There’s a legend in out in the country – if you enter the woods at dawn or dusk, find the path marked by white mushrooms, follow it to a white tree stump and light a campfire in it, you can reverse an Act of God. Any death, flood, or infestation can be undone. Only the truly desperate can make such a change.
My story starts with a man sitting beside a campfire he made in the white tree stump. He appears to be from the 1930s or 40s. As promised, the Keeper of the Forest appears to him, and leads him to through the woods. She doesn’t talk, and rarely eats or sleeps. Her attire is threadbare and covered in plantlife.
The man notices several dwellings along the way – cabins, treehouses, and what seems like human-sized nests. He even sees a human skull with doe’s horns grown out of it. The Keeper does not answer his questions.
The arrive at their destination: a gorgeous weeping willow, branches bare and slowing white. The man is given a choice. His home will be saved, but he must leave that life forever and become a Keeper of the Forest. We see the Keeper, and then we see her in the past, when she was still human. She’s crying in front of the same willow tree, about to agree to the same deal. The story ends as the man agrees to become a Keeper.