Morning came not with sunlight, but with wetness.
A soft veil of mist clung to every surface—the grass, the windows, even the exposed necks of villagers trudging past the well. Dewworm season had begun. The older folk said the worms brought dreams with them, and when they curled too close to your doorstep, it meant your sleep would be heavy and strange.
Today, the worms had curled beneath nearly every door.
---
Down by the waterline, Sela Wren—local herbalist, unlicensed and sharp-tongued—was knee-deep in bogmuck, muttering curses at a patch of water sedge. The plant was stubborn this time of year, its roots slick with oily rot and its leaves brittle as paper. But she needed it—three bundles, minimum. Not for remedies. Not this time.
Behind her, a wicker basket sat half-submerged in the marsh pool, half-covered in linen. Inside were glass phials of a dull blue tincture.
"Don't like the taste, do you?" she said to no one, pulling another sedge stalk free. "Well, neither do I. But if it keeps the song out of your blood…"
She paused.
Something was watching her.
Not the usual—no gulls, no frogs, no marshfolk peering from the brush. This felt... lower. Not in height. In tone. A watching that came from the soil.
She turned. No one there.
Still, she gathered faster after that.
---
By midmorning, the square had begun to wake. Cobblestones rang with the soft patter of boots, the clink of pottery being unloaded from carts, and a new sound—whistling.
A thin, reedy melody curled through the air. Not the usual work-tune, nor any of the songs the orchard-folk liked. This was older. Crooked. It paused in strange places. When it ended, a few heads turned. Some shrugged.
"Old tune," Tamar muttered, squinting at the trees. "Or maybe just bad whistling."
But others noticed too. Marda paused with her broom mid-sweep. The baker's wife hummed the tune under her breath and didn't seem to realize it. Even Dorrin, peeling potatoes in the millhouse kitchen, froze as if he'd heard it in a dream.
---
Elsewhere, Enric the glassmaker had a problem.
The kiln wasn't lighting properly. Flames sputtered and died. The sand wouldn't melt. The blower pipe made a low droning sound, like someone sighing through a cracked reed. And worse—he had orders. Dozens of tiny vials requested by Sela, for gods-knew-what.
He tossed another handful of tinder into the pit and muttered, "You light for every damned fool who ever came before me. Why not for me?"
The kiln coughed.
Then, slowly—sullenly—the fire caught.
Enric stepped back, brushing his hands on his apron. That was when he noticed the scorch marks—shaped like fingerprints—along the lower bricks of the oven mouth.
---
At the river bend, Nerin stood ankle-deep in the shallows, pant legs rolled, sketchbook tucked under one arm. He wasn't writing today. Just standing. Watching the current as it dragged silt downstream.
"Do the waters speak where you're from?"
The voice came from behind—soft, tremulous. A girl's voice. Not young, not quite grown.
He turned.
A red-headed girl stood on the bank, one eye milk-white with a cataract, the other sharp as an arrowhead. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and her shoes were muddy.
"I don't know," Nerin said truthfully.
"They do here. You just have to wait long enough."
"What do they say?"
She tilted her head. "That depends what you've forgotten."
Then she turned and walked off, not looking back.
---
That evening, three new pieces of graffiti appeared on the back wall of the butcher's shop—charcoal drawings of animals that didn't exist.
One had the body of a fox, but no face. Another had wings, but no legs. The third was a deer… but with a mouth on its stomach.
Kev the innkeeper grumbled when he saw them. "Kids playing tricks," he said, fetching a bucket of water.
But the charcoal wouldn't come off.
---
And beneath all of it—woven through whispered conversations, fogged-up windows, and the distant, off-key whistle of wind—the pattern returned. Two short, one long.
Lette Darnell heard it while sweeping the chapel floor. Enric swore the fire hissed it from the kiln. Dorrin found himself tapping it into the table without knowing why.
Nerin scratched it into his book again and again. Not because he wanted to. Because he couldn't help it.