He dreamed that night, but not of the river or the bird or his grandmother's face.
He dreamed of the tree.
Not the hollow—the whole tree, from roots to crown, stretching impossibly high, higher than any tree had right to be. Its bark was covered in carvings, thousands of them, millions, every surface etched with words in languages he'd never seen. And at the top, just beyond his reach, a single phrase burned with golden light:
Plant me where I fell.
He woke with the words in his mouth and the taste of soil on his tongue.
Morning light filtered through the hollow's opening, pale and watery. The storm had passed. The world outside was fresh-washed and dripping, the kind of morning that made other men feel alive. Doran felt only the familiar numbness—the weight of another day, another road, another delivery—but beneath it, something new stirred.
The words were still inside him. Your name is Witness.
He crawled out of the tree and stood in the clearing, stretching muscles stiff from sleeping on roots and dirt. The tree looked different in daylight. Smaller. Older. Just a tree. The carvings inside were still there—he checked—but they felt less significant now, more like words than prophecy.
He should leave. The letter needed to reach Three Rivers by the end of the week, and he'd lost hours to the storm.
But he didn't leave.
He walked around the tree instead, studying it from every angle. It was dying—had been dying for years, maybe decades. The few leaves it bore were brown at the edges. The bark was peeling in places, revealing wood so dry it crumbled at his touch. A tree this size should have been teeming with life—squirrels, birds, insects. He saw none.
Plant me where I fell.
The dream hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt like a message.
Doran knelt and touched the base of the trunk, where roots disappeared into soil. The ground was soft from rain. He could dig if he wanted to. Could find whatever lay beneath.
He didn't want to. He had a job. A life. A purpose, however small.
But the words were still inside him. Your name is Witness.
What did that even mean? Witness to what? To whom? Was he supposed to stand somewhere and watch something? Had he been doing that his whole life without knowing?
He thought of his grandmother's face. The bird's heartbeat. The girl in the river.
Maybe he had.
He stood, brushed the dirt from his knees, and made a decision. He would finish this delivery. He would go to Three Rivers, hand over the letter, collect his coin. And then he would come back. The tree would still be here. The question would still be unanswered.
He turned to leave.
That's when he saw the woman.
She stood at the edge of the clearing, watching him. Old—seventy at least—with white hair and a face carved by years into something both beautiful and hard. She wore a simple grey dress and carried nothing. No pack, no staff, no supplies. Just herself.
Doran had walked through half a dozen villages to reach this road. The nearest was a day behind him. There was no reason for an old woman to be here, alone, in the aftermath of a storm.
"Good morning," she said.
Her voice was calm. Ordinary. That made it worse.
"Morning," Doran replied. He kept his distance.
"You found the tree."
It wasn't a question. He didn't answer.
"I planted it," she said. "Seventy-three years ago. Brought it as a sapling from a place you've never heard of, carried it in a pot for six months, set it in this ground with my own hands."
Doran said nothing.
"It was supposed to grow straight and strong. It didn't. It grew twisted and dark and strange. And it never bore fruit, never welcomed birds, never did anything a tree should do. I thought I'd failed."
She took a step closer. Doran tensed.
"But I didn't fail. I planted it exactly where I was told. And seventy-three years later, you came."
"Who told you to plant it?"
She smiled, and the smile was sad. "Someone who knew your name before you did."
The weight inside him shifted. Not heavier—just... arranged. As if pieces were falling into place without his consent.
"I don't know what's happening," Doran said. "I don't know who you are or what this tree means or why I'm here. I'm a courier. I carry letters. That's all."
"Is it?"
She looked at him with eyes that had seen too much, and for a moment he felt completely transparent—every memory, every wound, every moment he'd carried since childhood, visible and known.
"You've been witnessing your whole life," she said. "You just didn't know you were allowed to choose what you see."
She turned and walked into the trees.
Doran didn't follow. He couldn't. His legs wouldn't move.
By the time he recovered, she was gone.
He made it to Three Rivers in four days instead of three. The recipient of the letter—a merchant with nervous eyes and too many rings—paid him double for the delay, which meant the delay had actually helped somehow. Doran didn't ask. He took the coin and left.
But he didn't take another job.
He found a room in a boarding house near the river and sat on the edge of the bed for three hours, thinking about trees and old women and words carved into wood.
Your name is Witness.
You've been witnessing your whole life.
You just didn't know you were allowed to choose.
Choose what? Choose when to remember? Choose what to carry? That wasn't how it worked. The moments came whether he wanted them or not. The weight accumulated whether he chose it or not. He had no control. He never had.
But the old woman had looked at him like she knew different.
He stayed in Three Rivers for a week, then two, then three. The boarding house keeper—a widow named Senn with kind eyes and no curiosity about her guests—let him pay week by week and asked no questions. He spent his days walking the city, watching people, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
Until the night he saw a man die.