The sound of water was everywhere.
It dripped from branches, trickled through moss, and carved thin lines through patches of snow like tiny rivers on a white map. Ash stepped barefoot into the morning air, breath curling faintly in the chill.
The snow hadn't fully surrendered yet.
It still clung to shaded hollows beneath the trees, blanketed the high roots, and crusted stubbornly over the stone at the mouth of her cave. But it was thinning—melting faster each day.
The sky was pale blue. The sun, low and bright, painted gold over the wet bark and the distant ridge. Ash knelt near the edge of her garden path, watching a droplet fall from a branch and strike a stone with a soft plink.
---
She walked a slow loop outside—her usual morning circuit.
Her cloak swept damp leaves as she moved.
The air smelled of old snow, thawed mud, and sleeping roots just starting to stir.
Somewhere in the forest, a bird called—a short, hopeful trill. Ash smiled faintly.
> "Spring."
Not quite warm. Not quite green.
But waking.
---
She crouched beside a mossy stump and pressed two fingers into the soil.
Still cold.
Still slow.
Still weeks away from blooming.
---
And yet, when she stepped back into her cave...
The world changed.
---
Warmth met her first. Not like fire—deeper. Gentle. Constant. Like the air remembered how to hold her.
Then came the light.
Her two strongest Light Stones glowed in the walls—soft, white, rhythmic. Not blinding. Just present, like watchful eyes.
And the garden—
The garden was lush.
---
Strawberries the size of her fists hung heavy on vines, their skin so red it bordered on gold.
Tomato blossoms danced in bunches, yellow petals wide and shining.
Basil curled thick and strong, its leaves larger than her palm.
Wild onions rose in full sprays of green, already tall enough to brush her knees.
It was warm. It was alive. And it was… impossible.
Ash stared at the scene in front of her, hands still streaked with forest dirt.
---
Outside, the ground was still frozen.
Inside?
She was harvesting.
She knelt by the edge of a bed and ran her hand along a line of vines, feeling the heat from the Light Stone pulsing through the roots.
The leaves were slick with dew, though no water had fallen here in days.
Her breath caught.
> "No one else has this."
> "Not here. Not in spring. Not in the cold."
This wasn't a garden anymore.
It was a hollow of light.
---
Ash crouched beside a flowering tomato vine, watching how the yellow petals shivered slightly in the warmth radiating from the Light Stone overhead. The air was humid—not stifling, but rich, fragrant with earth and green things. She could feel the life here in her skin, in her lungs. It clung to her, seeped into her bones.
Everything was growing faster than it should.
---
The strawberries had already ripened—big, heavy fruit that glowed faintly beneath the crystal light. The basil was thick and broad-leafed, too perfect to be natural. And the wild onions—she'd started calling them "ashgrass" in her head—had grown into tufts like ceremonial feathers.
This was not normal.
And yet it felt right.
Like the stones weren't just helping the garden.
They were listening.
---
Ash picked a strawberry and brought it to her lips. The juice was warm. Sweet in a way that lingered behind her teeth. She blinked in surprise and took another bite.
> "This could sell."
> "This could change everything."
She looked at the far edge of the garden—still bare stone, untouched soil.
> "I need more space."
---
She stood, stretched, and walked toward the corner of the chamber where the wall curved low. It would take time. She'd need to haul more soil, shape more beds, maybe even find a way to reinforce the floor.
But first—something drew her to the moss shelf she'd built near her sleeping spot.
Not food. Not tools.
Flowers.
---
A few days ago, she'd planted them on a whim—wildflowers, gathered from near the cave entrance. She hadn't expected them to take root. But under the Light Stones, they had exploded.
Blues, whites, pinks—petals like silk, glowing faintly.
She didn't eat them.
She didn't need to.
She just liked looking at them.
---
Ash knelt beside the moss shelf and began rearranging the flowers. She pulled out a few old leaves. Smoothed the edges. Moved one to sit beside a stone bowl of water, where the light hit it just right.
Then she caught herself humming.
Soft. Wordless. A sound that filled the cave like a dream.
She paused.
Frowned slightly.
Then smiled.
---
That afternoon, she started carving new beds—not with the rough efficiency she used before, but with care. She smoothed the edges, curved the paths, lined them with spiral patterns made from river stones.
She braided thin vines to make borders.
Hung feathers from bark nails.
Wove dried flower stems into circles and placed them over her firepit like tiny crowns.
None of it made the garden more functional.
But it made it feel alive.
It made it feel hers.
---
And without realizing it, as she swept, smoothed, planted, and hummed—her movements softer, her steps quieter—
Ash was no longer just building a home.
She was decorating it.
---
It started with a breath.
The cave exhaled.
Ash felt it late one evening while rearranging her flower beds—just a faint movement of air brushing against her cheek, like something had stirred deeper down the tunnel behind her.
She turned her head, holding still.
There was no sound.
No draft.
Just... invitation.
She stood, wiping soil from her hands, and picked up her smaller Light Stone—her travel stone, still flickering with its usual rhythm. She cradled it in both hands as she stepped past her garden, past the second chamber, and into the tunnel she hadn't yet explored.
---
It was narrow at first.
Ash crouched, then crawled. The air grew cooler, but not cold. Just dense with mineral weight.
Her Light Stone lit the path in pulses, casting pale arcs of silver light across the walls. The stone glittered in places—mica flakes, maybe quartz—but it wasn't the shine that pulled her forward.
It was a feeling.
> "This place goes deeper."
Not just physically.
But meaningfully.
---
She slid down a smooth slope of carved limestone, her hands pressed to the wall for balance. Moss still clung to the stone in patches, nurtured by the cave's strange warmth.
Roots reached down from cracks overhead like searching fingers.
She passed through a narrow passage where she had to turn sideways, breathing shallow, her Light Stone held high beside her head. The air here was older. Still.
Then the stone walls opened.
And the world changed.
---
The chamber wasn't vast, but it was wide and natural—formed by time and water. The ceiling curved like the inside of a shell, and in the far wall, the Light Stone caught something different.
Color.
Not moss. Not lichen.
Metal.
---
Ash stepped forward.
The glow from her stone fell across a jagged wall of earth shot through with veins of gold—threaded like fire frozen in stone.
Beneath it, copper, red and raw like muscle.
And further down, iron, layered and heavy.
She blinked, breathless.
> "That's gold."
> "And copper. And…"
She dropped to one knee, pressed her hand to the earth. The metal was cool. Solid. Real.
> "I've found something no one knows about."
---
The walls glittered as the Light Stone pulsed.
Not brightly. Just enough to awaken the edges.
She turned in a slow circle, seeing the place with new eyes.
> "This is a vein. A full deposit. A real one."
And then, like a spark of memory from another life:
> "I need a furnace. A forge. A pickaxe."
> "I need money."
---
But she didn't laugh this time. She didn't grin like Bruce would've.
She stood slowly, dusted off her knees, and held her Light Stone out to the cavern like a torch in an ancient temple.
The walls glowed in return.
---
> "You've been waiting for someone to find you."
> "I'm here."
She didn't take anything.
Not yet.
This wasn't a mine.
Not yet.
It was a promise.
A place she would return to.
A future waiting to be built.
---
Ash sat cross-legged in the center of her garden, bare feet pressed into the soil.
The cave around her was silent, save for the slow drip of water from the ceiling and the faint stir of air from the deeper tunnels. Two Light Stones glowed gently in the chamber walls—one nestled near the roots of her tomatoes, the other hanging like a star above her bed of moss and ferns.
And in her lap, resting in a cradle of bark and vine, was the third.
A Level 3 Light Stone.
The one she had given to the Wilsons had been like this—full, warm, and alive.
But now… she was reaching for something greater.
---
She inhaled slowly.
Held it.
Exhaled.
Her hands closed over the stone.
> "This time, I'm not just making this to survive."
> "I'm making this for everything I want to build."
Her mind returned to the hidden chamber below.
The gold.
The copper.
The iron veins singing in silence.
> "If I want tools, trade, a forge, real growth..."
> "Then I need something bigger."
> "Stronger."
---
She pressed both palms against the stone.
It was cool at first. Smooth. Familiar.
But as she focused—truly focused—she felt it respond.
Her Light Core pulsed once.
Then again.
---
She closed her eyes and let herself feel everything she had buried:
The cold of dying in a car.
The heat of a mansion exploding behind her.
The ache of waiting for someone who never came.
The laughter of Greg.
The quiet understanding in Will's gaze.
The feel of clean sheets in a real bed.
The sight of flowers blooming in a cave that shouldn't support life.
Tears welled behind her eyes—not from sadness, but from knowing.
> "I've come so far."
> "And I'm not done yet."
---
The stone grew warm.
Then hot.
Sweat rolled down Ash's spine, her hands trembling as the energy drained from her core, channeled into the stone like blood into crystal.
She gritted her teeth. The Light Stone pulsed harder—white light flickering through her fingers.
It hurt.
Not like a wound. Not like cold.
Like growth.
Like something becoming.
---
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
She didn't know.
Her body swayed, her arms heavy.
But still—she held on.
---
And then—
The stone flashed.
Bright and full and alive.
Then dimmed to a new glow—stronger than anything she had ever seen. It was not pure white—but laced with gold and green, like the veins of a living thing.
It pulsed once.
Ash collapsed backward, arms spread, breath ragged.
She stared at the ceiling of her cave, the stone resting beside her, glowing like a small sun.
> "Level four," she whispered.
> "I made you."
---
The cave responded.
The plants unfurled.
The flowers leaned in.
The tomatoes swelled overnight.
The strawberry vines thickened.
The moss along the walls glowed faintly.
Even the air tasted cleaner.
Ash sat up, slowly.
Dizzy. Exhausted. Proud.
She set the stone in the center of the chamber, carved a cradle of stone for it, and placed three wildflowers around its base.
> "Guard this place."
> "Make it bloom."
And the stone pulsed once in reply.
---
Ash woke with her fingers curled around the blanket she had woven from scraps of moss-lined hide and stitched bark. Her body still ached from the Light Stone ritual, but the ache was a good one—like muscle soreness after a climb, or warmth after cold.
She rose slowly, the glow of the new Level 4 Light Stone steady and strong in the center of the chamber. The entire cave felt different now: more awake, more alive.
The plants had responded immediately.
---
She moved through her garden like a priest through a sacred grove.
The tomato vines were thick with fruit—heavy, rich red, some the size of her fists.
The strawberries shimmered with dew, vibrant and juicy, larger than anything that could have grown outside this early in the year.
Her basil had gone from healthy to luxuriant, with leaves as broad as her palm and a scent that filled the air like incense.
And the wildflowers—blues, whites, purples—had opened overnight in full bloom.
It looked like a vision from another world.
Even she knew it was unnatural.
> "No one else could grow this. Not in March. Not in a cave."
And that meant something very simple:
It was valuable.
---
Ash set to work.
She harvested carefully—never everything, always just enough.
Three of the largest strawberries.
Two ripe tomatoes, perfectly shaped.
A bundle of basil, trimmed clean at the stem.
A few stalks of wild onion, and one or two violet flowers for "presentation."
She wrapped each in moist moss and soft cloth, tucking them into a satchel she had stitched from softened hide and decorated with woven bark strips. She even added a carved wooden emblem to the flap—just a spiral, for beauty.
She'd polished her boots. Straightened her cloak. Tightened her hair back with a clean leather strip.
She looked down at her hands.
No longer rough. No longer calloused.
She still didn't know who she was becoming.
But she liked what she was making.
---
Then came the hardest part: pricing.
She knelt by the firepit with a piece of smooth bark and began scratching numbers onto it with a charred stick.
But she had no reference point.
She didn't know the cost of strawberries in 1983. She didn't know what was expensive and what wasn't. Inflation, economy, scarcity—it was all a fog.
> "A dollar for a berry?"
> "Ten for a bundle?"
She erased. Rewrote. Frowned.
Eventually, she stopped.
> "I'll just ask for what it feels like it's worth."
---
She added a few small, carved stones to the satchel—shaped like leaves and stars. Decorative. Trinkets. Maybe they'd trade better than food.
Then she stood.
Slipped her satchel over her shoulder.
Checked the fire, the stones, the garden.
Everything pulsed gently.
Everything was safe.
Everything was hers.
---
Ash stepped out of the cave into the morning mist, her breath forming small clouds in the air.
The snow was melting.
But the mountain still whispered.
And she walked toward town.
Toward trade.
Toward a world that didn't know her name.
But would soon remember it.
---
The forest greeted her with silence.
Not the heavy kind that pressed down during snowstorms or danger, but the open silence of early spring—that quiet space between winter's retreat and nature's return.
Patches of snow still clung to the base of trees and shadowed hollows, but water trickled freely now from thawing branches. The trail was muddy, soft underfoot. Meltwater hissed in the distance where it met cold rock.
Ash walked slowly, not out of fear—but to feel it all.
---
Her satchel was snug against her side, heavy with the goods she'd prepared: oversized strawberries, glowing basil, rich tomatoes, fragrant herbs, and carved trinkets nestled among moss and cloth.
The Light Core in her chest pulsed quietly—not demanding, not warning—just steady.
A rhythm.
A heartbeat.
---
As she walked, she thought about the world she was about to step into.
> "What if they don't buy anything?"
"What if I ask too much?"
"What if I ask too little?"
She'd never set foot in a store in this time.
Never spoken to a merchant.
Never existed in this world outside the trees.
And still—she kept walking.
---
The forest began to thin.
Distant birds called. A dog barked far off—sharp and excited.
Then, in the distance, the faint clatter of a truck on gravel.
And beyond it: the rooftops of Stowe, just barely visible through the trees.
Ash paused on a ridge and looked down.
Houses.
People.
Chimneys curling smoke.
Normal.
Everything she hadn't had.
---
She adjusted the strap on her satchel, tightened the belt at her waist, and whispered to herself:
> "You're not lost."
> "You made this. You're bringing it."
> "You are Ash of the Hollow."
She said it again, louder.
> "Ash of the Hollow."
Not Bruce.
Not Lili.
Not a beggar.
Not a stray.
A builder.
A girl with something no one else had.
And the town would know it soon enough.
---