swam.
She saw herself—no, someone like her—kneeling beside the same stone, placing both hands on its surface. Behind her, the Watcher stood, silent and protective. Then the image shifted: fire spreading through trees, voices crying out, the ground splitting open.
And a single word echoed through the memory.
"Return."
Joy gasped and fell back, James catching her.
"What did you see?" he asked.
She could barely speak. "A warning. A history. And... a promise."
James helped her stand. "So what now?"
Joy looked at the Memory Stone one more time. "Now, we find the rest of them."