A single lantern dangled from a crooked post beside the cottage, squeaking each time the breeze stirred. One of its glass panes chipped, but the wick inside had been waiting for someone to wake it.

Bjorn reached up and unhooked the lantern. A sticky cobweb stretched across the handle, clinging stubbornly until he brushed it away with the back of his hand.

“Let’s see if you’re still alive,” he muttered.

He crouched beside a flat stone and set the lantern down. From his pocket, he pulled out a piece of flint and pressed it against the back of his axe.

Sparks scattered into the dark, fluttering out before they touched the wick. He tried again, and this time, a tiny flame popped to life, catching the wick with a soft FWOOF! The lantern bloomed with an orange glow, pushing the shadows back into the trees.

Bjorn grinned from ear to ear. “Ha! Still got it.”

The glow wrapped the clearing in a small island of warmth, the kind of light that made the night feel less lonely. Bjorn raised the lantern above his head, and its beam caught the faint line of the trail winding into the woods.

He pulled the map from Thorne out of the satchel. The parchment was thick and soft, smelling faintly of smoke and old ink, like it had once lived in a forgotten library. Black lines ran across the page like claw marks, while three dark circles marked with tiny symbols: a root, a tree, and a teardrop.

Bjorn traced one winding path with his finger. “Head west to Split-Stone Hill, then along the ridge until I find the place where the shadows linger…”

His voice trailed off. Something on the parchment had moved. Bjorn rubbed his eyes and leaned closer. One of the thinner lines wriggled like a worm.

“No way! Did that just move?” Bjorn whispered. 

At the bottom of the map, the tiny root symbol gave a dainty hop, as if stretching after a nap. Bjorn’s jaw dropped. Another trail shivered, hills slanting, charcoal trees bending forward to peek at him before slowly straightening again. Under the lantern’s glow, the ink rearranged itself as though the map had its own ideas of where he should go. A sketched hill peeled off the corner and floated above the parchment, wobbling in the air before snapping back into place with a soft pop.

Bjorn dragged a hand down his face. “Thorne definitely forgot to mention this when he handed me the map.”

The lantern flickered, and the map seemed to whisper faintly like muffled laughter. 

“Alright, map,” he whispered. “If you’re going to wriggle around, at least have the decency to point me in the right direction.”

Bjorn pointed a finger at the map. “I’ve fought bandits. I’ve wrestled flutterhorns. I even survived firebats. But this? This map seems ridiculous!”

He tilted his head back. The moon had climbed higher, softly illuminating the hills, until the grass swayed like a restless sea of ghosts.

“The ghostroot glows when the moon is high,” he whispered, repeating Thorne’s words. “So… follow the moon, and hope it doesn’t disappear before I get there.”

With a sigh, Bjorn folded the map, tucked it back into the satchel, and raised the lantern. “Alright, ghostroot,” he said with a teasing grin. “Come out, come out… wherever you are.”

The words made him chuckle, as though he were playing hide-and-seek with the night. Stepping off the worn trail, he felt the grass crunch under his boots. The lantern bobbed with each stride, casting a comforting glow around him. An owl called once, then fell silent. Somewhere ahead, water gurgled faintly, bubbling like hidden laughter.

SNAP!

A twig cracked to his right. Bjorn spun, the lantern’s glow swept across trunks and branches, chasing shadows that darted away.

“Just a twig,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “Definitely not a ghost…”

He stepped over a fallen log and ducked beneath a curtain of vines. Their leaves brushed against his hair like curious fingers, and a spiderweb clung to his boot until he kicked it free. Up ahead, a cluster of green mushrooms glowed just enough to stop him in place. He crouched and poked one with a stick. The cap quivered, bobbing like a jellyfish in water.

When he glanced over his shoulder again, his stomach dropped like a stone. The trail had vanished. Just uneven earth, mossy mounds, and tangled grass dissolving into the darkness. It was as if the woods rearranged themselves while his back was turned. Bjorn pulled the map from the satchel. As he opened the map, the paper crackled and the page flooded with light..

Bjorn froze where he stood. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. The tiny root symbol pulsed once, sending a soft ripple of blue outward, like it wanted him to notice. A glowing line spread from where he was standing, slowly weaving across the map until it touched the ghostroot’s sign.

“Whoa… It’s showing me where to go!” Bjorn exclaimed.

He headed in the direction indicated by the map. His eyes darted between the shining path on the parchment and the shadows ahead. Then, there was a flicker, tucked at the base of a tilted stone ledge.

“There you are,” he shouted. “Finally!”

He crouched, careful not to step on the ghostroot. The glow wound beneath the roots of an ancient tree, weaving through the soil like veins of light. Bjorn lowered the lantern and pulled out a field knife from the satchel; the blade caught a flicker of light from the lantern. As he leaned closer, one of the Ghostroots twitched, jerking back as though it was startled.

“Oh! No, you don’t,” he said.

He lunged, closing his palm gently around the root and slicing cleanly above the soil. The piece writhed once, then settled, glowing steadily in his hand. He quickly grabbed a few more, and when he wrapped the bundle of Ghostroot in cloth, a soft glow seeped through, as though he’d tied up a handful of stars.

Bjorn sank back on his heels. “Not so sneaky now, are you?”

He tucked the cloth carefully into his satchel and cinched it tight. “One down,” he said proudly. “Two to go.”

Unfolding the map, he lifted it close to the lantern. The next mark glimmered softly, and a crooked tree appeared, near the edge of the page.

“Apple bark,” he wondered aloud, sliding the parchment away. “Better be less fussy than the ghostroot.”

He adjusted the satchel at his side, patting it once as if soothing a restless pet. He looked down, and the glow of the Ghostroot faded, sinking back into the soil. The earth stitched itself shut, erasing any trace that it had ever been there. In the quiet that followed, only the faint rustle of the woods remained.

Ahead, the path grew darker as the canopy closed overhead until only thin threads of moonlight slipped through. The warm air felt heavy around Bjorn, carrying a sickly-sweet scent that made him wrinkle his nose. It smelled of rotting apples tangled with smoke, and something sour he couldn’t quite name.

A moth drifted across his face, its wings glowing faintly in the gloom, and he swatted it away with a nervous grunt. Then came a sharp crack in the brush off the trail, making his shoulders tense. He tried to laugh it off, “Just a squirrel. Just… a squirrel.” But the words sounded weak underneath the moon.

With a simple flick of his wrist, the map opened. In the corner, the crooked tree symbol pulsed faintly, ink vines spiraling outward like they were choking the page. Bjorn squinted and looked up. In front of him, the grass was up to his chest and parted into a clearing where a single apple tree stood in the center.

It was taller than any other tree in the forest, yet no apples clung to its limbs. No birds dared to nest in its branches. Its aged bark peeled in curling strips. The tree looked older than any living thing had a right to be, as though it had stood here alone for centuries, abandoned by time.

Bjorn raised the lantern, light shining on the lumpy bark. “So this is it,” he murmured. “The tree that never knew harvest.”

He circled the tree slowly, sinking slightly into the moss, until the light caught on a strip of bark peeling outward. “That’ll do.” He placed the lantern’s handle between his teeth. “Mmf, alright. ‘ere goes nufing.”

Gripping a branch, he hauled himself up with a grunt. Bark flaked beneath his fingers and stuck to his sweaty skin, while his boots scraped noisily against the trunk. The lantern bumped and swayed against his chest, its warm glow swinging wild shadows across the bark. Bjorn clenched the handle between his teeth and huffed a laugh around it, muttering something that came out more like a garbled growl. He heaved again, his muscles straining as he pulled himself higher, the tree creaking softly as if annoyed by the weight.

Yup, climbing an ancient, creepy tree in the dark is totally normal. Bjorn thought.

Bjorn climbed until he found a thick branch and slowly eased his weight onto it. It creaked, but held. He pulled the lantern from his mouth and set it down, its glow spilling long fingers of light across the dark leaves. Then he dug into the satchel and pulled out his knife.

Bracing one hand against the trunk, he pressed the blade to the bark. It was tougher than it looked. The outer layer cracked and flaked like dry skin, crumbling in rough chips. Beneath, the bark turned dense and stringy. A sour smell rushed out, like scorched wood mixed with tart apples.

“Eww,” Bjorn shrieked, wrinkling his nose. “No wonder birds stay away.”

He kept at it, peeling away strips that curled beneath his blade. He carefully folded and tucked each dry piece into the satchel. He scraped off one last curl for good luck, then wiped the knife on his pant leg.

“Alright,” he said, eyeing the soft glow in his bag. “One more to go.”

Bjorn gripped the rough bark and started down, feeling for each foothold as the branches groaned beneath his weight. Step by step, he carefully worked his way lower, trying not to look at the dark ground waiting far below.

Then his foot slipped. The branch cracked beneath him with a sharp snap, and suddenly the ground rushed up to meet him. He tumbled with a startled flail, arms grabbing at empty air as branches and twigs scraped past. 

“Oof!”

He landed flat in a patch of leafy plants. For a split second, he thought he was lucky. Then the plants twitched. Dozens of thistle-heads burst open with a soft puff, filling the air with white seeds that floated like dandelion fluff in slow motion, drifting straight toward his face.

“Wha—pfft! No—ugh!”

Bjorn flailed wildly, swiping at the fluff. It clung everywhere—his cheeks, his eyebrows, even his tongue. He jumped up, brushing himself off, but the tufts clung stubbornly to his sleeves and the straps of the satchel. With a growl, he violently shook the bag.

“I did not ask for a snack!” he spat, coughing out fuzz.

At least the apple bark was safe. And underneath them, the ghostroot pulsed with a faint blue glow, lighting the seeds that now danced lazily on the breeze. 

Bjorn let out a sigh and unfolded the map. The glowing symbols on the map shivered before suddenly flaring bright. The Spring of Echoes, he thought, studying the map.

Bjorn glanced toward the far side of the clearing and followed the winding path as it curled deeper into the thickest part of the forest. Leaves stirred faintly overhead, though no breeze touched the branches. Bjorn slowed, lifting his gaze to the trees. Moss glowed along their roots in faint patches, and tiny white flowers pushed from cracks in the rocks, and as he passed, a few seemed to turn toward the lantern.

He stepped carefully over the roots, holding the lantern in one hand and the map in the other. The trail had nearly disappeared, yet something unseen tugged at him, urging him onward. Then, through the hush of the trees, a voice slipped into the stillness.

“Bjorn…”

The voice was faint, but unmistakable. Bjorn froze and jerked the lantern above his head. “Who’s there?”

No answer came, only the faint trickle of water in the distance. Bjorn followed the sound, the path bending between two towering pillars of mossy stone, jagged and uneven as though time had gnawed at them. Their surfaces glistened with dew, and ivy curled up their sides. Suddenly, Bjorn stopped, every hair on his neck rising.

The Spring of Echoes shimmered just beyond. Smaller than he’d imagined, it rested in a shallow pool of stone. Water spilled from a narrow crack in the rock wall, falling in a soft, musical tinkle that rippled into the pool. A delicate mist floated above the surface, swirling in slow spirals that caught the moonlight, which spilled through a gap in the canopy. The air smelled like rain mixed with crushed mint leaves.

Bjorn crouched at the edge. The water was so clear he could see smooth stones on the bottom, glowing faintly like tiny moons caught beneath the surface. He pulled an empty jar from the satchel and dipped it in.

At first, nothing happened. The surface remained smooth and glassy, so still it felt wrong to touch. Then the spring shivered, and a single ripple spread outward, though Bjorn’s hand hadn’t moved. Above the pool, the mist stirred and curled inward, drifting past him until it surrounded him, making it hard to see.

“…Bjorn…”

Bjorn’s hand shook, though he held the jar steady. “Nope, not listening,” he shot back, refusing to budge.

“…You’ll never be a warrior…”

The ripples climbed the glass as the jar filled. Bjorn’s reflection wavered in the water, then vanished in a splash as he yanked the jar free. “STILL NOT LISTENING!” he yelled.

All at once, the pool stilled, and the whispers sank beneath its surface, leaving only the soft trickle of falling water.

Bjorn brushed his damp hands against his pants, leaving dark streaks on the fabric. “Three for three,” he said, thrusting his fist into the air. “Guess I passed the test.”

As soon as he snapped the jar shut, a sudden breeze swept through the grove. Leaves rustled as the mist peeled back, revealing a narrow path lined with glowing mushrooms and ferns, stretching toward Thorne’s cottage. But before he could move, three shadowy figures stepped onto the trail, their backs to the rising sun. Golden light spilled around them, outlining their bodies in stark silhouette.

“We told you we’d be back.”