Entry Thirteen: The Mourning Nest

It was not the sound of wings that led me, but the absence of song. Something moved in the treetops—not in flight, but in grief. A hush hung over that part of the woods like a veil, the kind draped over mirrors in homes where someone has died.

The path narrowed. Moss gave way to damp earth, then to old lace tangled in the roots. I didn’t see the tree at first—it loomed too high, too still, its bark the color of charred parchment. Its limbs curled skyward like fingers trapped mid-reach, and nestled in its highest crook was a nest too large, too intricate, too… human.

I did not climb.

The nest was woven from odd things: birdbone and ribbon, spider-silk and mourning veils, braided hair gone silver with age. I could not tell whether it had been built with care or desperation. Below it, offerings had been left—if they could be called that. A baby’s rattle, teeth bound in a cord, paper scraps scrawled in what looked like lullabies.

The air was thick with old tears, heavy with the scent of damp moss and the echo of an ancient magic that once stirred beneath this dark forest canopy. Each breath carried the weight of a forgotten ritual, long buried in the soil and remembered only in the rustling of shadowed leaves.

As I stood beneath, the wind stirred and something shifted inside me. Not memory. Echo. I saw images that were never mine: a cradle rocked by an unseen hand, a name whispered only once, a lullaby with no words. I blinked, and the feeling passed.

Then, something fell.

It landed softly in my open palm—a single black feather, smooth and warm, though no sun had touched it. As I watched, it crumbled into ash.

They say the nest appears only to those who carry a sorrow that cannot be spoken. It does not offer solace. It does not grant release. It simply remembers with you.

I left a piece of ribbon behind — a soft, tattered strand of myself, left to dangle in the hush of old trees. It moved only when the wind remembered me. I did not look back. In the world I wandered into, looking back is how you get lost.

Keywords

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