Before the Forest Wakes

Before sunrise, Sherwood belongs to small sounds.

A wren shifting beneath a leaf. Water working over stone somewhere below the ridge. The careful scratch of a squirrel on bark. I have always preferred the forest at that hour, before the light grows bold and every creature begins pretending it owns the morning.

I reached the First Overlook while the eastern sky was still the color of cold iron. The climb is steep enough to discourage visitors and familiar enough that I can make it without thinking. Three roots, a shelf of stone, the old branch that leans away from the wind—then the world opens beneath me.

King’s Keep stood in the distance where it always stands, dark against the first gold of day. Rivers caught the new light in narrow pieces. Farther north and east, the falls shone briefly through the haze. From that height, Sherwood looked orderly. Every road, ridge, and shadow seemed to know its place.

I checked my bowstring, settled the feather in my hood, and tested the wind with one paw. West to east, light and steady. Good weather for a long walk and poor weather for excuses.

Some hunt because their cupboards are empty. Mine are not. Beneath the Hollow Oak are coins I have forgotten to count, cups no one drinks from, and trinkets whose former owners would probably insist were priceless. They may even have been right.

But a full chest is only an ending. I have never cared much for endings.

What sends me into Sherwood is the chance that the forest knows something today that it did not tell me yesterday.

The sun touched the highest branches as I left the overlook and joined the western trail. A hare slipped through the bracken ahead of me, quick and sensible. The wrens resumed their arguments. Everything smelled of wet bark, pine, and the last cool breath of night.

At the first bend, a flat gray stone lay beside the path. I knew it because I know most things that remain still long enough in my part of Sherwood. Its upper face was dark with lichen. Its underside was pale.

That morning, the pale side faced the sky.

I crouched beside it. Rain had not moved it. No root had lifted it. The soil around its edge was freshly pressed, and a thin line of dew had been swept from the grass beyond it. The mark continued off the trail for several paces before disappearing beneath the ferns.

There were no hoofprints. No claw marks. Nothing heavy enough to leave a proper track.

I turned the stone dark-side up again and listened.

Sherwood answered with water, wings, and leaves. All the usual things.

Still, the western trail was exactly as I remembered—until it wasn’t.

I stepped off the path and followed the broken dew.