The radio came first. Not the footsteps. A voice, muffled, watery as if speaking from below: "Delta Two to outpost… location… marking confirmed…" The device buzzed like it had teeth.Then: two. No more. No less.Heavy steps. Metal at a hip. No sneaking. No caution. As if the forest were inventory, with receipts for shadows.
I lay in the moss, under the fallen trunk, belly cold, face full of needles that smelled like old knives. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Quiet. Tongue behind the teeth. I was not there. I was ground.
The first came into the clearing, broad as a door. A scar across the throat, a second at the ear; a third you only heard when he swallowed. He carried the rifle as one carries things that have been worked too much...not tender, not proud. Just correct.
The second was younger. Backpack too big, lamp on the strap, a map that had been wet once. He did not speak. He watched. He moved like someone who knows what it costs to run.
The ravens pretended not to listen. The trees pretended not to be. Fog gathered in hollows and lay like gauze over roots.
"Samuel," said the big one. The word fell into the earth, heavy as wet wood.I wore my mask. I wore my breath. I did not wear that name.
"I swear," he said, voice tight as a strap. "Somewhere here. He was here. He's here. Graypoint doesn't let go."Graypoint. A rope wrapped my diaphragm and pulled slowly. I counted to four. Then to three. Then four again. That's how you talk a rope out of existing.
The boy stepped closer. "Sir?" He said it like someone unsure if "Sir" helps."Mouth closed," the big one said. Habit, not bite.
They moved on. One step. Pause. Listen. One step. Pause. False listening; they expected animals. Not the forest.I let them pass. Not mercy. Order. Whoever wants to learn must first go too far.
They saw the notched mark on the trunk. They saw the deliberately exposed cable. They saw what I wanted them to see. They did not see what I am.
Diesel hung in the air. Old. Tires. Warm rubber. Metal that hated the night.
Rule One: Those who leave make noise. Those who stay make time. I made time. For them.
The path to the old spruce bed lay like a scar in the ground. I set a wire at ankle height where the earth bulged slightly. Not too tight. Not too loose. A sound when it hits, one only floorboards know. Beside it, a false heel print. Under the moss, a scrap of tin from a can: when weight comes, it buzzes briefly. Enough.
They kept a good distance, boy left, big one right. No heroes. No fools. The forest loves rare things. So do I.
They saw the old pit and walked around it, as if names lay beneath. They did. I let them live. Traps are conversations. One must be able to hear when they answer.
At the stump I set the noose: wire, slick with oil so it slides. A bait: an old rag and a metal piece that looked like a radio switch. Human fingers want to touch switches. It is their religion.
The boy came first. Of course. Younger eyes see nearer. Older see farther. Both see wrong when hunger is there. He saw the rag. His hand hesitated. Not enough. The wire snapped. The leg buckled inward, a short, dry "now." No scream, only a guttural gasp.
The big one turned. Quick. Trained. Rifle up. Finger near the trigger. Shoulder hard. Eye steady. Not a fool. A memory with a weapon.
His gaze met mine."Sam..." Half a word. Half a step. That was all it took. The ground answered.
Roots rose. Not brutal. Final. They wrapped around his boots, found the seams between leather and skin; damp cold crawling through the socks. He did not fall. The forest does not let fall. The forest takes.No shot. No curse. Only a breath, too long, too late.
I stepped forward, just enough for the light to find my face beneath the mask. Not the eyes. The line beneath them. Skin white as ash that accepts no warmth."You," he said. Not a question. Memory."No," I said. "I'm what was left."
The boy hung in the wire, the leg at a wrong angle, fingers cramped around the rag that was no longer a rag. He looked at me. He looked at the big one. He knew stories sometimes bleed and sometimes run. He would run if allowed. Run and speak. Run and believe.I let him. Words are traps. They must be set.
"Breathe," the big one told the boy. Not consolation. Instruction.
I knelt by the big one. The roots held him. Tobacco on his skin, old. Rain, new. Metal, eternal. Something I knew lay in his eyes. Not friendship. Work-memory."Graypoint," he said. The word crackled between us as if it wanted to burn and couldn't.
Pressure under my soles, like the ground was a string. I put my fingers on the totem. Wood that was not wood. Threads not of human making. It hummed, small, like an insect trying to remember. The air gained edges.When I lifted the totem, I tasted copper. My left ring finger went numb. A thread pulled behind my eyes. Price.
The radio on his shoulder wheezed: "Delta One, status?...inter…fer…ence…pro…to…col…ligh..." Then static. I turned the knob. A crackle spat a clear word: "lighttowers." Then nothing.
A dry sound lay out in the distance, like a transformer without skin; the hair on my forearms rose. Ozone smelled like metal rain. Towers claim that light is a direction. The world is a wound; light flows out, not up.
The boy tugged at the wire. Wrong. He cut himself. It's always wrong to pull the wire when the wire holds you. Change the ground, not the rope."Stay," I said. He stayed. Instinct.
"Why do you say my old name?" I asked without voice. Lips only."Because you are him," he said. "I saw you. Under the lines. Before the burning. You had a gray cloth mask in your hand. Your fingers were black with soot. Before… the protocol."
The totem hummed. Cold crawled my spine and settled behind my teeth. Father's hand was heavy on my shoulder again, heavy as afternoon.
Rule Three: Names are snares.I showed him the mask. He saw. He nodded. He did not understand."Tell them," I said. "Say: here is one who wears no names. Say: here is one who keeps rules. Say: here is a price."
His gaze went to the boy. Not kind. Not cold. Calculating."He comes with," he said."He goes," I said. "And if he speaks, you hear him. If he runs, you hear him longer."
I yielded the totem a little. A twitch, a vibration down wrist and elbow, deep into the shoulder blade. The forest did not obey. The forest decided. It let go. Not completely. Enough. Blood ran from my nose. The ring finger stayed numb.
The big one stood. Calm. Rifle on his back, but he did not touch it.I freed the wire with the motion Father had shown me: don't pull, twist, press, in that order. The wire gave. The leg remained wrong. Some things are not corrected. You remember them.
"Listen," I said to the boy. "You go. Not fast. Not slow. You go." I pointed to a path that was not a path. "There. Don't look back. Tell them what you saw. Lie a bit, but not too much. Lies that are mostly true are the most dangerous."
He stood, fell, stood, found a balance one cannot keep. He limped away. The ground took his print and set it aside, in case someone needed it.The big one did not watch him long. Things that leave deserve a look. Things that stay...words. Or blood.
"And me?" he asked."You stay a short while," I said. "Then you go too. Not today. Not now. You carry my old name in your mouth. The forest wants to taste it."
We waited. Three breaths. Four. Five. The ravens slid a little further. Two trees rubbed as if agreeing.I cut the last threads. The roots withdrew, slow, unwilling, like dogs who smelled warm meat. You distract them with work. I gave work: I pulled the totem closer to the ground. It hummed deeper. The whine in my left ear eased.
The big one was free. He moved his feet as if they belonged to him only half. I watched. I like watching people sort their own parts."When you go, go quiet," I said. "Not for me. For what lives under the hut. It likes new voices."He didn't understand. He nodded. He left backward, turned, vanished between trunks. He turned his radio off. Finally.
When I was alone, the forest got louder. At the edges of the clearing the air vibrated; it tugged at the molars. Fine fibers under the earth told what they'd seen: words as vibration, images as pressure. I heard it in my knees. In the nape. In the hard spot behind the breastbone.
I took the way back to the hut. Not a straight way. Ways are never straight when they lead somewhere that breathes.The hut stood like things that don't know if they want to stand anymore. One wall bark, the other boards. The door: a drawing in air. Under the floor a memory that won't die.
I set the totem by the stove. It hummed briefly, satisfied like an animal in its place. The flue creaked. Rain began. No one to stay. Someone checking if you're still there.A board gave. A soft groan beneath thought my old name. That is enough. I stepped on the spot. "Sleep," I said. The sound crawled through wood like oil. Below it became still, so still things become when they are awakened again.
I hung the knife on the beam, blunt enough to remind, sharp enough to threaten.I took the boy's pack back from where the forest had kept it. Lamp. Cans. A map. A photo. The girl with the missing tooth. A name on the back, smeared in damp light. Fingers over it. Warm. Not mine. I tucked the photo in the wall crack where the air is different. That way you lose nothing, and still find things too often.
I sat on the floor. Sacrum on cold. Hands on knees. Something in the room was different. Not wrong. Just new. You heard it in the nails: a fine questioning tremor."They come by day," I had said. They'd come at dusk. That's a kind of day. The forest likes such precisions. People do not.
Steps outside. Not the heavy ones. Not the practiced. Small. Hesitant. An animal? No. A thought. The boy? Maybe. Another? Maybe that too. The steps passed. The rain decided to stay. It smelled of electric air.
I rose. I went to the root altar. Today it looked like something grown from a spine. Bark wet. Stone sweating beneath. I sat at the edge, hands on the ground. The rest of the boy lay on my fingers like cool dust. I rubbed them together as if sound could be wiped."More," I said. Not loud. Not quiet. True.The forest didn't answer with words. The ants took another route. That is its nod.
Dusk crept through lids, gray-green. I watched the big one walk backward. I watched the boy limp. I saw the circle on the map, not in the middle. Numbers that could not be right. A drawing like a tower that doesn't finish.Far off something buzzed, deeper than radio and diesel. Like a bare transformer in the rain. Lighttowers are never quiet, even when they pretend. The hum crawled through the ground, found the hut, slid under a floorboard and stayed there as if it had paid.
I stood. The altar stayed what it is: the rib of a remembering forest. I ran my fingers over it. The skin on my knuckles seemed thin, as if its color had changed.On the way back I strung new wires. Not many. Enough. One at chest height for those who think they must duck. One at ground for those who think they've learned. A trap you only see when you look back. Looking back saves nobody. It only explains why you fell.
At the hut I braced the door so the rain would do its theatre elsewhere. I sat on the threshold that wasn't one and watched the forest breathe. One. Two. Three. You forget when you began. That's the point.
Somewhere a branch cracked. Not from pressure. From decision. Night stepped forward. It takes what you lay down. I laid down nothing. It took anyway. That is its right.Beneath me the voice moved again. No syllable. A shape. My old name without ending. I lifted my foot. I left it there. You don't have to step on everything that speaks.
I lifted the totem to my ear. It waited. "Father," I said, without wanting to. Hot dust in the mouth. Copper. The days under lines that hummed though no current promised. He taught me to breathe flat. And to hear what is under hearing. Rules are not for survival. They're so you know who listens when you survive.
Back then men wore helmets. They convinced the earth with boots to be still. "Only temporary," they said. They laughed like their teeth were keys. Father did not laugh. His hand lay heavy as weather on my shoulder.Graypoint did not burn on the same day. Not the wrong one. It burned like something that always wanted to burn, waiting only for someone to ignite it without knowing. We stood on the hill. We saw it. The air made sounds too hot for ears. The lines hummed like laughing. Father said: "Names are snares." He said my name. He pulled it from me, put it in his hand, held it like a bird. "Keep it," he said. "But don't carry it in front of you." I nodded. I understood nothing. Later, too much.
The rain stopped without explaining why. The wind turned as if it had an opinion. Night folded a pocket you can put things into. I put my breath there.The next day's dusk lay behind the trees pretending to be far. It's near. It's nearer when you don't want it.
I stood. I went. Check traps. Read tracks. Test if silence is still silent. Work keeps things in shape.On the shale ridge I found blood. Not much. Dark. Cold. No spray. Drops spaced, someone who'd learned to bite past teeth. A scrap of fabric from the boy's pack. I did not pick it up. The forest does not like you taking its breadcrumbs.On a branch a fresh notch. Not mine. The big one left marks that shouldn't be marks. Timings. Directions. A map without a map. Good.
I returned to the hut not the way I'd come. You don't tell the ground how you think.I put water on. Not real tea. A broth of things pretending to be leaves. It warms the mouth so it doesn't feel foreign.
Again the hum. Closer. No vehicles. No people. Maybe towers. Maybe what lives under the boards trying new words. I laid my hand on the ground. Warm. Breathing. I left it until the pulse under took my rhythm."It's time," I told the boards. "Not for them. For me."
I took knife, mask, totem. I took the map from the boy's pack. The circle was off-center. The numbers would not align. I carved a notch next to it with a nail. Not as correction. As reminder that things seldom lie where they claim.
Outside the hut the forest worked. You heard it in the crows and in the silence between two drops. The field that once was meadow remembered."They come again," I said. "They come different."
I walked the path to the altar, stood on the stone and lifted the totem until it no longer felt mine. It vibrated. It pulled. It licked at the tendons in my arm. It wanted more. I let it.The forest answered in images of pressure: Father under lines. A child with a cloth mask smelling of smoke. Men laughing as if they were right. A tower that will not finish. A light that cuts into the ground. A hand that holds my name. A mouth that lets it go.
I let my arm fall. The totem grew heavy. I attached it to my belt. Hand on the pocket with the photo. No names. At the hut I wrote two sentences into the air:Rule Four: The forest is not on your side. It is on its own. Rule Five: Mercy is another word for order.
I sat on the threshold. I counted the forest's breaths and added mine. You forget when you began. That's the point.
They came at dusk. Two. This time not. The second time there are more. Quieter. With words they do not understand: Graypoint. Protocol. Lighttowers. And my old name passed between them like a knife, not noticing that blades have two edges.
I wear the mask. I wear the knife. I wear the totem. I do not wear the name. Tomorrow I will go to the circle that is not in the middle.