The village awoke to a sound the earth had not made in centuries.
It was not thunder. It was not wind. It was something older—a turning.
At first, it came as a tremble beneath the children's dreams, a vibration that hummed in the belly and teeth. Then it became visible: roots, thick as arms, dark as ink, erupted from the center of the village square. They did not rise like plants. They spiraled, coiling outward with purpose—as if writing a symbol only the soil could understand.
The villagers ran.
Some screamed.
Others prayed.
But the girl—still unnamed, still barefoot—stood unmoving beneath the willow where she'd dreamed her first river.
She felt it.
Not the fear.
The invitation.
The spiral of roots was not chaos. It was language. Not the kind spoken through mouths, but through movement. Through recurrence. Through ache.
She stepped forward, and the roots shivered.
They parted for her.
