I remember the morning clearly.
The sun was gentle that day, sliding over the mountain like it was afraid to wake the world too fast. The air was thin and sweet, carrying the scent of pine and dew.
The Mistress laughed beside the boy, her voice soft like wind chimes. I carried their bags, their water bottles, and their laughter on my shoulders, feeling—just for a while—like I still belonged there.
We reached the ridge just before noon. The boy ran ahead, chasing butterflies, while my husband stood beside the Mistress, pointing toward the valley below. His smile wasn't meant for me, but I pretended not to notice. I told myself that love, once given, should be patient. Should endure.
When the sun began to sink, the Mistress asked for strawberries. "The sweet ones you found last time," she said. The boy wanted chocolate milk. I was tired, but I agreed. Anything to keep the peace. Anything to make the day end without bitterness.
I told them to wait near the slope, by the wooden sign with the mountain's name.
"I'll be back before sunset," I promised.
Those were my last words to them.
The path down to the village was longer than I remembered. The trails twisted through shadows that grew darker with every step. By the time I reached the small store near the river, dusk had turned the sky into bruised colors.
When I returned to the trail, the wind had changed. The air felt heavy, listening.
I called their names once, twice. No answer.
The slope near the sign was empty—no laughter, no voices, only the echo of my breath.
Their things were still there: the boy's jacket, the Mistress's scarf, half of a bottle of water.
I searched the woods until my legs gave out.
Then I saw it—the slope. Steep and unforgiving, leading down to the ravine.
My heart froze.
I fell to my knees, calling their names again and again, the sound of it tearing my throat apart.
When my husband arrived with the others, their flashlights flickering through the dark, I thought they would help me search.
Instead, he ran straight to me. His face was white, his eyes wild.
"Where are they?" he shouted.
I tried to speak, to say I didn't know, but my words tangled in my throat.
"Tell me where they are!"
He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me so hard my vision blurred.
His fingers dug into my skin. His voice broke.
"You took them, didn't you? You hated her—you hated them!"
And in that instant, something inside me broke. Not my body, not my voice—my soul.
I stood there, shaking my head, unable to breathe.
The others whispered. The flashlights turned toward me.
Someone said, "She pushed them. She was jealous."
I tried to run, but someone grabbed me.
The world became noise and hands and screaming that didn't sound like mine.
Later, I would remember the stars. How cruelly they shone above us, bright and cold, as if nothing below them mattered.
And as they dragged me away, my husband's face blurred into shadow.
The Mistress's scarf fluttered from a branch like a flag of surrender.
I thought then—if I had never gone for those strawberries, would they have loved me a little longer?
The answer never came.
Because that was the day I vanished from their world.
The day they said I was there—
but truly,
I never was.