The mist rolled low through Caldera's Reach that morning—thick and heavy, like something was trying to smother the sun before it could rise. It clung to the eaves of houses and coiled around power lines like pale vines, silencing the town in a blanket of ghost-breath.
Eris Vale slouched behind the counter of the town library, chin propped on one hand, flipping absently through a weathered astronomy textbook she'd read four times already. Pages curled from age and moisture, and the faint scent of mildew clung to the spine. Outside, the streetlamps still glowed faintly, even though it was nearly noon. Fog made the town feel smaller, like they were trapped in a snow globe someone had forgotten to shake.
She glanced toward the clock, then back to the page titled Constellations of the Forgotten Sky. Nothing ever changed here. The book hadn't been checked out since before she was born. Neither had the town, really.
The bell above the library door chimed.
"And here I thought today couldn't get any wilder," she muttered before looking up.
Deputy Langley stood in the doorway, his tan uniform soaked through and his expression unnervingly pale. Normally, he had the kind of face that made people underestimate him—soft around the edges, too polite to be threatening. But today, there was something sharp in his silence.
That alone was enough to make Eris straighten.
He took off his hat and hesitated like he'd forgotten what he came in for. "Mave here?"
"My aunt's in the archive room," she said slowly. "Is something wrong?"
Langley opened his mouth, closed it again. His eyes darted to the front window, as if expecting something—or someone—to be watching. "We found him," he said finally, voice low.
Eris raised an eyebrow. "Found who?"
He looked at her too long. "Thomas Graye."
She blinked. "That can't be right. He's been gone for six months."
"I know."
They brought him in wrapped in blankets, shivering and silent, eyes darting like he was still lost in the trees.
The sirens had been silent—Caldera's Reach didn't like to make noise unless it had to. Eris only knew they were there because someone called the library and said the ambulance had stopped at the edge of town, where the trees started climbing into the mountains.
Eris stood at the window, hand resting on the cool pane of glass, watching them load the stretcher into the back of the vehicle. Rain had started to fall, soft and mist-like, blurring the edges of her vision.
Thomas Graye looked different. Not just older or thinner—but wrong. His skin was pale and bruised in strange places, his dark hair tangled with twigs and dry leaves. He wasn't wearing shoes. His lips moved soundlessly, like he was whispering to someone only he could see.
She should've looked away. Should've turned back to her desk and written it off as weird-town news fodder, same as the two-headed snake they found in someone's garden last spring. But something held her.
Just before the ambulance doors closed, Thomas turned his head. His eyes found hers through the fog and glass.
They widened in recognition.
And then his lips moved—once, slow and deliberate.
Eris.
Even without sound, she felt it. Like a ripple across still water. Like someone calling her name in a dream she didn't remember falling into.
Her breath caught. She didn't move until the ambulance pulled away.
Aunt Mave didn't bring it up when she returned from the archive room. She acted like nothing had happened—like there hadn't been flashing lights or pale boys whispering from stretchers.
But Eris couldn't stop thinking about it.
That night, she sat at her bedroom window long after the lights were off, knees tucked to her chest, gaze fixed on the thick wall of mist still hovering at the edge of the woods. Caldera's Reach didn't usually hold fog this long. It came and went like everything else in this quiet corner of nowhere.
Except tonight.
Tonight it stayed.
The town was still. Not peaceful. Just... waiting.
Her eyes drifted to the sky. A few stars pushed through the haze, barely visible. She tried to find the constellations she'd memorized as a kid—Orion, Cassiopeia, that crooked line they called the Wanderer's Crown—but they didn't look right tonight. They were in the wrong places. Or maybe she was.
She turned away from the window and crawled into bed, dragging the blanket over her head like it might block out what she'd seen.
Sleep didn't come easily.
She dreamed of trees.
Of standing in the woods barefoot, cold seeping through her skin as a voice whispered just behind her ear—low, slow, and broken:
"They see you now."
She turned, but no one was there.
"Between stars, beneath bones, beyond time."
Then silence.
Then darkness.
She woke with a jolt, heart hammering in her chest. Her room was cold. The windows were fogged over, even from the inside.
Eris sat up, disoriented.
Across the room, the old thrift-store radio on her bookshelf—long since unplugged—crackled to life with soft static. Faint at first, then growing louder.
She stared at it. Not moving. Not breathing.
Through the fuzz, something whispered again.
"Eris."