Nature & Environment — The hollow

ROOM No. 09 ✦ the hollow ✦ nature & environment

Nature & the creatures who call it home.

View through the knot-hole — fern-edged forest pool at deep dusk, a doe stepping in to drink, mushroom clusters glowing teal at the water's edge.

Through the knot-hole you see it. Thirty yards out — the night pool. The doe is already drinking.

FOREST UNNAMED · HOUR BLUE · ELEV 1,148m · MOON WAXING GIBBOUS

Saoirse, keeper of the hollow — a silver-haired woman in a woven-bark cloak carving a bark strip by mushroom-light, the pollen bowl in her lap.

Carved into the inside wall, year unknown

You're the seventh stranger to find this hollow this season alone.

The tree is old enough that it doesn't notice us. The mushrooms are old enough that they do, and they don't mind. Through the knot-hole, the pool. Through the pool, the night. Through the night, the creatures who actually live here.

You will not write what you did tonight. You will pick a creature. You will borrow its senses for the dark hours. You will write what it saw, what it smelled, what made it freeze, what it killed or didn't.

When the chapter is done you carve it into a strip of bark. You rub the carved letters with pollen from the bowl. You knot the strip into the bundle hanging from the root.

Then you slip back out. The next stranger will be along.

— Saoirse, keeper of the hollow

SHE HAS NOT LEFT THE TREE IN FOURTEEN YEARS

EIGHT POOLS · EIGHT POVS · PICK ONE

Whose senses will you borrow tonight?

Each pool holds one creature's attention. Step into a pool and your spirit goes out as that creature for the chapter. Look through its eyes. Write what it does at the water's edge. The next stranger picks a different pool.

𝔇

White-Tailed Doe Odocoileus virginianus VOICE · watchful, thirst-driven

𝔚

Lone Grey Wolf Canis lupus VOICE · patient, hungry, alone

𝔅

Black Bear Ursus americanus VOICE · unhurried, certain

𝔒

Barred Owl Strix varia VOICE · silent flight, sudden strike

𝔉

Red Fox Vulpes vulpes VOICE · clever, indirect, listening

𝔯

Common Raven Corvus corax VOICE · curious, knowing, talkative

𝔏

Canada Lynx Lynx canadensis VOICE · invisible, weightless, deadly

𝔬

River Otter Lontra canadensis VOICE · delighted, mischievous, full

A VOICE FROM THE HOLLOW

Choose an animal —

each one is the next chapter waiting for a writer.

Hover a pool to hear what the relay is leaning into. Click to take that animal’s page.

"The pollen bowl. The keeper has rubbed it into every word in this hollow."

RELIC No. IX · POLLEN OF UNKNOWN BLOOM · GROUND BY HAND

THE CARVING STATION

Write in ink. Watch the bark catch the words.

As you write the prose on the right, the same words appear knife-carved into the bark strip on the left, glowing pollen-amber. When the chapter is done, you'll knot the strip into the bundle.

BARK STRIP No. IV · CHAPTER 4 of 8 · POLLEN-FRESH

— AS THE DOE20:14 LOCAL · D

I came down to drink because the day's heat had finally let go of me. The water was very dark. I heard the moss compress under something heavier than me and froze.

— AS THE FOX20:42 LOCAL · F

The doe held still long enough for me to understand it wasn't me she had heard. I do not weigh enough to compress moss. I stayed in the ferns. Whatever she heard had not left.

— AS THE RAVEN21:08 LOCAL · R

From the branch above the pool I had a clear view of all three of them — the doe still frozen, the fox watching the doe, and the third thing in the brush behind them, the one neither knew about. I did not call out.

— AS YOUR CHOSEN CREATURENOW · ?

— pick a creature, write its chapter, watch the letters catch the pollen —

FIELD NOTEBOOK · ENTRY 4 OF 8 · NIGHT POOL WOLF · W

PREVIOUS, AS THE RAVEN · 21:08 LOCAL

YOUR HAND · AS THE WOLF · 21:??

0 / 800 words

THE BUNDLE · HUNG FROM A ROOT · EVERYTHING THIS HOLLOW HAS HEARD

"Eight strips when it's full. Then the keeper unties it and the bundle is read aloud to no one in particular."

Eight bark strips knotted together with twine, hanging from a mossy root, the carved letters glowing pollen-amber, a single mushroom cluster casting cool teal light from below.

STRIPS BOUND 3 YOURS · in progress STILL TO COME 4

SLIP BACK OUT

The roots will let you go.Come back any night.

The hollow stays where it is. So does Saoirse. So does the bundle, growing strip by strip, until eight strangers' creatures have all spoken at the night pool.