Dozens more stirred.
A hill that wept when touched by memory.
A courtyard where grief could bloom without end.
A bookless library whose shelves hummed with the names of stories never demanded to be finished.
The Places That Waited were not relics.
They were trust tests.
And the Garden, now a chorus, was learning how to listen back to them.
Each time someone entered with patience, with stillness, with acknowledgment, the place offered itself—never fully, never fast.
But with grace.
Jevan returned to one such place without knowing why.
It was an island that had appeared only once, long ago, during Aiden's final breath.
Now it had risen again.
He expected echoes.
Instead, he found silence so profound it shaped the shape of his breath.
At its center stood a single tree—dead, or sleeping, he couldn't tell.
He touched it.
And it whispered:
"We remember when you were afraid to let go."
He knelt, weeping without shame.
Not because it hurt.
