The photograph trembled in her hands, though there was no wind.

  The edges had yellowed, curled inward like something that had been burned and then turned to ash.

  She flipped it over.

  On the back, in faded pencil:

  “She doesn’t age. Bury the stone deeper.”

  Ira dropped the photo like it burned.

  It drifted slowly to the ground and vanished before it touched the soil.

  Her stomach twisted.

  1928.

  That couldn’t be real. That couldn’t be her.

  She wasn’t even thirty.

  But the woman in the photograph—her smile was exact.

  Even the scar on her jaw she’d gotten falling off a bike when she was twelve.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ira turned in a circle, scanning the trees.

  Nothing.

  But the silence now was louder than before. Like the forest was holding its breath.

  She crouched, feeling the earth again.

  It pulsed.

  Not like a heartbeat—like breathing.

  Like something huge lying beneath, wrapped in roots and names and bones.

  A whisper slithered through the branches above.

  One word.

  “Ira.”

  But this time, it wasn’t someone calling her.

  It was the trees.

  They knew her.

  They remembered her.

  She pressed her hands to her ears.

  No no no no—

  A sudden clang shattered the quiet.

  A rusted bell.

  Then another.

  And another.

  All around her, hidden in the forest canopy, bells began to chime.

  Mourning bells.

  Ceremonial.

  Calling something up.

  And in the distance, barely visible through the mist—

  Twelve robed figures walked toward her.

  Slow. Deliberate.

  Each carrying a lantern made of bone.

  And one of them—at the front—was her mother.