Marlen didn't sleep that night. He lay on the straw-stuffed mat in his loft, the iron key clenched so tightly in his fist that its teeth bit into his palm.
He had tried tossing it aside—twice—but every time, the house seemed colder without it. As if something was waiting just beyond the door, listening.
By morning, his palm bore the imprint of the key's strange ridges, like symbols he couldn't read. He rubbed at them, but they didn't fade. Worse still, he could *feel* them—like old words etched not into skin, but into thought.
He descended the ladder slowly. The fire in the hearth had long gone out, leaving the cottage in a dull gray hush. His father would already be in the fields, and his sister was likely still asleep.
Good. He didn't want them to see what he was about to do.
Marlen tucked the key into the small pouch his mother had sewn onto his belt the year before she vanished. Then, with one last glance at the window—where the ash tree loomed like a watchman—he stepped outside.
The village hadn't changed since yesterday, but something in the air had. It was heavier. Like the space between things had thickened. The sound of his boots on the dirt path seemed too loud, as though the wind refused to carry it.
The ash tree waited at the center of the square. The bird was gone.
So was the copper symbol.
Marlen's breath caught. Either someone had removed them—or something had.
He turned, instinct tugging him eastward, toward the old orchard, long abandoned since the Burned Season. Beyond it lay the crumbling remnants of the library, swallowed by ivy and silence.
He didn't know why his feet moved that way, only that the key in his pouch grew warmer with each step.
By the time he reached the broken stone arch of the library gates, the wind had stilled entirely. He passed under the arch and stopped. Before him, half-buried beneath fallen leaves and shards of roof tile, was a circular indentation in the ground—a *lock,* carved into the earth itself.
Ancient. Worn. Waiting.
His heart pounded.
Marlen knelt slowly, fingers trembling as he pulled the key from the pouch. It thrummed like a heartbeat in his hand.
Without thinking, he slid it into the slot.
The ground *breathed.*
Then came the sound—metal turning deep beneath the soil, like the opening of a vault sealed for centuries.
A door yawned open in the ground before him, revealing a narrow stairway descending into darkness.
A voice echoed up from below. Familiar. Soft. Terrible.
"Marlen," it whispered. "We remember you."