Maribelle did not sleep that night.
She sat curled on the wooden floor of her cottage, her knees drawn to her chest, as the events of the evening unraveled in her mind. The fog had finally lifted, slinking away with the same eerie grace it arrived with, but the stranger’s words remained—woven into her thoughts like creeping vines she could not untangle.
"Not in this life."
His voice echoed in her skull, as if it had settled inside her, refusing to leave.
Each time she closed her eyes, fragments of the vision he had stirred within her flashed behind her eyelids—golden forests, a crown of strawberry vines, flames.
She had never seen those things before.
And yet…
She pressed a hand against her chest, where her heart pounded with something deeper than fear—recognition.
Outside her window, the strawberry fields stretched toward the horizon, the moon casting pale light over their swaying leaves. The plants should have been still in the cool night air, yet Maribelle swore she could see them trembling.
As if they, too, knew what she did not.
The next morning, she went straight to Mistress Elira.
The elderly woman was already outside, tending to the garden behind her cottage, her gnarled hands weaving between the roots with practiced ease. She did not turn when Maribelle arrived, but a knowing hum escaped her lips.
“You come with questions,” Elira mused, dusting soil from her palms. “I could feel the disturbance in the air last night. The land stirred in its sleep.”
Maribelle swallowed. “You felt it too?”
Mistress Elira finally looked up.
Her sharp, gray eyes settled on Maribelle with a gaze that was both gentle and all-knowing.
“You are a child of the soil,” the old woman murmured. “Of course you would feel it.”
Maribelle’s throat tightened.
“I don’t understand,” she said, the frustration bubbling in her chest. “I saw things. Memories that weren’t mine. And the man in the fog—he said I had forgotten something. That the land remembers. What does that mean?”
Mistress Elira sighed, wiping her hands on her apron.
Then, with slow, careful steps, she led Maribelle toward the edge of the strawberry fields.
They stopped where the oldest vines grew—thick and twisting, their roots stretching deep into the earth like the veins of something ancient and alive.
Mistress Elira knelt, brushing her fingers over the damp soil.
“Tell me, child,” she said softly. “Have you ever wondered why strawberries only grow for you?”
Maribelle blinked.
The question was strange, but… she had.
Others could plant them, water them, tend to them just the same—yet their harvests were never as rich, their berries never as sweet.
Maribelle’s strawberries grew like magic.
Slowly, she nodded. “I always thought it was luck.”
Mistress Elira smiled, though there was sadness in it. “Luck has nothing to do with it.”
She reached into the soil and, with careful fingers, unearthed something small. Something glowing.
A seed.
But not just any seed—a golden one.
Maribelle inhaled sharply. “What…?”
“The land remembers,” Mistress Elira whispered.
She took Maribelle’s hand and placed the golden seed in her palm. The moment it touched her skin, warmth spread through her fingers—a familiar warmth.
As if something inside her had just woken up.
Memories flickered at the edges of her mind, just beyond her grasp.
“This is your past, Maribelle,” Mistress Elira said. “Buried deep in the soil. Waiting to grow again.”
Maribelle looked up, her breath unsteady.
And for the first time, she was afraid of what she might uncover.
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