Morning came without warmth.
The swamp light did not rise so much as thin. It filtered through moss and cypress limbs in a pale, diluted wash that never quite reached the ground. When I stepped out onto the porch, the air already felt used—like it had been breathed once before and given back unwillingly.
The water had dropped slightly overnight.
Or maybe I imagined that.
The shallows where I'd stood were still and dark, a faint skin of pollen drifting across the surface. No willow. No disturbance. No sign that I had walked into it at all.
I looked down at my legs.
The mud was gone.
Not dried. Not cracked.
Gone.
The porch boards beneath my feet were clean too.
Inside, the faint trail I remembered from the bedroom to the door had vanished. The wood showed only old scuffs and my father's heavier boot marks, pressed deep over years.
For a long moment, I stood in the center of the room and tried to hold the memory steady.
Open door.
Cold handle.
Mud up to my knees.
It wavered like a reflection disturbed by wind.
I went to the sink and turned on the tap. The water coughed and ran brown for a second before clearing. I washed my hands slowly, studying the creases of my palms.
There were thin cuts across my knuckles.
Not fresh.
Not bleeding.
But not old either.
I flexed my fingers. A faint stiffness ran along them, like the ache after carrying something heavy.
I couldn't remember carrying anything.
⸻
By midmorning, the truck from town rolled up the dirt track.
Sheriff Dalton stepped out first, hat low, jaw set in that permanent half-frown men develop when they've spent too many years looking at the worst things quietly.
Behind him came Deputy Raines, younger, eyes sharper.
Dalton removed his hat when he saw me.
"Figured you'd be here."
"I own it now."
He nodded once, glancing at the tree line. "You were planning to stay?"
"For a bit."
"For a bit," he repeated.
The air between us felt damp and unfinished.
Dalton walked down toward the water's edge without asking permission. I followed, trying not to look like I was following.
"This where they found him?" I asked.
Dalton stopped near the shallows. He didn't step into the water.
"About twenty yards that way."
He pointed to a bend in the channel where cypress knees broke the surface like crooked fingers.
"Face down?"
He gave me a look. "You know that already."
"I heard."
Dalton studied the mud as if it might answer something for him.
"Your dad wasn't a clumsy man," he said finally. "Didn't drink much either."
I swallowed. "What are you saying?"
"Nothing." He turned back toward me. "Just that it's strange."
Strange.
The word hung there like humidity.
Raines spoke up. "We had another one last week."
Dalton shot him a look.
"What?" Raines shrugged. "He's going to hear it anyway."
I felt something tighten beneath my ribs. "Another what?"
"Hunter," Raines said. "Didn't come back. Found his pack. Found blood. No body."
Dalton's jaw flexed. "Animals get to people quick out here."
"Animals leave something," Raines replied, too quickly.
Silence pressed in again.
Dalton put his hat back on. "You see anything unusual since you've been here?"
The question was casual. Too casual.
I thought about the dragging sound.
About the willow shape in the water.
About waking with mud that no longer existed.
"No," I said.
The lie slid out easily.
Dalton watched me for a second too long.
"Stay close to the cabin at night," he said finally. "Water's high in places."
Too shallow to drown.
"Understood."
They left in a cloud of dust that drifted slowly back to earth.
⸻
Inside the cabin, the silence felt heavier than before.
I went to my father's bedroom.
The closet door creaked when I opened it. His shirts still hung in a row, sleeves brushing each other faintly when I moved them. Beneath them, tucked against the back wall, was a metal lockbox.
I didn't remember it.
The key was in the top drawer of his nightstand.
He had never been subtle.
Inside the lockbox lay a stack of old notebooks bound with rubber bands brittle from age.
The top one was newer.
His handwriting stared up at me from the first page.
September 12
Water higher this year. It presses closer to the house. I hear it at night.
The next entry was written weeks later.
He's been gone too long. I think it grows when it's alone.
I turned the page slowly.
October 3
It does not like when he leaves.
My throat tightened.
October 18
I thought it was finished with me. I was wrong. It waits for blood to return.
The room seemed smaller suddenly.
The ink grew shakier in later entries.
November 1
If he comes back, it will choose.
I closed the notebook hard enough that dust puffed into the air.
Choose what?
Choose him?
Choose me?
The sound came again then.
Outside.
Not near the water this time.
Closer.
Wood against wood.
A slow, dragging scrape along the side of the house.
I stood up too quickly, the chair tipping behind me.
The sound continued—steady, deliberate.
Not claws.
Not nails.
Something broader.
I stepped toward the window and parted the curtain just enough to see.
The tree line stood quiet in the afternoon light. Spanish moss swayed faintly now, though I felt no breeze.
The dragging stopped.
My pulse thudded in my ears.
I waited.
Nothing moved.
Nothing shifted.
Nothing stood where it shouldn't.
I let the curtain fall.
⸻
By evening, clouds gathered low and thick. Thunder rolled somewhere distant, muted by trees.
I didn't sit on the porch this time.
I locked the doors before dark.
The air inside felt tighter, harder to breathe.
Around midnight, rain began.
Not heavy at first—just a soft tapping against the roof.
Then heavier.
Water struck wood and tin and leaf until the whole world sounded like it was being swallowed.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The tapping grew louder.
Closer.
It was not on the roof anymore.
It was at the window.
A soft, rhythmic brush.
Like branches being dragged across glass.
I told myself that was exactly what it was.
The wind rising.
Moss caught in the storm.
The brushing became firmer.
Slower.
Upward.
As though something outside were standing taller.
I sat up slowly.
The shadow on the wall shifted.
Longer than the window frame.
My breath came shallow.
The brushing stopped.
The rain continued.
I stood, every movement careful, and crossed the room.
The curtain trembled faintly.
Not from wind.
From contact.
I reached out and pulled it aside.
The glass was smeared with rain.
Beyond it, only darkness.
No shape.
No figure.
No willow.
Just the reflection of my own face staring back at me.
But the shoulders in the glass—
They looked wider than I remembered.
And something dark hung from them that was not my shirt.
The lightning flashed.
The reflection stood alone.
I did not move.
And for a moment—
Neither did it.