Ghosts exist in everyone – and everything – if only a person knows how to see them, sense them, to obey. Our blood is ancient, each cell passed down from generations before with knowledge that we can’t describe. There are times when those poltergeists pilot our bodies and we’re only passengers. Every connection we create to these ghosts keeps them alive – repairing old temples, drinking stories written by those in the past, and conserving what they created allows their spirits to linger.

Sometimes, though … the ghosts require more. Their wandering minds and shrill voices require bodies to inhabit so they can live again and lead us forward in the best way to salvage the good in the world and properly build without injury or risk.

My new life has been constructed around finding whispered commands in wind and obeying my fuzzy dreams to those humans that are meant to be a host.

Though the haze of smoke and sunset sends ripples of doubt through the air – doubt that’s a distraction and leads plenty to become the new foundations for ruins being rebuilt.

“Diona,” Rose calls, shattering the silence of the library ruins. “We have tourists.”

I slowly crawl from our forbidden, preserved section of the Arcane library, wrapped in the voices of the past, dressed in spiderwebs and vines. I may look human, as pretty as an orchid, but inside me, there are only thorns and worms, always crawling deeper, making themselves more at home within me. I am only a vessel for nature and those that once guarded this land – not that the tourists need to know.

Once I was a fake person like them and the trees made me real.

“Oh!” A tourist gasps when they see me. Her eyes widen. Her black clothes say she belongs in the core. She stares at me for a long time.

A sense of familiarity washes over me, but I push it away. She’s just another person following the old thoughts to escape the city where everyone is isolated, alone, even if they share the block with thousands of other people.

They come here to prove they’re more than a machine, to prove they can connect, but they don’t know the meaning, not really … until they see us, The Grove, our perfect family.
“This is Diona. She’ll be introducing you to the Arcane library. Be sure to step where she step and touch nothing,” Rose insists, her beet-dyed hair a lovely pale pink.

She fists her hand by the side of her white robe. I see the bag there. Seeds that will take root in the tourists who want more than cities and want to serve a higher will than progress for progress’s sake.

Some call them drugs, we call them roots and roots … they always spread until they curl fingers and toes and lock you into Veilward, until they bloom inside your mind so you can’t resist the call to the old ways, where people cherish each other and the nature that lets us flourish.

I motion into the first floor of the library rather than the basement I’ve come from. They haven’t earned the right to go below. Tourists crave the touch of sunlight and I can show the artifacts we’ve pulled from the earth while Rose explains.

Our elders don’t trust me to speak, not yet. They know my mind is chaotic, filled with hazy almost memories of the past that war with the truth I’ve learned while here.

“And these books are our most prized,” Rose lies while giving a man a flirtatious look. “They give us the knowledge that was had here before, the knowledge to rebuild sustainably, to live sustainable, connected, fulfilling lives.”

A different man snorts and Rose and I both look over for a moment. His fingers are on a book. He’s marked himself. Just like the girl stroking a sigil carved in stone while watching me.
The man falls silent, then clears his throat.

Rose smiles. “I know that seems odd in Danger City. But there are still people who believe that we owe something to one another, that we can share our lives, our resources … ourselves.” Rose wraps her arms around me and kisses my cheek. “Remember the goal, Diona. Two have already been selected by the curiosity. Follow through.”

Following through means getting them to take the seed, to swallow, to accept that they are no longer only themselves.

a part of it and if we don’t expand, we’ll die.

That falls on my shoulders, my very tired shoulders that aren’t entirely sure they can carry the weight of ghosts and our family.

“Trust your tongue to the spirits and bring the girl in deeper. I know how to take care of the men,” Rose says in my ear before gently kissing my cheek. Her hand slips over my scarred back. “Welcome your thorns, welcome the will of the old, welcome the root.”

“Welcome the root,” I answer softly.

“That’s right. Tourists made of glass and steel – we know how to fix that,” Rose says softly.
Her voice is the dry whisper of wind through bare trees, the barks scraping against one another and promising a haunting no one will forget.

“Help! Help me!” The faint cry in the distance has to be ignored.

But the girl jumps a little and takes a step closer to me. If she only knew the trap she was willingly trusting – a trap well disguised in my red hair and dirt with a false promise of softness. As if my teeth aren’t sharp, as if I’m not a tool to ensnare.

“Just a mocking bird,” Rose ensures.

“Why doesn’t she talk?” the man who’s more interested in sex appeal than history asks.
“Oh, she’s mostly mute. But if you touch her just right, she moans,” Rose giggles. “You three … you’re very special. We can tell that you’re interested in more than the usual tour.”

“Well we didn’t come all the way from the Core to see the basics when we know there’s more to Veilward. People whisper about plenty,” he says.

The other two nod, but something feels wrong. I feel it in my bones – one of them is an imposter, a poison more potent than hemlock. I tap twice on Rose’s hand to inform we have a wolf among our sheep.

Rose just grins, her smile stretching across her face until it looks less than kind. “Well, let’s stop, have some water, and Diona and I will show you everything you’ve been curious about … everything the Core denies you.”

We sit near a stream, surrounded by willow trees and flowers that are little too beautiful, a little too toxic. Not that the three tourists know. They haven’t seen a real flower their whole lives. We make sure to keep real plants within our grasp so they become a luxury. Limit supply and demand sores – what’s ours is theirs … for the right price.

And we don’t deal in money.

Real flowers breed desire for more. They perfume the air with greed for grass, open skies, and the memories of what once was.

Everything is a bear trap if you know how to hide the teeth.
Rose slips the seeds into the water bottles along with a few petals of the ceremonial flower we use. Our guests don’t think twice about it. We’ve all learned that if you treat it as normal, people tend to accept rather than question … the people who come here anyway. The artist types, those from the Core that want to experience the new. We select our initiates carefully. Never from the Fringe. They ask too many questions, fight too hard … drag up questions we ignore.

But Rose never questions The Grove.

Be more like Rose. Give yourself over to the ghosts and thorns, live up to your name, I tell myself even as my own water brushes against my lips, not satiating my thirst. I’m supposed to let it, but instead, I allow the water to trickle over the side of my face where Rose can’t see. I want to believe I don’t need hallucinogens or drugs to be in the family anymore.
I’m barely more than the three initiates in front of us.

The girl drinks deeply, gulping the water down as she sighs. The seed, the petals, all of it flow down her throat to rot in her stomach, to spread branches to her brain. They’ll clog the parts of her mind that she has always considered her. They’ll turn her into us.

All of them drink until Rose beams.

“We have a special experience for you three … if you’re interested, if you think you can handle it,” she says as she stands. “Plenty from the Core can’t. I understand if you’d rather leave,” she hums.

The words condemn them. Already I see the willow’s long branches moving, swaying across the backs of the newcomers, stroking them … tasting.

The trees are alive here, fed diligently, but never sated. They want feet that move, eyes that allow them to hunt. Ghosts can only inhabit empty shells after all.

“Please, we can handle folklore and singing,” the skeptical man snorts.

“What’s the experience?” The guy asks.

“Oh, you’ll love it. It’s a celebration for the new moon. Since the moon covers up, we all strip down to convince her to join us again,” Rose says, licking her lips. “She has to be convinced to open to us, to bless us with her full self, so it takes plenty of seduction.”

His cheeks heat.

The girl nods eagerly.

Another ‘yes’. They drank the water, accepted the seed, and now accept us.

I close my eyes a moment. Once I was naïve as they were about Veilward, but I should have known better. Even the pretty parts of Danger City pulse with threats. Sentencing these three to the same fate I’m living, makes me … uncomfortable for some reason, even though this is everything I want.

Still, they stand and happily follow Rose as I take up the rear.

The girl looks at me and giggles – proof the flower is taking effect. They’ll be easier to sway, more open to suggestion, which means their bodies won’t be their own for long. It’s something I’m supposed to celebrate.

We are nature, belong to the trees and grass, are fed by the streams and the earth, so it is a privilege to be able to give back, yet … yet I remember what I was like before the root took hold of me, making me a servant of Veilward. I didn’t die, my body is eligible for cohabitation with plants and ghosts, but I used to be my own.

Had a different name, different goals … maybe.

The girl’s different. Watch her, another whisper in my head croons, breaking my train of thought as if there are still some glass pieces within me.

When we reach the bonfire – contained to ensure that the fire doesn’t spread the same way our ideas do – Rose has the three new recruits sit near us. The calmer they feel, the better.

Rose kisses both of the men’s forehead and I kiss the woman’s. It is the seal of a promise unheard of in the Core, that we will take care of them even if they do nothing beyond what is asked of them. There is no conditional here. After they submit to the woods, to the ghosts harbored in every tree, they are one of us and will be uplifted, helped, held to our standards, and nurtured. We are nature and nature gives sharp lessons and gentle support so we all grow taller, stronger, and can revel in our shared evolution.

As plenty of naked men and women dance around the fire, always getting closer and closer to one another, they slowly turn to the new initiates (five today) and to other celebrated members. Eventually all the initiates are up and dancing, steadily stripping from their clothing.

I watch the fire rather than the bodies.

We’re told that fire is a threat, but it’s a direct threat, the kind that warns you to stay away, the kind I can respect and appreciate. As the flames lick the night sky, sending love to the stars with gray smoke, I fight the urge to kiss the burning air, to welcome the embers across my skin to sizzle and startle the roots within me.

All things should be kept in moderation and perhaps a controlled burn would do me well. Just touching the fire, letting it nip at my fingertips might help my own sanity, my true self take control.

“You did well, Diona. The seeds will take root and we will continue to serve and seduce the forest. We will reclaim Danger City and revive the ghosts of our better selves with every person we bring in,” an elder says as they kiss the top of my head and slowly unwind the thorny vines from around me.

I inhale more easily, tasting the air, tanged with the iron of my blood.

Proof I am still metal. I am more than bark and leaves. I am more than dirt.
Something is pressed against my lips and I open my mouth. Denying it will only make more problems for me and since the fire is here, warming my face, filling me with smoke and ash, I can handle whatever is shoved over my tongue. I push it into my cheek, pretend to swallow and the elder moves on.

The world starts elongating around me, the fire spreading, ghosts dancing among our people, naked, but sentient, opaque, but more real. Their pained expressions don’t match the smiles and music around us.

My throat tightens, trapping the scream of my other self as a ghost approaches me. It screams. “Help me! Help her! Free us! Free us! Fire! Fire!”

Fire.

My eyes widen and I slowly open my mouth, forcing whatever was shoved in, out.

“We feed the forest, we sustain the trees, we are one,” Rose starts chanting as we lead the initiates to the dense tree line.

We all get up to follow, but I walk in, telling myself that the others will reaffirm that I believe, that I wish to welcome a full spirit, and eager one.

My mind slips between here and gone, slipping again and again. I don’t remember grabbing the girl.

I don’t remember learning her name is Lorelai. I don’t remember pulling her away from the group.

She moans as I press her into moss behind a fallen tree. I put my hand over her mouth, but her fingers rub over my arms, like she’s trying to get my attention. She wears only her undergarments.

“Do not feed the trees,” I rasp as I look down at her. “They never give you back. They never …”
She blinks at me. “Remember me. You’re supposed to remember -”

“Help me!” The man’s voice echoes, then another and another.

The screams pierce the night like needles in my ears. I’ve heard them too many times. It could be a recording if it wasn’t so desperate. The girl under me struggles, but I press harder on her mouth as her eyes widen.

“Library,” I insist.

She doesn’t respond. I keep my hand over her mouth until she goes limp, then I drag her through the woods as the trees try to grab at us with their long branches. They can taste my blood, can tell me I’m not using my teeth the right way, that I am not trapping and feeding like I’m supposed to.

But blood in earth is a mud no one should touch and this woman didn’t consent.
“It’s fine. My test. My choice. Fine,” I repeat to the trees every time their leaves and probing fingers try to take a pound of my flesh.

I’m supposed to serve them, supposed to feed them like a proper caretaker, but when roots trip me, when their spindly claws tear at me, it only proves my family - The Grove - has it wrong. The trees are the masters and we are their servants. The elders don’t understand.

I get the girl to the library as screams echo – the singing of the trees. She tries to run back into the forest. She screams about me, saying I’m wrong, something’s wrong with me.

I snarl low in my throat.

She isn’t her. She’s an elder, a ghost, wrong, but I’ll fix it.

Something moves through my body, swaying in me. She’s going to burn the woods. I see the book in her hand, see her panic. She said no which means the trees can’t take her … not yet.

Serve us. Feed us. Her anger tastes good, the grass sings to me.

I catch her before she can run. She’s not supposed to run. She took the seeds. She did say yes. I see it in her eyes.

“Julie, please,” she whispers. “Remember who you are, my sister. Mine.” The girl who’s horrified, pale … wrong … her face is gaunt, eyes too empty, mouth too big.

“You’re trying to trick me. It’s a test,” I hiss.

She shakes her head. “No, no. You … you saved me. And I’ll save you, I promise. I’ll take you home.”

She shoves something into my mouth and rolls on top of me until I swallow. My stomach lurches.

Turning, I vomit. My vomit glows like neon, but I see the roots crawling away, skittering, screaming. I throw up again and again, my body heaving until I taste metal. My eyes water and I fight the urge to shove the roots back into me, where they belong.

“What’s … what’s wrong with you,” the girl demands as I push myself up and turn on her.

“Trees … eat,” I answer as I hold her down. I grope for the herb I know will fix her. It will undo the hallucinogens they give us. I’ll save her the right way. “Take it!”

Once she stops squirming and fighting me, stops pushing at my hands and swallows … once she accepts our medicine, I relax.

My fingers spread into the dirt, spreading deeper, touching the other roots. The trees in me want help, they want to rip through my skin, to claim my veins and bones so they can walk and continue feeding on others.

Why is the earth taking me? I don’t want to be a tree! I’m a person. I’m a host. I’ve been good! I whine and try to pull my hands back, try to get away until I’m stopped by soft, warm hands on my face, as warm as the fire was earlier.

“It’s just a bad trip, Diona,” Rose purrs in my ear. “Just a bad trip. Relax.”

The girl I saved isn’t there. Not really. She’s limp, eyes wide and reflecting the stars. There’s dirt smeared on her face, sticks and grass protruding from her bloody lips. I didn’t do that. I didn’t. I saved her. I pulled her from the forest, I gave her medicine! Why is she ….. She’s so familiar … Lorelai … I knew a Lorelai before I came here. Pretty. I’d braided her hair. She’d told me not to come here, to make myself happy in the Core … she was wrong. The core will never be happy.

My eyes burn as everything blurs.

I look up at Rose. “I saved her.”

“Yes,” Rose promises, stroking my cheek. “You saved her and your voice. Doesn’t it feel good to speak?”

My whole body wavers, but the sun will come up and I’ll be human again.
The sun is a fire that burns away the wrong, burns away the lies. Rose lifts my chin. “You’re a good girl, so loved by the trees.”

I don’t understand. Everything was chaos, running, blood, food … but when I look to see the forest, all I find is a smiling crowd of people in white robes. Rose takes my chin and makes me look at her.

“You passed your test. You’re one of us,” she promises. “You belong to the trees.”