Dover Hill Ridge – Next Morning
The frost was already melting when we returned to the clearing.
The air was still, but not quiet.
Birds weren’t singing.
Even the wind, which usually hummed through the pines, seemed to pause at
the edge of the ridge.
Kate and I followed an old deer trail deeper into the woods behind the
split oak, using a scanned copy of an 1819 land survey map Preacher Tom had
given us. It showed something—barely—a ring of mounds nestled into a crescent
of limestone outcrops about a half mile south of the oak.
“It was labeled as ‘field irregularities’ on the old map,” Kate said,
holding the tablet, “but Preacher Tom thinks it was a ceremonial site.
He said most of them were destroyed by farming in the early 1900s.”
We crested a rise—and stopped.
Below us was a shallow depression in the earth. Nothing dramatic. Just a circle
of low rises, now overgrown with grass and spindly cedar trees. But the
shape was unmistakable: intentional. Deliberate.
We stood there for a moment, staring down.
Then the ground beneath us shifted—not with movement, but with
meaning.
I could feel it in my bones.
Kate walked into the center of the ring and turned slowly. “Ray was
trying to tell us that this box... this object... wasn’t buried to be found. It
was returned to where it came from.”
I stepped beside her.
The box in my backpack grew heavier. The air around us felt denser.
We knelt, clearing moss from one of the mounds. Beneath it, half-buried
in roots and limestone chips, we found a smooth, flat stone—different
from the local geology. It had been placed there. Set.
Carved into it was a now-familiar symbol: the triangle with three dots.
But this time, the triangle was upside down.
A warning?
Kate whispered, “This isn’t just a cipher. It’s a seal.”
Then I heard it.
A branch cracking.
Not from us.
From above the ridge.
I turned—but saw no one.
Still, I knew.
We weren’t alone.
And whatever we had uncovered—whatever we were about to disturb—was
no longer just ours to decide.
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