I found my mother in the kitchen, her hands deep in flour. The smell of bread should have been comforting, but it wasn't. Not after what I had seen.
"I saw him again," I said. My voice came out thinner than I meant. "The blacksmith's boy."
She didn't look up. Her hands kept kneading, steady, deliberate.
"The bandages moved," I pressed. "Like something was---"
Her hands stopped. White dust clung to her knuckles. Slowly, she raised her eyes to mine, and I wished she hadn't. There was fear in them, sharp and quick, before she smothered it.
"Don't speak of it," she said. Her voice was flat. "Not in this house."
I swallowed, my throat dry. "But if something's happening---"
Her hands returned to the dough, harder this time, as if punishing it. "The less you look, the less it sees you."
The words made me cold. "That sounds like the stories," I whispered. "The ones about..." I lowered my voice further. "The Collector."
Her gaze flicked to the window, to the fog pressed against the glass. "Stories are told for a reason. Some things stay quiet, if we let them."
I wanted to ask And if we don't? But the way she pressed her hands into the dough told me not to.
Later, I went to the chapel. The priest's eyes never met mine. When I asked, he murmured, "The veil between body and spirit is thin here. Best you learn to keep your eyes closed."
I left before he could say more. Their silence felt heavier than any answer.
As I walked home, the fog curled thick at my ankles. Behind me, the sound of my steps echoed wrong, as though someone else followed at the same pace, just far enough back that I could never turn quickly enough to catch them.