The trees can speak I hear them whispering They can speak Not how you and I do I walk on the path you see before you I walk daily Feeling like something is reaching out to me Like a friendly thing trying to say hello

I hear them in the breeze In the leaves In the very path before you

You may not hear it You may not see But it is real to me

She ran into the woods branches catching at her hair. Her brother had ran past her way further than they were ever supposed to go. Where could he have possibly gone? She leaned onto an old gnarled tree trying to catch her breath when she heard something whisper to her go deeper in. As she trekked further and further in she saw his hat stuck on a branch high up, way further than either could have reached. Her breathing picked up, her heart pounded. They had heard tales from the kids at school and he never believed them.

A scream pierced the air and she lurched into action. She could do this she could save him. As she ran towards him she came upon a clearing in the forest a creature from nightmares had him held high toying with him. She ducked behind the nearest tree and stood absolutely still. The creature cocked its head at the movement and threw him down.

In the heart of a forgotten woodland, where the air tasted of earth and magic, a solitary witch named Elara wandered through the curling mists. The trees stood tall and ancient, their gnarled roots like twisted fingers reaching into the rich soil, while their trunks bore the stories of centuries in their rugged bark.

Elara had always felt a connection to the forest, but on this particular day, a strange sensation tugged at her spirit. As she traversed the moss-laden path, she closed her eyes, listening intently. Suddenly, the familiar whispers of the wind transformed into a distinct melody—a low, harmonious murmur that resonated deep within her soul.

Opening her eyes, she was startled to find the trees bending slightly, as if leaning closer to share their secrets. A vivid green light shimmered around their leaves, illuminating intricate carvings that seemed to pulse with life. The language of the trees was awakening, revealing profound truths of ancient magic and the hidden, dark entities that lurked in the shadows of the forest.

Driven by curiosity, Elara reached out, her fingers grazing the bark of a massive oak. Images flashed in her mind—once vibrant rituals, powerful incantations, and the sorrowful tales of spirits entangled in forgotten battles against dark forces. With every moment, she understood the urgency; a long-silenced evil stirred deep within the roots of the forest, threatening to rise once more.

Elara, armed with this new gift, realized she was destined to bridge the gap between the realms of humanity and the old magical wisdom of nature. But as she delved deeper into the ancient language, she discovered that not all trees held benevolent knowledge; some were bearers of curses, and not every secret was meant to be uncovered.

With perilous choices to make and guardians of the forest to confront, Elara’s journey had just begun. The echoes of the past beckoned her to reclaim forgotten magic and prepare for an impending darkness that sought to reclaim its dominion. The adventure would test her courage, challenge her loyalty, and unveil the intricate threads connecting her fate with the ancient world of the trees.

As the forest stood patiently, whispering its ancient language, Elara took a deep breath, ready to embrace the wonders and dangers that lay ahead in the unraveling tapestry of magic, life, and her own destiny.

i was peeling potatoes when it happened. the water was bubbling into an angry boil, but i wasn’t ready to cook the potatoes yet. one of them had a stubborn crevice that sort of resembled a butt crack, and i couldn’t peel the thick, yucky skin out completely. long story short, my knife slipped and i accidentally peeled the skin off of something else. “shit!” my kitchen sink is right by the window, so i guess that’s why it happened. while i was washing the blood off my finger, (and while the water in my pot was fuming) the trees spoke. now, my mother didn’t raise an idiot. i _knew _that everything in this world has a language, everything speaks, everything communicates. even though witches are more attuned to various languages, we still can’t hear the more ancient ones. (like trees, for example, which happen to hear everything) but as i stood by the sink, cursing myself for not saving all that blood, i caught snippets. little fragments drifting through the window. glass is, after all, such a penetratable material. .._do you know why.. !! could you really if you had!! …maybe life isn’t yours to decide, maybe if you looked into your heart you’d realize you are a worthless shell of what you once were… _ all i remember thinking in that moment was that trees are really judgmental. and then the seriousness of the situation hit me. i could be the first witch ever to talk to trees, and maybe i could even find a spell to create connection with them. no time to waste; i scrambled oustide, snatching my notebook and pens on the way. as i stood there in the forest, among the trees, their voices overwhelmed me. it sounded like all trees did was put you down, or gossip. i sat there, and i listened. after about an hour, i sure wasn’t any wiser, but at least i knew what was going on in the tree community, and boy was it messy. all i can tell you is that if you ever meet a tree named roselyn, you had better steer clear. finally i lifted my notebook and scratched up a spell. if i could find someone to test it on, then i just might become very, very famous. the spell was simple enough; sharp steel, blood, skin, water steam, and a starchy root (preferably potato). and that was when i remembered the boiling water. let’s just say that my pot now very angrily sported a burnt bottom.

I was taught the language of trees from a very young age. From the billowing of branches to the howling wind, my mother took me through every word and its meaning. After she died, I continued my studies. It was challenging without her, but like the women before me, I never backed down from a challenge.

Through many restless nights, I poured through books and grimoires. Potions fueled my energy and kept my eyes from closing. On the fifth rising of the moon, I paced back and forth from the kitchen to my study.

“Did I seriously lose the mushroom extract again?” I groaned. My eyes swept over every inch of the kitchen, my frustration increasing with each drawer opened until it boiled over. When I recognized the bottle that has been in my hands the entire search as the mushroom extract, I let out an annoyed sigh.

“What is wrong with me?”

I quickly made another potion to clear my mind. Then another. Until my mind numbed and red veins bulged in my eyes. Until I felt something wrap around my wrist.

A vine.

It snaked through the open window, traveled across my study, and reached out to me. Gently, it tugged me toward the moonlight, like a mother guiding a confused child. I attempted to pull back against this gentle force, but the vine strengthened its hold on me, and I had no choice but to follow it.

Then the whispers came.

Flickers of a message filtered through the howling wind. They floated around me like a warm blanket, swept through the strands of my hair. I peered below my window to see a small cluster of pink roses blooming from the earth. The vine that took me had emerged from the entanglement of stems, now caressing my cheek.

I reached down and touched its gentle petals, smooth as the finest silk. My mother loved all of nature equally, but she always had some kind of pink plant around the house. I did my best to keep them in full bloom after her passing.

“I hate seeing you like this,” the wind passed to my ears.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Sleep depraved. Desperate to enrich the knowledge passed to you so long ago.”

“I don’t want to forget her.”

“I know. But do you know why it always rains saltwater?”

“Yes.”

“So stop doing this to yourself. Go to bed.”

I remained standing. The vine shoved me back.

When I reluctantly listened, I watched the stars blink at me. The thin branches flowed like hair. And the crescent moon formed a content smile.

I always knew I was different. Things just happened around me; birds would land on my shoulders and head, cats would follow me around, bees would swarm around me. It was not uncommon for me to be uncommonly lucky, I won games of chance easily. People I didn’t like would often have bad things happen to them. I was special and I loved it. I never officially labeled myself as a witch, not until the trees anyway. I was only sixteen, hiding in the woods from my shitty parents when I heard it the first time. It was the softest hello I had ever heard, It wasn’t aloud but in my head. Looking around apprehensively, I heard it again. This time though it was accompanied by a branch slowly reaching towards me, the leaves gently brushing my cheek. I should have felt scared, if I wasn’t an odd one I would have been. I knew I was safe though, the old oak felt safe. It was bent and ancient, moss crawled up its sides. It’s large twisted roots curved around me, like a shield from the dangers in the deep forest. We talked for hours, about things that interest trees, and telling it the tale of my life. As the light grew dim, I stood up to finally return home. My parents should finally be passed out and it would be safe. As I turned to walk away a root curled around my ankle and the oak gave me a warning. It told me that it hadn’t felt a witch as powerful as me in years, that I wasn’t meant for this world anymore. Then it asked me if I was happy. I had to think about it, I thought about my abusive, angry parents. I thought about how the other people at my school thought I was a freak and avoided me. My only friends were the animals and now the trees around me. No. I wasn’t happy. The oak gave me a choice, it said I could stay here and live a normal life. I might be happy, or miserable it didn’t know but I wouldn’t ever face monsters (unless they were human) and I would spend my life blending in and hiding my gifts. Alternatively it could send me somewhere else. Somewhere with magic and adventure. Somewhere my powers could do great or terrible things. I would have a chance to change everything. It would be dangerous, but it would also be marvelous. Well, I was always a difficult child. Easy never appealed to me. As the tree rose on its roots, a shimmering light appeared between the e gnarled tendrils. I couldn’t see through it, it was almost like a glowing fog. I stepped through and began my greatest adventure ever.

“Ever since you moved here, you’ve said that you had other options. If cohabitation is a problem, then maybe we can sit down for a chat. Right now, I’m late for an appointment. See you later!”

Tavia calmly walks toward the front door, a slight frown on her face, masking the anger she felt. The door opens and closes for her as she exits. The thick New Orleans heat happily greets her, a warm breeze wrapping around her shoulders. Tavia smiles. She has been successfully working on controlling her facial expressions so her clients can be more at ease. However, it’s been more difficult to control when it comes to her cousin Marrah.

Marrah is exactly 3 months older than Tavia, but Marrah is extremely arrogant about her craft. She’s a seductress, similar to Aphrodite, so to speak. It’s effective on people, who are susceptible to external influences. Her beauty is not the craft, but it doesn’t hurt. She cannot control minds but she can influence. Tavia is more traditionally aligned with nature, however, she hasn’t honed her skills as much.

Their family, the Duvernay’s, descends from Creole witches. Each generation, the eldest daughter’s first daughter gains their power in a Spring ritual after their 16th birthday. They spend their lives honing their craft.

Tavia heads into the nearby woods to ground herself. As an herbalist, it’s natural for her to go foraging in the woods. It’s been her favorite place since she was a child. It helps quiet her mind and process any troubles she’s facing. She tells the trees her problems. The speaking out loud usually helps her solve her problems.

Today was different. As per her usual, Tavia sought out specific herbs. The thanked each plant for its offering and placed the material in a handmade woven basket passed down for generations. As she started to walk away, she heard strange sounds, unlike the sounds she usually hears while foraging. The sounds had taken on a sing songy melody, which she couldn’t comprehend no matter how hard she tried. She called out, “Hello?”, but the sounds continued and nobody responded. She was not afraid of nature so she continued foraging.

Whenever she harvested plant material, the sounds would return but over time she realized they were more defined. It was almost like different voices going back and forth with eachother. Not until she called out “Hello?” and the sounds stopped did she become nervous.

For the first time, nature acknowledged her. She called out again, “Hello, don’t stop speaking. I’m listening.” After a few beats, the sounds continued but this time the more she listened, the more she understood. They weren’t talking to her, they were talking to eachother in a language that may as well be out of this world but it somehow seemed familiar.

A memory of her sitting cross legged in front of her grandmother while her grandmother taught her how to prepare medicinal herbs crosses her mind. Her grandmother spoke a weird language she didn’t understand. It resembled what she was currently hearing. Except her grandmother followed with words she knew but didn’t understand.

"Mother Earth, hear my plea. Grant me the power of these leaves and roots. They shall shield our kin from harm. In your name, I make this promise. We shall guard these lands, forevermore. We are one."

She realized her grandmother was also teaching her the protection spell that had been passed down to her. Everything her mother and grandmother taught her started to make sense. “I know how to protect the land but from whom or what? What are the trees saying?”

An idea to talk to the trees, in hopes of a response comes to mind. She asks aloud, “What are you saying? Help me understand so I can be useful.” Again there was silence, so she sat still and listened to the silence.

What she heard was not a language she knew but the meaning was clear. It was ancient magic. Sounds she heard her grandmother say and her mother occasionally repeated in hushed tones for unknown reasons. Not many people could understand, not even her mother, but the longer she listened, the more she could understand.

She heard the trees discussing the ancient magic and old evils that existed and her family’s bond to protect the land. Curious she asked, “What are the old evils and why is her family responsible?” The trees seemed to yell at her. She was so scared she tried to stand up to leave but she was frozen.

Forced to listen, she learned about the history of humans, how they actually arrived here, and their devolution into a naturally destructive path of greed and dominance. She also learned how hers and and several other family’s battle against the humans resulted in a blood bond with nature. If these families lose this battle life as it is currently known will change. Nature consists of strong ancient magic. It will not lose!

The children speak with the trees.  

They climb up along their sturdy, hundred-year-old trunks and hear their stories, all terrible and true.  Then they whisper back their own tales, eyes wide and wondering, and the trees listen to the children.

But then the children grow up, and they forget all about their friends in the forest.  They forget the language of rustling leaves and creaking branches, and learn that of oil drills and factory floors and, of course, the poisonous dollar.  Their minds—and their unremembered trees—are polluted with greed.

I don’t blame them for it.  Once, I was like them too.  I spent my primary years living in New Sliving, a big concrete city coated in a thick smog.  It had the garden-variety man-made parks and corporate retail stores, plus a smattering of abstract art museums and famous restaurants.  Perfect for the conditioned city snob that I used to be.  Everything there was carefully planned out and sectioned off, even, so it seemed, all the people.  I mean, I had my parents and my friends, whom I loved dearly, but no one ever truly offered any meaning to my commercial existence.  

Well.  That is, with the exception of Pepper Yarrow.

I remember the day she moved into the apartment next to ours.  Her earthy green patchwork dress and windswept red curls fascinated me, a stark contrast from my own pleated uniform skirt and drab brown hair that hung limp at the sides of my head.  And as far as I could tell, she spent her days singing folk songs to flowers and asking questions to trees in the park.

Of course, rumors that she was a witch started weaving their way through the usual city goers' minds.  It was never serious, just a sort of thing people liked to joke about.  She became a tourist attraction of sorts; a one woman freak show.  Everyone wanted to watch the crazy little witch discuss the meaning of life with a wilted maple or a graying old oak.  She even called them all by name.

“Well, good morning, Mr. Stratier,” she would say to a swaying elm.  “How are your leaves today?  Feeling better than last week, I hope.”  And she would nod and smile, or maybe grimace like she really heard a response.  Her audience would laugh and cheer, and a young child might offer a few scant coins, to which her eyebrows would always lift in surprise.

“Why, thank you, friend,” she’d say, smiling graciously.  I was never quite sure if she understood that these people were making fun of her.  

At least, the adults were.  Us children, curious as we were, leaned closer to hear Pepper’s seemingly one-sided conversations.  There was something otherworldly to her demeanor that caused us to lend her our ears, I don’t know.  I still can’t place it, even now.  

We followed her around everywhere we could, and in time, we began to mimic her behavior, exchanging imaginary gossip with our favorite neighborhood friendly saplings.  Our parents saw us and chuckled, dismissing it as a silly, childish sort of game, but to us, it became a way of life.

Through much influence and passage of time, we began to remember the lost language of trees. We became witches, like Pepper Yarrow and her hair that flowed like water. Our world expanded beyond New Sliving, and we learned the magic of nature’s patterns: how plants breathed life into the earth, how they warned us, how they poisoned, how they healed. We were an eccentric group both admired and hated by many, but always loved and welcomed by the forests.

The forest is calm, eerily silet, with nothing but the soft wind pushing through the forest as the sun falls in the Autumn sky. Sheai realizes that even thoguh Brooksville is just a days walk behind, she already feels isolated. Thinking of it, she isn’t positve that shes encountered another soul on the road in the past few hours. They slow as the section of the path that breaks into deep of the forest draws closer. “Ok Teel, time to see if this journey was worth it, Lien said this was my best shot at finding something unique”. Teel, the small black fox, with teal tipped ears for which he was named, had been by Sheai’s side since she was 13 and found him injuered by some magical creature she couldn’t identify. They stop and listen for a moment, hearing nothing but the creeking of the trees and the occasional creature settling in for the evening. Teel stops and looks back and puffs, as if he has something better to do, before contiuing on. Sheai follows, wanting to try to make it a few miles into the forest to better hide their tracks. If anyone overheard her coversation with Eli back at the inn, it’s posssible they’d try to trail.

Several miles in the forest falls quieter still and Sheai notices a hyper-awareness take over. Every step seems to have a purpose now as her boots fall on the soft forest floor of pine needles, overgrow moss, and countless flora that have melted away to give the forest the life that seems to be stalking her. Suddenly, a low tone emerges from the relative silence, seeming as if it is almost in some long forgotten language the elders tend to speak of. “Hainnnng sooooo ragggghh, haing sooon uuhmmm”. A few seconds later Sheai jumps as - CRACK!- a large tree branch a few paces behind slams to the ground with a heavy thud. She takes cover quickly behind the next large tree along my path and stands still, Teel quickly in place i between her feet. Sheai’s thoughts run wild as so many possibilities of the last minute fill her recently quiet evening. Several minutes pass before she decideds to break cover and serch for any clues. To no avail, nothing seems to be out of place, no tracks, sign of traps, or voices any longer. _I need cover for the night, but we’re not staying here. _Moving on cautiously, listening closely to the sounds of the forest as they coninue Sheai and Teel venture deeper into the mysterious wood.

Dusk arrives as the faint luminance of the warm evening sun departs, making it hard to see. Sheai’s mind wanders of the source of the voices from before. It’s possible she has stumbled into the Sangi people of the ancient Nal forest. Personally she’s only heard stories, but it is said that the Sangi are tricksters and masters of shapeshifting. She decides to use the next half hour and make camp, gatheing what supplies that are availble nearby, making a temperory shelter of large Suma leaves, grabing wood for a small fire, and dressing the small hare from the morning hunt. As the light fades, she never hears any of the mysterious voices again. Sheai’s eyes fall shut as the stars take their place in the night sky.

-THUUUUUMMMM-, Sheai awakes as the ground seems to quake. Only, that it, she’s not entirely sure she’s awoken. Her body is lifted off the ground as she looks all around her. She has a vision, of a mighty tree with massive traveling braches that seem to strech on like roads. In her mind she hears a voice. “Come to me, lost one. Answers long awaited have been buried in time.”

																			                                                                                - - - 

Sheai’s eyes slam open. She attempts to come up with something, ANYTHING, to explain what has just happened. She notices suddenly that her vision has changed. Colors have become more crisp and, she see’s a glowing path in front of her. At the moment the next move seems simple, follow the path, find the tree, and get the answers. What she hadn’t realized is that this simple decision, would go onto become of the most important she would ever make…..

“Slow you’re breathing down. You’re in a state of panic.”

She heard someone or something say this. But the voice was incredibly foreign - it as somehow low and high at the same time, and in the rhythm something more akin to a song bird than a human.

She heard the same message again, and it was clearly coming from within ten feet of her.

“Where are you? Who are you?” She yelled.

She’d spent her whole life in this forest, yet she still felt scared. The more she understood the forest, the more mysterious - and potentially evil - it became.

“I’m write here. Right under your nose.”

She looked up and to the right at the massive oak tree. The noise was clearly coming from the tree, but it had no mouth or face or clear area that could make noise. It was as if the whole tree itself was one auditory piece.