The Roots That Bind Us

The forest had gone quiet.

Not the peaceful kind of quiet that came just before dawn.

This silence felt different.

Not a sound could be heard. Even the wind was still.

As if the Earth itself were listening.

A man stood among the trees, cloaked in darkness, though no one had seen him arrive. The silhouette of his robes stirred softly, caught by a wind that seemed to exist only for him.

For a moment, he simply stood there.

Then his caramel eyes opened, almost glowing against the darkness.

He lifted his gaze toward the dark sky.

“Humans have always believed they could change the world by finding the right answers.”

A faint smile touched his lips.

“They never consider that they may be asking the wrong questions.”

Somewhere deep in the forest, a branch cracked.

He didn’t look toward it.

“Almost everyone is asking the wrong one.”

The wind shifted.

Leaves trembled overhead, yet the forest remained unnaturally silent.

The man lowered his gaze to the earth beneath his feet.

“The Earth may need saving.”

Something moved beneath the soil.

Roots, perhaps.

Or something much older.

His eyes lifted once more.

“But saving it will require remembering.”

A bird called from somewhere in the darkness.

Then another.

Within seconds, the forest breathed again.

The man was gone.

STELLA

Boxes were everywhere.

A small stack waited beside the front door for my Durango. The much larger pile in the living room would be somebody else’s problem when the storage company arrived.

In the kitchen, I stopped beneath the old box on top of the cupboards.

I pulled it down and brushed dust from the lid.

The poem carved into the top was just like I remembered.

Beneath the weight of seasons gone,

Where silent stories sleep,

The roots reach through forgotten years,

In promises they keep.

For roots are more than tangled wood,

Or anchors in the land.

They are the lives that came before,

The ones who took your hand.

And though we bloom in different fields,

Or follow separate skies,

The roots that bind us still remain—

Unseen, but never die.

Six months, and somehow, it still felt like yesterday.

Inside were pieces of home. Family recipes. Old photographs. Little things Mom and Dad had kept for reasons I’d probably never know.

Like the old leather-bound book, its pages weathered with age.

I flipped through it.

Blank.

Every page.

“Still weird,” I murmured.

Underneath it was a photograph of the three of us laughing.

My vision blurred.

“I’ll make you proud. I promise.”

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I jumped.

“Shit.”

I wiped my eyes.

Time to go.

I put everything back into the box and carried the last of my things outside.

I stopped on the porch.

The house looked exactly the same. Brick and cream stucco. Red tile roof. Mom’s plants spilling over their pots. The statue beside the porch she’d insisted belonged there, even though Dad swore it made the place look like a tiny Italian church.

I almost laughed.

Almost.

Mrs. Marino waved from across the street.

“Call when you get there!”

“I will!”

I took one last look at the house.

“Bye, guys.”

Then I walked to my Durango carrying the memory box and set it carefully on the passenger seat beside my LSU: Torch Lake Campus folder.

God, I loved this car.

A 2015 Dodge Durango R/T. Matte purple, black wheels, all-wheel drive, and a Hemi V8 that sounded entirely too good when I started it.

Dad had cared about the all-wheel drive.

Michigan winters.

Mom cared whether it would still be running when I graduated college.

I’d been seventeen.

I cared that it was purple and looked badass.

Mom had called that a successful compromise.

It was one of the last things they’d ever bought me.

I planned to drive it until the damn thing physically refused to move.

I looked in the rearview mirror at the boxes crammed behind me.

Barely enough room for them in the Durango.

Hopefully my dorm was bigger.

God only knew where I was supposed to put all this shit if it wasn’t.

The Durango started with its familiar rumble.

For one second, I just sat there.

Then I looked at the house one last time, set the GPS, and pulled out.

9 hr 42 min.

Jesus.

“In 200 feet, use the right lane to turn right onto White Street.”

I turned.

And somewhere between White Street and northern Michigan, nine hours disappeared.

“In 2.3 miles, you will reach your destination.”

The GPS voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

I blinked.

Had I really been driving that long?

Then I looked around.

There were sooooo many trees.

Seriously.

Where the hell had all these trees come from?

The familiar roads of home had disappeared, replaced by thick northern Michigan forest.

I’d driven almost the entire way on autopilot.

The road curved beneath a canopy of trees, the forest growing thicker on either side.

I lowered the window.

Cool air rushed inside, carrying the smell of damp earth, pine—

and water.

I breathed in again.

Definitely water.

I couldn’t see it yet.

But I could smell it.

“Okay.”

Maybe choosing a campus almost ten hours from home hadn’t been completely insane.

The Durango rounded another bend.

And I forgot about the GPS.

The road crested the hill, and the view opened in front of me.

Torch Lake stretched out beyond the trees, impossibly blue beneath the evening sky.

Buildings followed the shoreline instead of fighting it, tucked between the trees and connected by winding paths. Farther out, rows of docks reached across the water.

And sitting on them—

“Houses?”

Those couldn’t be dorms.

They looked like lake houses.

Huge ones.

Three sat along each dock, their windows facing the water like somebody had designed a resort and accidentally filled it with college students.

I glanced at my welcome packet sitting on the passenger seat.

DORM 5 — ROOM 2

Then back at the lake.

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

For the first time in six months, the tightness in my chest loosened.

Just a little.

“Okay, Torch Lake.”

I smiled.

“Show me what you’ve got.”