The water wasn't deep enough to drown a man.
That was the first thing they told me.
It came in low voices, at the edge of the church parking lot, beneath a sky the color of wet tin. The kind of voices men use when they don't want the dead to overhear.
"Couple feet at most."
"Found him facedown."
"Must've slipped."
I stood there in a black suit that didn't fit right anymore and watched the tree line beyond the road. Beyond that tree line lay the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp—dark water threaded through cypress and peat, tannin-stained and quiet as a held breath.
Too shallow to drown.
They said it like it mattered.
Inside the church, the air smelled of old wood and lilies. My father's casket sat closed at the front. Closed because the sheriff recommended it. Closed because the water had done something to him they didn't want described out loud.
The preacher talked about peace. About returning to the earth. About how the Lord gathers what is His.
I kept thinking about how water gathers too.
When the service ended, men I hadn't seen in fifteen years shook my hand with damp palms. Women pressed paper-thin smiles into their faces and told me I looked like him.
"You've got his shoulders."
That wasn't a compliment.
I left before they could say more.
⸻
The road to the cabin had narrowed since I was a boy. Or maybe I had forgotten how close the trees stood to each other out here. Pines leaned inward. Moss hung like old lace from oak branches. The ditches on either side were swollen from last week's rain, dark water pooled and patient.
I rolled down the truck window halfway.
The air smelled the same as it always had—peat and leaf rot and something metallic underneath, like pennies held too long in a fist.
I hadn't meant to come back.
I'd told myself that, for years.
Louisiana had been far enough. The bayou felt different—wider, brackish, restless. Water that moved. Water that breathed. Georgia's swamp was quieter. Older. It didn't breathe so much as watch.
When I turned off onto the final dirt track, my tires sank slightly in the mud. The ruts were deeper than I remembered. The woods closed in tighter.
The cabin appeared all at once, like it had risen from the ground while I blinked.
It sat on low stilts at the edge of the blackwater channel, paint long surrendered to weather. The porch sagged. Spanish moss drifted in the trees behind it, slow and weightless.
For a moment, I thought the place had shrunk.
Then I stepped out of the truck and realized it hadn't.
I had.
⸻
The door stuck when I pushed it open.
Inside, the air was thick and unmoving. My father's boots sat beside the wall exactly where he'd left them. Mud dried in the grooves. A coat hung from the nail by the window. The kitchen table held a stack of unopened mail.
It didn't look like a man who meant to drown.
It looked like a man who stepped outside and didn't come back.
I walked the rooms slowly. Floorboards creaked beneath me, but the sound felt distant, as though it belonged to someone heavier.
In my old bedroom, the window faced the tree line. The glass was warped slightly, old and bubbled at the edges. When I leaned closer, I could see the faint distortion of the swamp beyond.
Something about the line of trees felt wrong.
I told myself that was grief talking.
Outside, the water lay flat and black. No ripples. No wind.
I shut the curtains.
⸻
By dusk, the sky had lowered into a bruise-colored horizon. Frogs began their thin metallic chorus. Cicadas followed, the sound rising and falling like breath pulled through teeth.
I sat on the porch with a bottle I'd found in the cabinet and watched the water.
It was shallow where they found him. I'd walked that stretch as a kid. You could see the bottom—sand and leaf pulp and the pale knuckles of submerged roots.
Too shallow to drown.
Unless you didn't fight.
Unless you didn't want to.
I swallowed and let the thought drift.
Somewhere to the left, near the bend in the channel, something moved.
Not fast.
Not splashing.
A dragging sound. Wood against wet earth.
I leaned forward.
"Gator," I muttered, though it didn't sound like one. Gators cut through water cleanly. Efficient. This was heavier. Slower.
The dragging stopped.
The frogs went quiet all at once.
The silence didn't feel empty.
It felt occupied.
I stood up before I realized I had.
The tree line was darker now, the shapes blurring together. Moss hung in gray curtains. Cypress trunks rose from the water like columns in some drowned cathedral.
And there, just beyond the shallows, stood something that hadn't been there a moment before.
A small willow.
That was my first thought.
It stood alone in the water, thin branches drooping, moss trailing from its limbs. But there weren't any willows that close to the cabin. The soil wasn't right. My father had told me that once.
I squinted.
The branches seemed too narrow.
Too vertical.
For a moment—just a moment—I thought I saw the shape tilt slightly.
As if adjusting its weight.
The frogs did not resume.
I took a step toward the edge of the porch.
The shape did not move.
Windless. Silent.
A tree.
Just a tree.
"You're tired," I said aloud, because the sound of my own voice helped.
The shape remained where it was.
After a long moment, I stepped back inside and shut the door.
I locked it.
⸻
Sleep didn't come easy.
The cabin held the day's heat in its walls. I lay on the narrow bed and stared at the ceiling fan turning slow circles above me. The air smelled faintly of damp wood and something greener, sharper.
At some point, I must have drifted.
Because I woke standing.
Barefoot.
At the back door.
The handle cold in my hand.
For a few seconds, I didn't understand what I was looking at.
The door was open.
Night air pressed against my skin.
My feet were wet.
I looked down.
Mud coated my calves up to the knee. Thick. Dark. Packed between my toes.
My fingernails were filled with it.
Behind me, the cabin floor bore a trail of damp footprints leading from my bedroom to the door.
My heart began to pound—not in panic, but in recognition.
This had happened before.
In Louisiana.
Waking tired. Mud on the sheets. Branches tangled in my hair.
I'd blamed stress. Work. Too much bourbon.
I stepped outside slowly.
The water lay still beneath a thin crescent moon.
The place where the willow had stood was empty.
I told myself that was proof.
There had never been anything there.
I walked to the edge of the shallows, heart hammering.
The mud felt cool between my toes.
Two feet deep at most.
Too shallow to drown.
I stared down into the black water.
For a moment, I saw only my reflection—pale face, dark eyes, hair plastered to my forehead.
Then the reflection shifted.
Just slightly.
Not with my movement.
A lag.
Half a second too slow.
My chest tightened.
The face in the water seemed taller somehow.
Longer.
The shoulders broader.
Something dark trailed from them like hanging moss.
I blinked hard.
The reflection snapped back into place.
Just me.
Just a man standing in water that wasn't deep enough to kill him.
Behind me, somewhere in the trees, something heavy shifted its weight.
And this time—
I was not sure it was outside.