The sky was pale, not bright, just drained.

Grubb Heishenwood unlocked the back door of the Gourmet Garage with stiff, trembling fingers. He hadn't slept. He didn’t remember trying. The night had been long and heavy, like his bones had soaked in lead. Now, as the second morning dawned since the girl disappeared, he told himself it was just another workday.

“Normal day,” he muttered, stepping inside.

The door groaned shut behind him.

The butcher shop felt colder than it should. Not meat-cold deeper. Like a cellar with no air. The overhead bulb above the counter flickered as he walked in, humming faintly, like it was trying to warn him.

Grubb adjusted his apron.

It wasn’t hanging where he left it.

It was draped over the hook inside out. Still damp.

He stared at it for too long.

A faint tapping sound echoed from the back freezer.

Tap.

…Tap.

……Tap.

He didn’t move.

Instead, he wiped his face with his sleeve. The sweat stung his eyes. His knees felt weak. He turned toward the counter, She was there.

Behind it. Half her face hidden by a slab of beef.

Soaked red hair. Skin white as butcher paper. Eyes locked to his.

Eyes full of rage.

Then she was gone.

He gasped.

Nothing was there now. Just meat. Hooks. Silence.

He reached for the counter to steady himself.

The tile felt slick , too slick.

He looked down.

A thin trail of water led from the freezer to his feet. He hadn’t used any ice. He hadn’t

He spun toward the freezer.

The door was cracked open.

Inside: dark. Still.

He stepped closer, legs stiff.

A creak behind him he turned again.

She stood by the door.

Hair dripping.

Uniform clinging to her soaked body.

No wounds. No speech. Just a stare — livid and eternal.

Grubb staggered back, hitting the freezer hard.

She didn’t move.

Then blink — gone.

He pressed his back to the cold metal, chest heaving.

His lips moved, barely making sound.

“You’re not real. You’re not real. I… I put you down proper. I made sure...”

Something cold touched his neck.

He screamed and spun nothing. Just the freezer handle.

His knees hit the floor. He crawled toward the counter, gasping, eyes wild.

The meat hook nearest him began to sway. Just one. Then another.

Then another.

No breeze. No reason.

Just the rhythmic creaking of judgment.

He crawled farther, trembling so hard he could barely keep his elbows from collapsing.

He reached the prep sink. The mirror above it cracked, stained with age.

In it, he saw her again.

Directly behind him.

Face blank.

Eyes burning.

Hair hanging.

A single drop of water fell from her chin to the floor.

He dared not turn.

He shut his eyes tight. Pressed his palms to the cold tiles.

“I buried you. You should stay buried,” he whispered. “You’re dead.”

The mirror shattered.

Glass sprayed over him like a scream.

He curled up on the floor, a grown man trembling like a child, rocking against the wall of his own butcher shop.

The hooks continued to sway.

And though the grave behind the building remained untouched beneath the morning fog…

Grubb couldn’t stop shaking.

Because every time he blinked she was closer.

The wind was soft that morning, but it felt colder than usual.

Nana stood at her porch rail, hands wrapped tightly around a small wicker basket. Inside: a cloth-napped bundle of warm biscuits, a jar of raspberry jam, and a folded note she’d meant to tuck into Mavis’s coat pocket the sort of thing she'd done many times before, without much thought.

But this morning she hesitated.

Three mornings now. No knock on her door. No soft “Good morning, Nana.” No quick smile. No girl in a too-thin coat with red hair tucked behind her ear.

She looked down the road toward the Valtor house, where the windows still wore their curtains like a scowl.

Mittens, weaved between her legs and sat at her feet, tail curled like a question mark.

“I’m going,” Nana whispered.

She stepped off the porch, slowly, as if the air itself resisted her movement. Her joints ached more than usual, and the hem of her dress caught on the gate latch as she left. She didn’t bother fixing it.

Maple Hollow was nearly empty the town not quite awake, the fog not quite gone.

At the Valtor gate, she paused.

The front garden was untouched — the dead roses still brittle from frost. A faded hand towel still hung from the porch railing, unmoved since the windstorm last week. Everything looked exactly the same.

Too much the same.

She walked up the path and knocked on the door. Once. Twice. Then again, with the side of her fist.

No answer.

“Mavis?” she called gently. “It’s me.”

No movement.

She stepped back a little and looked up.

For a moment just one flicker she thought she saw the curtain move.

But it stilled. Nothing followed.

She stood there longer than she meant to, until the chill crept beneath her sleeves and her basket began to feel heavy. Her voice, when it came again, was barely more than breath.

“Please tell me you’re alright.”

Still nothing.

On her way back, near the corner where the bakery’s chimney met the sky, she passed a boy playing with a rusted slingshot.

He looked up at her and blinked.

“You lookin’ for the ghost girl?”

She stopped. “What did you say?”

He shrugged. “That girl with the pale skin. I saw her walkin’ two days ago. Looked real sick. Wouldn’t talk to no one. Just stared. Like she was sleepin’ with her eyes open.”

Nana’s fingers gripped the basket tighter.

She gave him a small nod, just to be polite, and kept walking.

By the time she reached her porch again, the sky had cleared just enough to let a little sun through but it didn’t bring warmth.

She sat down in her chair, slowly, the basket resting untouched in her lap.

Mittens leapt up beside her, silent and still.

She stared straight ahead, toward nothing in particular. Just the empty road. Just the distance. Just the place where Mavis should’ve come from.

“I should’ve asked more questions,” she whispered.

Her voice cracked.

“I should’ve listened closer.”

The first tear fell before she even noticed it. Then the second. Then more quiet, steady tears sliding down a lined face that had seen much, but never this.

She didn’t wipe them away.

She let them fall, each one marking the silence that had taken root around her.

Inside the basket, the jam had gone cold.