The Hangman’s Tree

Outside the town, where the road narrows and the wind begins to whisper, stands the old tree on Gallows Hill. No one speaks its name after sunset, but every locked door and shuttered window remembers why it was planted there. A black raven watches from the branch above the empty rope, still as a judge carved from night. Below, a lone wolf sits in the mud, staring upward as if it can hear the voices trapped inside the bark. The blood moon rises over the rooftops and stains the sky with red fire. The town sleeps behind its walls, pretending the hill is only a shadow in the distance, but the old tree knows better. It has seen fear dressed as justice. It has heard prayers die in the wind. And when the rope begins to sway with no body in it, the living remember what the dead never forgot. This is The Hangman’s Tree.