The Offering
The grove came to Julian at dusk, wearing Sabrina's face.
Not the Sabrina he knew—this version was untouched by thorns, her skin smooth as moonlight, her lips the exact shade of blackberry wine from their first summer. She pressed him down into the moss, her fingers deft and warm, her breath sweet with the lie of innocence.
"Stay with me," she murmured, her voice the whisper of willow leaves. "Just say yes, and we'll have forever. No more pain. No more graves. Just us."
For one heartbeat, Julian almost surrendered.
Then he felt it—the roots creeping up his legs, the sap pooling in his mouth.
This wasn't Sabrina.
The real Sabrina was in the nursery, rocking their monstrous child, her eyes hollow with the weight of what they'd created.
Julian wrenched free, his wedding ring searing the grove's illusion to ash.
The Truth in the Bones
Elias Thorne's skeleton hung from the oldest willow, strung up like a marionette, his jaw unhinged in a silent scream. Julian approached, his boots sinking into earth that pulsed like a living thing.
"Show me," he demanded.
The grove obeyed.
Elias' bones rearranged themselves, forming words on the ground:
"The only way out is through the heart."
Then, with a sound like breaking promises, the skeleton collapsed, revealing a single silver knife buried beneath the ribs.
Julian knew that knife.
Sabrina had used it to cut their wedding cake.
Sabrina's Secret
She was waiting for him in the ruins of the chapel, her body swollen with the grove's influence, her fingers twitching with roots. The infant—Grandmother—sucked at her breast, its thorn-teeth drawing sap instead of milk.
"You figured it out," Sabrina said, her voice layered with the grove's hunger.
Julian knelt before her, the knife trembling in his hand.
"It has to be you," he whispered. "You're the heart. You always were."
Sabrina smiled, her lips splitting to reveal the blossoms growing inside her.
"I know," she said.
Then she plunged his hand toward her chest.