PlayerOliver

When you were a kid, you lived with your grandmother in the small town of Silvertree, on the edge of a magical forest. Grandma is a witch, and she taught you how to use your magic to affect the natural world, too. “Magic is a part of you,” she always told you. “Learning how to use it means figuring out who you are.”

Now you’re 19 and on your own. After years of living in the forest while you perfected your witchcraft, you’ve returned to take care of your grandmother’s house and crow-familiar while she’s gone. Figuring out who you are feels more important than ever - not to mention, figuring out what Silvertree is. A lot is just as you remembered: the friendly generous next-door neighbors with a kid just your age, the proud town council, the quaint little shops with quirky punny names, the gentle shadowy forest full of magic.

Stone in the shoe

"Actually, there might be a ladder inside the back porch. Would you mind going to check?"


Robin seems slightly surprised, but he agrees and runs back downstairs.


Now that there's no danger of him seeing any magic, you just have to come up with a way to get the trapdoor open with it. But how?


It only takes you a few moments to come up with a solution. It may not be the most elegant one, but you think it will work.


Standing underneath the trapdoor, you press your hands flat against the wall. Then, closing your eyes, you imagine each of your fingertips sprouting into vines, growing up the wallpaper like cracks in stone until they reach the ceiling. You picture each of the vines creeping towards the trapdoor, splitting off into thinner tendrils until they cover most of the ceiling above you like a thick cobweb. Finally, you imagine the very ends of the vines needling into the gaps around the trapdoor. Slowly, surely, they bleed their way through until the mess of vines is gripping the hatch like one of your own hands.


Without opening your eyes, you envision yourself gripping the vines at the roots and pulling hard.


You jump out of your skin as something smashes into the ground a couple of yards to your left.


At the sound of Robin's shout, you finally open your eyes. It's only then that you see the lattice of wiry green vines snaking up the wall and across the ceiling to the trapdoor—which is now hanging open, with a retractable ladder extending all the way to the floor. You think that must have been the crash.


"Yeah—I'm fine!" you yell back, still looking at the ladder in slight disbelief. "I actually got the hatch to open!"


It's just as you say that that you realize the vines are still clinging to the walls, and you feel your heart start to race as you hear footsteps on the stairs—but in your panic, you grab a bundle of vines as if to rip them away, and in a single touch they all vanish into nothing.


You're still staring at where they disappeared when Robin returns, but you manage to pull yourself together just in time for him to notice the ladder.


"Oh my gosh—you did it!" he gasps, rushing forwards to peer up into the trapdoor. You're quite relieved when, in his excitement, he forgets to ask how you did it.


Once you've made sure the feet of the ladder are squarely on the ground, you and Robin share a look.


You nod, and with a deep breath, you close your hand around one of the ladder's rungs. The metal is cold and gritty with dust, but you manage to ignore it as you pull yourself up into the dark space above.


It's not long before you're heaving yourself onto solid ground once more. You don't want to rest too easily, though; the little room you've found yourself in is cramped and pitch-black, and you can't even be sure that the rough wooden floor itself is secure.


As Robin's head appears through the trapdoor, you catch a glimpse of trepidation on his face before it's swallowed up by shadows.


He doesn't quite finish his thought as he pulls himself up beside you, but you think you can guess what he was thinking. This place is…unsettling.


Thankfully, a split second later, Robin holds up his phone and turns on the flashlight. Suddenly, you can see everything there is to see in this little room—which is pretty much nothing, as it turns out. Apart from a metal box attached to the wall that seems to be part of the house's electrical system, the space is totally empty. It wouldn't be big enough to store much anyway; the walls are close enough that you wouldn't even be able to stretch your arms out all the way.


But you know this isn't the whole attic. The door at Robin's back tells you that.


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