Page 1

Chapter 1

Hazel

Flowers were not supposed to bite.

Certainly not any member of the family Ranunculaceae, but the specimen trembling beneath my fingers was violating enough established botanical principles to give me a headache.

I held very still.

The flower held very still.

“Well,” I whispered. “That’s new.”

I stared at the glossy green tendril looped neatly above my knuckle, then glanced at the rest of the plant spilling down the trunk of an ancient oak. Nothing about it resembled the specimen in Grandma’s journal. The leaves were too broad, the stems too dark, and the tiny yellow flowers had none of the distinctive blue stamens she drew in painstaking detail.

It wasn’t the plant I came to Screaming Woods to find. It was, however, holding my hand.

“That’s interesting,” I murmured.

The vine gave another faint tug.

I lifted my phone with my free hand and took several photographs, changing the angle to catch the fine coppery hairs running along the stem. When I leaned closer, the leaves turned toward me one by one, following my movement in a slow green ripple.

My pulse quickened. Phototropism could account for leaves orienting toward light. Thigmotropism explained a climbing plant responding to physical contact. Neither explained why this one appeared to be inspecting me.

I switched to video.

“Unidentified climbing species found approximately 1.6 miles north of the public trailhead,” I said quietly. “Woody perennial with alternate cordate leaves, copper trichomes, and unusually rapid tactile response. Possibly related to⁠—”

The vine squeezed.

I stopped recording. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

It loosened immediately. For a moment, I simply knelt there with my hand suspended between us. Then I smiled. The expression felt strange on my face—not unpleasant, exactly—more like finding an old sweater at the back of a cupboard and realizing it still fits.

“Responsive to sound,” I added, starting the recording again. “Or possibly tone. Further observation required.”

The vine stroked the side of my hand. A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and the forest seemed to absorb the sound.

Screaming Woods rose around me in dense, dripping layers of green. Moss blanketed the roots and lower trunks of the trees, softening every hard edge. Ferns crowded the spaces between them, some no higher than my boots and others brushing my shoulders. Pale lichen hung from the branches like frayed lace, and somewhere above the canopy, a bird gave three sharp whistles before receiving a disgruntled answer from farther away.

It was damp, untidy, and aggressively alive.

And I loved it.

That realization arrived with enough force to make my chest ache.

I hadn’t loved fieldwork in years. I’d continued doing it, obviously. I’d designed studies, submitted proposals, applied for funding, cataloged samples, and written articles that twelve people read before three of them sent me emails explaining why I was wrong. I’d defended my research in rooms full of people waiting for me to finish so they could discuss something they considered more credible.

But I used to love this.

I’d kneel in the mud without thinking about publication outcomes. I’d photograph fungi because they were beautiful, not because they might support a grant application. When Grandma had taken me walking, we could spend an hour examining the underside of a single leaf. She’d never once asked what use it was. Everything had value to her simply because it grew.

The vine wound another careful loop around my hand.

Grandma would have adored this place. The thought knocked the breath out of me.

I lowered the phone and looked at the plant, blinking until the copper hairs along its stem came back into focus. In the front pocket of my field bag, wrapped in oilcloth despite the clear weather forecast, lay the last of Grandma’s journals. The pages smelled faintly of lavender, dust, and the hand cream she’d used for as long as I could remember.