Your voice leaves you in a thin, cracked note that dies almost instantly, swallowed by the wet air. For three long heartbeats, nothing answers. Then the meadow answers back — not an echo, but a whisper that arrives from the willow's direction, speaking your name in a voice made of rust and rainwater. The reeds around the dark pool bend as though something passed through them, though the air stays perfectly still. The glint beneath the branches flickers once, bright as a struck match, then dims.

A slow creak rolls across the grass, and the willow's trailing branches begin to lift, one by one, like fingers uncurling from a fist. Beneath them, half-submerged in the pool, a pale shape resolves — a stone tablet leaning against the roots, carved with symbols that pulse faintly with a cold blue light. The whisper repeats, closer now, and you realize it is not coming from the tree at all. It is coming from the water, and the water is waiting for you to answer again.