Notebook #01: The Watchers
One for sorrow, two for mirth,
Three for a mark upon the earth.
They sit upon the hollow bough,
Where nothing blooms or branches now.
Notebook #02: The Ring
We counted seven living oaks when we were boys. By autumn, six were petrified. By winter, all were gray and stripped of bark, standing in a perfect, unnatural circle.
We stopped walking through the middle after the third crow took up roost on the eastern branch and called us each by name.
Notebook #03: Black Feathers
A ring of ash, a sky of lead,
A quiet whisper from the dead.
No leaf shall fall, no root shall grow,
Beneath the shadow of the crow.
Notebook #04: The Ritual
The tape recorder click-clacked to a halt in the center of the clearing. "Field Log 09," the voice rasped through static. "The trees haven't moved, but the distance between them is shrinking."