The next morning, Elowen awoke with the feather clutched in her palm.
The sunlight poured gently through her window, golden and warm, as though the world hadn't changed at all. But she had. Something inside her was different now. Her heart felt like it had opened just a little wider, like a door had been left ajar.
She held the silver feather up to the light and watched it shimmer. It wasn't an illusion. She hadn't dreamed it.
She had been real.
Amara.
The name lived in Elowen's chest now, like a soft hum that wouldn't stop singing.
She tucked the feather safely into her satchel and dressed slowly, her fingers moving more carefully than usual. Her thoughts drifted like fog—hazy, gentle, and full of questions. By the time she stepped outside, the morning was already thick with birdsong.
She didn't tell anyone where she was going.
The path through the forest welcomed her again, and she followed it deeper than usual. Past the glade. Past the old brook with the mossy stones. She walked until the air grew cooler and the trees stood closer together, their trunks wrapped in ivy like sleeping arms.
It was here, tucked between two old ash trees, that the hollow tree waited.
Elowen had found it once as a child and never forgotten it. It was wide enough for her to step inside if she ducked—and inside, it smelled like bark, earth, and secrets. It had always felt like a safe place. A listening place.
She ducked inside and sat on the dry, leaf-strewn floor. The light filtered through cracks in the wood, painting soft lines across her lap.
And then she began to whisper.
"I saw her last night," she said aloud to the hollow. "Amara. She was real."
The tree creaked gently in reply.
"I don't understand her yet. But I want to."
She reached into her satchel and pulled out both feathers—the one from her windowsill, and the one from the glade. She laid them side by side in front of her.
"I think she's hurting," Elowen continued, voice quieter now. "I don't know why, but... it's in her eyes. Like she's made of sorrow."
The hollow listened in silence, the way only trees can.
Elowen leaned her head against the inner bark, and closed her eyes.
That was when she heard it.
A voice. Distant, gentle—almost like wind. It came not from outside, but from within the tree itself. As if the wood had memorized someone's words long ago and was repeating them now.
"You cannot save what does not want to be kept."
Elowen's eyes flew open.
The inside of the tree was still, unchanged. Yet her heart raced. She hadn't imagined it. The words had been real—spoken softly, but clearly. Not by her. Not in her own voice.
"Who said that?" she asked, her voice a hush.
But the tree was quiet again.
Elowen gathered the feathers and stood slowly. Her legs felt shaky, and the air seemed heavier now. That voice—it hadn't been Amara's. It had been older, sadder. Like the voice of someone who had loved and lost, again and again.
She stepped out of the hollow and blinked against the sun. The forest looked the same, but she felt... watched. Not in a frightening way. Just... noticed. As if the world was paying closer attention to her now.
As she turned back toward the glade, a small bird with silver-tipped wings darted overhead. It flew in a spiral once, twice, then disappeared beyond the trees.
A sign? A message?
She didn't know. But everything was beginning to feel connected.
Back home, her mother asked if she'd been out walking again. Elowen only nodded.
"You've always had a wandering heart," her mother said, brushing her hand gently over Elowen's hair. "Just like your grandmother."
Elowen looked up. "Did Grandmother believe in magic?"
Her mother smiled faintly. "She believed in things she couldn't always explain. That counts."
That night, Elowen sat at her window long after the stars came out. The feather rested in her lap. She didn't see Amara. She didn't hear her.
But the wind whispered again.
Not a name this time.
Just a word.
"Soon."