The trail narrowed as they climbed, not because it got steeper, but because the woods started decidin’ who was welcome. Poppy felt it first — that tightening in the chest that wasn’t fear exactly, more like recognition. Like walkin’ into a room you’d dreamed about before you ever saw it.
Enna Mae slowed her steps without sayin’ why. Cypress’s ears tipped forward. Even the birds shifted, changin’ their songs like they were passin’ news ahead.
“This is as far as stories go,” Enna Mae said, stoppin’ where the ground dipped and rose again. “From here on, it’s livin’.”
Poppy nodded, though her hands had gone cold. “She close?”
Enna Mae didn’t answer that. She knelt instead, brushed her fingers over the dirt, pressed her palm flat like she was takin’ a pulse. “She knows you’re comin’.”
The wind moved then — not strong, just deliberate — and with it came a smell Poppy hadn’t known she remembered: smoke and crushed leaves and somethin’ bitter-sweet underneath. Medicine. Old medicine.
They didn’t see the house at first. That was the trick of it. You had to notice what wasn’t there — no sharp edges, no straight lines, no fence tellin’ the land where to stop. Just a lean-to of sorts, grown into the slope like it had always been part of the hill. Moss on the roof. Jars hangin’ from nails. A black shawl folded careful over a chair, like someone might come back for it any minute.
Poppy’s breath caught. Not with awe. With ache.
“Don’t rush,” Enna Mae murmured. “She don’t like bein’ approached like prey or miracle.”
Poppy took one step. Then another. And with each step, she felt something in her loosen — not break, not fall apart — just… uncoil.
A woman stood in the doorway then. Not old the way folks mean old. Weathered. Rooted. Strong in the quiet places. Her hair had gone silver without apology. Her eyes were dark and steady and already full of recognition.
She didn’t look surprised.
She looked… prepared.
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then the woman said, soft as leaf-fall, “You took your time.”
Poppy swallowed. “I had to.”
The woman nodded. “I know.”
That was all. No embrace. No explanations. No apologies dressed up as truth. Just two women standin’ at the edge of a life that had bent hard but not broken.
Enna Mae stayed back, just far enough to honor the space. She smiled to herself, the way women do when they know the spiral’s doin’ exactly what it’s meant to.
Because this wasn’t the moment for answers.
This was the moment for witness.
And somewhere in the trees, something ancient shifted its weight, satisfied.
Granny Woman 
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