The Triangle of Ash and Root

My name is Maya, and I’ve lived in this house for a year now, but it still doesn’t feel like home. The house itself is fine, but the backyard has always made me uneasy. There’s a spot, past the vegetable garden I started, where three old oaks grow in a perfect triangle, their branches intertwining overhead like a canopy. In the center of that triangle, the ground is bare, a patch of dirt roughly the size of a child. I tried planting wildflowers there, but nothing ever grew; the seeds would rot in the soil, and the air felt cold even in July.

It was last autumn that I decided to use the Ouija board. I had found it at a thrift store, its wooden planchette worn smooth, and I thought it would be a fun way to spend a gloomy afternoon. I set it up in my bedroom, lit a candle, and, half-heartedly, asked if anyone was there. The planchette moved almost immediately, sliding to ‘YES’. I nearly pulled my hands away, but curiosity kept me there. That’s when I met Anya. She said she was ten years old, that she had been buried alive, and that she wanted revenge. When I asked how I could help, the planchette circled the word ‘FIND’ and then pointed to ‘BODY’.

I haven’t slept well since. The spot in the yard haunts me. I know, in my gut, that Anya’s remains are there, right between those trees. I’ve always felt a connection to the earth, to plants and growing things. I’m not a powerful witch by any means, but I can coax life out of barren soil. Why can’t I touch that patch? Whenever I get close, a cold dread creeps up my spine, and the very ground seems to hold its breath.

My mother is devout, her faith a rigid line between the living and the dead. If I told her about Anya, she’d label me a liar or, worse, possessed. She’d burn my herbs and scatter my crystals, and she’d plaster the house with crosses. I can’t tell her. But I can’t ignore Anya either. She visits me at night, a faint shimmer at the edge of my vision, always pointing toward the yard. She doesn’t speak, but I feel her desperation, her anger, her plea.

Last night, I dreamed of roots. They were dry and brittle, like bones, and they wove through the earth, clutching a small, hollow space. In the dream, I saw a locket, tarnished and green, with a photo of a smiling girl etched inside. I woke up with tears on my face, and I knew what I had to do.

Today, I gathered my courage and my small gardening trowel. The sky was overcast, casting a gray pall over the yard. As I stepped into the triangle, the air grew still, and the scent of damp soil filled my nose. I began to dig, the trowel scraping against the earth. The ground was stubborn, as if it did not want to give up its secret. After what felt like an hour, my hand brushed against something smooth and hard. I dug faster, my heart pounding, until I unearthed a wooden box, no bigger than a shoebox, rotten and decaying.

I pried open the lid with trembling fingers. Inside, nestled in a nest of brittle roots, was a child’s skeleton, small and fragile. There was a locket, just like in my dream, and a small, hand-carved wooden figurine of a mother holding a baby. The skeleton’s jaw was open, as if in a silent scream. I dropped the box, my breath catching. The rage that hit me was not my own. It poured from the ground, from the bones, from the very air around the triangle. I saw, in a flash, a little girl with dirt in her hair, her hands clawing at the inside of a coffin lid, her mouth opened in a scream that no one could hear.

I stumbled back, tears streaming down my face. ‘I found her,’ I whispered. ‘Anya, I found you.’

A cold wind swept through the trees, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. For a moment, I saw her, a faint outline of a girl, her eyes filled with a terrible, ancient pain. Then she smiled, and she dissolved into the twilight.

I sit here now, in my room, the locket in my hand. The detective I called has just left, having taken the remains away. They’ll do their investigation, but I know they won’t find the truth. Anya was suffocated by her own stepfather after her mother died, and he planted her in the triangle because he thought it would bind her spirit. But the earth would not hold her. It yearned to be free.

Now that she’s found, I know she’ll be at peace. But something else has taken her place. The soil in the triangle is still barren, but now it whispers with a new voice, a deeper, older voice. It speaks of hunger and restlessness. I don’t think it’s Anya. She’s gone. But the spot between the three trees is no longer empty. It aches for a new story, a new secret.

I think I’ll plant a rosebush there. A thorny one, with blood-red flowers. I’ll nurture it, and I’ll listen. But I’ll never dig there again.