The Wild Willowdale Forest

The forest begins where the willows’ reach ends, and at its edge it looks the part of ordinary woodland. Morning fog settles in the meadows. A stream cuts through fern-thick banks, clear over smooth stones. Elunari from the village walk in daily for timber and herbs, for the berries that ripen along the field margins in late summer.

The change is gradual, which is part of what makes it difficult to name. Trees lean at angles that do not match the wind. An oak deeper in sheds crimson leaves across every season, its bark weeping black resin that never dries. The marsh at the forest’s center smells of rot in the way marshes can, but the shadows along its edge flicker in ways that marshes do not.

The Galadwen call this condition “the wood losing its argument,” meaning the slow withdrawal of whatever equilibrium the willows had maintained. The Elunari are less clinical. They learn to recognize the signs in returning travelers: sitting too close to the fire in warm weather, hair gone white at the temples on faces still young. They go in anyway. Necessity and caution have always kept uneasy company among the Elunari.