“…the night I stepped beneath the boughs of the Blackroot Hollow… that was a darkness that stared back.” “Ahead, impossibly far and impossibly near, a single lamp burned… atop a stone stairway half-swallowed by roots.” “Every footstep sank softly, as if the ground itself were breathing, and the trees whispered confessions meant for no living ear.” “Someone—or something—stood behind the door. I could hear its breathing… slow, deep, patient.” “Some lights were not meant to guide us. Some were meant to lure us.”