Chapter Six
864 Words
Chapter Six: The One Who Knows
They didn’t sleep.
Maggie bolted the steel door and lit two oil lanterns she didn’t trust electricity when things like that started whispering through walls.
Elena sat against the cold concrete floor, hands trembling. The voice her brother’s voice still echoed in her mind, twisting her thoughts into knots.
But Maggie had been clear.
“It sounds like Mark. But it’s not him.”
Elena looked at her. “How do you know?”
Maggie didn’t blink. “Because it tried the same trick on me. In 2003. It used my daughter’s voice.”
Elena stared at her. “You had a daughter?”
“I did. Until she went missing on the winter solstice. No sign. No goodbye. Just gone.”
Silence fell heavy between them.
After a while, Maggie reached into a drawer and pulled out a folded paper map, brittle with age.
She laid it flat on the table and pointed toward the northern woods.
“Lachlan Wolfe lives here. Off the old logging trail past Devil’s Hollow.”
Elena traced the route with her finger. “That’s over fifteen miles out.”
“He won’t welcome you. He’ll probably tell you to leave or point a shotgun at your face. But if you show him this…” Maggie handed her a worn coin silver, old, engraved with a wolf’s head. “He’ll know you’ve been sent.”
“What is he, really?”
Maggie hesitated, then answered slowly. “Some say he was born cursed. Others say he was chosen. But one thing’s for sure he’s not fully human. And he knows the forest like it’s part of his blood.”
Elena nodded. She didn’t have a choice anymore. The thing in the woods the thing mimicking voices, marking people it wasn’t going to stop. It had seen her.
It remembered her.
By morning, she was driving.
Ashwood faded behind her. The winding trail leading north hadn’t been maintained in years, and the further she drove, the less like a road it became pitted, narrow, swallowed by branches.
Eventually, the truck couldn’t go any farther. She parked near a broken signpost, shouldered her backpack, and started walking.
Fog began to creep low along the forest floor, curling around her boots like fingers. Birds stopped singing. The wind fell still.
For hours, she walked.
It wasn’t until the sun hung low behind the pines that she saw the cabin. Wood, weather-worn, roof patched with mismatched tin. Smoke curled from the chimney. A chain hung across the path with a rusted sign: NO TRESPASSING.
She stepped over it.
Halfway to the front door, a loud click stopped her cold.
She looked up to see the barrel of a shotgun aimed square at her chest.
The man behind it was tall, broad-shouldered, with silver streaks in his long, dark hair. His eyes were piercing amber, like molten gold and didn’t blink.
“You’ve got ten seconds to turn around,” he said.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Elena said, hands up. “Maggie sent me.”
He didn’t flinch.
“She said to give you this.” Elena reached slowly into her pocket and held out the silver coin.
His eyes dropped to it. Then, slowly, he lowered the shotgun.
“She should’ve warned you not to come alone.”
He stepped back and opened the door.
“Get inside. Before the trees start listening.”
Elena hesitated only a second before following him in.
The cabin was sparse. Woodstove, shelves of books and jars filled with dried herbs and animal bones. A wall of maps covered one side topographic drawings, symbols she didn’t recognize.
Lachlan poured two cups of something steaming and bitter.
“You’ve seen it,” he said, not a question.
Elena nodded. “It saw me, too.”
“That means you’re marked.”
He sat across from her and leaned forward.
“They don’t just choose anyone. It has to be someone tied to the land. Bloodlines. Memory. Pain.”
Elena sipped the drink and nearly gagged. “What are they?”
Lachlan looked toward the window.
“Not werewolves. Not demons. Something older. Something between. Spirits born from violence, shaped by grief. The forest remembers every death, every scream, every drop of blood spilled on its roots.”
“And the voice I heard?”
“It’s not a trick. It was your brother for a moment. They feed on what’s lost. Your memories… are bait.”
Elena’s voice trembled. “Can they bring him back?”
“No.” His gaze turned cold. “But they can make you believe they did.”
Outside, a gust of wind shook the trees.
Elena stared down into her cup, trying to piece together what to do next.
“So how do I stop them?”
Lachlan stood and walked to a cabinet. He returned with a small wooden box, carved with runes.
He opened it and pulled out a tooth.
Long. Yellowed. Not h
uman.
“First, you learn what killed your brother.”
He placed the tooth in her palm.
“And then, you kill it back.”
- Writer
