Chapter 10
Echoes of the Past
Old Man Hemlock shares fragmented lore about the dark force, hinting at a history intertwined with the town and Lyra's lineage, a warning.
The air in Old Man Hemlock’s cabin hung thick with the scent of dried herbs and something older, something like damp earth and forgotten graves. Lara sat on a stool carved from a single, gnarled oak branch, her knees pulled up to her chest, trying to decipher the tapestry of shadows dancing on the rough-hewn walls. Hemlock, his face a roadmap of wrinkles etched by sun and secrets, stirred a bubbling pot on the hearth with a bone-handled spoon. The liquid within shimmered with an unsettling, almost oily luminescence.
“You feel it, don’t you, child?” Hemlock’s voice was a low rumble, like stones shifting in a riverbed. “The unease. It’s not just the wind whistling through the hollers. It’s a hunger.”
Lara nodded, a shiver tracing its way down her spine. She’d felt it too, a prickling sensation at the nape of her neck, a tightening in her chest whenever the shadows seemed to deepen a little too quickly at the edge of the woods. It was a feeling that echoed the wild thrum of her own magic, a resonance that both frightened and fascinated her.
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