The Canticle of the Root

Marlo, a fourteen-year-old with a preternatural fondness for old botany books, found himself in a predicament that defied the reasonable explanations his science teacher offered. It was a Tuesday, drizzly and gray, and he had taken refuge in the basement restroom of the school library, a dank place that smelled of wet concrete and forgotten paperbacks. As he stood at the sink, scrubbing a graphite stain from his palm, the faucet to his left began to drip in a rhythm that seemed almost musical, a syncopated patter against the rust-stained porcelain. Then, a voice, thin as birch bark, whispered from the drain, ‘Marlo… Marlo…’ He froze, his reflection in the mirror suddenly warped, as if the glass were breathing. He turned, expecting a prankster from the year above, but the restroom was empty, save for the distorted echo of his own name. A shadow at the edge of his vision detached itself from the wall behind the last stall, a tall silhouette that seemed to be woven from the darkness itself, and it moved with an unnatural gliding grace, its hands tucked into the opposite sleeves of a long, black coat. Its face was a void, a smooth, featureless black that seemed to drink the light. Marlo did not wait to see more. He bolted for the door, but the door slammed shut with a metallic clang before he could reach it, and the voice, now behind him, chanted a low, guttural phrase that made his skin crawl, for he recognized it as the Old Tongue from his herbology texts, a phrase about harvesting what has been sown. The lights flickered, and the silhouette was gone.

The next day, Marlo’s friend, Ren, had his own encounter. Ren, a boy who laughed at things that should not be laughed at, ventured into the same restroom, his curiosity piqued by Marlo’s pale face and stammered warnings. He sat in the middle cubicle, the one with the cracked seat, and scrolled through his phone, waiting for something to happen. Just as he was about to give up, the door of his cubicle rattled, a violent shaking that vibrated the floor, and a voice, deep and gravelly, boomed, ‘I am coming for you, little root.’ Ren, for the first time in his life, felt true fear, a cold that seeped into his bones. He dropped his phone and scrambled to open the door, but it was stuck, as if someone were holding it from the outside. Through the gap beneath the door, he saw a pair of bare, blackened feet, not human, but like gnarled tree roots, twisted and cracked, with soil clinging to them. The feet shifted, and then they were gone. When Ren finally shoved the door open, the restroom was silent, but on the floor, there was a scattering of dead leaves and a small, white seed pod.

Marlo, unable to shake the encounter, rummaged through his grandmother’s old journal, a weathered tome she had left him before she passed, filled with sketches of plants and annotations in a hand that seemed to know too much. He found a passage about a rite called the Canticle of the Root, a chant said to summon a guardian from the earth, a being that protected ancient groves but could be corrupted by those who did not understand it. The chant, written in the same Old Tongue, described the shape of a druid cloaked in soil, a face of loam, and hands that could reach through the veil. Marlo realized that the entity he had seen was not a person, but a spirit of the land, and it had been bound to the school, perhaps to its foundations, for decades, feeding on the fear of those who trespassed.

Days passed, and the sightings grew more frequent. Students reported seeing a figure in the reflection of the water fountain, in the gap between the lockers, always the same: a tall, cloaked form with a featureless face, moving with a rhythm that mimicked the swaying of trees in a wind that did not exist. The school’s old willow tree, which had stood for centuries, began to lose its leaves, though it was summer, and the ground around its base turned black and cracked. Marlo, driven by a need to understand, stayed after hours one evening, armed with his grandmother’s journal and a small pouch of ash from her fireplace. He entered the restroom, the place where it had first appeared, and knelt on the cold tile floor. He began to chant the Canticle of the Root, his voice trembling, but growing stronger as he went. The lights flickered, and the air grew thick with the smell of damp earth. The shadow materialized in front of him, but this time, it did not approach. It stood still, and from its faceless head, a voice, ancient and sorrowful, spoke in Marlo’s mother tongue, ‘You have the key, child of the old ways. Do not let me be the last.’

Marlo, understanding now, reached into his pocket and produced the seed pod Ren had found, which he had kept, wrapped in a cloth. He placed it on the floor, and the shadow extended a hand, a gnarled, root-like appendage, and touched it. The pod split open, and a tiny green shoot emerged, growing rapidly, curling, and branching, until it formed a small sapling. The shadow seemed to sigh, and then it crumbled, dissolving into the tile, leaving behind only a faint imprint of leaves. Marlo stood, his heart racing, and as he left the restroom, he saw the school’s willow tree, now resurrected, its leaves shimmering with a vitality he had not seen before. But he knew that the Canticle was not finished; it had been passed to him, a new guardian of the root, and he felt a connection to the land that would never break, a silent companion in the shadows, watching, waiting for the next time the soil would stir.