The Hidden Grove

A short story of 5k words, originally published in Witch Fantastic, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg.

A young office worker overlooks a standing grove of weeping willows. There, her co-workers eat lunch in the shade. She's tried this; all she can hear while she's there is the weeping of children she can't see, can't touch, can't reach. No one else can hear them. There's nothing she can do, because there are no children. But she has to do something, has to find out some information that might allow her to hear what everyone else hears.

Who owns the willow grove? Who cries at its heart? What does it want from a woman who has never really been wanted?