Woodheart and the Moss Mice – Part II: The Hollow Echo

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Woodheart could still feel the echoes as the forest grew gray. In the twilight, every drop sounded like a bell, and the amber heart in her chest beat to the rhythm of an invisible bell. The moss mice danced around her feet, squeaking with impatience, for the hollow twin still stood silently at the edge of Whispering Vale, and as long as he remained silent, the forest's balance remained fragile, like frost on bracken. "We must go on," Woodheart said softly, but the mice heard it as an airy chant in the leaves. They wandered along the hidden path that only appears when one half-closes one's eyes and thinks of forgotten songs. Each mouse carried a tiny vessel: one shimmered with root breath, the next held the scent of an unhatched mushroom spore, a third held the deep hum of a thorn beetle. They were sounds without names, raw syllables of the earth. The deeper they descended into the valley, the thicker the fog became. Silver threads flashed between the trunks, as if someone had strung spider webs into strings. Woodheart stroked them with her fingertips, and immediately a minor scale sounded, so old it made the wind stop. The mice listened, holding their vessels to their chests. The sound seemed to weave into them, like a gentle stream. Before them now loomed the hollow tree: a giant without a crown, its bark green with grief, its cavity black as a maw. But deep within, a sound trembled, barely audible—a sighing vowel that never became a word. Woodheart stepped into the opening, her feet in the cool mulch. Her light flickered, casting patterns across tree rings that spoke of frost and fire. "Brother," she spoke, her lips still. "We bring what you lacked." The mice stepped forward, tipping their vessels into the ground. Scents, colors, humming sounds rose, spiraling upwards. Small scales like runes broke from the bark, then a sound rang out, barely more than a breath, yet growing – it settled around the branches like a new life. The mice shrank back in alarm, afraid that the tremor would tear the forest apart. But the sound wasn't a scream – it was a name, long forgotten. Woodheart repeated it, and thus two heartbeats united. At the same moment, morning broke through the mist: fingers of light brushed the runes, making them shine like veins of gold. Birds that hadn't been heard for decades began to sing. Mushrooms stood upright, as if recounting their own stories. The hollow tree echoed back for the first time. Gratefully, it sang its own tones to the mice, linking them into melodies that the air drank in its fill. Woodheart felt that her own heart was beating faster now than on the day she had been carved. But with awakening came memory: the rift that once separated the twins had been cut by a hand—one that even now crept through the forest, its ear to the earth, greedy for the sound it had once stolen.