Chapter 2 – The Forgotten Gate
Elowen sat on the edge of her bed, the blanket still gathered in her lap, as though moving too quickly
might scatter the fragile fragments of the dream. But even as she tried to cling to it, the details began to
slip away — the shape of the meadow, the sound of the boy's voice — fading like chalk in rain.
Only one thing remained solid in her mind: The Gate.
It was a word she hadn't spoken aloud in decades. She wasn't even sure if it had been real, or just a
story the village children whispered to one another during the long, lazy days of summer. Yet she
remembered how those whispers had felt — dangerous, secret, like touching the edge of something
sacred.
She rose slowly, her joints stiff with age, and lit the small oil lamp on her table. The room bloomed with
a dim golden light, chasing back the morning shadows. Her hands, spotted with age and fine tremors,
began to search the shelves above her desk. Old jars, brittle bundles of herbs, and half-forgotten
trinkets cluttered the space. She moved them aside until her fingers brushed the edge of something
wooden.
It was a box — small, with rusted hinges and a faint carving of a bird on the lid. She hadn't opened it in
years. Dust powdered her fingertips as she lifted it down, the hinges protesting with a dry creak. Inside
lay the remnants of a girlhood she had long ago folded away: a faded ribbon the color of summer skies,
a pebble shaped like a heart, the brittle stalk of a flower pressed flat between two scraps of parchment.
And at the very bottom, folded into a neat square, was a piece of yellowed paper.
Her breath caught as she unfolded it. It was a map.
Not a proper one — the lines were uneven, the ink smudged in places — but she recognized her own
handwriting from when she was ten years old. At the center was the outline of the village, drawn like a
child's memory: crooked streets, the church spire leaning too far to the left. Beyond that, she had
sketched the forest, its trees marked by little triangles. And deep within, near the bottom of the page,
she had drawn a star.She traced the star with the tip of her finger.
That was where the Gate had been.
A shiver rippled through her. She could almost hear the forest around her again — the creak of old
branches, the hush of leaves, the scent of moss thick in the air. It was all coming back in pieces now:
the day she had wandered too far from the path, the moment she had found it.
Two great stone pillars, curved toward one another at the top until they nearly touched, forming an
arch. They had been half-buried in ivy and thick with carvings she hadn't been able to read. The air
around them had felt strange — too still, too sharp, as though every sound in the forest had been
swallowed by that space.
She had only dared to stand before it for a few seconds before she ran back to the village. She never
told anyone. Some things were too precious to be shared.
And now the boy from her dream claimed she was "the only one left who remembers."
Elowen folded the map carefully and tucked it into the pocket of her dress. A strange determination
began to grow inside her, blooming slow and steady like embers catching flame.
If the Gate still existed, she would find it.