In the morning I learned the forest behind the chapel was alive with listening to things, the bells rang without hands. I was kneeling alone, palms pressed together, breath fogging the varnished pew, when the iron tongue struck itself and sang. Not once, but three times, deliberate as a summons. I remember thinking God had finally grown impatient with my silence, or that the saints had decided to interrupt.

Outside, the trees answered.

The chapel sat at the edge of the state forest, a white clapboard stubbornness surrounded by cedar and fir. It had been built by loggers who believed faith could keep wolves polite and axes sharp. By the time I arrived, the wolves were gone, the axes rusted, and the congregation consisted of me, the caretaker’s cat, and whatever else wandered close enough to listen. I had come with a borrowed prayer book and a hunger I could not name.

I was not raised religious. I learned reverence the way children learn to swim—by being thrown into cold water and told to move or sink. When my mother died, people brought casseroles and phrases that failed like cheap bridges. Someone pressed a rosary into my hand, and I felt nothing except the weight of beads. Later, in the forest, I felt watched, and the watching felt kind.

I locked the chapel and followed the sound of leaves shifting. The path bent toward the ravine where the creek cut a silver seam. Moss slicked the stones. Ferns uncurled like green tongues. I felt the old itch of fear and curiosity braided together. The Good Neighbors, my grandmother would have said, if she had believed in such things openly. She taught me the euphemisms anyway. You don’t name them. You don’t thank them. You don’t eat what they offer unless you intend to stay.

At the creek, the air thickened. Sunlight fractured through branches, breaking into coins. I knelt and washed my hands, because kneeling had become a habit, and because water asks fewer questions than people. When I looked up, someone was standing on the opposite bank, where there had been only alder a moment before.

They were small, or perhaps only far away, dressed in a coat stitched from lichen and bark. Their hair was the color of ash after rain. Their eyes reflected the creek like twin moons. They watched me with an expression I recognized from the chapel cat: patient, unimpressed, willing to be entertained.

“You rang the bells,” I said, which was foolish, but truth often sounds foolish at first.

They tilted their head. “You rang them first.”

I thought of my palms pressed together, of breath made prayer because I had nowhere else to put it. “I didn’t ask for company.”

“No,” they agreed. “You asked for attention.”

I should have run. Instead, I crossed myself, the gesture awkward but sincere. The air tasted like pennies. The creek hushed.

“Careful,” the neighbor said, stepping closer. Their feet did not break the water. “Holiness burns. It scars if you don’t know where to place it.”

“I don’t know much,” I admitted. “I know how to show up.”

They smiled then, and the forest leaned in.

We spoke for a long time, or perhaps for no time at all. The neighbor told me the forest had always listened, that prayer was a language with many dialects. The bells, they said, were iron teeth, ringing because something had brushed against them from the other side. I asked what that other side was called.

“Names make borders,” they said. “Borders make wars.”

I told them about the chapel, about the empty pews and the way hymns sounded better when no one sang them wrong. I told them I was afraid of believing in something that might leave.

“Everything leaves,” the neighbor said gently. “That’s why you practice.”

They asked what I offered. I had nothing but my hands, still damp, and the prayer book in my pocket. I held it out.

They recoiled as if struck. “Paper remembers,” they said. “Ink binds. I will not touch that.”

“Then what?”

They considered me, the creek, the chapel bell’s echo still trembling in the air. “Keep the place clean,” they said. “Not tidy. Clean. Let grief sit. Let joy make noise. When you ring the bells, ring them for the dead and the unborn alike. And do not invite us in.”

“Why not?”

“Because you already have,” they said, and vanished like a breath held too long.

I returned to the chapel with the forest’s hush clinging to me. That afternoon, a woman arrived with a candle and a story about her brother. A trucker stopped by to sit and stare at the altar until his shoulders dropped. The caretaker’s cat slept through it all, dreaming of mice or angels.

At dusk, I rang the bells by hand. Once for my mother. Once for the wolves. Once for the listening things whose names I would never learn. The sound traveled into the trees, where it was caught and changed and sent back, not as an answer, but as an acknowledgement.

I learned to practice carefully. I learned which prayers tasted like bread and which like blood. I learned to leave milk untouched at the edge of the ravine, and to pour wine into the earth without saying thanks. The forest watched. The chapel breathed.

After the bells learned my hands, the forest learned my name without asking for it. Names, I discovered, move differently when spoken by roots and rain. They do not cling. They pass through, leaving warmth the way a mug leaves heat on a table long after it’s lifted. People began to come more often, as if drawn by a rumor they could not repeat without breaking it. They brought shoes muddied with other lives, shoulders stiff with uncried weather, questions folded into pockets like notes never delivered.

I did not preach. I listened. Listening is a kind of architecture; it builds rooms where none existed. In those rooms, grief stretched its legs. Joy paced and laughed at itself. Anger sat down because there was finally a chair. The chapel, once a narrow ribcage of boards, widened. I scrubbed wax from the floor and soot from the bell ropes. Clean, not tidy, the neighbor had said. Clean meant letting the past speak until it ran out of breath.

The forest noticed when I made mistakes. Once, on a day thick with heat, I thanked the creek aloud for its patience. The water shivered, offended, and rose just enough to wet my cuffs. Another time I forgot to ring for the unborn, and the night answered with a wind that rattled every window until I corrected myself. These were not punishments. They were reminders, delivered with a firm, familiar kindness.

Winter arrived without ceremony. Snow erased the path and taught me to walk by memory. On the longest night, I lit candles and kept them burning until dawn, feeding the flames with attention. The neighbor did not cross the creek. Instead, I sensed them everywhere at once: in the resinous scent of pine, in the slow creak of trees settling into cold. I sang badly and alone. The forest sang back, harmonizing where it could, forgiving the rest.

I learned the limits of invitation. A man tried to bring something with him, a glittering ache that wanted to nest in corners and multiply. The chapel doors resisted his hands, swelling shut like lungs refusing smoke. He left angry, but lighter. I rang the bells afterward until the echo smoothed the air. Holiness burns, the neighbor had warned. It also cauterizes.

Spring loosened the ground. Shoots stitched green into brown. The caretaker’s cat died quietly and was buried beneath the cedar. I rang once for endings and twice for continuations, because sometimes beginnings are greedy and need supervision. I found feathers on the altar and did not move them until they were ready to leave. I learned which days asked for bread and which for salt.

The Good Neighbors are not good in the way sermons mean it. They are good the way a river is good: honest about hunger, generous with passage. They kept their distance. So did I. Distance, when respected, becomes a bridge instead of a wall. Across it, we exchanged glances weighted with shared labor. Across it, the forest and the chapel kept each other awake.

Once, a child asked if God lived in the trees. I told her God lived in listening. She pressed her ear to a trunk and smiled. Another asked if ghosts were real. I said yes, and so were chores. Both needed doing. The bells rang on their own again that afternoon, softer this time, like a throat clearing before speech.

Years pass the way water does, carrying what floats and polishing what sinks. I am older. My hands remember the ropes. My knees know the floor. The forest is still watching, still kind, still dangerous in the ways that matter. On solstice nights, when the world tilts just enough to spill secrets, the neighbor stands across the creek and inclines their head. I incline mine back.

We do not say thank you. We keep the place clean. We ring the bells. We listen.

The sun, though low in the sky, filtered through the pines with a soft golden glow, touching the moss like scattered embers. I walked along the familiar path that wound deeper into the forest, feeling the brush of bracken against my sleeves and the whisper of needles underfoot. A faint hum lingered in the air, like the residual echo of a bell long gone, and I knew, even without looking, that the fae were near.

The first of them appeared near the water’s edge, a slender figure whose hair caught the light in strands of silver and green. Her eyes were deep pools of forest shadow, reflecting both curiosity and caution. She did not speak in words, but in a series of gestures and subtle shifts of posture. I understood at once: she offered guidance, not command. I followed her silently, feeling the pull of something older than myself.

Further along the path, the forest grew denser. The trees twisted in ways that defied expectation, roots forming natural arches that seemed almost deliberate. Beneath the canopy, the shadows thickened, yet they were not menacing. Rather, they were sacred, a testament to the holiness that lingered in these woods. Each step I took was measured, conscious of the unseen eyes upon me. The air smelled of earth and rain, of bark and something sweeter I could not name, a fragrance that tugged at the edges of memory.

A clearing opened ahead, circular and perfect, the kind of space that felt carved by some ancient hand for ritual and gathering. In the center, a stone altar sat, moss-covered and worn. I had never seen it before, yet it felt known, inevitable. Upon it lay offerings: a braid of fresh herbs, a carved wooden bird, a small bowl of honey. I knelt, instinctively, and traced a finger along the curve of the stones, feeling their energy pulse under my touch. This was a place of communion, where worlds brushed against one another and whispered secrets meant only for those who listened.

The slender figure approached, moving in a rhythm that mimicked the sway of branches in a gentle breeze. With a tilt of her head, she beckoned me closer to the altar. I obeyed, knowing that the forest itself watched and weighed my intentions. I reached for the honey, letting it slip between my fingers, letting it fall upon the roots at the base of the altar. The air shimmered, and I felt the brush of wings against my arms. Small lights hovered like fireflies, their glow pulsing in tandem with the beat of my heart.

A rustling drew my gaze upward. There, perched on a limb, was a creature I could hardly believe: a crow, larger than any ordinary bird, its feathers glinting with hues of violet and deep indigo. Its beady eyes regarded me with intelligence and something more—a challenge, perhaps, or a test. It cawed once, a sound that echoed like a chord struck in a cathedral, and the forest seemed to exhale. I understood that it was a sentinel, a guardian of thresholds. I lowered my gaze, offering respect.

From the underbrush came another presence, this one more solid, less ethereal. A fox, its fur a fiery cascade of reds and golds, padded softly around the clearing. It circled me twice before pausing, nose twitching. Its eyes met mine, and I felt the unspoken bond of recognition: a creature who knew the weight of secrets, the need for discretion. It did not speak, yet I heard the message clear in my mind: proceed, but tread lightly. Each step is a story, each glance a ritual.

The forest shifted subtly. Shadows lengthened, light refracted through leaves in patterns that resembled runes, sigils, shapes that seemed almost deliberate. The air vibrated with the energy of unseen beings, the communion of spirits both wild and disciplined. I closed my eyes briefly, inhaling the scent of damp moss, of cedar, of something undefinable and sacred. When I opened them again, the clearing had changed: the altar was surrounded by circles of light, rings that pulsed with warmth and invited touch.

I knelt once more, tracing the circumference with my hand. Energy hummed beneath my fingertips. A whisper traveled through the clearing, carried on the breath of leaves: a name, a chant, a fragment of ritual remembered from dreams. I repeated it softly, feeling the syllables resonate through my chest and spine, vibrating in tandem with the rhythm of the forest. The lights danced, coalescing into forms that were familiar yet impossible to define. Faces of fae, fleeting and delicate, flickered at the periphery of vision. A shimmer of wings, a glint of antlers, a flash of eyes like liquid amber.

The fox pressed closer, nose to my palm, and I offered it a taste of honey. It licked delicately, then looked at me with approval. I sensed that an exchange had been made: my respect, my acknowledgment, my willingness to honor the sanctity of this place. The crow cawed again, and the pulse of the forest quickened, a heartbeat shared with the rhythm of my own.

Suddenly, the forest drew in a breath, and the lights merged into a single point, hovering above the altar. I reached out instinctively. The sensation was electric, tingling through my veins, a communion of human and fae, mortal and eternal. Time seemed to stretch, elongate, fold upon itself. I glimpsed visions: celebrations in moonlight, dances around fires, offerings made by hands now dust, voices singing in languages long forgotten but alive in the echoes of spirit. Each vision was a thread, woven into the tapestry of the forest’s memory, of the holiness that lingered here.

When I withdrew my hand, the lights scattered like sparks, drifting back into the canopy and undergrowth. The clearing returned to its quietude, the rhythm of life resuming in measured, sacred cadence. The crow watched from above, the fox settled at my side, and the slender figure of the fae seemed to bow slightly before dissolving into the forest.

I exhaled, feeling the weight of experience, of communion, of revelation. The path back seemed less intimidating, less ordinary. I knew that the forest had changed me, had allowed me to glimpse the intersection of worlds, had reminded me of the sanctity of ritual, of respect, of attention to the unseen. Each step back toward the familiar, toward human habitation, was guided by a new awareness, a subtle alignment with forces that often go unnoticed but never unfelt.

And yet, even as I departed, I knew I would return. The forest does not release its secrets lightly, but neither does it refuse the diligent, the respectful, the seeker. For the holiness that haunts these woods is not static, nor is it solely mine to hold. It is a living, breathing communion, a dialogue between worlds, a testament to the endurance of myth, of magic, of care. Each visit, each ritual, each acknowledgement of the fae strengthens the bond, and I carry it with me, invisible but undeniable, into the days beyond the forest, into the world that often forgets to see.

[Felix Lilly is a writer based in Portland, Oregon, exploring speculative fiction with an interest in the surreal, the emotional, and the unexpected intersections of the ordinary and the extraordinary.]