The woods appear on the horizon like a dark smudge against the bright blue sky. As we get closer, the smudge resolves into a dense wall of green, so thick and impenetrable that it looks like a single, solid entity. The sunlight seems to disappear as we approach, swallowed by the deep shadows of the forest.
It doesn't look magical. Not in the way May seems to hope.
It looks...forbidding.
Ancient.
There's a sense of age to it, a feeling of immense, slumbering power. The trees are huge, their branches intertwined like gnarled, arthritic fingers, their leaves a deep, dark green that seems to absorb the light rather than reflect it. The air is cool and still, heavy with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves.
Valentine pulls the cart to a stop a short distance from the tree line, the horses snorting and stamping their feet, their eyes wide with a nervous energy that they didn't have on the open road.
