The morning sun did little to warm the clearing where the scorched oak stood, its blackened branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. Vinny flexed his marked hand, the key-shaped scar pulsing in time with his heartbeat as he studied the tree's blistered bark. Though the silver flames had died out hours ago, the air still carried their metallic aftertaste - like licking the terminals of a car battery. Every breath made his tongue tingle.
Daniel sat propped against a moss-covered log about twenty feet from the tree, his breathing steadier now but his eyes distant and glassy. Deborah hadn't left his side since Vinny had purged the roots from his body, her fingers constantly checking his pulse as if expecting the corruption to come crawling back at any moment. The morning light caught the tear tracks drying on her cheeks, turning them to faint silver lines that mirrored the mark on Vinny's palm.
"You're absolutely sure it's still alive?" Deborah asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She kept one hand on Daniel's shoulder while the other picked nervously at a loose thread on her torn sweater.
Vinny didn't answer immediately. He didn't need to. The proof was in the way his mark tingled whenever he stepped within ten feet of the trunk, the scar reacting like a compass needle drawn to magnetic north. Tiny arcs of silver light danced across his skin whenever the wind changed direction, as if the tree itself was breathing.
Silas kicked at a charred root protruding from the ground, sending up a puff of ash that smelled disturbingly like burnt hair. "Fire didn't kill it," he grunted, wiping his boot on a patch of dead grass. "Just pissed it off proper." He spat a glob of phlegm onto the ashen ground, where it sizzled faintly before being absorbed into the soil. "Should've known better. You can't burn a doorway shut - just lock it temporarily."
Lena crouched near the tree's base, her silver-tinged eyes narrowed to slits as she studied the patterns in the bark. Without warning, she pressed her palm flat against the blackened surface, then jerked back with a hiss, shaking her hand like she'd touched a hot stove. "It's sleeping," she muttered, sucking on her scorched fingertips. "But not deeply."
A sudden gust of wind sent dead leaves skittering across the clearing like frightened rodents. Vinny's mark flared in response, the sudden surge of heat so intense he gasped aloud. His vision whited out for a heartbeat, replaced by a series of flashing images -
_A vast cavern of writhing roots pulsing with sickly light. The Lady seated on a grotesque throne woven from thorns and bone. Her bark-covered fingers plaiting something from silver-marked vines, her lipless mouth moving in silent incantation._
The vision vanished as abruptly as it came, leaving Vinny swaying on his feet with blood trickling from his nose. He barely registered Deborah rushing to his side, her hands steadying him by the elbows as his knees threatened to buckle.
"What happened?" she demanded, her fingers brushing the blood from his upper lip. Her touch sent an entirely different kind of spark through him, one that had nothing to do with the mark's power.
"The Lady," Vinny ground out, swallowing against the copper taste in his mouth. "She's making something. A crown, I think."
Across the clearing, Silas went preternaturally still. "Not a crown," he corrected, his voice gone dangerously soft. "A *claim*." He stalked over in three long strides, his golden eye blazing in the morning light. "She's trying to bind the mark's power to herself permanently. If she succeeds—"
"She won't."
Daniel's voice was hoarse but firm. He pushed himself upright using the log for support, wincing as his muscles protested. All eyes turned to him as he stood trembling but resolute, his gaze locked onto Vinny's. "I saw things while... while I was in there," he continued, one hand absently rubbing at his chest where the roots had burst forth. "The roots don't just take memories. They *show* them too." His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "She's afraid of you."
A bitter laugh escaped Lena. "Funny way of showing it."
"No, he's right." Silas rubbed at his scarred eye with the heel of his palm. "That mark you're wearing? It's older than the tree. Older than the Lady herself. She's just been borrowing its power all these years like a thief squatting in someone else's house."
Vinny's head throbbed in time with his pulse. "Then where did it originally come from?"
The answer came from an entirely unexpected source.
"My journals would explain it better."
The voice - familiar and yet not, after so many months apart - sent Vinny spinning around so fast he nearly knocked Deborah over. A woman stood at the edge of the clearing, her hiking boots silent on the fallen leaves. Mid-forties, with sharp green eyes and dark hair streaked with silver, she wore a leather jacket that had seen better days and carried a backpack that looked heavy enough to contain bricks.
Vinny's breath caught in his throat. "Mom?"
Eleanor Calloway didn't smile. Her gaze swept over the group, lingering on Daniel's pallid face and Lena's silvered eyes before settling on Vinny's marked hand. "We need to talk," she said, adjusting the straps of her pack. "All of you. And we can't do it here."
She turned without waiting for a response, heading back the way she'd come with the surefootedness of someone who knew these woods intimately. After a beat of stunned silence, Silas shrugged and followed, leaving the rest of them little choice but to trail after.
The walk to Vinny's childhood home took nearly an hour, though it felt longer with the weight of unspoken questions hanging over them. Deborah helped Daniel along, his steps still unsteady, while Lena brought up the rear, her head constantly swiveling as if expecting an ambush. Vinny kept his marked hand tucked in his pocket, both to hide its faint glow and because the scar burned hotter the further they got from the tree, as if protesting the distance.
When the familiar blue siding of his house finally came into view through the trees, Vinny stopped dead. The cozy home he remembered was gone, replaced by something out of a conspiracy theorist's nightmare. The walls were nearly obscured by layers of newspaper clippings, photographs, and hand-drawn symbols that formed intricate patterns across the siding. The front porch sagged under the weight of too many storage bins, and what looked like a makeshift antenna had been rigged to the chimney.
His mother moved through the chaos with practiced ease, unlocking the door and ushering them inside. The interior was worse. The furniture had been pushed against the walls to make room for a massive scale model of the school grounds dominating the living room floor, complete with tiny red pins marking every disappearance dating back fifty years. Strings connected some pins to others, forming a spiderweb of possible patterns.
Vinny opened his mouth to demand explanations, but his mother was already in the kitchen, filling a coffee maker with water from a plastic jug. "I hoped you'd never have to see any of this," she said without turning around, her voice carefully neutral.
Silas snorted from his perch on the armrest of the couch, which was the only piece of furniture not covered in papers. "Told you we should've trained him."
"And look how well that worked out for Daniel." Eleanor's voice turned brittle as she measured coffee grounds with military precision. She nodded at Deborah's cousin, who sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, his hands clasped between his knees. "No offense."
Daniel just shook his head, his eyes fixed on the model school.
Lena prowled the living room like a caged panther, examining the clippings with a critical eye. "You've been tracking the tree," she observed, tracing a finger along a newspaper headline about a missing hiker from 1998.
"Tracking, studying, trying to kill it." Eleanor emerged from the kitchen with a tray of mismatched mugs, the coffee smelling strong enough to strip paint. She handed the first cup to Vinny, her fingers brushing his marked hand briefly before withdrawing. "The Calloways have been at this for generations. We're the keepers of the bridge."
Vinny's mark pulsed in time with his quickening heartbeat. "What bridge?"
"The first one." His mother set down the tray and reached into her jacket, pulling out a yellowed photograph protected by a plastic sleeve. She handed it to Vinny with the care one might use to handle live explosives.
The photo showed a massive stone archway covered in carvings that matched the symbols now burning on Vinny's palm. Moss and vines partially obscured the markings, but their similarity was undeniable. More disturbing was the dark stain spreading across the arch's base - something that looked suspiciously like old blood.
"This stood where the oak is now," Eleanor explained, taking the photo back when Vinny's hands began to shake. "Built by something far older than the Lady. Something that *made* the marks."
Deborah leaned forward from her spot next to Daniel, her elbows on her knees. "So the Lady isn't the source of the power?"
"No. She's just the current... occupant." Eleanor's fingers traced the photo's edges through the plastic, her touch oddly reverent. "The archway collapsed centuries ago during some conflict my journals don't fully explain. The oak grew from its ruins. And the power?" She looked pointedly at Vinny's hand. "It needed a new vessel."
A chill ran down Vinny's spine as understanding dawned. "The marks."
"Bingo." Silas raised his coffee in a mock toast before downing half of it in one gulp. "Every few generations, the tree picks a new Calloway to wear them. Lets the Lady tap into that sweet, sweet bridge-building mojo without having to actually control it herself."
Daniel stiffened, his fingers digging into his knees hard enough to turn his knuckles white. "But why take people? Why the disappearances?"
Eleanor's expression darkened as she took a long sip of her own coffee. When she lowered the mug, her lips left a blood-red imprint on the rim from where she'd bitten them. "Because the bridge goes two ways, Daniel. For every memory she steals, she gives something back." She met Vinny's eyes across the cluttered living room. "She's been trading lives for knowledge. Learning how to claim the marks for herself."
The pieces clicked together with horrible clarity. The crown in Vinny's vision wasn't just a symbol - it was a weapon in the making. If the Lady succeeded in binding the mark's power to herself permanently...
Lena's sharp inhale from the window cut through the heavy silence. She stood frozen, her silvered eyes wide and unblinking as she stared out at the backyard. "We have company," she whispered, the words barely audible.
Vinny didn't need to ask who. The sudden, vicious ache in his mark answered for him.
Outside, the wind carried the faintest whisper of rustling leaves.
And beneath it, barely audible, came laughter.