Beyond the edge of Lindleigh, where the village fields surrendered to tangled woods and rolling meadows, there was a spring. Its waters ran clear and cold beneath the shade of an ancient oak, bubbling softly over moss and stone before vanishing into the shadows of the forest.
The villagers called it Wildermere Spring, but they seldom gave it much thought. Its waters fed their fields and filled their wells, kept the land green even when other villages turned to dust, yet they paid it no mind. The Wildermere had always been there, and it always would be, they believed—as constant as the hills, as certain as the turning seasons.
But someone always knew better. (more…)