The Charcoal Confessions: Where the roots grow upward, no secret stays buried.

Some secrets are etched deeper than memory—they are drawn in the very roots of the earth.

Desmond Everett has spent his life running. A traveling preservationist, he catalogs the fading folk practices of a dying world, building a fortress of academic data to shield himself from his own agonizing loneliness. But when a snapped wagon axle strands him in the frozen, isolated village of Thornwich, his perfectly structured isolation begins to crack.

Thornwich sits on the edge of the Understory, a terrifying and majestic sentient forest where massive trees grow in reverse. Their subterranean canopies emit a thick, pulsing amber light that warms the frozen earth. Tasked with holding the village's sacred Inquiry Book, Desmond expects to observe a quaint, localized mystery. Instead, he steps into a psychological nightmare.

Flawless, hyper-realistic charcoal portraits are mysteriously appearing on the reversed roots of the forest. These aren't just drawings—they are agonizingly intimate captures of the villagers' deepest, most shameful griefs. As the town unravels in panic, Desmond clings to logic, desperately hunting for a human artist. But the physical evidence defies reality, and the amber light of the woods is beginning to turn its observant, unyielding gaze toward him.

In this hauntingly atmospheric second volume of The Understory Inquiries, Joseph Pepe weaves a grimdark romantasy and dystopia-infused epic where the environment itself demands emotional confession. Will Desmond face the crushing weight of his past, or will the Understory pull his darkest sins out into the light?