Question marks surrounded me. Big, pale, spray painted on every trunk as far as I could see. Glowing in the gloom beneath the spreading branches of enormous pines. All facing me, like the disapproving gaze of a fussy uncle.

Just a moment ago, the forest had appeared as any other cluster of trees. Embarrassment overtook me as I realized I had just stepped uninvited into someone’s home. No direction looked like a safe retreat, so I huddled in on myself. A single crow squawked overhead.

Nothing happened. Except, every time I blinked, the question-marked trees jumped closer. Soon, they crowded around me, no space between their trunks, bark creaking against bark. Looming over me. Punctuation marks demanding answers. Yet I had none, for I knew not the question.

“Um,” I said at last. “I sense you don’t want me here. How can I leave?”

The base of every single trunk bowed sideways. Each curved in the same direction. Each question mark now flipped upside down.

By my feet, a carpet of yellowed pine needles rustled. A matted layer of them rose up into the shape of a mouth. Pine cones lined the lips like nubby teeth.

Smug as inexorable, tunneling roots, a voice drawled, “How indeed?”

At that, the forest swallowed me up in one gulp.

Sometime later, it spat me out again. I clawed my way past twisting roots and through a smelly layer of rotten loam. When my fingers broke free, I dug myself out, spitting up pine needles and dead leaves.

Once upright, I pawed muck from my eyes. A quick turn revealed the forest had dumped me at its edge, on the side from which I had entered. As I coughed up the last granules of dirt, I determined to take the long way back around.

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Bring the Wanderer Home

The Hopeful Wanderer

Wander a world driven from mundane to magical by a secret hidden at its heart.

A slow apocalypse has corroded a distant planet, with the uncanny living in uneasy commune alongside those remaining. On a forgotten quest from the stars, the Wanderer roams among them, through crumbling societies and vibrant wildernesses, navigating a murky path toward an incredible past.

While helping and receiving help-or hindrance-from strange denizens of unusual destinations, the Wanderer must finish righting a wrong that threatens to extinguish the universe itself. Should memory of the responsibility return at all.

Featuring

100 Hopeful Wanderer tales
20 new short stories
10-episode revelatory ending
100% revised and expanded

A far-future science fantasy with sub-tones of soft-apocalypse and climate change, this hopeful adventure combines exploration, eeriness, and wonder across 100 short tales.

Join readers who loved the web series and journey alongside them in discovering the Wanderer’s wondrous past and hopeful mission to save the stars.