Blogtober 2025, Day 30: Catalyst

 

Lucy's Path: Chapter Thirty


The ground shuddered as the oak’s hollow yawned wider, breathing air that smelled of rain and old graves. Ribbons and roots whipped through the clearing, each pulse of the forest syncing to the panicked beat of their hearts.

Sarah braced herself against the trembling earth. “You said we could take the names back,” she shouted to Emily. “How?”

Emily stared at the dying amulet, its light sputtering like a candle in wind. “We speak them,” she said. “All of them. Together.”

Mark looked around the clearing—at the ribbons turned to ash, the withered offerings, the faces flickering faintly in the bark. “Then say them. Say every one you can.”

The three of them began to chant—Lucy Hargrove, Eleanor Price, Mrs. Adeline, Tyler, Emily—each name another spark against the dark. The oak convulsed, the Lady’s scream rising with the storm around them.

“She’s fighting it!” Emily cried. “We need something stronger—something to break the bond!”

Sarah tore the amulet from Emily’s neck. Its crack split wide, light spilling out like molten glass. “This started it,” she said, voice steady. “Let it be the catalyst to end it.”

She hurled it into the hollow.

A blinding flash swallowed the clearing. When it cleared, the forest was still—no whisper, no hum, only the rustle of ordinary leaves.

They stood together beneath a sky just beginning to pale.

For the first time in years, Pleasant Hollow was quiet. And the woods, at last, were listening.

 


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