Wormwood Roots WormWood roots J u l i a a . G i r a r d “Nathan. It’s happening again. Come home. Please.” Julia A. Girard An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book Wormwood Roots Wormwood Roots Julia A. Girard Julia A. Girard An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Wormwood Roots T he rain fell in a thin, slanting veil as Nathan Crowe stepped off the rusted Greyhound and into the crumbling town of Coldmere. It hadn’t changed in twenty years, except maybe for the silence. The kind that pressed against your ears like a held breath. The kind that hinted something had gone wrong and no one wanted to talk about it. He lit a cigarette, his gloved hand trembling only slightly, and stared down Main Street. A stray dog slunk across the wet pavement and into the shadows. A church bell rang even though it was too early for service. Julia A. Girard He should’ve never come back. But a letter changes things. A letter in his sister’s handwriting that read: “Nathan. It’s happening again. Come home. Please.” That was all. No signature. No return address. Just that. * * * * * * The first person he saw was Sheriff Buckman, sitting behind a chipped desk in the station that still smelled like mildew and bacon grease. The same polyester uniform, the same beady eyes. The years had made him shrink in on himself like a dried peach. “I heard you came back,” Buckman said, not look- ing up from his crossword. “I got a letter.” Buckman set his pen down. “You seen her?” Nathan shook his head. “Is she missing?” Wormwood Roots The sheriff hesitated. “Depends what you mean by ‘missing.’ She went out near the forest line four nights ago. We ain’t seen her since.” “Why wasn’t that in the goddamn letter?” Buckman stood, slow as molasses, and crossed the room. He opened a file drawer, rummaged, and pulled out a folder. Inside were photos; grainy, poorly lit. One showed a clearing in the woods, littered with animal bones. Another showed a shallow grave, half- dug. And then there was a picture of something else entirely. A shape, tall and thin, standing among the trees. It wasn’t in focus, but its proportions were wrong. Too many joints. No eyes. “Looked like a root at first,” Buckman whispered. “But roots don’t stand up and walk away.” * * * * * * Nathan went back to the old house. The front door creaked open on its own. He stepped inside, shotgun slung across his back. It smelled of pine cleaner and something else, some- Julia A. Girard thing wet and fungal. A photo sat on the mantle: him, Leah, and their mother, who’d died screaming in her sleep thirty years ago. He wandered upstairs. Leah’s room was a mess. Drawings on the walls. Charcoal, furious and dark. A creature with legs like saplings and a mouth like a ring of thorns. Under her bed he found a journal, the pages curl- ing and stained. The last entry read: “It speaks through the trees now. I see it behind my eyes. I think I opened something. I think it’s beneath us. I think it’s awake.” * * * * * * He went into the forest. Of course he did. Because Nathan Crowe was the kind of idiot who’d charge a machine-gun nest if it meant bringing a loved one home. The trees pressed close like the ribs of a dead god. Each step he took made the ground pulse underfoot, as if the earth had a heartbeat. Wormwood Roots He found the clearing at dusk. Bones. Twisted vines. The smell of rot and iron. And then... Leah’s voice. “Nathan... don’t.” He spun, and she was standing between two trees, barefoot, eyes black from edge to edge. “You’re not real.” “I am,” she said. “But not all of me.” She reached toward him, and her hand split open at the palm. Roots spilled out like veins. “It’s too deep now. It’s in me. In all of us.” Nathan backed away. The trees groaned like old men in pain. The earth opened at his feet. Something came up. It wasn’t fast. It didn’t need to be. A root, thicker than a man’s torso, rose from the soil, covered in mouths. The mouths sang in whis- pers, lullabies from the grave. Julia A. Girard He fired his shotgun once, twice, splinters of bark and blood, if it was blood, sprayed the ground. Leah screamed, and it was the last human sound she ever made. * * * * * * He woke up underground. Dirt in his mouth, his ears, his nostrils. Something moved in the dark. Tendrils wrapped around his an- kles like hungry children. He fought. Oh God, he fought. Screaming and thrashing, he used his belt knife to sever one, then another. But every root he cut spilled a black sap that hissed like acid and whispered in his mind. “STAY.” “SLEEP.” “JOIN.” He saw Leah again. Her body bloated and distort- ed, growing from the trunk of a tree like a tumour. Wormwood Roots “You came back,” she murmured. “You always come back.” He stabbed the blade into her heart, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. She smiled as she crumbled. And then he ran. Or thought he did. He clawed upward, bleeding and shaking, until he broke the surface. The forest was quiet again. Too quiet. He reached the town just as dawn broke. But Coldmere was gone. Not destroyed... gone. Just trees now. Where houses used to be. No one. No roads. Only the forest. It had swallowed everything. Julia A. Girard He stood alone in the rising light, dirt-caked and sobbing. Then the wind whispered his name. And from the shadows of the pines, a thousand black eyes blinked open. * * * * * * Three weeks later, a hiker found a journal nailed to a tree outside the Coldmere perimeter. The pag- es were filled with frantic handwriting. The last sen- tence, scrawled in red ink, read: “ The forest doesn’t want you to leave. It only wants you to grow.” WORMWOOD ROOTS. You don’t escape Coldmere. You bloom. Wormwood Roots Wormwood Roots Julia A. Girard Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi eBook Publishing Design: Thanos Ovi eBooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Julia A. Girard WormWood roots J u l i a a . G i r a r d “Nathan. It’s happening again. Come home. Please.” Julia A. Girard is a writer who’d rather be caught dead than serious. Her stories and books are a delightful blend of witty observa- tions, quirky characters, and laugh-out-scary moments that will have you hooked from the first page.