Mirren had tended the Briar for nine winters. She knew which graves to leave alone. The whole forest had grown over an old war, with bone under the roots and rust under the moss. That morning the thorns wept sap the color of a bruise. Under a hawthorn she found a grey hand pushing up through the dirt. It twitched, then grabbed at the air, reaching for her.

Mirren didn't touch it. Nine winters had taught her one trick: when the dead reach up, you give them something else to hold. She pulled a bundle of dried rowan from her belt and pressed it into the cold grey palm. The fingers closed around it and went still. But under her boots, the whole hill began to hum.

Mirren did what the old warden had taught her. She sang the low burial-song her predecessor had scratched into the chapel wall — the one she'd practiced for nine winters and never used. The hill shuddered. The reaching hands slowed, then sank. All but one: a child's small hand, still grasping, that the song could not reach.

Mirren followed the child's hand and dug, gently, until she uncovered a small skull with a coin pressed in its teeth — an old toll for the dead, never paid. She took the coin and laid it in the little palm. "Go on, then," she whispered. The hand closed, warm for just a moment, and the last grave in the Briar finally rested.