Nian'an stirred in his sleep, his brow furrowing.
He was dreaming. In the dream, there was no village, no father, no mother. Only a vast tree, its trunk wide as a wall, its canopy blotting out the sky. The leaves were black, and when the wind blew, they rustled like countless voices whispering in the distance. He could not make out the words, but the voices felt familiar, as if he had heard them somewhere before.
He stood beneath the tree and looked down at his hands. All ten nails were intact, gleaming with a faint moon-white glow. He felt a surge of relief and turned to leave. Then he heard a voice behind him.
"Nian'an."
It was an old woman's voice, gentle, like his great-grandmother calling him for supper. He turned back. A fissure had opened in the trunk of the tree, and inside it sat an old woman in red. Her hair was white and smooth, pinned with a silver clasp. Her face was lined, layer upon layer, like the bark of the locust tree. Her eyes were black—not the black of pupils and whites, but wholly black, like two bottomless wells.
But when she smiled, she looked almost kind.
"Nian'an, your nails are beautiful," she said, her voice unhurried, like a grandmother soothing a child to sleep. "Curved like little moons. I have never seen such beautiful nails."
Nian'an looked at his hands. He had never thought much about his nails, but being praised always felt nice. He smiled shyly and hid his fingers behind his back.
"Granny, why do you live in the tree?"
The old woman smiled but did not answer. She reached out, and her thin, withered finger touched the nail on Nian'an's left pinky. The touch was light as wind; he barely felt it. But he saw his nail gleam for a moment, like a firefly's flash, and then go dark.
"Lend this one to Granny, will you?" she said. "Just one. I will return it in a few days."
Nian'an thought about it. His mother had taught him that if someone asked to borrow something and you had it, you should share. His great-grandmother had borrowed things from him before—his little stool, his wooden sword—and had always returned them. He was about to nod when he heard a voice calling from far away.
"Nian'an—Nian'an—"
It was his mother's voice. Distant, as if from across many mountains, but unmistakably hers.
He glanced back. When he turned to the tree again, the old woman was gone. The fissure remained, dark and bottomless, its edges slightly curled, like a mouth that had just closed.
He looked down at his left hand. The nail on his pinky was still there. He let out a breath and tried to run toward his mother's voice. But his feet would not move. He looked down—his ankles had sunk into the earth, buried up to the shins in black, damp soil, warm like the dirt beneath the tree's roots. He tried to wiggle his toes, and felt something wrapping around them. Thin. Dense. Like strands of hair.
Roots.
Black roots coiled around his feet, pulling him deeper. He tried to scream, but no sound came. His mother's voice grew closer, more urgent. But he could not go back.
The last thing he saw was the locust tree's canopy, hung with countless nails—small, curved, like moons—chiming softly in the wind, like children singing.