The Phantom Pulse #2 | November 2026
A. Katherine Black
Starlight was sparse on this night, trapped behind a gathering of thick clouds, robbing Eulin and the two other people lying in the grassy clearing of an easy view of the approaching trees. Great cracks echoed across the surrounding forest as mature trees shuffled on thick roots toward the clearing and their waiting human offerings. Eulin, with their well-honed scavenger’s ears, could estimate the size of the hungry trees by sound alone. A large one approached from the East. They pictured the giant’s leafy plume towering above other trees, its enormous roots toppling any saplings rooted in its path, leaving broken wooden husks in its wake.
A tree so large would have its pick of the best human offering in any clearing, and it traveled from the East, where it’s said even peasants wear a ring on every finger. If even one wealthy merchant chose to die under this tree recently, Eulin might dig enough jewelry out of the tree’s belly to pay for their room at the back of the pub for the entire cold season.
This will be a good night. Nan’s voice, soft and chipper, sounded in Eulin’s mind as if she were still alive and lying in the grass next to them, handing them tools and whispering pointers.
The giant tree broke into the clearing just a few handspan from Eulin’s boots. Stifling their excitement, Eulin lay limp in the grass, muscles relaxed, playing the part of a person on the brink of death, which was what a hungry tree expected to find in a forest clearing. Several smaller trees entered the clearing from other directions. The hiss of slimmer roots sliding across the grass was a whisper compared to the heavy movement of the massive tree that had come to this very clearing to feed.
A cough sounded from one of the other people in the clearing. Eulin hadn’t seen the others’ faces before choosing a spot in the grass, but that cough sounded familiar. They couldn’t think of anyone they knew in the village who’d fallen so ill that their life had reached its end, that it was time to surrender their body to the forest.
The giant, treasure-filled tree from the East sounded a deep groan as it slid across the grass on its roots. A thick stench of dirt, rough and metallic, wafted across Eulin’s face. Moving slowly, they eased a drill bit gently from their tool belt. Sliding their other hand toward the drill handle, a sharp metallic clang froze Eulin in place, curse held tight against their tongue. Unfamiliar sounds like metal on metal drove trees away, but the sparse bounty of the past few seasons made oil for Eulin’s tools an unattainable luxury.
Hacking coughs sounded from the other side of the clearing. Rustling in the grass as that person, whoever they were, must have rolled over to vomit. The enormous tree from the East, its outline barely visible in the cloud-covered night, shifted away from Eulin and began crawling toward the earnestly sick person, who mumbled incoherently. The familiar voice itched at Eulin’s mind. Must be a regular at the pub, which was the only place Eulin spent time, outside the forest. The only place the villagers tolerated a scavenger’s presence.
A huge root brushed against Eulin’s face, burning their cheek with what must have been a deep cut, as the giant tree moved on. Welcoming the bleed from their cheek, a tried and true way to attract trees, Eulin relaxed into the ground and allowed a single curse to escape, mourning the loss of the great bounty that would’ve come from that tree. Necklaces. Maybe a rare stone. Treasures no longer needed by the dead. Treasures Eulin could trade for a sturdy coat or new boots.
A great groan rumbled across the clearing. The giant tree greeted its chosen offering. Eulin cradled the mental picture of the old tree tipping back, gently positioning itself over its meal. How trees knew to suspend their trunks high on their roots, how they knew not to crush the life out of a dying person too soon, was one of the many mysteries children pondered and adults accepted.
A voice, still jumbled but now stronger, came from the person under the settling tree. It wasn’t unusual for someone to speak their final words before succumbing to the effects of the breath of the tree. Some people sang. Some cried. Nan had trained Eulin long ago to ignore these final words, to give the dying the privacy they deserved for their final conversation with the world. But that voice, muffled under cover of thick roots, pulled at Eulin’s attention.
Not a sound came from the third person in the clearing, though, as at least one tree hefted and settled across them. Maybe they’d already passed away from their ailment, while waiting for the forest to accept their offering. Maybe their final words were shaped with hands and arms, instead of voice, as was the way for some people. If so, the dark of night gave them all the privacy they deserved.
Two smaller trees slid up to Eulin. The tree near their head reared up, its roots snaking writhing shadows across the dark sky. Quietly, gently, Eulin brought the bit brace to their chin as the tree came down with a grinding sigh, enveloping Eulin’s head and shoulders in a pitch-black dome, roots pressing against their torso. Rot-soaked earth fell in chunks to break across Eulin’s face. Then came the plosive puff, and the breath of the tree filled the small cavity, pouring into Eulin’s nose and mouth, soaking into their pores. Unlike everyone else in the village, Eulin was immune to the effects of tree’s breath, as was Nan, as were all scavengers. This rare oddity, passed through the family, was how Eulin and their ancestors were able to live as scavengers. They could keep their wits about them under the dome of a tree, as they dug into the belly of its trunk in search of treasure.
They’re all jealous, Nan would say to a young Eulin after being teased by other children in the village, but they’d always known this immunity was not something to be jealous of. It meant that when the end of life was near, when the time finally came to offer themself up to the forest, they would feel everything. It meant that Nan, on her last night of life, felt every moment as a tree slowly consumed her body.
She used to say a tree’s breath smelled of the forest after a storm, prickled the tongue like a kiss of dead leaves, and pounded the ears with stabs of thunder. Villagers ate that up. The pub was the only place they looked Eulin’s kind in the eye. A pint or two to mute their disdain and let curiosity take over, and villagers would slip to the back of the pub, back when Nan was alive, to take in her stories of strange trees traveling from distant forests, of enormous pines locked in battle.
Eulin ached for the days scavenging alongside Nan.
Solitude raking their gut, they prepared to work as the tree settled over their head. The metal tip of the drill was only a turn or two into the tree’s underbelly when a scream sounded from the direction of the giant tree. Muffled words, “Limak, where are you? Where am I? Limak!”
Eulin’s chest spun awake at that name, all thoughts of the scavenge tossed aside. It was Limak’s much older sibling, who either wandered drunk into the clearing, or who was regretting drunken thoughts of surrendering his body to the forest before his time.
The tree over Eulin lifted slightly at the new commotion. Small trees may startle at the sign of a lively offering, but the old trees, giant ones like the tree over Limak’s sib, were not so easily spooked. Sliding out from under the young tree with practiced ease, Eulin strode across the clearing, exchanging the drill on their belt for a hand axe.
Clouds parted, allowing starlight to bathe the clearing. Worn boots kicked ineffectively from under the giant tree as it twisted and sank deeper over the face and torso of someone who was not meant to end their life on this night.
Eulin hacked at the giant’s roots.
The walk back to the village was slow. Limak’s sib leaned heavily on Eulin’s shoulder, legs buckling every few steps, sweaty hands grabbing at Eulin’s waist and arms as if something might drag him away at any moment. The cottage door opened after only one kick from Eulin’s boot.
Candlelight poured out from the sitting room behind Limak’s graceful figure. The shadowed outline of their jaw, the splash of light caressing the shallow of their cheek, chased Eulin’s words away and rooted their feet to the ground outside the threshold. Limak’s befuddled sib squirmed.
Limak’s voice was hoarse. “Where’d you find him?”
They’d heard Limak’s voice around the village. In the pub when they came to collect their drunken sib, in the hall saying useful things during village meetings, but this was the first time Limak had spoken directly to Eulin in seasons. So very many seasons. Eulin fought the urge to drop their sib and run to the woods. “In the Southern clearing.”
Limak’s hair draped across their broad shoulders, smooth like a midnight waterfall. Eulin remembered running fingers through that hair. Remembered them sneaking out the back door of the pub together, hands entwined, while Eulin’s nan and Limak’s sib played cards and swapped tales well into the morning hours. But that was a different time. A different life.
Now they were grown.
Eulin didn’t have a way with words like Nan had, to woo and entertain the village, so they kept to the shadows, a lone scavenger, stealing from the dead to scrape by. Collecting scowls on the village paths by day, collecting requests for this trinket or that in the far corner of the pub by night.
But Limak was a teacher. A leader. Pride of the village. With a needy sib to look after already, they didn’t deserve the added disgrace of laying with a scavenger.
Whispers of roots scraping against packed ground echoed from somewhere down the path. A hungry tree, off course. Limak’s sib stirred at the sound, spitting a string of incoherent words as they tried to push away from Eulin and stand on their own feet.
“Got a good dose of tree’s breath,” Eulin said. “It’ll take a day or two to recover.”
A muscle flexed in Limak’s cheek. They reached across the threshold to wrap an arm around their sib, whispering well-worn coaxes as the grumbling body shuffled into their embrace. Limak smoothed back their sib’s stringy hair, whispering, “Shhhh.”
Eulin felt as tired as Limak looked. Wished with they had something to offer. Something other than grubby hands and tools of a contemptable trade.
“Thank you,” Limak said. Eulin had no response. Limak backed into the cottage with their stumbling sib, and Eulin did the only thing they could think of, reaching out to grip the handle and close the door between them.
They could have gone back to the pub, back to their empty bed. They should have returned to the clearing. Their purse was almost empty and cold season just around the corner, when fewer trees ventured out to feed. Instead, Eulin walked around the side of Limak’s cottage and crouched against the rough mud wall, ignoring the rogue tree that crawled down the path.
Soft noises wafted through the wall. Eulin pictured Limak laying their sib on blankets by the fire. Boiling water for medicinal tea and coaxing it into their sib’s drooling mouth. Watching the ragged rise and fall of their sib’s chest until they fell asleep in a stiff chair.
Eulin woke with a cramped neck, temporarily blinded by the morning sun. They’d fallen asleep next to Limak’s cottage, and Limak was there, sitting right next to them in the wet grass, a mug of something steaming in each hand. Eulin accepted one of the mugs, wrapped their hands around the warm clay, and looked everywhere but at Limak, who settled against the cottage wall and sipped from their own mug. The close proximity was strange, after so long. Wonderful, and embarrassing.
Back when they were young, running off to the edge of the forest, it was easy as anything to slip an arm around Limak’s waist, to run a finger up and down their arm. And now, there they both sat, next to each other and in full view of the village path, other cottages only a short walk in either direction. Limak so close their hair brushed Eulin’s shoulder, yet so far they may as well be on the other side of the Great Mountain.
Eulin sipped. The broth was delicious. Rich. Spicy and sweet. “Everything okay?” They tilted their head toward the cottage, where Limak’s sib would be sleeping off a strong dose of tree’s breath, and likely too many mugs of drink ingested prior to that.
Limak leaned their head back against the rough cottage wall and sighed. “Fine.”
Eulin didn’t ask what ‘fine’ meant. It didn’t mean Limak’s sib would be on his own two feet, cleaning the cottage or looking for work, anytime soon. It didn’t mean he’d be giving up the drink and tossing aside future temptation to offer himself to the forest before his time. They suspected it meant nothing was fine at all, that nothing would ever be fine.
“I thought you had a room,” Limak said. “Somewhere.”
Oh, right. Limak thought Eulin was without a roof, without a bed. Not surprising, given how grimy Eulin usually looked, and likely smelled, let alone that they’d been discovered sleeping in the grass. “I do. Back of the pub.” Eulin almost didn’t say it, but then did. “Same room.” Same room where they’d been together. Back in that other lifetime.
Limak’s hands stilled. Eulin wished they could stop the flush creeping up their face.
Morning chirps from nearby frogs filled the silence as they finished their mugs, as Eulin silently cursed themself for speaking, cursed themself for letting their mind wander to the past. For letting their mind consider the impossible.
“Well,” Limak shifted, turning to face Eulin, “those children aren’t going to teach themselves.” They put a hand on Eulin’s shoulder. “Thanks again.”
Eulin’s voice caught. “Glad to help.”
They looked at each other. Eulin would have loved more than anything to reach out and brush the hair from Limak’s eyes. To run their hand across Limak’s cheek. To give them a moment of kindness, an exchange for all they give to their sib, and to everyone else in the village.
“If you ever need anything,” Limak removed their hand from Eulin’s shoulder, “let me know.”
Right. Eulin was just another potential burden to Limak. Just another odd, adjacent, embarrassing responsibility. Eulin handed them the mug. “Delicious.”
A smile drifted across Limak’s face, but never settled. And they were gone.
Eulin lay in the grass under a sea of stars, drill heavy in their hand. Nocturnal bugs landed on their legs, drawn to the blood now dried in streaks across Eulin’s torn trousers. Eulin’s head swam. They hadn’t eaten since Limak’s broth the day before, and they’d likely let too much of their blood while running through the forest.
Nan would have called running through the forest in free bleed a reckless move. We need only one good tree, she’d have said, not ten. But Eulin was looking for a specific tree. The tree. The one with enough jewels to fill their purse times three. Enough to fund a move to another village, somewhere far away. Where no one knew Eulin, and Eulin knew no one. And now their blood had drawn the giant, rich tree to this clearing, where Eulin lay alone.
The giant was quieter this time, as it shuffled closer to the clearing. No great cracks echoed through the forest, no saplings snapped in its wake. It broke through the forest line at the other side of the small clearing. It had an odd tilt, its crawl sluggish. The stars shone bright on the old tree as it dragged across the clearing, illuminating the thick, jagged stump where Eulin had hacked Limak’s sib free.
Eulin counted stars and did their best to relax into the ground, did their best to feign surrender to the forest, as the giant shuffled lop-sided toward them, when another tree broke through the forestline. It was leaner than the elder tree, but this one was healthy, with a faster crawl.
Eulin considered sliding their body across the grass and toward the giant tree, to get this damned scavenge over with and leave the clearing with jewelry enough to build a new life. Any move now, though, could scare the injured giant into leaving, so Eulin laid still and stared at the sky, pretending the stars were jewels, willing the giant tree to come and fight for its meal.
As if hearing Eulin’s silent call, the ancient tree’s roots slid faster, uprooting patches of grass in hissing bursts. This will be a good night. Eulin could almost feel Nan’s hands ruffling their hair.
The two trees arrived at either side of Eulin, an arm’s length away from the lone human meal. Thick creaks groaned across the night air as they tipped inward, as their towering leafy plumes crashed into each other, blacking out Eulin’s view of the stars overhead.
The trees tangled into each other, their writhing roots pressing into the ground on either side of Eulin, scraping fresh cuts into their flesh. The giants rocked as they fought over the sustenance waiting at the base of their trunks. Wood ground against wood in shuddering cracks, in sharp crunches, as their confrontation heightened, as they tasted the blood from Eulin’s arms, now smeared across their roots.
The old giant unleashed a groan that shook the forest and rang against Eulin’s skull. Stretching its great plume of leaves toward the sky, it bent over the top of the young challenger and wrapped around its trunk. Snaking branches tighter against the smaller wooden beast, the giant pulled.
Jerking violently, the younger tried to free itself from the grip of the elder. It moaned as its trunk bowed. Thick cracks pulsed again and again, resonating across the clearing, until the smaller trunk shattered under the force of the great giant.
The giant straightened, lifting the top half of its challenger, as if to show the stars its might. The bottom half of the severed trunk fell onto one of Eulin’s legs, the snap of bone but a whisper in wake of the giant’s aftermath. Eulin’s scream tore forth, slicing the air before they could catch hold and stuff it down. The giant froze in its victory shake.
Pain blurred the stars and overtook Eulin’s thoughts. But Eulin would contain the torrent. Scavengers knew pain, in all its forms. Eulin, like Nan before them, could wrangle it fast and firm to the ground.
Pushing against the impulse to move, the impulse to roll the tree corpse away and slide their broken bone away from this clearing, Eulin stilled, held their breath close. Moments stretched as the giant tree remained frozen, as mounting pain compressed Eulin’s thoughts, until the old giant finally began to move.
Tilting back on half its roots, the giant dropped the top half of the dead tree onto the clearing before settling over Eulin, its hard-won meal, with a deep sigh. The stars disappeared from Eulin’s view. Suspended a handspan above Eulin’s nose, the tree unleashed a cloud across its prize. Eulin sucked in the tree’s breath. Gulped it down, desperately hoping that, despite their family’s unusual resistance, it might at least numb the agony pulsing from their leg.
Roots gripped Eulin’s chest, dug through their thin shirt. The searing pain of a million tiny fronds stabbing their chest was nothing against the scream of Eulin’s leg.
The drill was heavy in their hands. Slippery. Struggling to press its sharp end against the underbelly of the beast, Eulin turned the crank. Time slid as throbbing pain mounted, as they dug into the body of the massive creature, straining to focus on the scavenge. Chunks of soft wood dropped onto Eulin’s face until finally the chink of long, dangling metal sung under the dome of the tree. Chains were practically unheard of in this region, worth ten rings a piece, or more.
Eulin could have stopped then. Sufficient bounty in hand, they could have hacked themself free, slipped away and used what energy they had left to cut branches from the dead tree for a crutch and a splint. They could have left the giant beast to wander in search of another meal. Eulin should have stopped then and began making their slow way to the next village, or the one after that, to trade bits of chain for broth and medicine, for a bed behind a pub where no one knew them.
But Eulin, eyes open in the thick darkness beneath the old beast, kept drilling.
Metal treasures fell, bouncing against Eulin’s face as they worked on, shifting to dig new holes into the beast, drilling until the ache in their arms rivaled the burn across their chest as the old tree slowly soaked in its meal. Drilling deep as they could into the tree’s center, thoughts of the impossible flooded Eulin’s drowning mind. The shine of light on Limak’s cheek. The softness of their hair brushing Eulin’s skin. No point in going back the village. No point in chasing what would never be. Eulin dug farther into the creature, arms slipping on the sharp edge of exhaustion. The giant pressed in on Eulin’s torso, tendrils snaking deeper beneath their skin.
Crowning Eulin’s head were the fallen trinkets of all those who’d given themselves to this tree over the last season, and the season before that. The jewels shifted and clinked, whispering to Eulin about the joy of release. About rest and relief. About the end of the pain, forever.
Sapped of strength, Eulin dropped their arms. The drill fell to rest against their neck. Numbness crept in, mercifully pushing pain aside. Struggling to breathe against the press of roots, Eulin wondered what Nan was thinking when she finally surrendered herself to the forest, meeting her death fully awake and fully aware, robbed of the restful sleep promised by the tree’s breath. Until this moment they’d always imagined Nan screaming in pain. But now, as this giant fed on Eulin’s body, as the numbness seeped in, Eulin imagined Nan at peace in her final hours.
Despite the illness that had taken hold, Nan’s embrace had been strong as ever when she’d said good-bye. Hands gripping Eulin’s shoulders all those seasons ago, she’d crouched to look them straight in the eye. “This will be a good night,” she said.
Darkness cascaded across Eulin’s mind as the numb sank deep into their body. They’d gripped no one’s shoulders, said good-bye to no one, before leaving to hunt this treasure-filled beast.
The tree shifted. A faint glimmer of starlight poured in from between its roots. Limak’s face shimmered across Eulin’s thoughts. There could be more good nights. There could be more.
The drill slipped from Eulin’s neck as they screamed at the underbelly of the giant, as they pushed their arms into motion. Eulin reached for their axe and began to chop. Shards of the old tree flew across the clearing as Eulin broke free, each hack revealing a little more of the vast night sky.
Originally published in Cosmic Horror Monthly Issue 48 (June 2024)
About the Author
A. Katherine Black lives in Minnesota with her family, cats, and several teapots and coffee machines. She loves snowstorms, board games, and all kinds of creature flicks, but especially the ones where the creature is the good guy.