ʙ ʟ ᴏ ᴏ ᴍ ꜱ ᴇ ᴇ ʀ
Home was not built. It was coaxed.
Patiently persuaded from root and branch until the forest no longer knew where it ended and I began.
The old hut had once been little more than woven timber and thatch, raised by hands that had belonged to witches long returned to the soil. Seasons had softened its edges. Moss stitched together weathered beams. Thick vines crept across the roof in lazy spirals, hanging heavy with violet blossoms and carnivorous pitchers that swayed gently whenever the wind found them. Herbs dried beneath the eaves alongside bundles of bones polished by years of careful handling. Every shelf bowed beneath jars of petals, spores, seeds, and tinctures collected from places most sensible people never dared to wander.
Nothing here had been forced. Every plant had chosen to remain. Even the forest seemed reluctant to leave. Ancient trees leaned overhead, their crimson canopies sheltering the little cottage from the harsh light beyond. Roots surfaced through the earth like sleeping serpents, curling around the worn stone path before disappearing beneath the floorboards as though the woodland itself had claimed the dwelling as one of its own.
It was alive. Comfortably. Contently.
The afternoon was almost over. A canopy of beautiful green and brown blocked my view of the sky, but I knew the setting sun was beginning to turn it a dusty pink. The quiet hum of growing things settled over the clearing like a familiar song. Leaves whispered to one another overhead. Tiny insects busied themselves among blossoms. Somewhere deep in the woods, a bird announced the coming sunset before another answered in kind.
I smiled. Israel would be here soon. The thought arrived with the same certainty as knowing the sun would rise in the morning. He’d sent word days before, announcing another visit with all the elegance of a Mandalorian. Brief, practical, and almost certainly omitting whatever had prompted him to seek me out this time.
No doubt he would complain that my tea tasted like swamp water. No doubt I would remind him that if he stopped drinking engine coolant for long enough, perhaps he’d develop proper tastebuds.
The kettle sang softly over the fire, bubbling water spewing fragrant vapour that drifted through the paneless windows. I reached automatically for the familiar jars resting upon the highest shelf. Ghostmint. Widow’s Bloom. A single dried Blood Orchid petal. Enough for two cups. Enough for conversation.
Enough… for answers.
The forest stirred. Not with alarm. With expectation. As though every leaf surrounding my home had fallen strangely, impossibly still. The ritual began, as it always had, in silence.
No candles. No chanting. The force did not need to be summoned. It was already here, baked into the sun scorched earth, waiting patiently within root and leaf. I had begun it without even realising. Clarity lay in Widow’s Bloom. Ghostmint silenced my mind. Blood Orchid tied everything together.
Too much, and the visions became fever dreams. Too little, and the leaves remained only leaves. The water hissed as it met the blend, assaulting my face with pungent tendrils of steam that were potent all by themselves. It curled and twisted around my face, carrying the scent of damp earth after rain.
I waited.
For a moment, the surface stopped trembling. The ripples became still. Only then did I drink. It was bitter.
Good.
Truth usually was.
The final mouthful remained in the cup as tradition demanded. I cradled the warm ceramic between both palms. Taking a moment to relish in the comforting sensation that spread across my fingers, before turning it three times sunwise, once against, and then inverting it into the waiting cloth.
Mother Veyra had always insisted upon patience. ”The leaves know where they belong. Let them find it.”
I waited until the last drop had fallen. Only then did I lift the cup. At first? Nothing. Only tangled stems clinging to bone white porcelain. I almost smiled. Almost, I knew better than to assume. Then they moved. Not truly. Never truly. The force merely persuaded my eyes to see what had always been hidden. The stems twisted together into the shape of roots.
No, not roots. Blackened fingers reaching upward from beneath the earth. A second pattern emerged beside them. The broad silhouette of a tree. Ancient. Scarred. Its trunk split clean through the center. Half remained standing. The other half fell.
I stared so hard my vision began to blur. The leaves shifted again. A bird settled upon one of the broken branches. Its wings were unmistakable. A shriek escaped it as the branch gave way. Then the bird disappeared into darkness. Cold spread through my hands.
“No…” I gasped. The cup slipped from my fingers, striking the stone with a sharp crack, splintering it into a thousand tiny shards. The leaves scattered. But the pattern remained. Not on the floor, behind my eyes. Again. The broken tree. Again. The falling branch. Again. The bird. Every blink carved the images deeper.
I squeezed my eyes shut until pain bloomed beneath my temples. It didn’t matter. The vision no longer belonged to the leaves. It had grown inside me, root and stem.
Israel.
The thought came unbidden. Not because I had seen his face. I hadn’t. The force had never been so generous. But I knew with an awful certainty that only prophecy could manufacture. The bird was him. The tree… no. I couldn’t understand the tree. I searched for another meaning. Another future. Another ending. The leaves refused me.
Every path led back to the same broken branch. Every omen bled into the next until there was only one possibility left. Mother Veyra’s voice echoed from memory. ”A seer who mistakes one path for the only path becomes the architect of her own tragedy.”
I hated those words.
Because for the first time since she’d uttered them… I didn’t believe them. Not this time. This wasn’t a possibility. This was a promise.
The room was becoming stifling. The fire tormented me with every crackle and flicker, licking at my back relentlessly. I choked, gulping in a mouthful of sickly, aromatic steam and smoke. I needed air. The porcelain puzzle beneath my feet crunched as I turned to shoulder open my front door. It stuck for a moment, and I panicked. Slamming myself into it until the wood gave way and swung open to the humid atmosphere awaiting me outside.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than in there.
I sat heavily on the wooden steps worn by many footfalls over the years. The weight of it knocked the breath out of me, but I was grateful. A migraine was beginning to creep upon me. I could feel it taking root, vines growing around my brain tight enough to squeeze the life out of me. I pressed my fingers firmly to my temples until the skin puckered and my nails bit. I screwed my eyes shut to the light tinted green and grey by the setting sun.
He would be here soon. I just had to last until then.
Patiently persuaded from root and branch until the forest no longer knew where it ended and I began.
The old hut had once been little more than woven timber and thatch, raised by hands that had belonged to witches long returned to the soil. Seasons had softened its edges. Moss stitched together weathered beams. Thick vines crept across the roof in lazy spirals, hanging heavy with violet blossoms and carnivorous pitchers that swayed gently whenever the wind found them. Herbs dried beneath the eaves alongside bundles of bones polished by years of careful handling. Every shelf bowed beneath jars of petals, spores, seeds, and tinctures collected from places most sensible people never dared to wander.
Nothing here had been forced. Every plant had chosen to remain. Even the forest seemed reluctant to leave. Ancient trees leaned overhead, their crimson canopies sheltering the little cottage from the harsh light beyond. Roots surfaced through the earth like sleeping serpents, curling around the worn stone path before disappearing beneath the floorboards as though the woodland itself had claimed the dwelling as one of its own.
It was alive. Comfortably. Contently.
The afternoon was almost over. A canopy of beautiful green and brown blocked my view of the sky, but I knew the setting sun was beginning to turn it a dusty pink. The quiet hum of growing things settled over the clearing like a familiar song. Leaves whispered to one another overhead. Tiny insects busied themselves among blossoms. Somewhere deep in the woods, a bird announced the coming sunset before another answered in kind.
I smiled. Israel would be here soon. The thought arrived with the same certainty as knowing the sun would rise in the morning. He’d sent word days before, announcing another visit with all the elegance of a Mandalorian. Brief, practical, and almost certainly omitting whatever had prompted him to seek me out this time.
No doubt he would complain that my tea tasted like swamp water. No doubt I would remind him that if he stopped drinking engine coolant for long enough, perhaps he’d develop proper tastebuds.
The kettle sang softly over the fire, bubbling water spewing fragrant vapour that drifted through the paneless windows. I reached automatically for the familiar jars resting upon the highest shelf. Ghostmint. Widow’s Bloom. A single dried Blood Orchid petal. Enough for two cups. Enough for conversation.
Enough… for answers.
The forest stirred. Not with alarm. With expectation. As though every leaf surrounding my home had fallen strangely, impossibly still. The ritual began, as it always had, in silence.
No candles. No chanting. The force did not need to be summoned. It was already here, baked into the sun scorched earth, waiting patiently within root and leaf. I had begun it without even realising. Clarity lay in Widow’s Bloom. Ghostmint silenced my mind. Blood Orchid tied everything together.
Too much, and the visions became fever dreams. Too little, and the leaves remained only leaves. The water hissed as it met the blend, assaulting my face with pungent tendrils of steam that were potent all by themselves. It curled and twisted around my face, carrying the scent of damp earth after rain.
I waited.
For a moment, the surface stopped trembling. The ripples became still. Only then did I drink. It was bitter.
Good.
Truth usually was.
The final mouthful remained in the cup as tradition demanded. I cradled the warm ceramic between both palms. Taking a moment to relish in the comforting sensation that spread across my fingers, before turning it three times sunwise, once against, and then inverting it into the waiting cloth.
Mother Veyra had always insisted upon patience. ”The leaves know where they belong. Let them find it.”
I waited until the last drop had fallen. Only then did I lift the cup. At first? Nothing. Only tangled stems clinging to bone white porcelain. I almost smiled. Almost, I knew better than to assume. Then they moved. Not truly. Never truly. The force merely persuaded my eyes to see what had always been hidden. The stems twisted together into the shape of roots.
No, not roots. Blackened fingers reaching upward from beneath the earth. A second pattern emerged beside them. The broad silhouette of a tree. Ancient. Scarred. Its trunk split clean through the center. Half remained standing. The other half fell.
I stared so hard my vision began to blur. The leaves shifted again. A bird settled upon one of the broken branches. Its wings were unmistakable. A shriek escaped it as the branch gave way. Then the bird disappeared into darkness. Cold spread through my hands.
“No…” I gasped. The cup slipped from my fingers, striking the stone with a sharp crack, splintering it into a thousand tiny shards. The leaves scattered. But the pattern remained. Not on the floor, behind my eyes. Again. The broken tree. Again. The falling branch. Again. The bird. Every blink carved the images deeper.
I squeezed my eyes shut until pain bloomed beneath my temples. It didn’t matter. The vision no longer belonged to the leaves. It had grown inside me, root and stem.
Israel.
The thought came unbidden. Not because I had seen his face. I hadn’t. The force had never been so generous. But I knew with an awful certainty that only prophecy could manufacture. The bird was him. The tree… no. I couldn’t understand the tree. I searched for another meaning. Another future. Another ending. The leaves refused me.
Every path led back to the same broken branch. Every omen bled into the next until there was only one possibility left. Mother Veyra’s voice echoed from memory. ”A seer who mistakes one path for the only path becomes the architect of her own tragedy.”
I hated those words.
Because for the first time since she’d uttered them… I didn’t believe them. Not this time. This wasn’t a possibility. This was a promise.
The room was becoming stifling. The fire tormented me with every crackle and flicker, licking at my back relentlessly. I choked, gulping in a mouthful of sickly, aromatic steam and smoke. I needed air. The porcelain puzzle beneath my feet crunched as I turned to shoulder open my front door. It stuck for a moment, and I panicked. Slamming myself into it until the wood gave way and swung open to the humid atmosphere awaiting me outside.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than in there.
I sat heavily on the wooden steps worn by many footfalls over the years. The weight of it knocked the breath out of me, but I was grateful. A migraine was beginning to creep upon me. I could feel it taking root, vines growing around my brain tight enough to squeeze the life out of me. I pressed my fingers firmly to my temples until the skin puckered and my nails bit. I screwed my eyes shut to the light tinted green and grey by the setting sun.
He would be here soon. I just had to last until then.
Last edited:
