On September 2, 1946, Willow Walden stayed up past her bedtime. To be fair, it was only thirty minutes past ten when she slipped out her window and darted into the forest, so her parents wouldn’t have been too mad about it, and besides, what she was doing was really important— the nest of owl eggs was going to hatch tonight! Or maybe it wasn’t, she’d been sneaking out every night for the last week hoping to see it, but she was certain this time. 

The nest was a little over a mile into the quiet Pennsylvanian forest, but she was excited and knew the path well, so it couldn’t have taken her more than twenty minutes to reach the great pine she’d been looking for. From the base of the tree, the path was even more familiar. From the old stump to the large boulder to the low branch, just the smallest of leaps to the next branch, and from there it was just a matter of climbing straight up the increasingly thinning branches to the top. 

When she reached thirty feet, she remembered to go clockwise instead of counterclockwise, since last time she’d almost slipped on a newly grown patch of moss and while she was confident she remembered where it was, she didn’t want to risk it again. At sixty feet, she could see over most of the other trees in the forest, and she could see her neighborhood in the distance. Someone had started their fireplace. At eighty feet, the nest was right in front of her, just a bit further out on the branch. The branches were thin enough at this height that she didn’t really want to risk her luck by straying too far from the tree, so she propped herself up on one of the nearby thicker branches and waited. 

There was another reason she’d kept coming back to this spot night after night. The beautiful night sky stretched out in all its glory, the smearing of the galaxy above unhindered by even the dim streetlamps that dotted her town. The owls were still the main reason, but as she looked up at the clear night sky with its manifold of stars, she thought about how she’d probably never have this much freedom again. She’d be going into high school on Wednesday, and if her brother was to be believed, it was going to suck her time and soul all the same. He was only a year older than her, but he seemed to have all the world’s wisdom and sadness at the same time. She really hoped she didn’t start turning into him— sad, reserved, almost brok—

Just then, she heard a faint -crack- noise. She quickly snapped herself out of her reverie and pushed just slightly forwards to get a better view of the nest. She eyed the three eggs eagerly, and though the mother wasn’t nearby this night, she knew it’d be nearby, and hopefully she could catch a glimpse of the family all together. The first egg’s cracks grew wider, almost stretching the full way around, before a tiny head breached through the shell and Willow had to forcefully hold her tongue between her teeth to keep from squealing and startling the chicks. Chicks, plural, as the second chick’s beak poked free through the shell, and with another -crack-, it was free as well.

Now she only watched the third egg, her night already having been made, when she heard a final, slightly louder -crack-, but when she leant in, she could see no evidence of a baby bird breaking through. Then she heard it again. -crack-, louder this time, and she could feel it too. She figured out what was happening by the third -crack-, but at that point it was too late, and the branch underneath her gave way and she began to plummet. Down, down, eighty feet down, hitting branch after branch on the way, desperately grasping for just one to slow her descent, but only accomplishing to cut and scrape her hands in the attempt. Sixty, thirty, twenty, ten feet to impact. She’d finished screaming by then and tried to brace for the inevitable, as she hit the ground with her shoulder first and everything went dark.

When she woke up, the first thing she noticed was that the stars had gone away. The forest was still there, the old stump, the large boulder, the great pine. Actually, no. The surrounding trees had all shifted. Jumbled. Moved. Hadn’t they? She couldn’t remember. She heard the faint crackling of a campfire that hadn’t been there earlier that night. What? She pushed herself off the ground. No pain. She carefully edged around the boulder towards the sound of the campfire, where a hunched figure sat on a small stump, turning something over the fire. She approached closer, almost able to feel the fire’s warmth.

“H-“ Her voice caught for a moment before she cleared it, “Hello?” He didn’t hear her. She got closer. The thing over the fire used to be a deer. The man was wearing an old army fatigue, darkened and dirtied. She tried again. “Sir?” The deer stopped moving, and she felt a chill run through her. The man turned around much quicker than she’d expected, and she stumbled back in a jolt of fear.

“Heh? What d’ye want?” He spoke in a gruff, yet almost hollow tone, as if from the inside of a small cave. The first thing she noticed about his face was the eye. Singular; a black eyepatch covered the other. But the intact eye— if you could call it that— shone a bright yellow pinprick, shifting and twinkling even though she saw no playfulness on the rest of the man’s grizzled countenance.

“I—,” She fumbled on her words, more than a little frightened. “I was just wondering if you knew how to get out of the forest…” She felt a small wave of embarrassment in not knowing her way in the woods for the first time in years. He seemed to size her up for a second before letting out a single hollow laugh.

“New then, I take it.” He turned on the stump to face her, giving her a better look at his form. Aside from the eye, he seemed like a normal man, maybe in his early forties. His fatigue was old and tattered, even ripped and punctured in some places, and she couldn’t help a small feeling that it looked different from the one she remembered her father wearing when he left for the war. The uniform was sewn with a number of badges and perforated with pins that she didn’t know the meaning of, and embroidered with the name ‘J. Reagan’ over the right breast. He smiled a yellow, melancholy smile, and spoke in a low voice that he must have thought would be comforting. “Dead folks don’t leave the forest much.”

He turned back around and resumed turning his game over the fire as Willow just stood there, speechlessly affixed to the spot. Her muscles refused to budge an inch, but her mind was already racing at a hundred incoherent miles a minute. Dead? No. What? She mustered up the courage to touch her own arm. Solid. I can’t be dead. He’s lying. I’m not dead. “I’m not messing with you,” came the voice, his words directed at her even while his focus remained on the fire. “See for yourself if you want,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the small nearby lake, the starless moonlight reflecting off its still waters.

She didn’t manage to choke out a response or acknowledgement, but her legs carried her to the lake all the same. Autopilot all but running her mind, she stared at the calm water, looking down at herself in the pool. She couldn’t exactly call herself surprised when she saw her hazel eyes had been replaced with a pair of shining pinpricks, but it did serve to extend her state of shock. The stagnant pool gained two sets of ripples about an eye’s width apart.

“Kid.” Willow registered the sensation of a hand on her left shoulder. It was heavy. “Kid. You’ve been sitting there for almost an hour now. Get up or you’re gonna start growing roots.” Willow didn’t react. “Kid, I’m serious. Get up.” The grip on her shoulder tightened a little, but she was still lost in herself and didn’t move. “I swear to—“ She noticed his voice trailing off when the grip tightened again and she was hoisted to her feet before she could have reacted. With her now slightly more alert, he was able to lead her back to the campfire instead of dragging her. He sat her down on the stump and before she could say anything, he interrupted, holding up a deer rib. “Hungry?”

She simply held the rib for a while before she worked up the will to bite into it. While she was still staring off, the man took the time to introduce himself. “Lieutenant Jacob Reagan, US sniper of the 8th Contingent in the Great War. Two gunshot wounds to the torso, 1921.” He gestured to the two bullet holes in his uniform, one on the left side of his abdomen, the other over his right lung. The implication was clear, not like she needed any confirmation. He was dead too. 

Too.

She finally found the power to speak shortly after she found the power to eat. It might’ve needed salt, she couldn’t tell. “Why— Why am I here?” She managed.

The lieutenant shrugged. “I should be asking you that. I didn’t see it happen; only noticed you were there when you interrupted me. She looked down and muttered something that might’ve been a ‘sorry’. 

They sat there in silence, save for the crackling of the fire and the lieutenant’s intermittent chewing. A few minutes later, Willow spoke again. “Then… why are you here?” she ventured, her voice still small.

The lieutenant stared at her for a few moments with his pinpoint eye before sighing and beginning to repeat himself, gestures and all. “Two gunshot wou—“ Willow cut him off before he finished with a waving of her hands and a stutter.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant— I meant, why is it only you here?”

“Ah.” He leaned in closer to the fire on his stump opposite hers. “That’s a different question.” He tossed the bone he’d finished cleaning off into the fire. “I wasn’t joking about growing roots earlier.” He gestured to the forest around them both. “All these trees are… souls who lost their way more than once. Wrapped up in their own despair. Couldn’t give up grieving themselves. That sort of thing.” 

He paused, but Willow only stared, so he kept going. “So they rooted themselves in hopelessness; rooted themselves in the ground. Seen a couple dozen of them go out that way myself.” He looked back at Willow as she took in the new information in a stunned silence. “Couldn’t have that happening to you, too.” Another pause. “You’d be blocking my view of the lake.” Willow was brought back to the present with that comment, letting out a fairly inappropriate laugh in surprise. But the lieutenant seemed at least pleased that he was able to take at least some of the edge off the heavy information.

The joke had given her some small amount of comfort, so she was more confident in her words when she asked, “Then why are you still here when…” She looked around. “lots of other people… you know…”

He leaned back on the stump, looking up at the starless sky. “Took it in stride, I guess. No use worrying over something that’s already happened. Not really worth it. Gotta keep moving forward.”

Willow absently nodded for a few moments before shaking her head as if to clear it. “Moving forward? What does that even mean when you’re…?” She was still hung up on the word ‘dead’, but he got the point.

The lieutenant shrugged. “Not really important. Whatever it is, it’s working for me. Important part is figuring out what it is for you before you start dissolving into the shrubbery. Get some rest and don’t think about it too much. We’ll work on it in the morning.” She nodded in assent as he stood up and moved to put out the fire, bringing a bucket of lake water from beside his stump over the embers.

“Oh, and before I forget.” She jolted her attention back to the lieutenant through the darkness as he spoke again. “I don’t think you ever introduced yourself.”

“Oh, right, um…” She hesitated for a second, remembering something. “Willow Walden, thirteen years old. Fell out of a tree, 1946.”

The lieutenant chuckled a bit at her approximation of his introduction. “Alright, Walden. Go sleep. I’ll see you early tomorrow morning.”

Do you even need sleep when you’re dead? She thought to herself as she looked around for a place to rest.