Grey Hollow carried its history quietly, like a story people agreed not to finish. Elara discovered this on a morning heavy with fog, when she stepped into the small town archive tucked beside the old church.
Dust hung in the air like suspended time. Wooden shelves leaned under the weight of records no one seemed eager to read. A single desk lamp glowed in the dim room, casting warm light over a ledger already open — as if someone had expected her.
She did not know what she was searching for. Only that the lake and the watcher were not new to this place.
She began with disappearance reports.
Most were brief. Incomplete. Carefully worded. But one entry stood apart.
Adrian Cole.
Missing. Last seen near Raven Lake.
No witnesses. No remains recovered.
The record was dated decades earlier.
Elara felt a sudden tightness in her chest, sharp and immediate, like grief surfacing without permission. She pressed her hand lightly against the page, though she could not explain why his name felt familiar.
Below the official record were handwritten notes — older ink, uneven script.
"Strange disturbance in water."
"Sound heard across lake after sunset."
"Witness claims figure beneath surface."
She closed the ledger slowly, unsettled by a certainty she could not justify.
That evening, she returned to Raven Lake.
The sky dimmed into soft grey, and the forest seemed to listen as she approached. The shoreline was unchanged — still, quiet, almost expectant.
She stepped close enough that her reflection rested clearly on the dark surface. For a moment, nothing moved.
Then the water rippled outward.
Not from wind.
Not from her step.
From the center of the lake.
Elara remained still, her breath shallow but calm. Beneath the shifting surface, a shape moved — distant at first, then circling slowly, deliberately.
It did not rise.
It did not retreat.
It remained just beyond visibility, as if respecting a boundary neither of them had set.
A low sound emerged from the water — not a howl this time, but something softer, deeper. It carried an emotion she recognized instantly, though she could not name its origin.
Sorrow.
Her voice came without decision.
"Adrian…"
The name drifted across the lake and disappeared into the mist.
The movement beneath the surface stopped.
For several seconds, the water grew perfectly still, reflecting sky and shadow in equal measure. Then two pale glows appeared deep below — faint, distant, yet unmistakably aware.
They did not approach her.
They watched.
A strange calm settled over her fear. She did not feel threatened. She felt seen.
The light slowly faded, and the lake returned to silence.
Elara stood there long after darkness gathered around the shore. The forest remained quiet, but the stillness felt different now — no longer empty.
As she turned to leave, she sensed something just beneath the water's surface following her movement along the edge, keeping pace at a distance it never crossed.
That night, her dreams returned.
She stood again at the lake's edge, but this time she was not alone. A figure waited beneath the water, reaching upward toward her, separated only by a thin, trembling surface.
When she woke, her room was silent.
Yet the faint sound of water moving gently against a shore echoed in her ears — steady, patient, as if something below still remembered her voice.