10/14/2026
My name was once longer, but most of it rotted away. The forest calls me Wickerbone now. I have been dead for quite some time. Not dramatically dead. Not cursed by a witch or slain by a hero atop a mountain. Just... dead. The sort of dead that happens so slowly you hardly notice until a horn falls off and you can't remember where you left it. The stitches help. Mostly.
Every autumn, when the fog settles low between the trees and the pumpkins begin to glow, I feel a little more alive than usual. The crows return to gossip. The ghosts drift through the woods on their evening walks. The skeletons emerge from wherever skeletons spend the rest of the year. We don't ask. It's rude.
I spend my nights wandering beneath the harvest moon, searching for pieces of myself I've misplaced over the centuries. A tooth near the creek. A claw beneath an old oak. Half a memory somewhere deep in the woods. I've found most of them. Except my heartbeat. I lost that a very long time ago. But that's quite alright. The forest has been keeping time for me ever since. And besides...If you listen closely on cool October nights, you can still hear my bones creak, my stitches pull, and my tail rustling through the fallen leaves.
