Chapter 1 – The Map and the Myth
The map arrived folded into eight careful squares, smelling faintly of smoke and pine resin. Elara found it tucked inside an old botanical atlas she’d bought from a secondhand bookshop in Vienna—just another treasure in a life that revolved around pressed flowers and forgotten paths.
She smoothed the browned parchment across her dormitory desk. Ink lines traced a dense mass of green, ringed by mountains shaded in charcoal. A forest, unnamed. At the bottom, in a neat, antique hand, someone had written in Latin: Silva Antiqua—ubi tempus dormit.
“The Ancient Forest—where time sleeps,” she translated under her breath.
“Elara, are you reading spells again or just talking to plants?” Tomas leaned in the doorway, her older brother, backpack already slung over one shoulder. His dark hair was still wet from the rain outside.
She blinked up at him, excitement brightening her pale green eyes. “Look at this.”
He crossed the room and whistled low. “That’s not one of your normal hiking maps.”
“It was hidden in the atlas,” she said. “No label. No coordinates. Just this drawing and a note.” She pointed to a faint sketch in the corner: an enormous tree, roots spiraling like a whirlpool. Around it were tiny figures, arms raised.
“Creepy cult or ancient festival?” Tomas asked.
“Probably both,” another voice chimed in. Anya appeared behind him, red scarf and camera hanging from her neck, cheeks pink from the cold. She was studying photography in Prague and rarely missed a chance to chase a dramatic landscape.
Elara hesitated, then pushed her fears aside. “There’s a legend I heard from Professor Adler. About a forest in the Carpathians that predates the villages around it. He said it’s older than the Roman roads. That people go in and lose their sense of time. Sometimes they don’t come back at all.”
“Lovely,” Tomas said dryly. “And you want to go there.”
“We’re on break,” Elara said. “We wanted a trip. Why not this?”
“Because ‘why not’ is exactly what people say before they disappear,” Tomas replied. But his eyes lingered on the map, on the curves of rivers and the tight loops of elevation.
Anya snapped a picture of the parchment. “If this is real, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime project. An untouched forest—old paths, ruins, maybe even relics. Think of the photos. Think of the portfolio.”
“And the research,” Elara added softly. “Undocumented species, undisturbed ecosystems. A living museum.”
Tomas exhaled, defeated. “We’ll need gear. A proper route. And someone who actually knows the area.”
“I might know someone,” Anya said. “My grandmother’s village is near the eastern Carpathians. She always tells stories about a forest nobody dares to enter.”
Elara’s heart beat faster. Outside, Vienna’s late autumn rain tapped the windowpanes. Inside, among books and maps, something ancient stirred in her imagination—roots twisting, leaves whispering in a language she felt she almost understood.
She traced the ink outline of the forest with one fingertip.
“The Ancient Forest,” she murmured. “Let’s see if you’re still sleeping.”
