The shrine house of Forbas was easily the largest building in the town, only slightly smaller than the one I'd known all my life in Streambrook, and was set in the heart of the village proper. As our party, led by the innkeeper, walked through the small encircling garden around the rectangular, stone building, I noted that the shrubs and trees were infused with the same sanctified energy that I'd expect from fauna that had grown in close proximity to such a place.

"It's not as cold here," Arthic commented and glanced with some reverence to the peaked, slate shingled roof of the sturdy meeting house. "This place is at least untouched by whatever curse has fallen over the vilage."

"But that means there probably is something spiritual happening," I said and scanned the garden as we walked through it, only noting small offerings along the interspersed stone markers and nothing out of the ordinary.

"We have magic," Garron offered. "We are able to harm spiritual things."

The innkeeper glanced to the Yordian momentarily, a look of uninformed judgement on his face. "Whatever you kill, make sure it's whatever is taking the kids."

"How many are gone?" Rosaria asked the man.

"Ten now," the innkeeper said. "Cindi was the last to go. The children have been staying here since then; Adler has kept them safe."

"There can't be enough room for the whole village?" Arthic asked.

The innkeeper pushed open one of the oiled, dark wood doors of the shrine house open. "There isn't. Just for the kids to stay here and only the ones too young to learn a trade. But they're the only ones the monster is taking."

I noted Rosaria clenching her fists beside me. Her lip trembled.

"Are you alright?" I whispered to my friend.

"No," she said. "It needs to die."

I didn't know what the right thing was to say to her. Not really. I'd asked her on this quest as a favor, but she now already seemed much more invested in it than I did.

"It will," I told her.

"But that doesn't bring them back," she replied and walked past me into the shrine house after the rest of our party.

The open doors welcomed us into a singular central hall. The floorplan of the shrine house was open, or it would've been if it wasn't filled from wall to wall with at least seventy children, ranging from infants with their mothers to others who looked no more than ten. Past and currently burning incense filled the air, but breathing was contrastingly somewhat easier inside the blessed hall. A comforting feeling of not being alone, beyond just the company of the many other living beings in the shrine house, fell upon me.

The mothers and children in the building were centered, sitting or standing, around a central hearth. A small, yellow-hued fire burnt in the large ring of stones, but there didn't appear to be any wood within it. The villagers were listening to a middle-aged man, who seemed to be speaking to those who wished to talk to him.

"Will the ancestors protect the rest of us?" a nine-year old child asked the custodian as we approached.

Adler looked up to us momentarily, but then his eyes fell back onto the brown-haired girl. "There is strength in numbers, Selene. And here in this place, we have greater numbers than if every man, woman, and child in the village huddled in an open field. Your mother's great, great, great grandfather and his great grandfather and his father are all with us. All of our forefathers and mothers are awake now, watching and protecting us in this place of their rest; it is hard for them to be so, but they will not see a hair on your head touched."

It was hard to step through the crowd without either stepping on a child taking advantage of the calming warmth of the shrine house to sleep, or bumping into another.

"Please make space for them to pass," Adler told the children and mothers, and they did as asked as best as they could.

Garron and Arthic were especially careful not to bump into anyone with their large frames. Rosaria I, and Mile made it through relatively well. The dog did get somewhat sidetracked by letting a few younger kids scratch his ears.

Try to cheer them up, buddy, I told him.

Mile sent a telepathic impulse of happiness back to me, as a little boy hesitantly scratched the spit right in front of his curled tail.

"Custodian," the innkeeper greeted the holy man. "These are the adventurers Anderson sent for. I don't know where he is, but this one asked for you."

"Thank you, Jonathan," Adler said. "I haven't seen Anderson today, but Forbas is only so large."

The custodian of Forbas' dress was anything but gaudy. A long linen tunic of brown met his lower thighs, work breeches of a darker oak color covered his legs from there, and a woolen overcoat hung on his modest frame. The only things that marked him as anything other than another villager was the pouch-bearing belt he wore, which had various charms and bits of weathered and ancient jewelry hanging off of it. And, of course, he did have the bone and stone beaded necklace of his office around his neck, but I knew this talisman represented his spiritually worn duty to the local ancestors more than it was a way to set him above the community in any way.

"I could find him for you," the innkeeper offered in his gruff way, but there was a hint of reverence to his tone.

Adler smiled slightly at Jonathan. "If you could do so, I would consider it a personal favor. I don't wish to leave the children, but the aid Anderson has paid for will benefit us all."

Jonathan grunted agreeably. "I'll find him."

"Thank you; may the revered dead bless you," Adler told him.

The grey-haired custodian turned to us, as the innkeeper set to work doing his best to work back through the short crowd, his eyes sweeping over our four-man group to land on Rosaria and myself. "I am glad you are here. But you two aren't much older than those I house here?"

"Pery and I are both in training, but we can hunt monsters fine," Rosaria replied to him.

The custodian gave another slight smile. "I am no warrior, nor has Forbas birthed many for me to know the tales of, other than perhaps one in particular and she sadly does not rest here. I will trust you to your word. We certainly need aid."

"Talespeaker," Arthic respectfully addressed the custodian. "We are here to help. We need to speak to Anderson, since he is the petitioner for the guild contract. However, any insight you can give us on what might be happening would be appreciated."

Adler met the squire-captain's gaze with a humble listening. "I fear I know what is happening," he admitted. "Come, there is space near the altar where we may talk and not be overheard by all. I do not wish to leave the shrine house, less we be overheard, but it does no good to cause anyone anymore fear, and there is something of note on the shrine of remembrance."

"Of course," Arthic agreed for us.

We followed Adler to the back of the large windowed hall of ancestors. He stopped in front of the one area where no one dared to sleep or lean against. It was a large stone altar, built into the back wall, and covered in urns and various fingerbones and browning skulls.

The custodian looked over his people once and then back to us. "I fear this is a matter of a compact broken with a local spirit. Look here," he said and pointed to a pair of stag horns mounted upon a small almost-human-faced idol. "My predecessor taught me little of the being that this idol represents. It's name is forgotten; whatever deal we may struck with it is also lost to the centuries, but I believe the agreement that was reached is the source of Forbas' past prosperity and now also our troubles."

"You do not know anything more of this spirit?" Garron asked the man. "Or why it may be doing as it has?"

"Or why it's taking young children away?" Rosaria asked in a more direct way.

"I was only told that this stag idol represented the protection of a local patron spirit. We worship our ancestors here; we do not pray to woodland spirits now, but I have called on the honored dead to ask what they may know. Unfortunately, their memories are addled by time and our own lack of remembrance."

"So they couldn't help you learn anything about the spirit?" Rosaria asked.

"I know the names of those enshrined in this shrine house, down to the founding members of Forbas, but the families of the oldest ancestors have forgotten the details of their lives. And without that living memory, the most ancient of the dead can not manifest as more than a unspeaking will. They have been able to do no more than give me a vague feeling that my fears are somewhat correct," Adler admitted. "I have also long felt that the harvests we enjoy have been perhaps too great. Perhaps this too was the work of this entity before it turned its ire upon us."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"But if that's true, talespeaker, then the spirit has only recently begun to show its anger over whatever deal you've forgotten," Arthic said. "Why wouldn't it just let you know what has been forgotten if it's waited long enough for you to forget?"

"Wild spirits don't think like that," I said, recalling my father's words. "A lot of them are so ageless that they don't remember their own beginnings, if they even have one. It's possible that in its mind it blessed this village only recently and Forbas has just as recently broken their compact with it without clear cause."

"It could still tell them what it wants," Rosaria argued.

"Not all of them even speak, or think like us," I replied. "They just exist and are. Some are more human than others; and some are more dangerous and harder to communicate with."

Adler listened respectfully to us, regarding me with a deeper interest than before. "You know of the wild ghosts, young one?"

"My father taught me about them. He was a druid, and he trained me to practice druidry," I admitted. "The forests here seemed silent to me on our way here. If a local spirit is angered, that may explain why."

"Is there a way you know of to appease this spirit, Pery?" Garron asked me.

I looked up to my friend. "If it hasn't spoken to anyone, then I don't think it will now, at least not on our time. It may expect the villagers to know what they've done wrong. It might have wanted worship or tribute of some kind in exchange for its blessings, but if no one remembers the exact rites and rituals, then I don't know if anything else would appease it."

"Is there no way to speak to this spirit, young druid?" the talespeaker asked me.

"There probably is some way that your ancestors agreed upon to contact it, but if you and they don't remember the way you agreed to do so, then I'm not sure it would be safe to try. Without a specific ritual to communicate to the spirit what is expected and to force it by its own previous agreement not to harm anyone, then it might not be a good idea to invite it into the town," I answered. "If it would even come. There has to be a reason it's only taken children, though. I just can't guess why that is. But it doing that means its not happy."

"What if the spirit is seeking to regain our worship through fear?" Adler asked me.

"It could be doing that," I said.

"But even if we did wish to worship something that has taken children... which seems like an insult to our revered dead, you truly believe that without the knowledge of how it wishes to be worshipped that it would be useless?" Adler asked.

"You can't just worship something because it scares you," Rosaria said.

The custodian regarded her. "I believe you are right, young warrior. But we can not go on like this. The spirits of our dead are fully awake now in this shrine house, but they are not meant to stay so. Their constant vigilance weakens and diminishes them without rest. I have felt the presence of this wild spirit encroaching into our village nightly, bringing with it storms, and the rain and fury only grow greater with the weariness of our guardian dead."

"You do not think they will be able to ward this spirit off for long?" Garron asked.

"No," Adler said. "We have another few days before the eldest of the spirits are forced to slumber again. The household spirits would usually be able to sustain themselves longer, but the fear here and the very lack of the children of their families being within their homes' walls weakens them as well. The spirits will soon be able to provide us with no protection from this woodland entity. Or worse, they will be so thin that they will be able to be rendered to nothingness by it if that is the way it seeks to visit punishment upon us."

"So we need to find it before then," Rosaria resolved.

"I'm not sure how we do that," I said. "It will probably have a place of power in the surrounding woods, but that could be anywhere. And it'll be stronger there, maybe able to keep us from entering."

"If we did summon it here, it would put the citizenry of Forbas at risk," Arthic said. "If it came at all."

"I may know of a way to rouse it from where it sleeps or to break its hold on us," Alder said and once again indicated the stag-horned statue. "Tonight I planned to destroy this idol in the hopes that it would release us from our compact with the entity it represents. I have hesitated to do this because I fear I must call more strongly upon the eldest ancestors to break the compact they themselves once forged."

"And that will weaken them more?" Arthic followed.

"They will need to rest for a generation and be unable to manifest in the physical, unable to guide us until I have long since joined them myself. But they will be able to communicate more clearly tonight than ever, and they may be able to point you to this spirit's lair should it still be necessary after they help me to destroy this idol physically and spiritually."

"You haven't just tried breaking the idol before?" Rosaria asked and stared at the stag horned statue.

"I feared it would anger and bring further wrath upon us," Adler admitted. "The spirits of my more recent predecessor have agreed with me on this matter. To fully break the bonds of our past agreements with this wild spirit, we believe only the gathering of shadows will free us."

"The gathering of shadows?" I asked. "Is that a rite to summon all of your ancestors?"

"Exactly so," Adler said with a hint of sadness. "One has not been performed in the history of Forbas. It will ask more of our dead than should be asked, but I believe they will heed our call."

"Our?" Arthic interjected.

"It is another reason why I have hesitated to perform the gathering," Adler revealed. "Every member of Forbas who is able must be within or around the grounds of this shrine house at the start of the rite. Our shared blood and belief will be what I use to bring forth all of the ancestors."

"And if the wild spirit decides to take offense to your breaking of your ties with it or to truly harm you, then you will all be in one place," Arthic again followed the logic.

Adler eyes grew serious. "But so will our protectors. I pray our assembled and fully manifested ancestors would be able to strike this vengeful presence down if it seeks to intervene. And yet, I would not wish for more of our number to join them ahead of their time before the revered dead could put an end to the wild spirit."

Arthic looked to our assembled number.

Rosaria nodded at him.

"It is fine," Garron said. "As long as we render aid, and slay this numina, then the contract is completed."

"It works for me," I agreed. "They shouldn't be unguarded."

Arthic regarded the custodian again. "We're here to protect this village and to slay the wild spirit that you may combat tonight. If you think your ceremony may require both, then we can be there to protect your people."

"And to find its hiding place if we have to," Rosaria added.

***

The strange woman looked like Gretta, but not.

Garret missed his sister, and when he'd seen what was almost her face in the woods, he'd forgotten about the livestock he was tending to.

The face was older, but it was still Gretta's, even if it looked a lot more like their mother's now. And as he studied the face, he was unable to look away. The rising tingle of wrongness running up his spine was dulled by just looking at her. He forgot about his father, who would be back out into the fenced in corral soon. He even forgot that his parents said to not venture too far away from their sight.

The older Gretta's hand reached from the thick woods, slipping out from behind the tree that shielded the rest of her body from view. He barely noticed that her hand was clawed.

Garret walked, in a daze, and climbed out of the fence line. His legs carried him towards Gretta, towards his sister's face.

"Gretta?" he said, his eyes tearing up. "Mom and dad are worried. We miss you."

She smiled at him and stepped back further into the woods, her body still obscured by the trees and shrubs, her voice singing in his ears. "Come."

"Gretta?" Garret called and followed after her. "Where are you going?"

The forest felt wrong not long after he'd entered into it; trees, leaves, and even the sky began to not stay in their right places.

He turned to look back behind himself once he fully noticed, and he had noticed quickly, but he couldn't see his home anymore through the trees. He should've been able to; he knew the woods around the family home well; he and Gretta had always played in them. But even the trees behind him were different than the ones he knew should be there.

"Gretta?!" he turned back around rapidly.

And he saw her. But it wasn't her. Not anymore.

Her face had grown both more angular with age but softened to an inhumanly beautiful degree all the same. Her once pale skin now bore a dappled texture of earthy brown and pale greens, as if patterned by shadows and light filtering through trees. Her hair cascaded wildly over her shoulders and blew in the light winter breeze; moss-green and brown dark locks, interwoven with leaves, small twigs, and strands of ornamental and silverly spider silk, gave her uncut and soft hair the appearance of a shifting forest canopy.

But it was the downy fur of her bent, long legs and the polished hooves where her feet should've been, that truly startled her brother.

Garret stepped back in fear. His eyes widened.

"Garret," the no-longer Gretta said.

His eyes snapped back up to his changed sister's face. The light of the forest began to dim too rapidly for it to be the work of a mundane setting of the sun. Her once curious eyes were now a deeper green of a lowly glittering hue, too dark and holding unknown ages and a foreign, near-alien wisdom.

When the faun stepped forward, her hooves echoed with a strange and rhythmic tap throughout the shifting, liminal space of the not-forest. The sound filled her brother's ears and made his mind stretch with a futile inability to correlate its own thoughts of self-preservation and noticed oddness.

The face that was still mostly Gretta's filled Garret's view as the creature kneeled down in front of her brother. A full moon rose behind her, and the purple flowers adorning the faun's curling horns bloomed vibrantly as the light of night touched them.

"Come," she said again, her voice a song, and she held out her taloned hand.

Garret, entranced by her strange eyes, took his sister's hand into his own.

The faun smiled and stood. The echoing of her hooves drifted gently into the now-night as she led her brother further into the shifting, changing forest.

Garret still felt something was wrong, but his mind couldn't seem to remember that thought for long. Throughout the coming days that didn't feel like days, the weeks that didn't feel like weeks, and the years that didn't feel like years, these thoughts of wrongness would surface and be buried over and over again.

When he grew cold, the horned man gave him a coat of woven moss, ivy, and the same gossamer spider silk that his sister wore in her hair and that held together the stitches of her strange armor.

When he was hungry, the horned man taught him to ask the earth and animals for parts of themselves. When he felt sad for taking these parts, the horned man showed him how to tend the forest to make up for it.

When his boots wore out, the horned man gave him shoes of leather and downy fur. When the fur of the shoes spread to and became a part of his legs, he'd already forgotten that shoes were supposed to be able to be removed.

When he wept for his parents, Gretta sang him songs that washed the weeping away.

And when he was led away by the horned man to the glade he called home with a few other children and submerged in a pool of too-cool and shifting water, he'd forgotten all about how much the man's crooked face and feathered shoulders scared him. He'd soon even forget how Cindi ran, still remembering who she was despite the best efforts of the horned man and his fauns.

When the roots and shifting plants of the crystalline pool burrowed into his flesh and became instead shifting and swirling tattoos of leaves, vines, and other natural motifs upon his skin, it didn't even hurt at all.

Finally, when he emerged from the water, Gretta placed a diadem of thorns upon his brow. A crown that would sink into his head and grow to become his horns.

And by the time he was grown, he'd forgotten everything but how to tend the forest and worship the horned man who guarded its best interests.