Entry Six: From the Hollow Roots

 There are places where the roots of old trees breathe—and if you listen, really listen, you can hear them exhale.

I found one such place in the southern crook of the grove, where the moss grows in thick braids and the air smells of loam and old rain. A hollow in the earth, ringed in blackened toadstools, opened beneath my boots like a yawn. I nearly fell. Not from clumsiness—but from something deeper, as though the ground wished to swallow me gently, as one does with a long-lost name.

The hollow led to nothing visible—only the cold scent of memory and the sound of slow dripping water. Yet the roots that wound around it pulsed faintly with warmth. Not alive, exactly… not dead either. I pressed my hand against one. A vision struck—brief, bone-deep: a woman kneeling by this hollow, whispering into the soil. Her voice was cracked, fervent. Her words were not meant for ears.

I marked the spot with a ring of ashleaf and carved a small rune in the bark of the nearest alder. For safekeeping. For remembrance.

Tonight, I will sleep with the scent of that hollow on my hands. And dream of what still lingers beneath.

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