When the sky cracked open with that soft pink dawn, Sugar Holler was already awake. Not with roosters or early risers, but with somethin’ older — somethin’ that stirred the creatures long before folks even kicked off their quilts. Poppy stepped out of Enna Mae’s cabin, Cypress glued to her leg, the fox brooch warm against her chest like a tiny heartbeat. She wasn’t just Poppy anymore. There was Inola in her now — in the set of her shoulders and the way her eyes held somethin’ ancient and wakin’. Ash followed next, hair wild, shirt crooked, looking like a man who fought sleep and lost. Enna Mae came after, drum tucked under her arm, moonstone eyes sharp and steady. The stranger waited at the tree line, braid hangin’ down his back, fox pendant faintly glowing in the early light.
The forest reached for them. It didn’t reach gentle.
Up on the ridge, the panthers paced — big as shadows and quiet as snowfall, eyes burning gold in the dim. Ash hissed, “Oh hell…” but Enna Mae shushed him quick. “Mind your tongue. They’re listenin’.” Poppy felt somethin’ crawl through her bones — not fear… recognition. The stranger nodded toward them and said, “They’ll follow us until your mother’s found. They were her watchers once. They’re yours now.”
They hadn’t walked twenty paces when Cypress froze. Three wolves stepped out from the ferns — sleek, grey, steady-eyed. They didn’t growl or circle. They just looked at Poppy like they’d known her since she was born. Ash whispered, “Are they escortin’ us?” The stranger didn’t look away from them. “They’re escortin’ her.”
A barred owl hooted once, then twice. Three more answered deep in the woods. And then the white owl came — moon-feathered, silent, eyes bright like myth. It circled over Poppy, slow and sure. Enna Mae breathed, “Well I’ll be damned.” The stranger bowed his head. Ash whispered, “What does it mean?” Enna Mae answered, “It means the forest’s waitin’ on her to speak truth about who she is.”
As the trail bent east, a long black snake stretched across the clay, glossy and calm. A copperhead rested farther up, watchin’. Poppy stiffened, but the stranger caught Ash’s wrist before he could pull her back. “They’re not here to strike.” Enna Mae eased beside Poppy. “Snakes show up when you’re sheddin’ your old self. You’re changin’, baby. They see it.” The black snake lifted its head, then slowly eased off the path, clearing the way. Poppy whispered, “Thank you,” and somehow she knew the snake heard her.
At the break in the trees, half a dozen deer stood waiting — not grazing, not startled, just standin’ there like witnesses. Ash swallowed hard. “Why aren’t they scared of us?” Enna Mae smiled, small but proud. “Because they know which one of us belongs to this mountain.” The deer dipped their heads toward Poppy — a bow, plain as day — and Cypress gave a soft, respectful bark.
It wasn’t until they reached the split in the trail — the part that climbed toward the old mountains where secrets like to hide — that the forest revealed its rarest thing. A black fox stepped out. Fur dark as new moon midnight. Eyes bright as burning coals. It walked right up to Poppy and sat as calm as a preacher at a potluck. Enna Mae muttered, “Well butter my biscuits…” The stranger bowed deeper than he had to anyone yet. “Inola,” he said, “that fox was your mother’s familiar.”
The fox blinked once and turned toward the deeper woods, pausing only to look back at her. Waiting. Calling. Choosing.
Poppy touched the brooch on her chest.
“Take me to her,” she whispered.
Granny Woman 
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