Story 1038: Beneath the Willow Veil

There was a tree at the edge of the drowned cemetery, so ancient its branches bent like sorrow. The villagers called it the Weeping Veil, and no one dared approach after sunset.

The legend was simple: beneath the willow, you don’t just mourn the dead—you become them.

But grief has no rules. And Calla Muir, freshly orphaned and spiraling into obsession, ignored them all.

She came barefoot and shaking on the third night of the thunder moon, a single photograph clutched to her chest—her mother, father, and baby brother, their eyes eaten by the plague, their bodies swallowed in a government pit before she could say goodbye.

The willow awaited her, whispering her name in a voice that wasn’t wind.

Its drooping tendrils parted like a curtain as she approached. Beneath them: a hollow, not made of earth, but of memories pressed into soil—shoes, rings, lockets, wedding dresses, all half-buried in the roots. The offerings of countless mourners.

Calla stepped inside.