Some of the oldest stories were told about the forest, but the ones that lingered longest in Asoka's mind were never the grand or heroic ones. They were small stories, oddly specific, passed down in pieces and told differently each time, depending on who remembered them and how much courage they had left that evening.
As a child, she had believed the forest was listening.
It was said that the trees were older than the settlement itself, older even than the church stones that now claimed authority over the land. The forest, people whispered, had been there first, and it had not forgotten that fact. Those who entered it without purpose were said to lose their way, not because the paths changed, but because the forest decided they did not need to be found.
One tale spoke of stone figures hidden deep among the trees. Statues, carved so long ago that no one remembered who had made them or why. Some claimed they were guardians. Others said they were warnings. The children, naturally, preferred the more frightening version: that the statues whispered at night, speaking in tongues no living person understood.
Asoka remembered an old woman once swearing that she had heard them herself while gathering firewood. She claimed the stones muttered like quarrelling neighbors, bickering endlessly over matters no one else could hear. When asked what they argued about, the woman had shrugged and said, "Everything. Mostly nonsense."
That part had made the children laugh, fear easing just enough to make room for curiosity.
Another story claimed the statues only spoke when ignored. That they disliked being treated as decorations, and would whisper insults at those who passed without offering respect. Asoka had once asked what kind of insults stone could possibly give. The answer had been deeply unsatisfying: "The kind that stays with you."
There were also tales of gods who were not worshipped anymore, not properly. Gods of crossroads, of forgotten paths, of thresholds people crossed without noticing. They were said to be easily offended, but also easily amused. One god, according to rumor, had once cursed a man not with illness or death, but with eternal misplacement—his shoes were never where he left them, his tools always turned up in the wrong room, and his house keys vanished daily, only to be found in his pockets moments later.
The punishment, people said, lasted until the man apologized.
Children found that story hilarious. Adults did not laugh.
Asoka remembered how she had clung to her father on nights when such tales were told. Not crying, exactly, but tense, as if fear might suddenly remember her if she relaxed. He would pull her close, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, steady and warm. His presence had made the world feel smaller, safer, as though no unseen thing would dare cross into that circle of warmth.
Sometimes Elowen would be there too, pressed against Asoka's side, already half-asleep. She had always fallen asleep faster than Asoka, trusting easily, as though the stories had never truly frightened her. Asoka envied that.
Her father never dismissed the stories outright. He did not say they were lies, nor did he encourage belief. Instead, he would say things like, "Stories grow when people need them," or "Some tales are meant to be remembered, not understood." That had been enough to quiet her questions, even if it never quite settled them.
There were funny stories too, though even those carried an edge.
One tale spoke of a river spirit who hated poor manners. Anyone who crossed the river without greeting it properly was said to trip on the far bank, no matter how careful they were. Children took this very seriously, bowing deeply to streams and puddles alike, just in case. Asoka remembered once seeing a grown man trip and spill his basket after crossing the river. No one helped him up until he muttered an apology to the water.
Another favorite was the tale of the wandering bell. Supposedly, a church bell had once walked away on its own, offended by the way it was rung. It was said to roam the forest still, tolling softly when it found something amusing. Whenever distant bells echoed strangely at night, someone would inevitably mutter, "It's back again," and someone else would tell them to stop encouraging it.
Asoka had laughed at that one, even as a child. Bells walking through forests seemed ridiculous. And yet, sometimes, when the wind carried sound too far or too clearly, she found herself listening longer than necessary.
The stories were always told as though they belonged to the past. As though whatever danger or wonder they spoke of had already passed, leaving only echoes behind. The elders rarely addressed them, and the church dismissed them gently, calling them remnants of old fears.
Yet no one ever truly mocked them.
Asoka realized now that this had been the strange part all along. People laughed, yes. They joked. They rolled their eyes. But they remembered. They repeated the stories, even if only to say they were nonsense. They taught them to their children, with warnings disguised as play.
And sometimes, when someone forgot a detail too important to forget, or returned from the forest quieter than before, no one pressed them for explanation.
As an adult, Asoka had stopped thinking about these tales. Work left little room for imagination. Fear had been replaced by fatigue, and comfort by routine. Still, as she lay awake at night, listening to the wind move through the trees beyond her home, fragments returned uninvited.
The whispering stones. The unseen watchers. The gods who noticed small slights.
She wondered when she had stopped seeking comfort in another's arms. When she had learned to quiet herself instead.
The thought brought no sadness, only a mild ache, like pressing on an old bruise.
She told herself, again, that stories were just stories. That the world was shaped by hands and choices, not whispers and unseen things. And yet, there were moments—brief, fleeting—when she felt that the land itself was paying attention, waiting to see whether she would notice it in return.
That night, before sleeping, she caught herself murmuring a greeting to the quiet beyond her door. Not a prayer. Not a plea. Just a habit she did not remember learning.
She laughed softly at herself and extinguished the candle.
Still, she slept with her door bolted.
Just in case...