Crooked Tree Novel Novels & Stories

The result was a Hybrid Horror. "Look at them," Leo whispered, his indigo glass arm beginning to hum in sympathetic resonance. A nearby birch tree had developed the unmistakable, haughty sneer of Director Sterling, the man who had signed the original Ark eviction notices. The tree’s leaves were no longer green; they were a shimmering, metallic gold, vibrating with the Director’s translated thoughts. “...Finally... the air... the dirt... it belongs to the Shareholders again...” the tree whispered, the sound like dry leaves skittering across stone.

Her father’s notes described the hollow tree as being near a clearing, marked by an old scar along its bark shaped like a crescent moon. The air grew heavier the deeper they ventured, the usual sounds of the forest absent. No birds sang, and even the wind seemed to have stilled. “This place gives me the creeps,” Dean muttered, his eyes scanning the shadows. “You’re not alone,” Dylan replied, his hand resting on Nicola’s shoulder protectively. They reached a small clearing, the sunlight breaking through the trees in golden beams. Nicola’s heart skipped a beat as her eyes landed on a massive tree at the center, its bark bearing a deep scar shaped like a crescent moon.

Lira (POV) The trees here grow like they remember what came before. Crooked. Bone-thin. Covered in black lichen that flakes like rot when you brush past. Even the snow beneath them isn’t clean—stained with old ash, marbled with rust-colored melt lines like veins under skin.

"Well, in my dream a dark-haired man--" Ruthie cut me off. "His hair was braided, like in The Last of the Mohicans." "Anyway," I continued. "He reeked of evil. I didn't see him kill the other man, who by the way didn't look anything like his brother at all. Anyway, this woman ran up to the dead guy upset and crying while the evil-looking man ran to the edge of this weird-looking forest. The trees had long floppy branches with long drippy leaves and these pretty blue flowers hung from them. Have you ever heard of such a tree?"

He screamed, trouble. “I guess I should tell you the truth, it seems inevitable now that you have been exposed to him and his treacherous ways,” my mate got up and walked over to his closet and extracted what seemed like an ancient tome from some hidden compartment. He briskly walked back to me as I sat straight in bed with my back against the headrest. Xyn handed me the thick black tome with some magical ancient tree with silver bark and golden leaves embedded on its cover. Blue veins ran all over the tree and in its centre a whole chunk of what seemed like an apple shape was missing. As if the fruit had been plucked out.

"Any particular reason?" "I…. Lost the stomach for it, I suppose." He thought for a moment. "Have you ever heard the legend of the dogwood tree, Mr. Abrams? No, I don't suppose you would have. It's a bit of Christian mythology - folklore. The dogwood tree grows in North America. It's one of the most twisted-up, deformed little things you can imagine. The branches turn around, twist back on themselves. But the legend says that the dogwood tree was once tall and straight. It was the tree they used to make the cross to crucify Jesus. And when the tree saw what it had done, how its virtues had been misused, it decided that it would never grow tall and straight again. It would twist itself up int

,asked Scarlett "I know, but, wherever my people might have landed, they will still be inside the forest of that kingdom, because every kingdom will be hunting down werewolves. So....... I'll only need to look inside the forest of every kingdom and I'll keep looking until I find them" "Okay",said Laurel."But what do you even know about the forest of deception? God! Deception is it's name! You can't be that foolish!" "I don't know enough about the forest....but I intend to find out",said Zane "Well that'll be easy, last night, I was wandering all alone in this palace, because I was hungry, and then I came across a library, I'm not a fan of books so I was not impressed with a big room full of

I marked them in my mind, telling myself I wouldn’t be fooled again. But the forest was alive in a cruel way. It bent itself around me, closing me in like a cage. Even the air felt heavy, pressing down on my shoulders, making me sweat though the air was cold. After another long stretch, after what felt like forever, I came back,again,to the crooked tree. The twisted trunk split down the middle like a scar, its branches bent low as if mocking me. My knees trembled. My throat tightened like hands were choking me. I wanted to scream, and I opened my mouth,but before I could, something shifted in the shadows.

The air around the Tree smelled rotten, like old blood and spoiled milk. They reached the silver door just as a monstrous black vine slammed down, thick as a tree trunk. “Jump!” June called. Dante tossed Hope through the gap, then scooped June and swung her inside. He dove in just before the vine slammed the entrance completely shut. Inside, the Tree didn’t look like wood at all. It was a vast cathedral, all pulsing veins and glowing nerves, but none of them shone gold anymore. Black, oily liquid was choking everything. “It’s like anatomy,” June whispered, her mind racing. “The Tree is a body. And this black stuff—it’s a stroke. It’s blocking the planet’s blood flow.”

“This way. The tree should be just beyond this ridge.” They trekked onward, the excitement building with each passing moment. Eventually, they arrived at a small clearing, and there it stood—the old tree, its massive trunk gnarled and twisted, with roots that snaked out like ancient fingers gripping the earth. “Wow,” Jace breathed, taking in the sight. “It’s incredible.” Mia stepped closer, her eyes sparkling. “It feels alive, like it’s watching us.” Elara began sketching the tree, capturing its majesty and the intricate details of its bark. “This is going to be a beautiful illustration for our story.”