Lena and Michael enter the Emerald Forest after dark and find a place where light, sound, and time no longer behave as they should.
Darkness had already settled over the city roofs when Lena and Michael slipped through the gate into the Emerald Forest. Behind them, the streets disappeared; ahead, the trees stood close together, listening. The leaves rustled in a low, purposeful murmur, and the pale light seeping through the canopy made the path look wet with silver.
Lena tightened her cloak and closed her fingers around the old silver amulet at her throat. She had brought it on a whim, or perhaps because she did not trust a forest that had earned a name like this. Michael only grinned around the cigarette in his mouth and moved on before her, as if the darkness were something to be outrun. He loved places that felt half-forbidden, half-impossible. Tonight, though, even his easy pace had a strain in it.
Their torch snapped to life, and the beam scattered into brief blue sparks. Lena stopped. The light did not simply fall on the trees; it clung to them, then bent away, as though the forest refused to be seen in any ordinary way. Beneath the steady whisper of the branches, another sound began to rise, faint at first, then clear enough to catch at the edge of hearing: a thin, melodic thread, like a harp being played somewhere deeper in the dark.
It was June, and yet the air carried a chill that crept through cloth and skin. Damp earth gave way beneath their boots. Moss shone with an unfamiliar brightness. Neither of them spoke now. They listened, and in the silence Lena had the uneasy sense that the forest was not only around them, but aware of them, measuring each step they took.
Then the path narrowed and curved, and a light flickered to their left, low among the trees. Michael lifted a hand, warning or invitation, and they left the path together, pushing through wet grass until a clearing opened before them. At its centre stood a single tree, old and twisted, its bark pricked with tiny points of green light as if stars had lodged inside it.
Beneath the tree waited a figure in a dark hooded cloak. Tall. Still. The face hidden in shadow. One hand was extended toward them, palm up, as though they had been expected. Lena’s amulet began to vibrate against her skin.
The air tightened. A sharp smell of ozone cut through the scent of leaves and incense. Michael took one step forward before Lena could stop him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The figure did not answer. Instead, it slowly raised the other hand, and a knot of green flame bloomed above its palm, bright enough to stain the clearing with moving light. The melody in the branches deepened, and the world around Lena seemed to draw breath and hold it.
Her amulet grew hot. Too hot.
Michael stared at the flames. The tree behind the figure shivered, and the shadows at its roots began to move in a way that had nothing to do with the wind.