The wind carried the scent of pine and damp earth as Eli stepped out onto the porch before dawn, clutching a mug of black coffee. The trees were still, but his thoughts weren’t. Something about those boot prints wouldn’t leave him alone. They were too clean. Too intentional. Like someone had wanted them to be found.
Inside, Kate had fallen asleep at the table, her head resting on a pile of papers. The ledger lay open, and next to it was an overlay she had sketched during the night—lines, arrows, and what looked like a compass rose emerging from the coded entries. She had circled a spot near a scribbled label: The Listening Tree.
Eli gently touched her shoulder. “Kate. Wake up. I think you found something.”
She blinked and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “I had a dream about it. I think it’s a place Elias used to go. He mentioned it in the journal once—said it was where he went to think without being overheard.”
Eli nodded slowly. “Do you think it’s real?”
“I think it was,” she said. “And if it still exists, it might be where he hid the next part of the trail.”
Later That Morning
They drove an old gravel road that paralleled a ridge line, following the rough map sketched over the topographic survey. After an hour of searching, they found it—a lone, massive oak on a rise above a shallow creek bed. It had a hollow base and limbs that spread wide like open arms. Kate stepped forward and placed her hand against the bark.
“This is it,” she whispered. “The Listening Tree.”
Beneath the tree, hidden under a flat rock, they found a small, rusted tin. Inside: a scrap of parchment with Elias’s handwriting. It read:
“When five marks are found, and truth walks free,
Stand where the hawk dives, near the old dead tree.
The fifth lies not in gold or stone,
But in the one who walks alone.”
Kate read it aloud, and they stood in silence.
Eli looked up. “The fifth mark isn’t a thing. It’s a person.”
No comments:
Post a Comment