I woke early, though the village seemed slower than the city ever had. No carts clattering over cobblestone, no voices spilling through windows before dawn. Just the faint drip of fog condensing on the eaves.
I walked the lane I'd once run barefoot, each stone and bend both familiar and strange. The fields looked smaller. The hedges thinner. Childhood had stretched everything larger than life, and now it all felt shrunken, worn.
People noticed me, but they didn't look for long. A baker's wife dipped her head quickly. An old man tugged his hat brim low. None smiled. No one asked where I'd been or why I had come back. Their silence pressed harder than words could.
I told myself they didn't remember me. Too many years had passed. But in their glances---sharp, fleeting---I thought I saw something else. Recognition, maybe. Or suspicion.
The square was nearly empty. The fountain still stood at its center, though its basin was cracked, the water dark with moss. I lingered there, listening to the hush of the fog curling between the houses.
That's when I saw him.
A man standing near the far side of the square. Plain, almost forgettable---simple clothes, ordinary posture, no different than any farmer. Yet my eyes caught on him, and for reasons I couldn't explain, I couldn't let go.
He wasn't looking at me. Not directly. But I had the sense he was aware of me all the same, the way one feels a draught without seeing the open door.
When I blinked, he was gone. No sound of footsteps, no door closing. Just the fog curling where he had stood.
I pulled my cloak tighter, though the chill that touched me wasn't from the weather.