Years passed.
Not quickly, not slowly—just steadily, like the turning of pages in a book no one had finished reading.
Hollowbrook didn't forget.
It couldn't.
Not after what had happened.
Not after what had been remembered.
Miss Dara's Memory Archive became more than just a school project—it turned into a living record of the town itself. Students continued to collect stories, old and new, spoken and unspoken. They recorded lullabies sung by voices long gone, traced symbols drawn in forgotten corners of homes, and pinned drawings to the walls that looked like dreams caught mid-motion.
Eli stayed.
He never left the hardware store for long, though he eventually added a small room out back—part gallery, part archive, part something he didn't name but knew was important.
Mira's sketches lined the walls.
Some were framed.
Others still carried smudges from fingers that had once held them too tightly in fear, or too gently in love.
People came to visit.
Not many.
Just enough.
They asked questions they already knew the answers to.
They stood in silence for longer than usual.
And sometimes, when the wind blew just right through the open window, they swore they heard something.
A melody.
A whisper.
A drawing being made in the quiet spaces between heartbeats.
Luka returned once a year.
Never announced.
Never expected.
He would step off the train with a worn notebook under his arm and headphones around his neck, though he rarely used them anymore.
He always visited the birch tree first.
The door remained gone.
But the roots pulsed faintly beneath his fingertips when he touched them.
Like something sleeping.
Still listening.
Then he would walk through town, stopping at the places that remembered him.
The school.
The library basement.
The hardware store.
Eli greeted him the same way every time.
With a nod.
With a sketchpad placed gently in his hands.
Each time, there was a new drawing inside.
Sometimes it was Mira, standing beneath the trees.
Sometimes it was Luka himself, walking toward something unseen.
Other times, it was just spirals—drawn in soft charcoal, like echoes trying to speak.
Luka never asked where they came from.
He just smiled.
Then signed, softly:
She's still here.
One autumn evening, Eli found a letter in the mailbox.
No return address.
Just his name on the envelope.
Inside was a single page.
Dear Eli,
I think I'm finally learning how to listen without her.
Not the way she did.
Not the way you do.
But my own way.
I've been traveling again. Small towns, mostly. Places where people don't talk much. Where silence feels heavier than it should.
I've found doors before they opened.
I've heard echoes before they spoke.
And every time, I remember her.
I hope you're still drawing.
I hope you still feel her beside you when the wind shifts just right.
Tell Hollowbrook I miss it.
And tell her…
Thank you.
—Luka
Eli read it twice.
Then folded it carefully and tucked it into the front cover of Mira's sketchpad.
He stepped outside and looked toward the forest.
The sun dipped low behind the ridge.
The air was crisp.
And somewhere, just beyond the edge of sound—
The silence hummed softly.
Like it always had.
Like it always would.