Bright Shadows

If you gaze into the deep,
The nightmares ever haunt your sleep
The child that is foolish and brave,
The Thicket ensnares, entraps, enslaves.
Draw away from all that is dark and cold,
Curious children never grow old.

~

All the children in Claervone knew the nursery rhyme and every Claer heeded it's warning. Each family knew someone who had been lost to the Thicket; every family had their own story with the same ending. No one who entered the dark forest encroaching the boarders of Claervone was ever seen again.

Until one Remembrance Day, a Claer girl toddled out from the Thicket during the Mourning Ceremony and took a nap on the altar.

No one knew, as they watched the angelic child sleep, that she would grow up to change their world forever.