"Some secrets are never buried—only whispered by the trees."

The willow stood alone at the edge of Briar Creek, its gnarled roots drinking from the murky water, its heavy limbs drooping like the sorrow of forgotten years. Locals called it Widow’s Willow, though no one remembered exactly why. They only knew not to go near it after dark.

But Elsie went anyway.

She was seventeen, restless, and tired of her mother’s silence. They had moved to the small town of Fairhollow after her father died in a fire—one no one wanted to talk about. Not the police. Not her mother. Not even her therapist.

“Let it go, Elsie,” they all said. “It’s better that way.”

But grief doesn’t vanish when ignored. It festers. It whispers.

Like the tree.

The first time she heard it, she’d thought it was the wind—low, rustling murmurs that drifted through her bedroom window at night. But then the whispers began to form words.

“Come find me.”

It was late October when she first stepped beneath the willow’s canopy. Moonlight filtered through the branches, painting the ground in pale silver. The air felt thick, like it had been holding its breath for years.

The whisper came again.

“Closer.”

The roots shifted beneath her feet. A hollow opened at the base of the tree, just big enough for a person to crawl through. Her pulse quickened, but something deeper—something more ancient—pulled her forward.

Inside, the earth was cool and dry. She expected roots, stone, maybe bones. Instead, she found a box. Wooden, sealed with iron clasps, and carved with symbols that pulsed faintly when she touched them.

She opened it.

Inside lay a bundle of letters, yellowed and tied with a black ribbon. Her father’s name was on the first envelope.

Her breath caught.

The letter wasn’t written by him. It was written to him—from someone named Annabel—dated over twenty years ago.

"They can’t know what we did, William. The fire was only the beginning. The tree remembers. It always does."

Elsie devoured the letters by candlelight over the next week. They told a story of betrayal, fire, and death. Her father had grown up in Fairhollow. So had Annabel. Together, they had uncovered something beneath the willow—something powerful. Something wrong.

There were hints of a ritual. A sacrifice. A fire that had been meant to seal it away.

But it hadn’t worked.

Elsie’s father had left the town, abandoned everything—including Annabel. And now, two decades later, he was dead.

The whispers grew louder with each letter she read.

“Finish what he started.”

She returned to the tree on Halloween night.

This time, she brought matches.

The willow loomed above her, more alive than ever. The hollow opened willingly. The letters, now tied with red twine, pulsed with heat.

“Tell me what you want,” Elsie said aloud.

The air shivered.

Images filled her mind—a child in white, standing at the base of the tree. A circle of candles. A scream that didn’t echo. Fire, coiling up the branches, but never touching the heart of the tree.

The ritual had been incomplete.

The child had never left.

And now, it waited.

Elsie stepped back. The earth groaned beneath her.

She struck a match.

Flames licked at the willow’s bark, but the tree didn’t burn. It absorbed. The fire turned inward, sinking into the roots, into the soil. The whispers rose into a howl.

The earth split open.

And from the hollow, a figure emerged—small, trembling, with hollow eyes and bloodless skin.

A girl.

Annabel.

Or what was left of her.

“I waited,” the girl said, voice like wind through dry leaves. “He never came back.”

Elsie couldn’t speak. The child reached out, touching her cheek with fingers like frost.

“You’re his blood.”

“I didn’t know,” Elsie whispered.

“He knew.”

The girl tilted her head. “Will you stay with me?”

“No.”

The ground quaked. The willow screamed, its limbs thrashing, pulling at the sky.

Elsie held up the letters. “I know what happened now. And I know how to end it.”

The child’s eyes narrowed. “You would burn the truth?”

“No,” Elsie said, voice steady. “I’ll bury it. Like he should have.”

She threw the box into the hollow. Pushed the letters in with it. And she whispered something her father had once said to her as a child, when he’d tucked her into bed, long before the fire stole him away.

“Sleep now. You’re safe.”

The willow grew still.

The hollow closed.

And for the first time in decades, the whispers stopped.

By morning, the town was different. The air felt lighter. Her mother cried when Elsie showed her one of the letters—just one. Enough to speak the truth. Enough to heal.

They didn’t talk about the willow again.

But sometimes, when the wind blew just right, Elsie swore she could hear a laugh in the rustling leaves.

Not a cry for help.

Not a warning.

Just a whisper of peace.