The Forest Demands Tribute
When midnight fog crawls through the pines, I learned that the forest keeps a ledger, and every breath I take is a line item. The old stories say the woods do not forgive, that they remember the names whispered in translation between wind and bark. They listen, they weigh, they decide what is owed, and then they take what we forget to offer.
Whispers in the Canopy
At dusk the trees tilt toward the road as if listening to footsteps no longer there. A chorus of gravelly sighs crawls along the moss, and the creek forgets to run forward, curling back instead, as if time itself were bargaining with something patient and ancient.
“We do not forget what is owed,” the forest seems to murmur. “If you take from us, you must leave something of your own.”
That is the first law I learned: not all offerings are metal and flame; some are memories, fears, or promises whispered into the soil. The forest is patient enough to wait for the little slips—the half-remembered dream, the stray word left on a page, the name scratched into a wooden fence.
Signs That the Hunger Is Real
- Pathways appear and vanish like breath, forever leading you back to the same oak.
- The air grows heavy with the scent of rain before a storm even forms.
- Animals vanish from the edge of the clearing, leaving only a cold, watching silence.
- Lanterns you never lit glow in the underbrush, guiding you toward a hollow you never meant to seek.
- Dreams arrive with the weight of damp leaves, insisting you remember what you owe.
I thought to bargain with a candle and a coin, simply to keep the road open for another night. But the forest demanded more than light and metal; it demanded a tribute carved from the heart. So I offered a trade: my fear for the chance to walk away with my name intact, the memory of my mother, the last winter of her voice. The trees accepted with a rustle that sounded like a throat clearing, as if to say: the terms are simple, the cost is yours to bear if you break faith.
Morning arrived with a pale sun, and the path ahead looked ordinary again. But the hush in the trees remained—the sense that someone, or something, was listening for the exact syllable that would unlock the door. The forest has not forgotten me; it has only chosen to measure me against its own stern ledger, and for now, I am still counted among the living, each step weighted and careful, a quiet tribute paid in breathing and time.