CHAPTER 4: THE MARKED SOIL
816 Words
The wooden marker stood silently beneath the mist.
DO NOT CULTIVATE.
The carved words were faded by rain and time, but still clear enough to read.
Someone had wanted this warning to remain.
I crouched slowly beside it, brushing dirt away from the base with my sleeve.
The wood felt strangely solid beneath my fingers.
Too solid for something that old.
The deeper I looked into the restricted section of the hills, the more wrong everything felt.
Not dramatic.
Not obvious.
Just… off.
The tea plants here were darker than the others.
Their leaves looked thicker, heavier somehow.
Even the air felt different.
The wind still moved through the hills, but inside this section, the rows of tea bushes barely shifted at all.
As if the land itself was holding its breath.
I took another slow step forward.
The soil beneath my shoes sank slightly.
Too soft.
Like it had been dug up many times before.
I crouched and pressed my hand against the ground.
Warm.
Not hot.
But warmer than the cold mountain air around it.
I pulled my hand back instinctively.
“What kind of place is this…?” I murmured.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Linh’s voice came quietly through the mist behind me.
I turned immediately.
She stood several steps away, holding a flashlight loosely at her side.
Her face remained calm.
But her eyes weren’t.
They moved briefly toward the marker in the soil before returning to me.
“I told you to stay within the marked rows,” she said.
“I found this,” I replied, pointing toward the warning sign. “Why would someone put this here?”
For a moment, she didn’t answer.
The silence between us stretched longer than it should have.
Then Linh finally walked closer—but stopped just before crossing into the restricted area.
That alone told me enough.
She already knew exactly where the boundary was.
“You said you came back to start over,” she said quietly.
“I did.”
“Then stop looking for things better left alone.”
I frowned.
“That’s not an explanation.”
Linh lowered her eyes briefly, as if deciding how much to say.
Finally, she spoke.
“This section of land behaves differently.”
“Differently how?”
Another pause.
Then:
“The soil changes faster here.”
I almost laughed.
“That’s your big secret? Fast-growing tea plants?”
“It’s not just growth.”
Her voice sharpened slightly for the first time.
“Sometimes the plants absorb things they shouldn’t.”
That answer only raised more questions.
I looked again toward the darker rows ahead.
“Absorb what?”
Linh didn’t respond.
Instead, she stepped toward one of the nearby bushes and carefully picked two leaves.
One from the normal rows beside us.
One from inside the restricted zone.
She handed them to me silently.
At first glance, they looked nearly identical.
But when I held them closer to the light, I noticed it.
Tiny reddish veins beneath the darker leaf.
Almost impossible to see unless you were searching for them.
“What causes this?” I asked quietly.
“We still don’t fully know.”
The way she said we caught my attention immediately.
Before I could ask more, Linh suddenly looked toward the hills behind us.
Her expression tightened slightly.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because someone else has been coming here.”
A cold feeling settled in my chest.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Linh pointed toward the soil near the edge of the restricted section.
I followed her gaze.
Footprints.
Fresh ones.
Not mine.
The mist moved slowly across the hills around us.
And for the first time since returning home, I realized something unsettling.
Maybe the village wasn’t hiding the land from outsiders.
Maybe they were hiding outsiders from the land itself.
Hoa was waiting near my house that evening.
This time, he looked less annoyed than tired.
“You went past the boundary,” he said immediately.
“You knew about it.”
“Everyone here knows about it.”
“Then why won’t anyone explain anything?”
Hoa stayed silent for a long moment before answering.
“Because explanations make people curious.”
“And curiosity gets them hurt?”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Sometimes.”
I stared at him.
“You really expect me to believe this is just dangerous farmland?”
Hoa looked toward the dark hills behind the village.
“No,” he said quietly.
“I expect you to understand that some places carry the weight of things that happened there.”
The wind outside rose softly through the tea fields.
I watched Hoa carefully.
“You’re talking like someone died up there.”
Hoa didn’t answer.
And somehow, that silence frightened me more than words would have
- Writer
