The village square was already crowded, thick with bodies in the summer heat. Rowan’s legs trembled as she climbed the tall crate by the well. She let her voice rise over the villagers.

“We are poisoning the river.”

A few heads turned. Someone laughed. 

“I’ve watched the mill runoff turn the water black. I’ve seen forge ash choke the stream. Trees are turning pale.”

“Get down,” someone spat. 

The mill master rose, red-faced with a pint of ale in his fist. “How dare you accuse your village!”

“I saw it,” Rowan said. Her voice shook, but she pressed on. “Fish are floating belly-up. The leaves are curling. You drink the water. Your children do.” 

A soft apple struck the crate and burst, its flesh splattering her feet.

Then came the chorus. “Liar! Witch! Take your cursed stories to the trees!” 

A boot came down hard on the crate, jolting her. She leapt free as rough hands clawed at her skirt. Someone kicked her in the calf. She ran through the crowd, boots pounding behind her. She stumbled past baskets and through the barley fields as fast as she could, into the forest where the path narrowed and the trees swallowed the noise.  

It wasn’t the first time they had called her a witch. The children whispered it behind her back. People muttered it when she passed them. No one trusted her since her mother vanished into the forest ten years ago. Rowan was nine. She remembered how her mother paused at the forest’s edge that day, one hand resting on the bark of a willow, as if listening for something. Her mother said nothing. She just stepped between the trees and was gone. 

The village allowed her to live at the forest’s edge, where her mother had disappeared. For a while, Rowan thought she might come back, but that hope faded. Instead, she turned to what the forest could offer. She learned to find medicine in tree bark and create healing tinctures from moss. Her older brother visited every Sunday to check on her. 

She ran for miles into the forest and only stopped when the summer air grew cool. And then she saw it, an ancient weeping willow, its long silver-green branches sweeping the earth.

She slipped beneath the willow’s veil. Something about the tree felt old and familiar. The scent of the bark reminded her of her mother’s shawl. Rowan pressed her palm to the trunk. The grooves were warm, alive with a slow, steady rhythm she could feel in her bones. She heard a voice that she hadn’t heard since childhood. 

“You came.”

Her knees gave out. She sank into the moss and whispered, “It’s you.”

The voice didn’t speak again, but the tree’s branches dipped low, brushing her shoulder.

"I spoke for the trees and the river, but no one listened.”

A knot in the bark softened under her hand. She closed her eyes as the spirit within the willow surrounded her with presence. She began to cry. The tree’s branches brushed her cheeks and wiped her tears. Her breathing began to sync with the ancient tree.

“Do you remember when the river still sang?”

The leaves rustled in reply. A slow wave of light moved through its limbs.

“Are you hurting, too?”

The knot dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed again like a heavy sigh of pain. 

“I want to help you,” she said.

A loving glow wrapped around her fingers. Warmth moved up her arm and settled in her chest. She had never felt anything like it. The willow’s branches stroked her back. She held the tree, and the tree held her. 

And then the vision began. 

She saw the river, not choked and gray, but clear and laughing, filled with fish and summer light. She saw plants growing along the river’s edges, including watercress, reeds, and willow roots, which filtered the current. Then the vision shifted. Barrels spilled filth. The sickness spread.

The vision shifted again. She saw hands planting seeds. One pair looked familiar. She saw long fingers and her mother’s silver ring. The seeds nestled below the earth. Their roots wove into nets. Fungi spread beneath the water, drop by drop, cleaning the flow. Willow cuttings took root, drinking in the poison, then breaking it down. 

It was ancient knowledge, older than speech. It slowly faded, and Rowan opened her eyes.

The glow in the tree dimmed but remained—a quiet fire deep within the bark. 

"You’ve shown me what to do," she said, "And I will."

When Rowan returned to the village, the dirt on her hem and the golden glow in her eyes did not go unnoticed.

She stepped into the square where she had once been silenced.

"I know how to help the river," she said.

Some turned their backs. Others laughed, soft and uneasy.

"The willow showed me how to begin the healing.”

Some people snickered, but a child took her hand, and a woman stepped forward, holding a jar of seeds. They followed her to the river.

They planted in silence—willow cuttings, reeds, and mushroom spores. Rowan taught them what the tree had shown her. How to kneel, how to wait, and how to treat the land with care.

Some days brought doubt, but Rowan sang to the saplings. She listened to the roots. And slowly that summer, the river changed. The water cleared, the fish returned, and the stench faded.

The villagers noticed, and they stopped calling it foolish. But no one saw Rowan slip away in the early morning light, back to the grove where the willow waited. Its branches parted, and she stepped beneath. The knot in the trunk pulsed under her hand.

"I did what you showed me," she whispered.

The warmth wrapped around her. 

And then, she understood. Her mother hadn’t vanished. She had become part of the willow. She was rooted, remembered, and deeply loved.