The morning after the sealing was strange.
The forest was quiet too quiet. No birds, no rustling leaves, just the sound of frost cracking underfoot as Chizzy and Ezra returned to the village. The fog was gone. In its place, sunlight cut through bare branches, as if the land were exhaling after years of holding its breath.
Yet peace sat heavy on Chizzy's shoulders, not light.
The villagers watched her differently now. Some bowed their heads. Others turned away, frightened of what she had become or what she had done. Whispers trailed her every step "The girl who faced the Hollow Man." "She bled the earth and lived." "She carries the old fire."
Maura met her at the chapel steps. The old woman looked both relieved and older, as though the final thread of her own burden had finally been cut.
"You did what none of us could," Maura said, placing a warm hand on Chizzy's shoulder. "You brought the forest to its knees."
Chizzy shook her head gently. "It's not over. I don't think it ever will be. Not really."
Maura's eyes darkened. "No. But you've changed the balance. And that matters."
Ezra stood by the gate, hands in his pockets, watching her with a softness that hadn't been there before. As she approached him, he offered a tired smile.
"We should burn the altar stone," he said.
Chizzy nodded. "And bury the blade."
Together they returned to her cottage still intact, though it seemed smaller now, as if it, too, had aged overnight. Inside, she retrieved the blade and the lantern. The silver flame still danced inside, untamed, alive.
"We shouldn't let this be forgotten," she murmured. "Even if they want to pretend it never happened."
Ezra tilted his head. "Planning to write it down?"
"Not just write," she said. "Tell it. In pieces. In song or shadow, stories that warn and remember."
Outside, the villagers had begun to gather at the square, drawn by instinct or unspoken call. The young. The old. All those who had lost and remained.
Chizzy stepped up onto the old well's edge and looked out over them. Her voice was quiet, but clear.
"This village nearly forgot the price of silence. My mother tried to protect me by hiding truth in shadows. But we can't heal by forgetting."
Some turned away. But some listened. A girl in the crowd clutched her mother's hand tightly. An old man wiped a tear from his eye.
Ezra joined her at her side, not saying a word. His presence was enough.
As the sun rose higher, casting long golden beams through the square, the villagers stood still not afraid, but uncertain. Ready, perhaps, to remember.
And Chizzy, for the first time in years, felt something stir in her chest that had nothing to do with fear.
Hope.