Amara stood in the center of the dead grass at the Old Mill Park, the rusted playground equipment was twice its normal size, looming like skeletal gallows against a sky that bled a bruised, sickly purple.
Her shoulder didn't just ache. It felt as if a jagged piece of the moon had been embedded in her bone, radiating a cold silver light. She was dressed in the thin, white nightgown she had been wearing when the fire took her parents seven years ago. She was a child again, and yet she carried the heavy, weary heart of the woman she had become.
"Hansen?" she called out.
Her voice didn't travel. It hit the mist and fell flat, swallowed by the oppressive dampness.
"I'm here, Amara."
