Rain always made Dream think of stories.
Not just the soft, sleepy kind her dad used to tell her as a child,about talking birds, stubborn spirits, and gods who got lost among mortals,but the heavy, aching kind. Rain like this carried weight, like the sky itself couldn't keep it in any longer.
The day Destiny Ambrose was laid to rest, the clouds wept quietly, gently.
The cemetery wasn't grand. But it wasn't forgotten either. Neatly trimmed hedges lined the walkways, and the breeze carried the scent of wet roses and old stone. The kind of place where death felt calm. Where it didn't scream.
The funeral wasn't large. Destiny had never been a man who craved the spotlight. But it wasn't small either. He had touched lives.
Former students, a few old colleagues from the university's folklore department, two distant cousins from his mother's side who barely made eye contact, and a handful of friends from his Sunday chess club came. All of them said the same thing in different ways: He was brilliant. He was kind. He listened. He taught me to see magic in the world.
But none of them knew him like Dream did.
He wasn't just a father. He was her rhythm. Her teacher. The steady hand that always steadied hers while she painted. The man who kissed her forehead like it was sacred. Who taught her the names of old spirits and tricksters before she even knew the alphabet.
And now he was gone.
Gone.
Dream stood next to her mother, dressed in black. Not because it was expected, but because it felt right. Her dress clung to her, soaked at the hem from the wet grass, her curls frizzing beneath her hood. She held onto her father's old wristwatch, the one with the cracked leather strap. It no longer ticked.
Neither did she.
Maya Ambrose held her head high beside the casket, lips trembling but eyes dry. Strong. Too strong. Her hands were laced together like she was physically holding herself up from falling apart.
She was the love of Destiny's life. And he was hers. There were no secrets in their house, no hidden fights behind closed doors. Just love, deep and real. And now silence.
But even as Maya stood tall, her heart broke for her daughter more than for herself.
Because Dream and Destiny had been two sides of the same soul.
Dream hadn't spoken much in the days leading up to the burial. She ate in silence, painted nothing, and stared at his favorite armchair for hours.
Now, as the priest spoke soft words about dust and return, she barely heard him. Her gaze was fixed on the polished wood of the casket. It seemed too small to hold the man who had taught her how to see magic in everything.
The service ended. People whispered. Hugs were exchanged. Condolences repeated like background noise.
And then it happened.
Dream's eyes caught a figure at the edge of the cemetery.
He didn't belong there.
He wasn't crying. He wasn't dressed like the others. His suit was pristine but simple, no tie, no umbrella. Rain slid down his pale skin as if it didn't touch him. Like he wasn't quite... there.
He stood still, back straight, hands clasped behind him. Watching.
Dream's breath caught in her throat.
He was tall. Unusually tall, at least 6'7". But not gangly. His presence was... vast. He had smooth, shoulder-length hair, the kind that didn't fight the rain but absorbed it, as if it was used to storms. His eyes, though...
They were unlike anything Dream had ever seen.
Not blue. Not silver. Not grey. But lightless, as if they'd been carved from winter fog and moonlight. They weren't cruel or kind. Just watching. Ancient.
Her skin prickled.
"Who is that?" Dream whispered.
Maya turned, distracted from speaking with one of Destiny's colleagues. "Who?"
Dream pointed. "That man, over..."
He was gone.
As if the air had swallowed him whole.
Dream blinked. Turned her head. Scanned the rows of graves. The narrow paths. The distant trees.
Nothing.
No movement. No sound. No tall, pale stranger.
He had vanished.
"Dream?" Maya touched her daughter's shoulder. "You alright?"
Dream stared at the empty space.
She nodded, slowly.
But she wasn't.
Back home, the silence was louder than anything Dream had ever known.
Their small house at the edge of the university district had always felt alive. There were stacks of books everywhere,on the stairs, under chairs, even in the kitchen. Music floated through the rooms, old vinyl records and her father's low humming. Smells of ginger tea, sandalwood, and turpentine paint always hung in the air.
But now?
Now it was a museum.
Still. Hollow. Preserved.
The living room was exactly as he left it. His glasses sat on the armrest of his favorite chair. The one she used to sit in when he read out loud from his research papers, asking for her opinion like she was his colleague. His notebook was still open on the side table, pen resting across the page, mid-sentence.
Dream picked it up gently.
His handwriting was slanted and neat, almost too tidy for a man who thought faster than he spoke. The page read:
"Spirits who arrive at death... often unnoticed, often uninvited. They observe. They wait. Not always to harm. Some just remember."
She sat down.
There was no title for the entry. Just scattered paragraphs, half translations, and drawings, some symbols she didn't recognize. A few circles within circles. One that looked like a crescent over an eye. One that looked disturbingly like the stranger's silhouette. She ran her fingers over the page.
He used to say, "Every story comes from somewhere. Even the ones that sound ridiculous."
Dream turned another page. Then another. The journal shifted from neat essays into fragments. Sketches. Notes in the margins.
"The White Watcher. Described in old Eastern-European lore. Sometimes seen near places of death. Not an angel. Not a demon. Something older. Something that waits."
She froze.
She stared at that phrase: "White Watcher."
The words had a weight she didn't understand. But they felt... true. Not academically true. Soul true.
She closed the book gently and looked up. Her father's bookshelf sat against the wall like a fortress. Books on West African folklore, Norse myth, Japanese spirits, Haitian Loas, Celtic omens. All bookmarked. All annotated. He never just read, he searched.
She stood, walking slowly to the shelf, and ran her fingers along the spines.
He used to say that myths were more honest than history.
Her hand stopped at a thick green volume. No title on the spine. Just worn leather and a gold ribbon sticking out.
She pulled it down.
Inside were printed pages, glued-in newspaper clippings, and handwritten notes stuffed between chapters. It smelled like dust and incense. The kind of book that held secrets. The kind of book meant for no one but him.
She flipped to a bookmarked page.
There it was again:
The Watcher at the Edge of Mourning.
Sometimes appears as a tall, pale figure with storm-colored eyes. No shadow. No footprints. Always present during deaths that ripple time. Believed to be a harbinger. Not of death—but of remembering.
Dream's throat tightened.
She remembered the way the man had stood so still. How the rain hadn't touched him. How his eyes felt like they knew her. Not watched her. Knew her.
Something strange twisted inside her chest, half fear, half pull.
"Dream?"
Her mother's voice called faintly from the kitchen.
Dream carefully closed the book and slid it under her arm. "Yeah?"
"You eaten?"
"No."
A pause. "There's stew."
Dream didn't answer.
Instead, she crept back up the stairs to her room and locked the door behind her. She set the book on her bed and opened her sketchpad. Her fingers worked quickly, as if possessed.
She drew the stranger.
Every detail burned into her memory. The eyes. The soaked black coat. The way he held his hands behind his back. His posture. The pale light that seemed to follow him. She added the symbol from her dad's journal, crescent over eye, drawn in soft graphite above his shoulder.
When she finished, she sat back and stared.
It looked like a page from a mythological textbook.
But it wasn't fiction.
She had seen him.
Dream leaned forward and whispered, almost afraid of the sound:
"Who are you?"