Caleb had believed those stories the way children believe bedtime stories: completely, without question. He hadn’t thought about them in years. Standing here now, staring at the iron fence and the things people had left behind, the memory settled differently.

A helpful wood goddess, he supposed.

One that hunters spoke about in half-jokes. One that old people still nodded at without smiling. One that only appeared when someone was truly lost.

People around the area spoke of Tammy in lowered voices, if they spoke of her at all. Some said she showed herself only to those who were lost, people who wandered too far into the woods or animals that couldn’t find their way back. She never appeared the same way twice. Sometimes she looked like a woman standing just ahead on the trail. Sometimes only a shape between the trees. Sometimes nothing more than a voice calling softly, calmly, like she already knew your name.

Those who followed her were always led somewhere safe.

Hunters told stories of wounded deer, animals they were sure would die in the brush, being found days later near the creek, resting, their injuries strangely clean. No blood trail. No sign of struggle. Just the deer alive when it shouldn’t have been. Old-timers said Tammy led them there, guiding them away from pain the same way she guided people away from danger.

No one claimed to see her clearly. And no one who followed her ever went missing.

Caleb had grown up hearing these stories without believing they were about this place. About his woods. Standing at the gate now, surrounded by things people had left behind, he wondered how many of them had been here because Tammy had brought them.

And how many times she had passed right by him, unseen, because he had never been lost enough.

Caleb swallowed and took a step back from the fence. For the first time since entering the woods, he wasn’t sure which way home was anymore.

It rose straight from the earth, the bars thick as baseball bats, smooth and unblemished. No rust. No wear. The path simply stopped at it, as if nothing beyond was meant to be reached.

Why would someone put a fence here? Caleb thought. His family owned all the surrounding land. No roads. No neighbors. Nothing.

“Hello?” he called. “Is anyone there?”

The woods swallowed his voice.

He stood still for a moment, then followed the fence to the right, fingers trailing along the cold iron. It stretched on and on. Too long. Too deliberate. To keep something out, or maybe to keep something in.

Up close, it was worse, and somehow more beautiful. Iron vines twisted around it, but they weren’t the only things clinging there. Old objects had been tied, looped, and wedged into the metal over time, as if people had come here quietly and left pieces of themselves behind.

There were dolls.

Not new ones, old, sun-bleached things with cracked faces and missing eyes, their clothes faded to the color of dust. Someone had tied them to the bars with string, twine, even shoelaces. A few hung upside down. One was missing its head entirely.

Faded notes were tucked between the iron bars, their edges curled and soft from years of weather. The ink had bled and blurred, but Caleb could still make out a few words, please, forgive, thank you. Some were folded carefully, others torn, as if written in a hurry.

By the time he found the part of the fence with a clear way to the other side, his pants were soaked to the knees, his shoes useless, his socks squelching with every step. He was tired, muddy, and ready to turn back.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

Then he saw the gate. He was determined to get open to get to the other side.

Rusted locks clung to the gate too. Dozens of them. Big ones. Tiny ones. Locks with no keys, their teeth long gone. Trinkets hung among them, bent spoons, coins drilled with holes, keys that no longer fit anything. Homemade necklaces and braided bracelets wrapped around the iron, thread frayed and colors leached by sun and rain.

It wasn’t decoration.

It was a shrine.

Or a memorial.

Caleb’s chest tightened. Had something happened here? Someone? How had he never known about this? He’d walked these woods his entire life. This was his family’s land.

Clearly someone had known.

All this didn’t appear overnight. People had come here again and again, leaving things behind, returning when no one was watching. Leaving proof.

Caleb stepped back, suddenly aware of how small he felt. The gate wasn’t just keeping something out, or in.

It was being watched.

Remembered.

It was ornate and unsettling, the kind of thing you’d expect guarding a millionaire’s estate, or something far worse. Iron vines twisted around it, and at its center sat a circular plaque carved with turtles, frogs, and snakes. The detail was stunning. Someone had gone to great expense for this.

Caleb searched for a latch. Nothing. He knocked. Nothing. He checked for a speaker, a keypad, anything.

“Hello?” he tried again.

His eyes returned to the plaque. It looked newer than the gate, as if it had been added later. He traced its edge with his fingers and pressed.

It shifted.

Caleb jumped back, then grinned. “I got you now.”

He pressed harder and turned the disc clockwise. Gears clicked. Metal groaned. Slowly, the gate began to swing open.