Where the Trees Watch – Chapter 29
The Names the River Had Taken
The woman’s voice barely rose above the dark current moving through the river, yet the words struck Ryan harder than anything else inside Blackwood.
“I almost remembered my name once.”
Ryan Mercer turned toward her instinctively while cold water pushed against his legs beneath drifting fog. The woman standing beside him looked middle-aged, dressed in an old hiking jacket faded nearly white with age. Moss clung to parts of her sleeves while strands of wet gray hair hung across a pale empty face.
But her eyes—
her eyes looked desperate.
Like some part of her still fought against the river after years trapped inside it.
Ryan’s thoughts blurred painfully for a second again.
Something important had slipped away just now.
He couldn’t remember what.
The river was already working on him.
Claire continued moving slowly deeper into the black water ahead, her posture distant and dreamlike while the copy wearing Ryan’s face watched calmly from the opposite bank beneath the dead trees.
Walter shouted again from shore, but the words sounded strangely muffled now, like his voice traveled from very far away.
The woman beside Ryan leaned slightly closer.
“Don’t listen to the ones on the banks,” she whispered.
Ryan frowned weakly. “What are they?”
“Memories Blackwood keeps alive.”
Cold dread spread through him instantly.
He looked toward the copies standing among the trees opposite the river.
The smiling versions of missing people remained perfectly still beneath drifting fog while pale lantern lights glowed softly behind them between the trunks.
Not creatures.
Not ghosts.
Memories.
Blackwood copied people after learning them, then preserved those copies while the originals slowly dissolved inside the river.
The realization hit Ryan with horrifying clarity.
The river wasn’t where Blackwood kept forgotten people.
It was where it erased them completely.
The woman’s expression tightened painfully as though she sensed his understanding.
“You still remember enough to leave.”
Ryan looked toward Claire again. Water had reached her chest now while silent figures surrounded her motionless beneath the fog.
“I’m not leaving her.”
The woman closed her eyes briefly.
“That’s why the forest chose you.”
Before Ryan could respond, movement suddenly rippled through the river farther downstream.
At first he thought it was only the current shifting.
Then one of the silent figures beneath the water began sinking.
Slowly.
Without struggle.
A young man wearing a torn camping jacket disappeared inch by inch beneath the black river while the others nearby remained completely still.
No reaction.
No emotion.
The water swallowed his face last.
Then he was gone.
Ryan stared in horror.
The woman beside him whispered softly:
“That means nobody remembers him anymore.”
The sentence nearly broke something inside Ryan’s chest.
Up on the opposite bank, the copy wearing his face smiled wider.
“You feel it already, don’t you?”
Ryan hated that the thing was right.
Memories inside his head kept slipping unpredictably now. Certain details remained sharp while others dissolved seconds after he tried holding onto them.
He suddenly couldn’t remember the name of the college he attended.
Then another frightening realization hit him harder.
He struggled to remember his father’s face.
Panic surged violently through him.
Claire turned slowly toward the opposite bank where the smiling copy waited among the trees.
And she smiled back.
Ryan forced himself deeper through the freezing water immediately. “Claire!”
She looked toward him vaguely.
For one hopeful second, recognition flickered weakly behind her eyes.
Then the copy softly spoke again from shore.
“Ryan already left you once.”
Claire’s expression changed.
Confusion.
Pain.
The river around Ryan suddenly pulled harder against his legs while whispers drifted beneath the dark current around him.
Dozens of voices speaking softly underwater.
And among them—
Ryan heard his own voice whispering from beneath the river:
“You’re forgetting yourself.”