Blogtober 2025, Day 16: Invisible

 

Lucy's Path: Chapter Sixteen


They returned at noon, when sunlight could be trusted. The woods looked different by day—ordinary, almost. But as soon as they stepped past the fence, the quiet returned. No birds. No insects. Even their footsteps sounded muffled, as if the air itself was listening.

Tyler led, map in hand, tracing the faint pencil mark that labeled The Listening Oak. When they reached it, the tree loomed taller than they remembered, its bark scored with faint white chalk circles—loops drawn by a child’s hand, uneven and incomplete.

Sarah crouched to touch one. The chalk smeared easily, fresh despite the dew. “Someone’s been here,” she said.

Mark scanned the branches. “Or something.”

A low wind moved through the clearing, whispering a half-tune that might have been a lullaby. It wove through the air like a thread, soft and strange. Tyler tilted his head. “You hear that?”

Sarah nodded slowly. “It’s saying a name.” She frowned. “But not Lucy’s.”

Her necklace—a small silver heart—lifted suddenly, tugged by an invisible hand. She gasped, stumbling back.

Mark grabbed her shoulder. “It’s the wind,” he said, though his voice betrayed doubt.

The lullaby changed key, sinking lower, sadder, almost pleading. The chalk circles began to flake from the bark, drifting upward instead of down.

Tyler whispered, “She’s not the only one buried here.”

And then, faintly, from within the trunk, something knocked—three slow, hollow beats, waiting for an answer.


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